2021 Movie Year in Review
Last year was the nadir of my movie watching, but the 1-2 punch of a pandemic and a baby pushed my totals to all new lows.
For starters, I didn't see a single movie in the theater. Granted, for much of the year seeing a movie in the theater wasn't even an option as the wholesale delaying of new releases continued into the early summer. By the time releases had started up again, the Delta variant was in full force and going to a movie while having an unvaccinated infant at home seemed like a poor choice. Even if it hadn't, there wasn't really time to watch a movie. As our list of streaming movies indicates, the sweet spot between "this baby needs constant attention" and "this baby is now mobile and needs constant attention" was in months 3 to 5 of Birdie's life, which is when we watched 6 of the 7 movies on our streaming list for the year.
Stop Making Sense - Su 2/21
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - S 5/01
Ocean's 8 - F 5/07
Strictly Ballroom - S 5/15
Back to the Beach - S 5/22
Bo Burnham: Inside - M 7/05
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) - F 7/09
Birdie's first movie was technically Stop Making Sense, which I watched while holding her. She slept through the whole thing. Her loss!
From there, we had a stretch in May where the baby's schedule worked really well and we watched a mix of new(er) and older movies while she slept in our room. Then we watched two more in July and after that I never watched a whole movie again this year. There simply wasn't time, because either the baby was awake or I was doing stuff that I couldn't do unless the baby was asleep. TV, with its 20 to 30 minute episodes, worked much better, so my 2021 Television Year in Review will be a lot more interesting.
Anyway, of the other movies we saw:
- Strictly Ballroom had been on my list for a million years, and I'd still like to see it in a proper theater, but it was a lot of fun, and arguably the best Baz Luhrmann. Not bad for a comparatively cheapo student exercise.
- Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was... fine. I suspect the play was better. I suspect that if Chadwick Boseman hadn't died before its release it's reviews would not been so glowing, as it's pretty average Oscar-bait.
- I like a good heist move, but Ocean's 8 was at best an average heist movie. The "twist" at the end might have been a lot more interesting if Debbie Ocean had betrayed the team and they'd hunted her down, but as it was the extra con was really lame.
- I was very familiar with the soundtrack to Back to the Beach, but I'd never seen it. M had seen it repeatedly in her childhood and insisted that we watch it. It was ridiculously good fun, and probably better than the movies it genially homages.
- M loves stand up comedy specials, and I mostly don't. She made me watch Bo Burnham: Inside because she thought it was different enough from normal specials that I might like it. The contents are a collection of short sketches, all filmed by Burnham alone during quarantine. As with most such bits, some were good and some less so. On balance, I enjoyed it a lot more than most stand up, which isn't saying much.
- The last film I watched on the year was the documentary Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) which was a rather pedestrian documentary saved by some really great archival musical performances. This raised it to essential viewing for soul music fans.
And, that's it.
I did consider going to a drive-in movie theater to see a few movies, particularly No Time to Die, as I hadn't missed a Bond movie in the theater since high school. However, with the late start times dictated by the summer light and the long running times (Bond was more than two hours), I never did it. Sitting in a car that long to watch a movie has never been my idea of a great time, and works better for second-run films I've seen many times over.
This meant that I missed three new Marvel films, the new version of Dune (my favorite book) and probably quite a few other things. Some I may end up watching on streaming. Dune I'm hoping gets re-released when the sequel comes out. At the end of the day, there are worse problems to have.
For starters, I didn't see a single movie in the theater. Granted, for much of the year seeing a movie in the theater wasn't even an option as the wholesale delaying of new releases continued into the early summer. By the time releases had started up again, the Delta variant was in full force and going to a movie while having an unvaccinated infant at home seemed like a poor choice. Even if it hadn't, there wasn't really time to watch a movie. As our list of streaming movies indicates, the sweet spot between "this baby needs constant attention" and "this baby is now mobile and needs constant attention" was in months 3 to 5 of Birdie's life, which is when we watched 6 of the 7 movies on our streaming list for the year.
Stop Making Sense - Su 2/21
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - S 5/01
Ocean's 8 - F 5/07
Strictly Ballroom - S 5/15
Back to the Beach - S 5/22
Bo Burnham: Inside - M 7/05
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) - F 7/09
Birdie's first movie was technically Stop Making Sense, which I watched while holding her. She slept through the whole thing. Her loss!
From there, we had a stretch in May where the baby's schedule worked really well and we watched a mix of new(er) and older movies while she slept in our room. Then we watched two more in July and after that I never watched a whole movie again this year. There simply wasn't time, because either the baby was awake or I was doing stuff that I couldn't do unless the baby was asleep. TV, with its 20 to 30 minute episodes, worked much better, so my 2021 Television Year in Review will be a lot more interesting.
Anyway, of the other movies we saw:
- Strictly Ballroom had been on my list for a million years, and I'd still like to see it in a proper theater, but it was a lot of fun, and arguably the best Baz Luhrmann. Not bad for a comparatively cheapo student exercise.
- Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was... fine. I suspect the play was better. I suspect that if Chadwick Boseman hadn't died before its release it's reviews would not been so glowing, as it's pretty average Oscar-bait.
- I like a good heist move, but Ocean's 8 was at best an average heist movie. The "twist" at the end might have been a lot more interesting if Debbie Ocean had betrayed the team and they'd hunted her down, but as it was the extra con was really lame.
- I was very familiar with the soundtrack to Back to the Beach, but I'd never seen it. M had seen it repeatedly in her childhood and insisted that we watch it. It was ridiculously good fun, and probably better than the movies it genially homages.
- M loves stand up comedy specials, and I mostly don't. She made me watch Bo Burnham: Inside because she thought it was different enough from normal specials that I might like it. The contents are a collection of short sketches, all filmed by Burnham alone during quarantine. As with most such bits, some were good and some less so. On balance, I enjoyed it a lot more than most stand up, which isn't saying much.
- The last film I watched on the year was the documentary Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) which was a rather pedestrian documentary saved by some really great archival musical performances. This raised it to essential viewing for soul music fans.
And, that's it.
I did consider going to a drive-in movie theater to see a few movies, particularly No Time to Die, as I hadn't missed a Bond movie in the theater since high school. However, with the late start times dictated by the summer light and the long running times (Bond was more than two hours), I never did it. Sitting in a car that long to watch a movie has never been my idea of a great time, and works better for second-run films I've seen many times over.
This meant that I missed three new Marvel films, the new version of Dune (my favorite book) and probably quite a few other things. Some I may end up watching on streaming. Dune I'm hoping gets re-released when the sequel comes out. At the end of the day, there are worse problems to have.