What I Watched and Read in 2021

Another year has passed, and as is tradition, I present to you a summary of the movies and television shows I watched in 2021.

MOVIES

In 2021 I watched 155 movies, the most I’ve watched since I began tracking back in 2016. The second highest number was 127 movies in 2017. The two factors that led to this increase in media consumption was having a dedicated movie room, and staying home due to COVID. Of those 155 films, 100 were movies and 55 were documentaries. The first movie I watched in 2021 was Wonder Woman 1984, and the last was Matrix Resurrections. As always, anything I watch after the publishing of this post will be added to the 2022 list.

40 of the movies and documentaries I watched were released in 2021. Because of COVID, many theaters remained closed and many first run movies were released directly to home streaming services. Along with the latest Matrix film, some of the others included No Time to Die (the latest James Bond film), 8-Bit Christmas, Cry Macho (with Clint Eastwood), Dune, Halloween Kills, Free Guy, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, Mortal Kombat, and Godzilla vs. Kong. I also watched lots of older movies this year, including three from the 1930s: The Mouthpiece (1932), After the Thin Man (1936), and You Can’t Get Away with Murder (1939). I watched multiple W.C. Fields movies for the first time including Bank Dick and My Little Chickadee, and several classics I hadn’t seen before including Tombstone, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Chinatown, and Rollerball.

I watched 55 documentaries last year. Some of my favorites were Get Back featuring the Beatles, The Search for General Tso, The Wrecking Crew, Val Kilmer’s memoir simply titled Val, Charles Manson (The Final Words), Soleil Moon Frye’s Kid 90, and Sasquatch, a film investigating a triple-homicide which was blamed on Bigfoot.

Each year I track movies I’ve previously seen. Some of the ones I rewatched this year included Pete’s Dragon (I rewatched the original before watching the 2016 reboot), Super Troopers (I may watch it right meow), Heathers, Three Days of the Condor, Jojo Rabbit, Under the Rainbow, Zoolander (with Morgan), and Cabin Boy. A friend of mine and I also watched every movie in the Halloween franchise in order to discuss them online. That was a lot of fun.

TELEVISION

According to my list, I watched seven television series in 2021: Get a Life (1990), Night Stalker (2021), Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries, Nailed It, Masters of the Universe (Revelation Part I), the Punky Brewster 2021 reboot, and MacGruber. I enjoyed the Punky Brewster reboot with Punky as an adult, although I didn’t hear about the show until it had already been cancelled. I picked up all three seasons of the Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries from the 1970s and greatly enjoyed them. A lot of people were disappointed with Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe reboot because it did not focus on He-Man; I was disappointed with it because (spoiler) He-Man dies in the first episode, comes back a few episodes later, dies again in the sixth episode, and comes back in the seventh. Killing a major character only to bring them back is a cheap way to get an emotional response from your audience while breaking their trust. MacGruber was… not as good as I had hoped, and I really liked the original movie.

I just remembered that Susan and I watched The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel on Netflix and it does not appear to be on the list. Whoops. Also, I just watched the first episode of the Book of Boba Fett. I’ll watch the other 6 episodes in 2022, so I’ll bump that to next year’s list.

In addition to those there were many (many!) television shows I watched portions of, but which I did not complete entire seasons. I watched several episodes of the Norm Show after the passing of Norm Macdonald. I rewatched many episodes of Richie Rich and Super Friends cartoons before drifting off to sleep. I watched half of Tiger King 2 series on Netflix before losing interest.

SUMMARY

In 2021 I watched more movies and more documentaries than in any previous year, but fewer television shows. Also, I am sure that I watched several movies that did not make it to this list for one reason or another — I need to be more vigilant about recording them. I watched less sports than in previous years. I have essentially lost interest in watching the Thunder play in the NBA. I did watch every OU football game, and some NBA and NFL games, although I find myself multitasking while they are on more so than in the past.

Here is a link to the entire list.