This month, I returned to blogging. It’s been a soft return. I published one interview with playwright and performer, Carolyn Ratteray. One interview in the entire month is a far cry from when I would publish at least three interviews a week. It might be a minute until we get back to that pace but slow and steady is just fine with me.
Aside from that, I’ve been enjoying listening to audiobooks and watching movies as I race to watch as many nominated films as I can during award season. There’s what, 3 or 4 awards ceremonies next month? If you’re new to the blog, I absolutely LOVE the IFC Spirit Awards. I love the Emmys, Oscars, and Golden Globes, yes, but the Spirit Awards are my favorite. I believe the Spirit awards have been around since ’84 and I’ve seen half of the ceremonies, which are a breath of fresh air compared to the more A-list shows. Aside from it being completely unfiltered and not limited by time, it’s just a more intimate reminder and appreciation of the scrappiness in filmmaking which completely gets lost in the sauce at the bigger shows. So yeah, I am excited, as I am every year for the Spirit Awards!
But did y’all see all of the discourse about those Oscar snubs? Yeesh. For a whole lot of people who claim that Hollywood awards don’t matter, they sure cared this time. And then completely overshadowed America Ferrera’s first nomination by asking her how she feels about her white co-stars being snubbed. Give me a break. I wish Greta got nominated for Best Director too but let’s get a grip here. The Globes also needs to add a Dramedy category. I’m thrilled for The Bear‘s success so I ain’t mad at them. The Globes needs to get it together though. Okay, enough awards chatter, let’s get to the rest of my January…
TV
Wolf Pack (Paramount+) was cancelled and I can’t say that I’m surprised. I enjoyed the show for what it was but had a feeling no one else was really watching the show. American Born Chinese (Disney+) was cancelled. If you haven’t read the graphic novel by Gene Yang from which the show is adapted, please get it and read it. It’s fantastic. I’m really bummed the show didn’t get 1-2 more seasons to explore this world but again, ratings. I don’t think they were there. The first season of Echo (Disney+) was everything and cemented itself as one of my favorite Marvel TV shows. Please watch this show if you haven’t yet!
Movies
Now before I tell you how many movies I watched this month, I want to preface it by saying that I am freelancing from home at the moment, so it is fairly easy to knock out movie after movie. That said, I’ve watched 39 movies / documentaries this month and you can see my watch log on Letterboxd. My favorites? The Holdovers, Wish (saw in theaters, not yet streaming on Disney+), STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie, Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, and The Greatest Night in Pop. It seems the winners on top this month were documentaries. I finally got around to seeing a number of docs that had been on my list for awhile along with Netflix’s latest doc about the making of “We Are the World.” Overall, time well spent! I still need to see a handful of movies before the Oscars but I don’t think that’s going to happen in time this year so it is what it is. Onward!
Books
I read 16 books this month, most of which were audiobooks, which is definitely the only reason why I was able to get through all of these this month. THE NEW ONE by Evie Green is an adult sci-fi thriller that follows a family whose teenage daughter gets into a car accident and is on death’s door, so her parents clone her. Only problem is, the daughter doesn’t die. If that sounds good to you, I would recommend watching the movie Dual (streaming on Hulu) which stars Karen Gillan (Doctor Who, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jumanji). My favorite read this month was Thunderhead by one of my favorite authors, Neal Shusterman. I put the book off for years because I just do not want to leave this universe. I know there’s two more books in the series but I just want it to go by as slowly as possible because I can only read these for the first time once. I’m trying to hold onto that for as long as I can. Read the first book in the series, Scythe if you haven’t yet. So that’s my first month of 2024. I’d say that was a very productive first month!
What did you watch and/or read and enjoy this month?