Another year, another self-aggrandizing, look-at-my-opinion-on-things, round-up post. And nearly a month late, too. Winner.
In 2013, I managed to make triple digits in the number of movies I watched for the first time since 2009. After a poor year of only 62 movies last year (0.17 movies/day, or 5.89 days between movies), I managed to hit exactly 100 flicks this year (0.27 movies/day, or 3.65 days between movies) with a last minute, New Years Eve viewing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Whilst it’s pleasing to hit the big Three Figures for the year, I’m nowhere near the glory days of the early- to mid-2000s, where digits of 150 were the norm. I even have a graph to prove it:
Highlights of the year:
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Naysayers be damned: I loved this. Sure, I haven’t read the book, so I have no idea how much Peter Jackson ruined the source material, or stretched it beyond its means, but I don’t care. I was more than happy to spend another three hours of my life back in that world, even if it was a tad over-lit and TV show-ey in 3D HFR. Still, it was quite the spectacle.
- Gravity – Amazing. A pulse-racing, eyeball-popping feast from start to finish. I smell Oscars.
In fact, I probably don’t need to go any further than that. Sure, there were some other great flicks out this year, but I’m a sucker for a spectacle movie, and The Hobbit and Gravity delivered in spades. However, other new (or, at least, new to me) flicks in which I partook and enjoyed include: Zero Dark Thirty (rough in places, but compelling nonetheless), Django Unchained (new to me, utterly enthralling), Captain Phillips (who doesn’t love a good Tom Hanks flick? Losers, that’s who), Saving Mr. Banks (can’t get enough of that Hanks, and Emma Thompson is a dream), Prisoners (the bleakest, most compulsive two hours I spent this year), Argo (Affleck is the new Hanks) and Silver Linings Playbook (I’m also a sucker for a fucked-up love story).
Being laid up for a few weeks in the middle of the year, I managed to find the time to visit a couple of blasts from the past, classics that everyone rolls their eyes at when they hear I haven’t seen them. It quickly became apparent that I’d missed out on some doozies. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was excellent. The Godfather is every inch a classic, from first to final frame. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a rambling, self-indulgent, preposterous waste of two hours. Bullitt is slow, but redeemed by that car chase.
So not a bad year for movies. As for books, I only managed to get through twelve of them. I don’t need a calculator to work out that that’s only one a month. Disgraceful. My progress was held up with the 2½ months it took me to read Andrew Ross Sorkin‘s Too Big To Fail which was, fortunately, excellent. I made the mistake of reading the first three of the trilogy of five Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, which I fear I’m not the target audience for. I’m sure my 15 year old self would have lapped them up, but the 35 year old me got a touch bored by it all. But the best book by far that I read this year (and which I’ve mentioned before) was A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby, which played straight into my continuing obsession with all things Afghanistan. It’s as much a story of companionship and a record of mid-20th century British attitudes and humour as it is a travel book, and it’s so much more interesting as a consequence. Lovely.
As for music, my intake of new stuff in 2013 continued its slippery slope down. Highlights were the new Jetplane Landing album, Don’t Try, which was stunning; the new Modern Life is War disc, Fever Hunting, which was very much a welcome return; While A Nation Sleeps, by Boysetsfire, which went some way to atoning for the sins of The Misery Index; Blood Drive by ASG, which is a new one to me, but is, as my friend Matt remarked, right up my street; and finally the new Alice in Chains album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, was a continuation of the post-Staley AIC, and if you don’t mind post-Staley AIC, then this was quite lovely.
So that’s about it. I’m certainly no devourer of new stuff, as I used to be, so my choices tend to be limited and conservative, but no less enjoyed and appreciated as in days of yore.
What Did You Do, Ray? 