What I Watched and Read in 2018

For the third year in a row, I maintained a list of everything I watched and read throughout the year. For those who don’t want to skim through the entire list along with my one-liner notes and reviews, here are some of the highlights from 2018’s list.

MOVIES

According to my list, I watched 111 movies in 2018. This was down slightly from 2017 (127), but way up from 2016 (82). My minimum goal each year is 100, and I try to shoot for 121 (an average of one movie every three days), so I came close this year. I rarely write down the movies I watch on regular television, so had I included those I definitely would have hit my mark.

The first movie I watched in 2018 was Foo-foo Dust, a terribly depressing documentary from 2003 about a mother and son who are drug addicts. The last movie I watched in 2018 was Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, which wasn’t as depressingas Foo-foo Dust, but was terrible. I watched a lot of great movies in 2018, which those bookends don’t represent. Perhaps in 2019 I’ll plan better on how to begin and end the year.

The oldest film I watched this year was The Public Enemy (1931), followed by Adam’s Rib (1949). I really enjoy these old movies and will make an effort to watch more of them next year. On the other end of the spectrum, I watched several films released in 2018 including Ready Player One, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Game Night, A Quiet Place, The Happytime Murders, The Meg, The Spy Who Dumped Me, The Christmas Chronicles, and several others. In all, I watched nineteen movies released in 2018.

Each year I make a point of watching great films from the past I haven’t seen before. Some of those films this year included Total Recall, They Live, Valley of the Damned, Used Cars, Oklahoma!, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. I also watched plenty of stinkers this year. (Don’t feel badly for me; I usually know they’re stinkers before putting them on.) Some of the worst films I choked down this year were Elves, Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies , Computer Beach Party, and Jurassic City. The worst modern films I watched were I Feel Pretty, Fat Camp, CHiPs, and The Happytime Murders.

This year I tried watching a few series. I re-watched six of the original Friday the 13th films (on Friday the 13th!) and four of the original James Bond movies for the first time. I finished up December by working my way through the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise, which got increasingly worse with each release.

Finally, 21 of the movies I watched were documentaries, although I’m including reenactments like I, Tonya, My Friend Dahmer, and Moonshot in that number. Muppet Guys Talking, Three Identical Strangers, and Won’t You Be My Neighbor were all fantastic documentaries that came out this year.

TELEVISION

In 2018, I binge watched several television programs. Because I only track shows where I watch an entire season, this part of the list is always the least accurate. If I were to track everything I watched on television — all the basketball and football games along with all the episodes of “I baked a cake” and “I bought a house” — this list would be infinitely longer.

After discovering Will Forte’s quirky show The Last Man on Earth in 2017, this year I watched seasons two, three, and four. Sadly, the show was cancelled on a cliffhanger at the end of the fourth season.

After watching season three of Twin Peaks in 2017, this year it was back to Westworld for a second season. I’m glad these two shows weren’t released during the same year; I’m not sure I could handle watching two shows I don’t understand at the same time! Keep in mind that each episode of Westworld is over an hour in length, and seem even longer when you are constantly baffled as to what’s going on. Watching ten episodes of Westworld felt like watching ten confusing movies.

This year I discovered The Goldbergs, the 80s answer to That 70’s Show, and watched all five seasons. The show is currently in its sixth season, and while I’ve fallen behind, I plan to catch up once the season ends.

Finally, I like watching episodes of TV shows when I lay down for bed, and for the past two months I’ve been watching an episode of CHiPs every night. So far, I’ve made it through the first two seasons. Again, unlike modern sitcoms, the first two seasons of CHiPs contain a total of 50 episodes, and each one runs just over 48 minutes in length. The show is deliciously cheesy and a fun throwback to the 70s. I look forward to watching more seasons next year.

BOOKS

In 2018, I let myself down and only read six books. Of those, three were memoirs (Amy Schumer’s The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Jesse James’ American Outlaw, and the recently released 600 page opus, Beastie Boys) and the other three were nonfiction. Next year, I’ll do better. Next year, I have to do better.

If there’s a consolation prize, it’s that I started Neuromancer (the 1984 cyberpunk classic by William Gibson) in the beginning of December. It’s a tough read and I’m only a third of the way through the book, but I’m hoping to push through to the end over the next week and move on to more fiction.

Also this year, I bought a new Android tablet which I use as a dedicated eBook reader. In the beginning, reading eBooks on my original iPad was simply a chore. By the end of its life, it became impossible. I’m hoping this new tablet gets me back to reading more regularly.

SUMMARY

As with 2017, I hit my goal of watching 100 movies throughout the year, and I’m sure I’ll hit it again next year. When it comes to television, I don’t really have a goal in mind. I simply watch what I watch. Where I really let myself down this year was with my book intake. In 2019, I would like to double the number of books I read in 2018 (raising the number to twelve), and it would be nice if half of those were fiction.

What I watched and read in 2018: The Full List