<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, here are some of the highlights from 2018’s list.<\/p>\n

MOVIES<\/b><\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

The first movie I watched in 2018 was Foo-foo Dust<\/i>, 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<\/i>, which wasn’t as depressingas Foo-foo Dust<\/i>, but was<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n

The oldest film I watched this year was The Public Enemy<\/i> (1931), followed by Adam’s Rib<\/i> (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,<\/i> and several others. In all, I watched nineteen movies released in 2018.<\/p>\n

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<\/i>, They Live<\/i>, Valley of the Damned<\/i>, Used Cars<\/i>, Oklahoma!<\/i>, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?<\/i>. 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<\/i>, Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies <\/i>, Computer Beach Party<\/i>, and Jurassic City<\/i>. The worst modern films I watched were I Feel Pretty<\/i>, Fat Camp<\/i>, CHiPs<\/i>, and The Happytime Murders<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Finally, 21 of the movies I watched were documentaries, although I’m including reenactments like I, Tonya<\/i>, My Friend Dahmer<\/i>, and Moonshot<\/i> in that number. Muppet Guys Talking<\/i>, Three Identical Strangers<\/i>, and Won\u2019t You Be My Neighbor <\/i> were all fantastic documentaries that came out this year.<\/p>\n

TELEVISION<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

After discovering Will Forte’s quirky show The Last Man on Earth<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n

After watching season three of Twin Peaks<\/i> in 2017, this year it was back to Westworld<\/i> 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<\/i> 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<\/i> felt like watching ten confusing movies.<\/p>\n

This year I discovered The Goldbergs<\/i>, the 80s answer to That 70’s Show<\/i>, 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. <\/p>\n

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<\/i> every night. So far, I’ve made it through the first two seasons. Again, unlike modern sitcoms, the first two seasons of CHiPs<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n

BOOKS<\/b><\/p>\n

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<\/i>, Jesse James’ American Outlaw<\/i>, and the recently released 600 page opus, Beastie Boys<\/i>) and the other three were nonfiction. Next year, I’ll do better. Next year, I have<\/i> to do better.<\/p>\n

If there’s a consolation prize, it’s that I started Neuromancer<\/i> (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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

SUMMARY<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

What I watched and read in 2018: The Full List<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11699"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11715,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11699\/revisions\/11715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}