My wife is a francophile. She speaks French fluently. Studied it in college. Has a masters in French linguistics. Lived in Montreal for a while, and we spent some time in Strasbourg. She reads French books and we sometimes watch French movies.
We watched this one in the theater when it first came out. We had no idea what it was about. It is a good one. I bought it on DVD. It is a freaky thriller with lots of good twists. You can read my full review here.
My brother-in-law, Matt, always buys my daughter a stuffed monkey for Christmas. This year he outdid himself. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts we are big Doctor Who fans in my house and this one is perfectly dressed up as David Tennant’s version of The Doctor.
I’ve already commandeered it for my office 🙂
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I am a very big fan of Doctor Who, both the new series and the original. That wasn’t always the case. My wife grew up watching Tom Baker as The Doctor on PBS when she was a kid, but that was a series I never paid much attention to back then. When the new series came out she would sometimes watch an episode, but we weren’t in a position where she could watch it every week. Whenever she would watch it I would try to watch it with her but it never took. It just seemed so cheesy to me then.
But when our daughter was born we were constantly looking for series to binge watch and eventually, we landed on Doctor Who. It took me a few episodes, but I did get into it. I’ve come to love the cheesiness. Over time we’ve gone back and watched many of the old stories which are even more cheesy.
The Aztecs was one of the first of the Classic Who stories I ever watched, it was definitely the first I ever with William Hartnell playing The Doctor. It is really fun for me to read my review of that story as I seem a little confused by the low budget and cheesiness of it all, which I now know is part of the show’s charm.
This was also an early review for me for Cinema Sentries and you can tell I was out of practice as I mostly just regurgitate the plot.
But whatever you can read my review here if you like.
Actually, if I may make a small request. Cinema Sentries is a small site. It is run by my friend Gordon and is a labor of love. I don’t know the stats but I know he’s not getting the traffic the big sites get. So, even if you don’t want to read my review of this Doctor Who story (or any review I write) I’d appreciate it if you’d click on those links that will take you to Cinema Sentries, and then stay there for a minute or two. That will help his numbers and help him grow the site. Thanks in advance.
In 1960 two French filmmakers, Edgar Morin, Jean Rouch, basically invented inéma vérité and created this film. Criterion Collection released it on Blu-ray back in 2013 and I wrote a review of it for Cinema Sentries.
Maigret is the great, French detective created by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon. He’s a bit like a mix between Hercule Poirot and Phillip Marlowe. Many, many books were written between the 1930s and 1970s and they have been adapted numerous times into TV shows and movies. I’ve actually watched and written reviews for a number of those adaptations including this one from Britain starring Michael Gambon. You can read my review for the series here.
I’m currently watching a different series from the BBC about Maigret and I’ll post a review of it in these pages soon enough.
Van Morrison – Live at Real Studios – Box England – 2021: Youtube
Neil Diamond 1972-07-23 Seattle, WA: Guitars101
Bob Dylan’s “Rolling Stone” from Girl from the North Country: Youtube
There is a musical that tells a story based on a bunch of Dylan songs. I have a copy of the soundtrack and it is pretty good. I like what they do with this song here.
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The Core: Zero: Relix
A cool little retrospective on the great San Francisco band Zero. Has some nice bits about their relationship with Rober Hunter.
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I can’t get enough of this tour, and it is nice to see Dylan’s face so clear in this video.
I watched 451 movies in 2022. That’s 763.7 hours of movies, or 37.6 movies per month and 8.7 per day. That’s a lot. Even for me. In fact, that’s an all-time Mat Brewster record. The previous record was 439 which I hit last year (which broke the previous record hit the year before that). Since the pandemic hit in 2020 my movie watching has gone way up, to levels never seen before. Even though we are now getting out and about quite a bit more than we were during the height of the pandemic, I’ve gotten used to watching movies every chance I get.
Sometimes I feel like I should apologize for that like there is something wrong with watching that many movies, but it gives me pleasure. Most people spend a lot of time doing dumb things, so why shouldn’t I do something I enjoy?
The first movie I watched in 2022 was The Thin Man (1934), a delightful comedy mystery that I highly recommend. The last movie I watched was Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), a delightful comedy mystery that I highly recommend.
The genre I watched the most was Drama with 186 films watched. That feels like a cheat because a lot of films could be considered dramas even while they are also considered something else (Romance/Drama, Comedy/Drama, etc). Thriller comes in next with 156 films watched. That seems fair as I do like a lot of crime drama, mysteries, and the like all of which could be considered thrillers. Crime actually comes in fourth with 107 films watched and mysteries are sixth with 89 films watched. Clocking in at #3 is, you guessed it, horror with 137 films watched.
The bulk of the movies I watched were from the United States and in English with British films coming in second, followed by Italian, French, and Japanese. None of which are surprising. I watched 82 films in a language that is not English. I’d like to try and up that number this year.
196 of the films were made before I was born, with the 1980s being my most-watched decade coming in at 65 films, followed closely by the 1940s and then the 2000s.
As you can see from the visuals my most watched actor James Stewart. That was not intentional, I just happen to like him as an actor and apparently watched a bunch of his films. Bogart is a perennial favorite and I often seek his films out. Randolph Scott has become a favorite of mine over the last few years. He made a lot of great westerns and I always enjoy his performance.
I recently decided to watch all five Death Wish films which is what put Charles Bronson on the list, and no doubt the Halloween franchise helped propel Jamie Lee Curtis to the list. Her being the only woman on either list is a reminder to myself to do better in that regard.
The director’s list is slightly surprising to me. Dario Argento is a director that I love, but I normally don’t watch that many of his films. But this year I sought out some of his less-loved movies in an effort to watch everything he has made. Martin Scorsese’s absence is only because I’ve seen pretty much everything he’s ever directed and I rewatched a bunch of them in 2021, thus I did not watch a lot of his films last year.
Anyway, that’s enough of me chattering about my movie fetish. Did any of you watch anything interesting last year?
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