I have a number of goals for 2026, both on this blog, online in general, and in the real world. I’m waking up more and more to what the world feels like it is and what I feel like it should be, and there is a large gap there that, bluntly, I feel the need to do something about.
I keep telling myself that I should post more and every now and then I post more frequently for like a week, and then life takes over again. It’s been that kind of a year, and my focus is pretty difused right now. However, a tradition is a tradition, and that means 40 posts in the final 10 days of October.
As usual, there’s a sort of theme to each day, as shown below. Reviews will go up at 1:00 and 7:00 AM and PM, Central time. So, here’s what’s coming:
My goal every year is to watch 400 movies, and for the last few years I’ve been coming up short. I came up short again this year, but I’m a lot closer than I normally am. This year I hit 366 movies, which comes out to exactly one movie per day.
I finished the Oscar list from 2023 earlier this month, just in time for the next set of Oscars, which get announced in a couple of weeks.
Typically, I have about 40 reviews ready to go for the days up to and including Halloween. This puts me in the position of having to cobble together “groups” of movies for themed days. This year, I had more than 40, so I had a little more leeway in creating those groups.
As with past Octobers, I will be posting 40 reviews over the next ten days, starting tomorrow morning at 1:00 AM. Reviews will post automatically at 1:00 and 7:00, both AM and PM through Halloween. Here's what’s coming over the next week and a half.
Well, once again I slowed down at the end of the year thanks to real life situations, something I have talked about probably too much in a few reviews.
I’d love to say that 2024 will be a different story, but it’s definitely the case that I’ll be doing traveling several times in the next few months—North Carolina, St. Louis, and Austin, Texas are all on the docket through April, and more is naturally possible.
That said, I did manage to finish my Oscar list of 2022 films, so that’s a good thing. Since I’m generally a year or more behind, I’m happy to take recommendations for films from 2023, since that list of “to see” movies only gets longer. That’s going to be a big focus of the next 12 months…I hope.
See ya soon.
Like the last couple of years, I’ve themed the days (at least I’ve themed nine of the ten. I don’t actually plan any of this out—it just works that I got nine groups of four, with a catch-all category at the end. Here’s what’s coming in the next 10 days:
Year 13 is in the books. Thirteen years. Amazing.
So I wasn’t particularly productive for much of this year, and especially in the last couple of months, I haven’t watched much in the way of movies. I’ve spent a lot more time in the world of television these days, rewatching Burn Notice, M*A*S*H, and watching The X Files for the first time.
And so, as tends to be the case, I’m looking to revamp in 2023. I’ve got a couple of Oscar films to watch from last year, and will finish up just in time for award season. I’m setting 400 movies as a goal for this coming year, finishing up as much of the recommended movies list as I can as well as finishing up as much of the horror movies list as I am able.
See y’all soon.
I haven’t been as focused putting up reviews lately, something that regular visitors here will have certainly noticed. That said, I do have a tradition of putting up 40 reviews across the last 10 days of October, something I’m going to continue this year. In fact, I have saved up 40 reviews over the last 12 months to publish through Halloween.
Like last year, I’ve themed the days (at least I’ve themed nine of the ten), and this year, it happens I’ve done that a little better than I did last year. This is purely by chance—I didn’t really plan what I watched, but I still managed to have nine cohesive groups of four movies. Here’s what I’ll be posting:
I’ve done this for 12 years now. That seems staggering.
So, clearly, I didn’t have the most productive December as far as this blog goes. Life intervenes sometimes—a brutal work schedule for a few weeks, a new class that requires all-new materials, the holidays and the fact that I’m taking over a chair position on a local commission has put my time at a premium. With things dying down, I figured I’d just wait to the end of the year to start back up again.
I still have a chunk of movies to complete the latest 1001 Movies list and a few to finish up the Oscars. Those are going to be the initial focus for the next few weeks, at least until the next set of Oscar nominations comes out. You can also expect some focus on 2021 films for a bit.
Other than that, new year, same me. Just more productive this year, I hope.
This year, I’ve themed things, kind of. I couldn’t really complete 10 themes, since I decided on this after I was already a good distance along in having movies to post. So, with the idea in mind that these themes are general and some have only three movies in them, here’s what you can expect in the next 10 days.
Year 11 and still going strong, or at least limping along.
It seems that even with a pandemic I can’t quite hit that 400 movies in a year goal. I came closer this year than the previous two, however. As I write this, I stand at 395 movies on the year with a little bit of time left to get there, but I think it’s unlikely.
This has, of course, been a terrible year in almost every aspect. My father and one of my sisters have dealt with cancer, one of my brothers spent a week or so in the hospital with COVID, my other brother was hit by a car while on his bike, my niece shattered her knee falling off a ladder, and my wife was out of work for seven months. But we’ve made it through—everyone survived, and my wife is employed once again. Still, I’m happy to see this year in the rearview.
As lousy as this year was, I hit some milestones. Until the new Oscar nominations are announced in March, I’m done with the Oscars. I’ve also got only 11 more Oscar Got It Wrong! posts before I’m complete. There are also only two more movies left on the latest 1001 Movies list. So, while I didn’t hit all the milestones, I got very close to many.
So what’s next? Horror movies, certainly—there’s a lot remaining on the They Shoot Zombies list. And, I’ll be tackling a lot more of the suggested movies and likely reviewing a lot of them in full.
In other words, I’m not done yet. Stay tuned!
Starting tomorrow morning at 1:00, I will be posting four times per day--1:00 and 7:00 AM and PM, or every six hours. All of these posts will be horror movies with the exception of the 1:00 PM posts on the 23rd and 30th, which will both be the standard Oscar Got It Wrong! posts.
Otherwise, it's all horror all the time until November 1st. Brace yourself: the scares are coming. I'll update this page with links to the new posts. (There are only three posts for the two Fridays--the missing post in each case are those Oscar Got It Wrong! posts, so not horror-specific, so not included here.)
10/22/20
The Curse of Frankenstein
The Blackcoat's Daughter
Sleepaway Camp
The Conjuring 2
10/23/20
The Nanny
Chopping Mall
Phantom of the Opera (1962)
10/24/20
Vacancy
Castle of Blood
Shock/Beyond the Door II
Wishmaster
10/25/20
Grizzly
Panic in Year Zero!
House of 1000 Corpses
Grave Encounters
10/26/20
Blacula
Phantom of the Paradise
Revenge of the Creature
The Creature Walks Among Us
10/27/20
Thirst (Bakjwi)
Night of the Lepus
Fiend Without a Face
Bad Moon
10/28/20
Severance
The Night Stalker
The Addams Family (2019)
Insidious
10/29/20
The Burrowers
We Are What We Are
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
The Driller Killer
10/30/20
Parents
Leviathan
Black Water
10/31/20
Dead & Buried
Absentia
Ghost Team
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
I'm nearing the end of the Oscars list--I have 10 movies I haven't seen on the list now, and of those, nine are either missing or are virtually unavailable. I'm also close to the end of the "Oscar Got It Wrong" posts. I do have a direction I want to take those in the near future. To do so, though, I'm going to need some help.
On Letterboxd, I have a list of films that have been recommended to me. It's actually a little more and a little less than that. The list is of films that were recommended that were not on any of the lists I have pursued on this blog. There are a few others that I have seen, but have not watched in years, so there isn't a review of them on my Letterboxd page.
The rest of the movies on this massive list (it's close to 900 titles) are movies I haven't seen that have been specifically recommended in conjunction with the Oscar Got It Wrong posts. If you recommended something for (say) 1996 Best Picture that I haven't seen, it's on this list. I'm putting the finishing touches on it now, but I wanted to get this posted today. The list is in order by year of release, and alphabetical within a given year.
So what I need is any additional recommendations you have. I've been compiling this full list for the last few days (hence the lack of activity here). I want serious suggestions--don't offer up Birdemic: Shock and Terror because you want me to watch it (and I already have, so there's that). You can recommend movies that are considered not very good as long as they are movies that you genuinely like. Have a heart here, folks--the list is already close to 900 movies.
Anyway, here's Wonderwall...er...the list.
It's not going to be a shock here, but I'm coming very close to completing the Oscar project. I've got only two dozen films I haven't watched in the seven categories. This includes the most recent Oscars.
I'm also very close on my own takes on all of these Oscar categories and races. I have about three and a half dozen of these left. Because of this, I'm going to run the Oscar Got It Wrong! posts on Friday only from this point forward.
It's typical for me to announce changes at the start of the year, or, more accurately, at the end of the year. But here we are, just under two weeks into the new year and I've decided to make a couple of small alterations.
First, it appears that the tenor of this blog is shifting more and more toward horror movies. There'll still be a few Oscar movies to watch and I'll continue with the Oscar posts for as long as they hold out, but if the blog is going to continue in any meaningful way, I have to make some changes to what I'm doing with it. Horror movies (and sci-fi/fantasy) are my first loves with the movies, so that's where I'm going to go. That being the case, horror movies are no longer really "off-script." Instead, I'll start giving those reviews names.
Second, if I'm doing more and more horror movies, having Wednesday Horror films doesn't make a lot of sense. So Wednesdays will just be regular reviews again, and probably horror movies more often than not.
I have to admit that the last 18 months or so have been difficult on this blog. I haven’t posted nearly as much as normal, and I haven’t watched nearly as many different movies as normal, either. This year, as of this writing, I have seen 209 different movies this year. That sounds like a lot, but it’s a touch over half of my normal.
There are multiple reasons for this. I’ve become tangentially involved in local politics in the last year, and that takes up some of my time. I’m working with another person to deal with the food desert in my town, and that takes time as well. And, I admit, it’s been difficult to focus on what feels like something frivolous when instead I can watch the destruction of American democracy and the world we live in in real time on Twitter.
But I do want to finish. I want to complete the Oscar films as much as I can and the Oscar races. And once that’s done, perhaps I’ll shift the focus once again.
Anyway, welcome to 2020!
Fortunately, I have plenty of reviews already done. I apologize for what will be the spamming over the next couple of hours, but then we'll settle down into a nice rhythm of 3-4 per day.
Enjoy!
It seems a little late this year, but the new version of the 1001 Movies list is out. As tends to be the case these days, I've seen most of the entries already. The 2019 version includes 12 new listings. I've seen eight of them and have posted reviews of seven, so I guess I'll be watching Avengers: Infinity War again.
Anyway, here's Wonderwall:
The Greatest Showman (2017)
Phantom Thread (2017)
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Capernaum (2018)
Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Hereditary (2018)
The Favourite (2018)
Roma (2018)
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
A Star is Born (2018)
Vice (2018)
A few thoughts--
It's nice to see another superhero movie make the list that isn't a Batman film, but I'd have genuinely perferred to see Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse on the list rather than Infinity War. This is not because I've posted a review of the former and I have to rewatch the later now. It's because it's genuinely a better movie, and arguably the best MCU-related film so far. But, The List has always been biased against animation, and that's not going to change this year, evidently.
I haven't seen the latest version of A Star is Born (it's sitting on the table next to me), but I'm a little disappointed that it's here. Maybe it's great, but do we need another version of this story? It'll be the third version I watch for this blog, and while I was going to watch it anyway, it seems that there's plenty of space for movies that tell a new story here instead of something we've all seen before. Honestly, I could say the same thing about Crazy Rich Asians. It's a fine movie, but aside from the all-Asian cast in an American-financed movie, this is nothing that hasn't been seen a hundred times. It feels a lot like the sort of "rich people romance" movies that were so prevalent during the Great Depression. It's a fine movie, but is it really required viewing in any real sense?
Off the top of my head, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Quiet Place, Annihilation, and Won't You Be My Neighbor? all seem like better choices. But hey, who am I to tell the Listmakers what to do (other than once a year at Christmas)?
It's also interesting to see that, as far as I know, the previous Best Picture winner did not make the list. Green Book is not here, and that feels off. Then again, I wouldn't choose to have it here, either, so maybe this is a good thing.
So, assuming I can find Capernaum by the end of the year, I should be able to knock these out before New Year's.
Today marks the end of the ninth year of this blog. Technically, the first three posts were in 2009, but the first reviews were posted at the start of 2010. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been doing this my whole life, and sometimes it feels like I’ve just gotten started.
Regular readers have probably noted that my posting has dropped off significantly for the second half of this year. I had a brutally difficult three-month period this year with work, and because I was so busy, things had to get cut out of my schedule. As much as this is important to me, it’s not as important as a regular paycheck. I watched only a few dozen movies in July, August, and September, and that threw me off for the rest of the year. It ecame harder and harder to get back into the habit of writing about films.
Don’t worry—this isn’t all doom and gloom. I’m still at 38 movies remaining to be seen and reviewed, not including the 20-25 that will be added to the Oscars lists in a few weeks. Figuring that there are a few movies I’ll never get to see for one reason or another, I’ve realistically got a few months’ worth of reviews. Add in a few more for the next 1001 Movies edition.
The big question, though, is Oscar Got It Wrong! I’m estimating another 18 months or so to complete that project. What happens after that? We’ll see.
For the last several years, really since I’ve managed to finish the 1001 Movies list the first time, I’ve ended October with horror movies. If you’ve been a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been slowly upping the horror content of this blog, especially this year as the Oscar project winds down to a spot where it’s yearly maintenance and the continued Oscar Got It Wrong posts.
Last year, I posted about three dozen horror movie reviews over the last ten days of October. Part of the reason for that is that I had a huge backstock of horror reviews written and unposted. I’d love to tell you that I caught up on that, but the opposite is true. My unpublished backlog is far larger now than it was last year. I have more than 100 unposted reviews of horror and horror-related movies sitting in a folder.
So, I’ll be doing something similar this year. New reviews will go up daily (starting tomorrow) at 1:00 and 7:00, both AM and PM, Central time. On Mondays and Friday, the 1:00 review will instead be the traditional Oscar post.
I'll be creating the list of upcoming reviews and posting them here--if there's one you'd really like to read, this will allow you to find it more easily.
Brace yourself. Horror is coming.
Monday, October 22
1:00 AM--The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
7:00 AM--Oculus (2013)
1:00 PM--Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 2010
7:00 PM--Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)
Tuesday, October 23
1:00 AM--Phantasm II (1988)
7:00 AM--House on Haunted Hill (1999)
1:00 PM--Spider Baby (1967)
7:00 PM--The Cell (2000)
Wednesday, October 24
1:00 AM--The War of the Worlds (1953)
7:00 AM--Devil (2010)
1:00 PM--Images (1972)
7:00 PM--The Ghost Breakers (1940)
Thursday, October 25
1:00 AM--Mimic (1997)
7:00 AM--Splice (2009)
1:00 PM--Bad Taste (1987)
7:00 PM--I Bury the Living (1958)
Friday, October 26
1:00 AM--Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
7:00 AM--The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949)
1:00 PM--Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1995
7:00 PM--The Woman in Black (2012)
Saturday, October 27
1:00 AM--House of Usher (1960)
7:00 AM--The Witches (1990)
1:00 PM--Quarantine (2008)
7:00 PM--My Bloody Valentine (1981)
Sunday, October 28
1:00 AM--The Mummy (1959)
7:00 AM--Venus in Furs (1970)
1:00 PM--White Zombie (1932)
7:00 PM--Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)
Monday, October 29
1:00 AM--eXistenZ (1999)
7:00 AM--Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
1:00 PM--Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1969
7:00 PM--Altered States (1980)
Tuesday, October 30
1:00 AM--The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)
7:00 AM--Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
1:00 PM--The Craft (1996)
7:00 PM--28 Weeks Later (2007)
Wednesday, October 31
1:00 AM--13 Ghosts (1960)
7:00 AM--Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
1:00 PM--World War Z (2013)
7:00 PM--The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
