2020: The Year In Movies

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Thanks to the corona virus inspired shelter-in-place order that kept everyone locked at home from mid-March through my annual long December vacation, I saw a big increase in movie watching, with my highest total since 2008.  I managed to watch 154 movies last year, easily surpassing the 100 movie plateau for the first time since 2011 and my third highest total of all time.  It’s amazing what I can accomplish when I am home all day and don’t need to bother with pesky things like a commute.  Or exercise.

Here’s a look back at the first 50 movies I watched last year and what recollection, if any, I have of them. The films are listed in the order I saw them.

Sister Cities (2016)
Four sisters reunite following the somewhat suspicious passing of their mother.

Home Again (2017)
Reese Witherspoon takes on three boarders and finds her life change for the better.

It Chapter 2 (2019)
Now adults, the Losers Club returns to Derry to finish off Pennywise once and for all.

The Domestics (2018)
A young couple crosses a post-apocalyptic country looking for safety.

On The Basis Of Sex (2018)
A young Ruth Bader Ginsberg argues in front of the Supreme Court.

Colonia (2016)
A young woman searches for her kidnapped boyfriend.

Long Shot (2019)
A once-promising journalist hooks up, professionally and personally, with his former babysitter, who is running for president.

Overboard (2018)
The roles are reversed in this remake of the Kurt Russell/Goldie Hawn classic.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
Keanu Reeves returns for the third installment of this surprisingly entertaining series.

Midsommar (2019)
A group of college students heads to Sweden for a festival and some strange shit goes down. Continue reading →

You Ought To Be In (25) Pictures

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Many years ago, using the weekly TV guide that came with the Sunday Chicago Tribune, I started keeping track of all of the movies I had seen over the course of my lifetime.  The guide would list the two main stars for each movie, and that is a tradition that I’ve carried on in my database ever since.  So, given those guidelines, and thanks to a corona virus inspired uptick to my movie watching this year, it is time to look at the 100 actors that have starred in at least 10 films that I have seen, as of July 1.

Today, we continue with the 2 actors that have starred in 25 movies that I have seen, the a slight uptick over 3 years ago.

Tom Cruise

Top Gun was likely my first introduction to Tom Cruise’s starring roles.  2000 was the biggest year for his films, as I saw 4 of them, the only time I had seen more than one in a year until the second half of the last decade.  Since then, I saw multiples in 2015 (2), 2018 (3), and 2019 (2).  I took a 5 year break from his films after seeing War Of The Worlds in 2007, but have made up for lost time.  The last film of his that I’ve seen was Mission: Impossible – Fallout in 2019.

Harrison Ford

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Harrison Ford entered the national consciousness as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy. Those 3 films, along with the two entries in the Indiana Jones series, form the basis of Ford’s place on this list. I have seen two of his films in four different years, 1996, 2000, 2012, and 2020, which were the last of his films that I’ve seen, thanks to Frantic and the Jackie Robinson biopic 42.