Watching Things: December 2021
By Austin Johnson
From March of 2020 to March of 2021, I wrote a monthly diary to log everything I watched on the Criterion Channel. I miss doing that at the end of each month, so I came up with this new project. Instead of a singular streaming service, I’m going to track every film I watch on all services. I watch a little bit of television and a hefty amount of sports, mostly NBA and Premier League action but this is only for films.
I don’t know how long I’ll do this for but it seems right to make the first entry at the beginning of the year we are now in. The list below contains all of the things I watched in December of 2021 with the streaming service I watched it on next to it. It could also be a DVD/Blu-ray or theater watch, so it will be quite random. Even if I own the film and watched it on DVD or Blu-ray, I will also put the streaming service it is on if it is on one. At least a streaming service I have access to, which is honestly too many to keep up with. I will also put my personal rating from 1 to 10 next to the film just to see how much I enjoyed the month overall. At the very bottom I’ll have a Top 5 representing my 5 favorite watches of the month. I will also have stats for the month like streaming service counts (if I have it on DVD/Blu-ray and it’s on a service, it will count as DVD/Blu-ray), first time watches vs rewatches, and an average rating for the month.
Hard Eight, 1996 (Amazon Prime) - 9
Smooth Talk, 1985 (Criterion Channel) - 8
There Will Be Blood, 2007 (DVD/Netflix) - 10
Punch-Drunk Love, 2002 (DVD/HBO Max) - 9
This Christmas, 2007 (DVD) - 7
Inherent Vice, 2014 (The Roku Channel) - 10
Fanny, 1961 (Peacock) - 5
Four Christmases, 2008 (DVD/HBO Max) - 7
The Guns of Navarone, 1961 (Netflix) - 8
The Hustler, 1961 (DVD) - 9
Boogie Nights, 1997 (DVD) - 10
Holidate, 2020 (Netflix) - 4
Black Widow, 2021 (Disney+) - 7
Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961 (DVD) - 9
West Side Story, 1961 (DVD) - 7
Spider-Man, 2002 (DVD/Peacock) - 9
Spider-Man 2, 2004 (DVD/Peacock) - 9
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, 1992 (TV Freeform) - 8
Creed, 2015 (TV TNT) - 8
Licorice Pizza, 2021 (Fox Theater) - 9
Christmas Vacation, 1989 (New Beverly Cinema) - 8
Scrooged, 1988 (New Beverly Cinema) - 8
Spider-Man: No Way Home, 2021 (Silverado 16) - 9
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018 (Vudu) - 9
Phantom Thread, 2017 (Vudu) - 9
Magnolia, 1999 (DVD/Netflix) - 10
The Master, 2012 (DVD/Netflix) - 10
Fallen Angels, 1995 (Criterion Channel) - 9
Batman Returns, 1992 (DVD/HBO Max) - 9
Don’t Look Up, 2021 (Netflix) - 7
Venom: Let There Be Carnage, 2021 (Vudu) - 7
Sleepless in Seattle, 1993 (Amazon Prime) - 7
When Harry Met Sally, 1989 (DVD) - 8
Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite writer/director of all time, and because his new film, Licorice Pizza came out in select theaters in November and nationwide at the end of December, I took it upon myself to rewatch his entire filmography. I started with his directorial debut, Hard Eight, which is a wild ride that features a hall of fame performance from Philip Baker Hall as Sydney, the mysterious gambling genius. It’s on Amazon Prime right now and while it’s maybe my least favorite film in PTA’s arsenal, I still adore it.
I can’t deny my love for the Criterion Channel and all it has to offer for cinephiles. There’s a collection called “Between Us Girls: Bonds Between Women” that has about 20 films dedicated to stories about women right now. I watched the Joyce Chopra directed Smooth Talk from 1985 which surprised the hell out of me. I thought it was going to be a simple watch with Laura Dern starring in the lead role, but what I got was an ambiguous borderline horror film with Laura Dern giving one of the best performances of her career. The third act is daunting as can be and the delivery is pretty fucking incredible for a feature length debut by Chopra.
I went back to my PTA marathon after Smooth Talk by watching his undeniable masterpiece, There Will Be Blood from 2007 which is just a kick ass year for American cinema. 3 of my like top 25 favorite films of all time came out that year. Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood. It’s such a treat to revisit any of PTA’s projects, but Blood has to be his greatest feat. It’s a pretty simple idea involving capitalism, Christianity, and the American dream but it’s execution is perfect in my mind with one of the best individual performances from the legend himself, Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview. There’s also no amount of praise that will do Jonny Greenwood’s score justice. It’s a straight up lights out contribution from the Radiohead legend. I own There Will Be Blood but it is on Netflix at the moment, so check it out if you haven’t gotten around to it and rewatch it if it’s been a minute for you.
HBO Max is probably the strongest major streaming service due to its great original content and it’s ridiculous film library that contains so many classics. I continued the PTA marathon with Punch-Drunk Love, which is a film I’ve owned for a few years so I was able to watch it without HBO Max, but I love that it is on there for more people to check out. Every time I watch it, I gain a deeper appreciation for the awkwardness of Adam Sandler’s performance as Barry Egan and the uncanny sounds that Jon Brion composed for PTA’s shortest feature length film. Also, Philip Seymour Hoffman needs so little time to leave an unforgettable performance. He’s absurdly good in Punch-Drunk.
December is of course the month for Christmas films and while I have my favorites that I try and watch every year, there are some that have become a part of my life since I started dating my lovely fiancé. She and her mother really like This Christmas, written and directed by Preston A. Whitmore II which stars a bunch of awesome actors like Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Loretta Devine and the queen herself, Regina King. The plot is a bit convoluted but it’s got some charm. It’s grown on me and we have it on our shelf at home. It’s not on any streaming service, but it’s worth seeking out during the holidays.
After This Christmas I went back to the PTA marathon to rewatch Inherent Vice which is on The Roku Channel right now. If you have a Roku, then it’s free. The ads are quite annoying, but there’s some good shit on there. Inherent Vice seems to be the most divisive PTA film so far, but I have totally fallen in love with it over the years. It’s a mind boggling story with some jaw dropping performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Katherine Waterston, Josh Brolin, and many more. Robert Elswit put in fuckin work on the cinematography and that’s the main reason I feel so strongly about it. The entire two and a half hour runtime is filled with gorgeous shots of a washed out kind of early 1970’s California. I totally understand if someone isn’t too keen on the very hard to follow plot, but no one can take away from its beauty.
I host our Oscar Sunday podcast once a week and it’s been a blast to spotlight films that have been nominated by the Academy for about a year and a half now. Every 5th episode, we do a Best Picture showdown. We watch or rewatch all of the Best Picture nominees from a ceremony and then rank them. We did the 34th Academy Awards for episode 80 on December 12th and I started by checking out the Joshua Logan directed Fanny on Peacock. It’s honestly just not my kind of film. The 2 hour and 13 minute run time felt like four hours and I just don’t have much to say about it. There’s some pretty shots but goodness I was bored as hell. I don’t really recommend it unless you’re trying to knock out Best Pic noms.
After watching Fanny, my fiancé and I had some fun with Four Christmases which is underrated in my opinion. We own it and It’s on HBO Max and it has a ridiculous cast consisting of Vince Vaughan, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Mary Steenburgen, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau, Tim fucking McGraw, Dwight Yoakam, and Kristen Chenoweth. Seriously, what in the fuck? I adore the scene when Vince plays Joseph in a church play. It’s absurd!
I went back to my 34th Academy Awards homework after some Christmas fun with The Guns of Navarone from 1961. Directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring a wonderful cast of superstars from a different era like Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, David Niven, and Anthony Quayle, The Guns of Navarone is a 2 and a half hour World War II epic that hits hard. I enjoyed it quite a bit as I watched it for the first time on Netflix. The story is straightforward and well presented as a team of pretty much total badasses go on a wild mission in a time of total chaos in world history. I highly recommend it to fans of ensemble casts and fans of war films. Anthony Quinn is a force on screen and totally stole my fandom the same way he did in La Strada from 1954.
I stuck with my 34th Academy Awards Best Picture grind by watching The Hustler, which is a film I own and adore. I poured myself a nice glass of Hennesey, threw the disc in, and got lost in one of my favorite 60’s films of all time. Written by Robert Rossen and Sydney Carroll based on the novel of the same name by Walter S. Tevis and then directed by Robert Rossen, The Hustler is a brilliant story about a master pool player who goes on a journey of losing and winning that is simply a must see. Paul Newman is one of the biggest stars of all time and his performance as Fast Eddie Felson is maybe his best work ever. Jackie Gleason is wonderful as Minnesota Fats but it’s George C. Scott as Bert Gordon who provides a certain X factor type performance that always blows me away. Piper Laurie, Myron McCormick, and Murray Hamilton all give tremendous supporting performances and holy shit I just love The Hustler.
I took a break from 1961 after The Hustler and went back to my PTA marathon with Boogie Nights from 1997. I’ve seen Boogie Nights more than any other PTA film because it’s so fucking fun and easy to watch for me. There’s been countless nights in my past where I went out for drinks or a party and then went back home and put on Boogie while eating Whataburger or while making a grilled cheese with some Budweiser by my side. Nowadays, I have to watch films like this when my daughter goes to bed and I’m up late into the night being a total weirdo. It’s totally comfort food for me and I just don’t even know what to say about it at this point. I’ll try by saying that the soundtrack and the cast are sublime. The rise, fall, and last second redemption plot is at its finest with Boogie. I’ve owned it for a very long time, so I threw it on and went to a different dimension like I always do.
I went from a masterpiece to a forgettable Christmas film by watching Holidate with my fiancé at like 1 pm while our daughter was napping one day. It’s a Netflix film and my expectations were low so I wasn’t really let down at all. I laughed a couple times but I have already forgotten about 80% of the film. Emma Roberts plays the main character and I like her but she makes bizarre choices most of the time. Skip this one unless you enjoy mindless Christmas/Holiday themed rom coms.
My fiancé is a massive Marvel fan while I’m just kind of into it. She wants to keep up and see all the new films and shows they are putting out. One of the things I love about her is how she wants to include me in her passions which causes me to be more excited about watching Marvel films with her. She wanted me to watch Black Widow so she rewatched it while I finally checked it out on Disney+. It’s not bad at all and I really liked the performances from Scar Jo, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz. Marvel's best attribute is casting great actors and they did it once again with Black Widow.
I went from Marvel to intense World War II courtroom drama by watching Judgment at Nuremberg, which received 11 nominations at the 34th Academy Awards and is still just a hell of a film that I think any cinephile would love. The Stanley Kramer directed epic stars Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, William Shatner, and Werner Klemperer. It’s probably the very best and easily the most important courtroom film I’ve ever seen. Judgment equaled West Side Story in nominations but it only won two Oscars, which is a damn shame. If there’s a person who likes this film even more than me, it’s Filmgazm co-founder and Oscar Sunday co-host, Connor Eyzaguirre. He let me borrow his DVD of Judgment for our Best Picture Showdown episode. God bless.
After losing my mind over my Judgment at Nuremberg rewatch, I finally knocked out West Side Story, the fifth and final film I needed to watch or rewatch for our 34th Academy Awards Best Picture Showdown. It won 10 awards including Best Picture which makes it the fourth most decorated Oscar winning film of all time behind Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King all with 11. I own the Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise directed West Side Story so I just popped it in at night and enjoyed it quite a bit more on rewatch. The first time, I was just kind of let down but then I found new things to admire on the rewatch. It must’ve been a fucking blast to work on West Side Story, which deserves all kinds of technical praise for its attention to detail and unbelievable choreography. I still think the story is just boring because it’s been done over and over in annoying ways but the way it looks and flows is pretty great. Musicals are typically not my cup of tea so I get the admiration a lot of people have for it and I get that I see it as a good but not great film overall.
I used to be on our Filmgazm podcast all the time, but nowadays I just host Oscar Sunday and occasionally show up on Filmgazm and Sneak Preview. I was on episode 167, which focused on Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man from 2002 because we were focusing on all things Spider-Man in honor of the new film that came out recently. He’s easily my favorite comic book character and those Sam Raimi films hold a special place in my heart. My fiancé and I own all the Spider-Man films that have come out over the past 20 years, so we threw on the DVD and had a blast. It’s so damn entertaining and I suggest listening to that Filmgazm episode if you also enjoy the Human Spider.
I couldn’t help myself. We watched Spider-Man 2 right after the first one. Also, Connor and I couldn’t stop talking about both of the films on the Spider-Man episode as they both rock and can match up against any superhero film that has ever been made. The Raimi Spider-Man trilogy is on Peacock right now, but again we own all that shit so I put in the DVD at home and watched Alfred Molina steal my heart once again with my fiancé. Haha.
I watched those Spider-Man films the night before leaving for Los Angeles. Connor and I have always wanted to go there together and we finally did it. The day we got there, we went straight to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles which is stellar and then walked around on Hollywood Boulevard. That night, we ordered Greco's Pizza, which wasn’t stellar but it was a solid pie. We also watched a couple of films that were on TV. The first one was Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. In my opinion it’s just about as good as the first Home Alone and remains a Christmas favorite. It was playing on Freeform so we just sat back and laughed our asses off. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are just wonderful in those films.
After Home Alone 2, we went to TNT and caught Creed from 2015. Great film and we wound up watching the whole damn thing. Ryan Coogler is one of the better Hollywood directors around right now and Creed is an awesome follow up to Fruitvale Station from 2013. Coogler and Michael B. Jordan have a really cool chemistry that I hope to see grow as they both continue to flourish. I always get chills when they arrive at Goodison Park in Liverpool which is where Everton Football Club play their home matches and where Adonis Johnson takes on Ricky Conlan. It’s an epic finale to a really solid film.
I’ve mentioned my PTA December marathon a few times but none of those watches were as special as seeing his newest film, Licorice Pizza, in LA at the Fox Theater. It is a magical film that rightfully takes its place in PTA’s incredible filmography. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman are destined to grace the big screen with their unapologetic acting styles that are what we always look for when it comes to performances. I love that PTA is continuing the connection with the Hoffman’s by working with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son. The Fox is a terrific theater with one giant screen and a shit ton of seats. By having a single screen, each film that plays there is the most important thing happening in the building. It’s treated like an event which is how a lot of films should be treated and not only was the in theater experience amazing but then afterwards, there was a pop up Fat Bernie’s Pinball Palace, inspired by things that take place in Licorice Pizza. Connor and I had a fucking blast that night.
The day after visiting the Fox, we had the privilege of hitting up another theater that is to die for. It was Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema and that is the root cause for Connor and I wanting to go to LA together. When we learned about how simple it is to buy tickets and go to New Beverly, we just knew we had to go and it wound up being the last thing we did in LA. That night featured a double bill of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Scrooged. That’s a couple of late 80’s classics that are flat out hilarious. We sat there for about 4 hours and I think we had a sort of out of body experience just being there. It was a truly special night.
We got back to San Antonio on a Thursday night and then Friday night both Connor and I saw separate screenings of Spider-Man: No Way Home. I saw it at Santikos Silverado 16 with my fiancé, my older brother, and his wife. It was pretty surreal to see Marvel reveal a bunch of characters that have appeared in Spider-Man films over the past 20 years. It’s clearly Marvel's largest event since Endgame in 2019 and it was fun to be a part of a moment in the theater with fans going wild throughout the two and a half hour run time. Jon Watts has now directed a pretty legit Spider-Man trilogy. The ending of No Way Home is fantastic and much better than I anticipated. It was an experience I won’t forget.
After seeing Spider-Man on the big screen, I watched Into the Spider-Verse from 2018 on Vudu. We talked about it on episode 81 of Oscar Sunday and had a blast. It’s one of the most unique animated films of all time and it manages to straddle the line of being a kids film and a grown ups film perfectly. It won Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards and will get a sequel sometime in 2022. My favorite vocal performance from the film is Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker but nearly everyone is spot on. Especially Brian Tyree Henry, Mahershala Ali, Nicolas Cage, Kathryn Hahn, and John Mulaney. Shit, yeah everyone is great.
I went back to my PTA marathon after some Spider-Man action by watching Phantom Thread from 2017. I rented it on Vudu and got totally sucked into 1950’s London with Daniel Day-Lewis shredding his performance as Reynolds Woodcock. He’s frighteningly good as usual with great stuff provided by Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville as well. Phantom Thread is probably PTA’s slowest burning film and I can see why the pace would bore some folks but if you are a fan of his or films based around obsession and toxic relationships then it’s for you. It’s incredible that he can go from something like Boogie Nights to Phantom Thread within a 20 year span.
One of the main reasons PTA is my favorite director of all time is that Magnolia is my personal favorite film of all time. I know there’s more complete films out there, even within his own filmography but nothing stuns me like Magnolia. It’s got so much shit going on and I get this intoxicating feeling when the film is mentioned. It’s on Netflix, but I own it so I watched it late at night by myself and fell in love all over again. Every time I watch it something stands out even more and this time it was Aimee Mann’s soundtrack that plays heavily throughout. She fucking rocks and compliments Jon Brion’s score exquisitely. The ensemble cast somehow got exactly what PTA had in mind which allows it to soar like a god damn eagle all three hours. Magnolia is a film that could’ve gone completely off the train tracks and it definitely does for some viewers but for me, I feel right at home.
I mentioned much earlier that I was going to rewatch every PTA directed film in preparation for his newest release, Licorice Pizza. That is very true but it also came in handy for episode 82, which focused primarily on The Master from 2012. It is very possible that The Master is his best overall film and gosh I adore it. It is also on Netflix and I also own this one so I watched it late at night just like I do with most of PTA’s work. The day after watching it, Connor and I recorded the episode and talked about all things Paul Thomas Anderson. It was great to let loose and explain why he’s my personal favorite director of all time and it was even better to watch all nine of his films within one month.
I followed up The Master and my PTA jaunt with some unfamiliar territory. A territory I will be revisiting very soon, like probably in January. Kar-Wai Wong’s Fallen Angels from 1995 is on the Criterion Channel and holy hell it’s an experience. I was enthralled mostly by Wong’s directing style and Christopher Doyle’s cinematography. The film was shot pretty much entirely in the night time with this gorgeous wide angle way up in the actors faces, giving you an unforgettable look at Hong Kong’s underground crime scene. I will definitely be visiting this film again at some point and like I said, Wong’s other works are on my radar now.
I went straight back to familiarity after Fallen Angels because it was Christmas Eve and I knew I had to watch my favorite Christmas film of all time. Batman Returns is a gem I’ve owned since I was a teenager, but of course the wonderful HBO Max has a shit ton of Batman content so it can be seen on there. Returns is definitely my favorite Christmas film and live action Batman film due to the absurdly good production design and off the wall performances from Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Christopher Walken. I don’t think anyone will ever match Tim Burton’s wacky Gotham which is just way better than what we’ve seen this century for me.
After Batman Returns I went to bed and woke up for a nice Christmas day and then my fiancé and I watched Don’t Look Up on Christmas night when our daughter went to bed. It’s a weird one that I still don’t really get. I get the plot and what Adam McKay was going for but I’m not sure who the audience is supposed to be. With a ridiculous cast consisting of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, and Timothee Chalamet, it’s hard to be the satire political film that it wants to be. Some moments were really good, in fact I enjoyed the first hour quite a bit. It’s on Netflix and I do think it’s worth watching but don’t expect a masterpiece.
Connor gave me access to his VUDU account a good while back and it comes in handy every now and again, due to his pretty fucking awesome library that has tremendous range. My fiancé and I used it to watch the newest Venom film which hit theaters in early October of 2021 and made a hefty amount of money at the box office. I’m honestly one of the few people that genuinely likes both Venom films. I like the first one a bit more but Let There Be Carnage is also fun even though neither film is on par with the superhero stuff Marvel has put out the past few years. It’s cool to see Andy Serkis direct a film like Venom: Let There Be Carnage after a long career of doing the work people don’t praise enough.
I finished December and 2021 off with a couple of Nora Ephron written rom coms. Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed and When Harry Met Sally, which was directed by Rob Reiner. I watched them both in preparation for episode 83 of Oscar Sunday which focused on When Harry Met Sally. The episode was a blast and it’s always nice to watch some Ephron action because she was a fucking dynamite writer. I definitely enjoy When Harry Met Sally more but they are both worth watching. Sleepless in Seattle is on Amazon Prime and I own When Harry Met Sally.
33 total films averaging out to an 8.24 overall rating for December, 2021
First time Watches- 10
Rewatches- 23
Streaming Service Counter
Amazon Prime- 2
Criterion Channel- 2
Disney+- 1
DVD/Blu Ray- 14
Netflix- 3
Peacock- 1
The ROKU Channel- 1
Theaters- 4
TV Movies- 2
Vudu- 3
Top 5 December Watches
5. The Master
I love every one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films but I really loved watching The Master this past time more than ever because it was the base film for our Oscar Sunday episode 82. It was honestly an honor to talk about why I enjoy it so much and pick awards for it. An easy 10 out of 10 kind of film that will be in my life forever.
4. Spider-Man: No Way Home
The rest of these are in theater watches. That won’t always be the case, but December was extra special. The hype and expectations surrounding No Way Home was met and even better than we all thought it could be. Marvel is the only way we can experience that wild sensation of seeing something with a packed theater and people cheering throughout its run time. It was my first time visiting Santikos Silverado 16 since I was maybe 12 years old, so that added to the nostalgia factor and got me interested in going back for other films.
3. Scrooged
Ahh, good ol' Scrooged. What a fun fucking film that I got to see with one of my best friends in the whole world at Quentin Tarantino's New Beverly Cinema. That was a night I’ll never forget…
2. Christmas Vacation
Scrooged is great, but I definitely like Christmas Vacation a bit more and that was the first film of the double bill that we saw at New Beverly. I can’t wait to go back to that theater one day as it sits at the very top of the most unique and wonderful theaters I’ve ever been to.
1. Licorice Pizza
There’s just nothing that can beat seeing PTA at work inside a theater in Los Angeles. The Fox theater was quite different from New Beverly but similar in the way that both theaters treat the film like the most important thing that is happening. It was so cool to see Licorice Pizza during its select theaters run because I’m so used to living in Texas and getting films late. It is an experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life and the film itself is damn good. Gosh, I love PTA.
I don’t know how long I’ll do this for but it seems right to make the first entry at the beginning of the year we are now in. The list below contains all of the things I watched in December of 2021 with the streaming service I watched it on next to it. It could also be a DVD/Blu-ray or theater watch, so it will be quite random. Even if I own the film and watched it on DVD or Blu-ray, I will also put the streaming service it is on if it is on one. At least a streaming service I have access to, which is honestly too many to keep up with. I will also put my personal rating from 1 to 10 next to the film just to see how much I enjoyed the month overall. At the very bottom I’ll have a Top 5 representing my 5 favorite watches of the month. I will also have stats for the month like streaming service counts (if I have it on DVD/Blu-ray and it’s on a service, it will count as DVD/Blu-ray), first time watches vs rewatches, and an average rating for the month.
Hard Eight, 1996 (Amazon Prime) - 9
Smooth Talk, 1985 (Criterion Channel) - 8
There Will Be Blood, 2007 (DVD/Netflix) - 10
Punch-Drunk Love, 2002 (DVD/HBO Max) - 9
This Christmas, 2007 (DVD) - 7
Inherent Vice, 2014 (The Roku Channel) - 10
Fanny, 1961 (Peacock) - 5
Four Christmases, 2008 (DVD/HBO Max) - 7
The Guns of Navarone, 1961 (Netflix) - 8
The Hustler, 1961 (DVD) - 9
Boogie Nights, 1997 (DVD) - 10
Holidate, 2020 (Netflix) - 4
Black Widow, 2021 (Disney+) - 7
Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961 (DVD) - 9
West Side Story, 1961 (DVD) - 7
Spider-Man, 2002 (DVD/Peacock) - 9
Spider-Man 2, 2004 (DVD/Peacock) - 9
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, 1992 (TV Freeform) - 8
Creed, 2015 (TV TNT) - 8
Licorice Pizza, 2021 (Fox Theater) - 9
Christmas Vacation, 1989 (New Beverly Cinema) - 8
Scrooged, 1988 (New Beverly Cinema) - 8
Spider-Man: No Way Home, 2021 (Silverado 16) - 9
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018 (Vudu) - 9
Phantom Thread, 2017 (Vudu) - 9
Magnolia, 1999 (DVD/Netflix) - 10
The Master, 2012 (DVD/Netflix) - 10
Fallen Angels, 1995 (Criterion Channel) - 9
Batman Returns, 1992 (DVD/HBO Max) - 9
Don’t Look Up, 2021 (Netflix) - 7
Venom: Let There Be Carnage, 2021 (Vudu) - 7
Sleepless in Seattle, 1993 (Amazon Prime) - 7
When Harry Met Sally, 1989 (DVD) - 8
Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite writer/director of all time, and because his new film, Licorice Pizza came out in select theaters in November and nationwide at the end of December, I took it upon myself to rewatch his entire filmography. I started with his directorial debut, Hard Eight, which is a wild ride that features a hall of fame performance from Philip Baker Hall as Sydney, the mysterious gambling genius. It’s on Amazon Prime right now and while it’s maybe my least favorite film in PTA’s arsenal, I still adore it.
I can’t deny my love for the Criterion Channel and all it has to offer for cinephiles. There’s a collection called “Between Us Girls: Bonds Between Women” that has about 20 films dedicated to stories about women right now. I watched the Joyce Chopra directed Smooth Talk from 1985 which surprised the hell out of me. I thought it was going to be a simple watch with Laura Dern starring in the lead role, but what I got was an ambiguous borderline horror film with Laura Dern giving one of the best performances of her career. The third act is daunting as can be and the delivery is pretty fucking incredible for a feature length debut by Chopra.
I went back to my PTA marathon after Smooth Talk by watching his undeniable masterpiece, There Will Be Blood from 2007 which is just a kick ass year for American cinema. 3 of my like top 25 favorite films of all time came out that year. Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood. It’s such a treat to revisit any of PTA’s projects, but Blood has to be his greatest feat. It’s a pretty simple idea involving capitalism, Christianity, and the American dream but it’s execution is perfect in my mind with one of the best individual performances from the legend himself, Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview. There’s also no amount of praise that will do Jonny Greenwood’s score justice. It’s a straight up lights out contribution from the Radiohead legend. I own There Will Be Blood but it is on Netflix at the moment, so check it out if you haven’t gotten around to it and rewatch it if it’s been a minute for you.
HBO Max is probably the strongest major streaming service due to its great original content and it’s ridiculous film library that contains so many classics. I continued the PTA marathon with Punch-Drunk Love, which is a film I’ve owned for a few years so I was able to watch it without HBO Max, but I love that it is on there for more people to check out. Every time I watch it, I gain a deeper appreciation for the awkwardness of Adam Sandler’s performance as Barry Egan and the uncanny sounds that Jon Brion composed for PTA’s shortest feature length film. Also, Philip Seymour Hoffman needs so little time to leave an unforgettable performance. He’s absurdly good in Punch-Drunk.
December is of course the month for Christmas films and while I have my favorites that I try and watch every year, there are some that have become a part of my life since I started dating my lovely fiancé. She and her mother really like This Christmas, written and directed by Preston A. Whitmore II which stars a bunch of awesome actors like Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Loretta Devine and the queen herself, Regina King. The plot is a bit convoluted but it’s got some charm. It’s grown on me and we have it on our shelf at home. It’s not on any streaming service, but it’s worth seeking out during the holidays.
After This Christmas I went back to the PTA marathon to rewatch Inherent Vice which is on The Roku Channel right now. If you have a Roku, then it’s free. The ads are quite annoying, but there’s some good shit on there. Inherent Vice seems to be the most divisive PTA film so far, but I have totally fallen in love with it over the years. It’s a mind boggling story with some jaw dropping performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Katherine Waterston, Josh Brolin, and many more. Robert Elswit put in fuckin work on the cinematography and that’s the main reason I feel so strongly about it. The entire two and a half hour runtime is filled with gorgeous shots of a washed out kind of early 1970’s California. I totally understand if someone isn’t too keen on the very hard to follow plot, but no one can take away from its beauty.
I host our Oscar Sunday podcast once a week and it’s been a blast to spotlight films that have been nominated by the Academy for about a year and a half now. Every 5th episode, we do a Best Picture showdown. We watch or rewatch all of the Best Picture nominees from a ceremony and then rank them. We did the 34th Academy Awards for episode 80 on December 12th and I started by checking out the Joshua Logan directed Fanny on Peacock. It’s honestly just not my kind of film. The 2 hour and 13 minute run time felt like four hours and I just don’t have much to say about it. There’s some pretty shots but goodness I was bored as hell. I don’t really recommend it unless you’re trying to knock out Best Pic noms.
After watching Fanny, my fiancé and I had some fun with Four Christmases which is underrated in my opinion. We own it and It’s on HBO Max and it has a ridiculous cast consisting of Vince Vaughan, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Mary Steenburgen, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau, Tim fucking McGraw, Dwight Yoakam, and Kristen Chenoweth. Seriously, what in the fuck? I adore the scene when Vince plays Joseph in a church play. It’s absurd!
I went back to my 34th Academy Awards homework after some Christmas fun with The Guns of Navarone from 1961. Directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring a wonderful cast of superstars from a different era like Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, David Niven, and Anthony Quayle, The Guns of Navarone is a 2 and a half hour World War II epic that hits hard. I enjoyed it quite a bit as I watched it for the first time on Netflix. The story is straightforward and well presented as a team of pretty much total badasses go on a wild mission in a time of total chaos in world history. I highly recommend it to fans of ensemble casts and fans of war films. Anthony Quinn is a force on screen and totally stole my fandom the same way he did in La Strada from 1954.
I stuck with my 34th Academy Awards Best Picture grind by watching The Hustler, which is a film I own and adore. I poured myself a nice glass of Hennesey, threw the disc in, and got lost in one of my favorite 60’s films of all time. Written by Robert Rossen and Sydney Carroll based on the novel of the same name by Walter S. Tevis and then directed by Robert Rossen, The Hustler is a brilliant story about a master pool player who goes on a journey of losing and winning that is simply a must see. Paul Newman is one of the biggest stars of all time and his performance as Fast Eddie Felson is maybe his best work ever. Jackie Gleason is wonderful as Minnesota Fats but it’s George C. Scott as Bert Gordon who provides a certain X factor type performance that always blows me away. Piper Laurie, Myron McCormick, and Murray Hamilton all give tremendous supporting performances and holy shit I just love The Hustler.
I took a break from 1961 after The Hustler and went back to my PTA marathon with Boogie Nights from 1997. I’ve seen Boogie Nights more than any other PTA film because it’s so fucking fun and easy to watch for me. There’s been countless nights in my past where I went out for drinks or a party and then went back home and put on Boogie while eating Whataburger or while making a grilled cheese with some Budweiser by my side. Nowadays, I have to watch films like this when my daughter goes to bed and I’m up late into the night being a total weirdo. It’s totally comfort food for me and I just don’t even know what to say about it at this point. I’ll try by saying that the soundtrack and the cast are sublime. The rise, fall, and last second redemption plot is at its finest with Boogie. I’ve owned it for a very long time, so I threw it on and went to a different dimension like I always do.
I went from a masterpiece to a forgettable Christmas film by watching Holidate with my fiancé at like 1 pm while our daughter was napping one day. It’s a Netflix film and my expectations were low so I wasn’t really let down at all. I laughed a couple times but I have already forgotten about 80% of the film. Emma Roberts plays the main character and I like her but she makes bizarre choices most of the time. Skip this one unless you enjoy mindless Christmas/Holiday themed rom coms.
My fiancé is a massive Marvel fan while I’m just kind of into it. She wants to keep up and see all the new films and shows they are putting out. One of the things I love about her is how she wants to include me in her passions which causes me to be more excited about watching Marvel films with her. She wanted me to watch Black Widow so she rewatched it while I finally checked it out on Disney+. It’s not bad at all and I really liked the performances from Scar Jo, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz. Marvel's best attribute is casting great actors and they did it once again with Black Widow.
I went from Marvel to intense World War II courtroom drama by watching Judgment at Nuremberg, which received 11 nominations at the 34th Academy Awards and is still just a hell of a film that I think any cinephile would love. The Stanley Kramer directed epic stars Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, William Shatner, and Werner Klemperer. It’s probably the very best and easily the most important courtroom film I’ve ever seen. Judgment equaled West Side Story in nominations but it only won two Oscars, which is a damn shame. If there’s a person who likes this film even more than me, it’s Filmgazm co-founder and Oscar Sunday co-host, Connor Eyzaguirre. He let me borrow his DVD of Judgment for our Best Picture Showdown episode. God bless.
After losing my mind over my Judgment at Nuremberg rewatch, I finally knocked out West Side Story, the fifth and final film I needed to watch or rewatch for our 34th Academy Awards Best Picture Showdown. It won 10 awards including Best Picture which makes it the fourth most decorated Oscar winning film of all time behind Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King all with 11. I own the Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise directed West Side Story so I just popped it in at night and enjoyed it quite a bit more on rewatch. The first time, I was just kind of let down but then I found new things to admire on the rewatch. It must’ve been a fucking blast to work on West Side Story, which deserves all kinds of technical praise for its attention to detail and unbelievable choreography. I still think the story is just boring because it’s been done over and over in annoying ways but the way it looks and flows is pretty great. Musicals are typically not my cup of tea so I get the admiration a lot of people have for it and I get that I see it as a good but not great film overall.
I used to be on our Filmgazm podcast all the time, but nowadays I just host Oscar Sunday and occasionally show up on Filmgazm and Sneak Preview. I was on episode 167, which focused on Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man from 2002 because we were focusing on all things Spider-Man in honor of the new film that came out recently. He’s easily my favorite comic book character and those Sam Raimi films hold a special place in my heart. My fiancé and I own all the Spider-Man films that have come out over the past 20 years, so we threw on the DVD and had a blast. It’s so damn entertaining and I suggest listening to that Filmgazm episode if you also enjoy the Human Spider.
I couldn’t help myself. We watched Spider-Man 2 right after the first one. Also, Connor and I couldn’t stop talking about both of the films on the Spider-Man episode as they both rock and can match up against any superhero film that has ever been made. The Raimi Spider-Man trilogy is on Peacock right now, but again we own all that shit so I put in the DVD at home and watched Alfred Molina steal my heart once again with my fiancé. Haha.
I watched those Spider-Man films the night before leaving for Los Angeles. Connor and I have always wanted to go there together and we finally did it. The day we got there, we went straight to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles which is stellar and then walked around on Hollywood Boulevard. That night, we ordered Greco's Pizza, which wasn’t stellar but it was a solid pie. We also watched a couple of films that were on TV. The first one was Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. In my opinion it’s just about as good as the first Home Alone and remains a Christmas favorite. It was playing on Freeform so we just sat back and laughed our asses off. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are just wonderful in those films.
After Home Alone 2, we went to TNT and caught Creed from 2015. Great film and we wound up watching the whole damn thing. Ryan Coogler is one of the better Hollywood directors around right now and Creed is an awesome follow up to Fruitvale Station from 2013. Coogler and Michael B. Jordan have a really cool chemistry that I hope to see grow as they both continue to flourish. I always get chills when they arrive at Goodison Park in Liverpool which is where Everton Football Club play their home matches and where Adonis Johnson takes on Ricky Conlan. It’s an epic finale to a really solid film.
I’ve mentioned my PTA December marathon a few times but none of those watches were as special as seeing his newest film, Licorice Pizza, in LA at the Fox Theater. It is a magical film that rightfully takes its place in PTA’s incredible filmography. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman are destined to grace the big screen with their unapologetic acting styles that are what we always look for when it comes to performances. I love that PTA is continuing the connection with the Hoffman’s by working with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son. The Fox is a terrific theater with one giant screen and a shit ton of seats. By having a single screen, each film that plays there is the most important thing happening in the building. It’s treated like an event which is how a lot of films should be treated and not only was the in theater experience amazing but then afterwards, there was a pop up Fat Bernie’s Pinball Palace, inspired by things that take place in Licorice Pizza. Connor and I had a fucking blast that night.
The day after visiting the Fox, we had the privilege of hitting up another theater that is to die for. It was Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema and that is the root cause for Connor and I wanting to go to LA together. When we learned about how simple it is to buy tickets and go to New Beverly, we just knew we had to go and it wound up being the last thing we did in LA. That night featured a double bill of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Scrooged. That’s a couple of late 80’s classics that are flat out hilarious. We sat there for about 4 hours and I think we had a sort of out of body experience just being there. It was a truly special night.
We got back to San Antonio on a Thursday night and then Friday night both Connor and I saw separate screenings of Spider-Man: No Way Home. I saw it at Santikos Silverado 16 with my fiancé, my older brother, and his wife. It was pretty surreal to see Marvel reveal a bunch of characters that have appeared in Spider-Man films over the past 20 years. It’s clearly Marvel's largest event since Endgame in 2019 and it was fun to be a part of a moment in the theater with fans going wild throughout the two and a half hour run time. Jon Watts has now directed a pretty legit Spider-Man trilogy. The ending of No Way Home is fantastic and much better than I anticipated. It was an experience I won’t forget.
After seeing Spider-Man on the big screen, I watched Into the Spider-Verse from 2018 on Vudu. We talked about it on episode 81 of Oscar Sunday and had a blast. It’s one of the most unique animated films of all time and it manages to straddle the line of being a kids film and a grown ups film perfectly. It won Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards and will get a sequel sometime in 2022. My favorite vocal performance from the film is Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker but nearly everyone is spot on. Especially Brian Tyree Henry, Mahershala Ali, Nicolas Cage, Kathryn Hahn, and John Mulaney. Shit, yeah everyone is great.
I went back to my PTA marathon after some Spider-Man action by watching Phantom Thread from 2017. I rented it on Vudu and got totally sucked into 1950’s London with Daniel Day-Lewis shredding his performance as Reynolds Woodcock. He’s frighteningly good as usual with great stuff provided by Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville as well. Phantom Thread is probably PTA’s slowest burning film and I can see why the pace would bore some folks but if you are a fan of his or films based around obsession and toxic relationships then it’s for you. It’s incredible that he can go from something like Boogie Nights to Phantom Thread within a 20 year span.
One of the main reasons PTA is my favorite director of all time is that Magnolia is my personal favorite film of all time. I know there’s more complete films out there, even within his own filmography but nothing stuns me like Magnolia. It’s got so much shit going on and I get this intoxicating feeling when the film is mentioned. It’s on Netflix, but I own it so I watched it late at night by myself and fell in love all over again. Every time I watch it something stands out even more and this time it was Aimee Mann’s soundtrack that plays heavily throughout. She fucking rocks and compliments Jon Brion’s score exquisitely. The ensemble cast somehow got exactly what PTA had in mind which allows it to soar like a god damn eagle all three hours. Magnolia is a film that could’ve gone completely off the train tracks and it definitely does for some viewers but for me, I feel right at home.
I mentioned much earlier that I was going to rewatch every PTA directed film in preparation for his newest release, Licorice Pizza. That is very true but it also came in handy for episode 82, which focused primarily on The Master from 2012. It is very possible that The Master is his best overall film and gosh I adore it. It is also on Netflix and I also own this one so I watched it late at night just like I do with most of PTA’s work. The day after watching it, Connor and I recorded the episode and talked about all things Paul Thomas Anderson. It was great to let loose and explain why he’s my personal favorite director of all time and it was even better to watch all nine of his films within one month.
I followed up The Master and my PTA jaunt with some unfamiliar territory. A territory I will be revisiting very soon, like probably in January. Kar-Wai Wong’s Fallen Angels from 1995 is on the Criterion Channel and holy hell it’s an experience. I was enthralled mostly by Wong’s directing style and Christopher Doyle’s cinematography. The film was shot pretty much entirely in the night time with this gorgeous wide angle way up in the actors faces, giving you an unforgettable look at Hong Kong’s underground crime scene. I will definitely be visiting this film again at some point and like I said, Wong’s other works are on my radar now.
I went straight back to familiarity after Fallen Angels because it was Christmas Eve and I knew I had to watch my favorite Christmas film of all time. Batman Returns is a gem I’ve owned since I was a teenager, but of course the wonderful HBO Max has a shit ton of Batman content so it can be seen on there. Returns is definitely my favorite Christmas film and live action Batman film due to the absurdly good production design and off the wall performances from Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Christopher Walken. I don’t think anyone will ever match Tim Burton’s wacky Gotham which is just way better than what we’ve seen this century for me.
After Batman Returns I went to bed and woke up for a nice Christmas day and then my fiancé and I watched Don’t Look Up on Christmas night when our daughter went to bed. It’s a weird one that I still don’t really get. I get the plot and what Adam McKay was going for but I’m not sure who the audience is supposed to be. With a ridiculous cast consisting of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, and Timothee Chalamet, it’s hard to be the satire political film that it wants to be. Some moments were really good, in fact I enjoyed the first hour quite a bit. It’s on Netflix and I do think it’s worth watching but don’t expect a masterpiece.
Connor gave me access to his VUDU account a good while back and it comes in handy every now and again, due to his pretty fucking awesome library that has tremendous range. My fiancé and I used it to watch the newest Venom film which hit theaters in early October of 2021 and made a hefty amount of money at the box office. I’m honestly one of the few people that genuinely likes both Venom films. I like the first one a bit more but Let There Be Carnage is also fun even though neither film is on par with the superhero stuff Marvel has put out the past few years. It’s cool to see Andy Serkis direct a film like Venom: Let There Be Carnage after a long career of doing the work people don’t praise enough.
I finished December and 2021 off with a couple of Nora Ephron written rom coms. Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed and When Harry Met Sally, which was directed by Rob Reiner. I watched them both in preparation for episode 83 of Oscar Sunday which focused on When Harry Met Sally. The episode was a blast and it’s always nice to watch some Ephron action because she was a fucking dynamite writer. I definitely enjoy When Harry Met Sally more but they are both worth watching. Sleepless in Seattle is on Amazon Prime and I own When Harry Met Sally.
33 total films averaging out to an 8.24 overall rating for December, 2021
First time Watches- 10
Rewatches- 23
Streaming Service Counter
Amazon Prime- 2
Criterion Channel- 2
Disney+- 1
DVD/Blu Ray- 14
Netflix- 3
Peacock- 1
The ROKU Channel- 1
Theaters- 4
TV Movies- 2
Vudu- 3
Top 5 December Watches
5. The Master
I love every one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films but I really loved watching The Master this past time more than ever because it was the base film for our Oscar Sunday episode 82. It was honestly an honor to talk about why I enjoy it so much and pick awards for it. An easy 10 out of 10 kind of film that will be in my life forever.
4. Spider-Man: No Way Home
The rest of these are in theater watches. That won’t always be the case, but December was extra special. The hype and expectations surrounding No Way Home was met and even better than we all thought it could be. Marvel is the only way we can experience that wild sensation of seeing something with a packed theater and people cheering throughout its run time. It was my first time visiting Santikos Silverado 16 since I was maybe 12 years old, so that added to the nostalgia factor and got me interested in going back for other films.
3. Scrooged
Ahh, good ol' Scrooged. What a fun fucking film that I got to see with one of my best friends in the whole world at Quentin Tarantino's New Beverly Cinema. That was a night I’ll never forget…
2. Christmas Vacation
Scrooged is great, but I definitely like Christmas Vacation a bit more and that was the first film of the double bill that we saw at New Beverly. I can’t wait to go back to that theater one day as it sits at the very top of the most unique and wonderful theaters I’ve ever been to.
1. Licorice Pizza
There’s just nothing that can beat seeing PTA at work inside a theater in Los Angeles. The Fox theater was quite different from New Beverly but similar in the way that both theaters treat the film like the most important thing that is happening. It was so cool to see Licorice Pizza during its select theaters run because I’m so used to living in Texas and getting films late. It is an experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life and the film itself is damn good. Gosh, I love PTA.