Cinema 365: A Year of Film

On New Years Day, 2022, I arrived home from my Corporate Coffee Job, deflated and dissatisfied. After a year of creative burnout and exhaustion from working two jobs, I decided I needed to shift gears, get this New Year going with some good vibes. So, I did what I normally do whenever I'm feeling down: I put on a familiar, favorite movie. After a little deliberation, I chose Hayao Miyazaki's seminal masterpiece, Sprited Away.

As I settled into Miyazaki's cozy fantasy world, I relfected back the previous year: working nonstop between two jobs, commuting to different ends of the city everyday, a litany of half-finished projects, and not much time to watch movies (even though I worked at a movie theater!). "Man, if only I could watch a movie everyday," I thought to myself. That thought was quickly followed by a parallel inquiry: "Wait, why can't I watch a movie everyday?!". It was certainly in the realm of possiblity. I was leaving my Corporate Coffee Job in a couple weeks, so a lot more freetime. And watching a bunch of new movies just might be what I needed to shake off my creative funk. Besides, I love movies! Why would I ever turn down watching more movies?

So I decided to throw down the gaunlet: in 2022, I would watch 365 movies, one for everyday of the year. I laid some ground rules: I didn't have to literally watch a movie everyday, I could skip days where I was busy and just couldn't fit a movie sesh into my schedule. Just as long as I hit 365 movies before the year was out, I was golden. I could double up (or sometimes triple up) the movies I watched in a day in order to keep up with my goal. I also resolved early on that I don't necessarily have to finish every movie I start. I know, this might seem like a cop out, but sometimes, you're just not clicking with film at the moment, or it's late and you have to get up early tomorrow, or, let's be honest, sometimes the movie is just a stinker and you can't stand another minute, let alone another hour. In any case, as long as I watch at least half of the movie, I counted it towards my list. The next day, I wrote up a list of movies I wanted to watch this year and set out to see if I really could watch 365 movies in a year.

And now, a little over 12 months later, I can proudly say... I did it!! I really did it. Just an hour before the ball dropped and we rung in 2023, I rolled credits on Richard Linklater's hangout classic Dazed and Confused, my three hunderd and sixty-fifth film of the year. It was a strange, challenging, and entertaining experience. I watched so many movies (maybe too many movies), both new and old, some familiar classics, some new favorites.  Now that I've had a couple weeks to reflect on this journey, I'd like to share with you nine observations I had from this year of cinema:

1: The Blockbuster is Back!

The past couple years have been a tough time for theaters. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of streaming services, movie theaters have strugged to entice audiences back to the magic of the silver screen. But this year, we saw the release of so many big, bold, and brilliant blockbusters that demanded to be seen on the big screen. These were films epic in scope, showcasing exceptional filmmaking craft and talent across every department and from around the world, with visuals and sound that transported audiences to dizzying cinematic heights.

This year, daredveil superstar Tom Cruise and director Joseph Kosinski took us for the ride of a lifetime, bringing us inside the cockpits of real F-18 preforming ludicous arial maneuvers in the triumphant return of hotshot pilot Pete Mitchell in Top Gun Maverick. We saw a reimaginging of a classic caped crusader in Matt Reeves' The Batman, immersing us in a dark, grimy, noir-infused thriller that really puts the gothic in Gotham. Visonary director Baz Luhrmann reintrudced audiences to "The King" in his grandious and opulent music bio-pic, Elvis. Horror icon Jordan Peele showed audiences a new kind of big screen terror in his engmatic, yet equally entertaining, darkly comedic horror epic Nope. And after over a decade of anticipation, with the help of groundbreaking performance capture technology and stunning 3D visual effects, James Cameron took up back to the breathtaking world of Pandora for an unforgettable adventure in Avatar: The Way of Water.

But to my surprise and delight, some of the most riveting and revolutionay blockbusters of the year came from outside traditional avenues. From Tollywood and cellebrated filmmaker S.S. Rajamouli, in collaboration with South Indian superstars Ram Charhan and N.T. Rama Jr., RRR burst onto the scene this year to near universal adoration and raptourous praise. This gonzo and adrenline fueled historical epic (and when I say epic, I mean epic), supported by the two powerful leads, turns every element up to eleven (Action!! Meleodrama!! Dance!!) and delivers one of the most exhilarating and unforgettable theater experices of all time. And then, with about a quarter of the budget and quadruple the imagination of your average studio blockbuster, there is the action comedy sci-fi drama Everything Everywhere All At Once, one of the best films of the year. From the brilliantly wacky and oddly genius minds of The Daniels, comes one of the greatest cinematic wire acts ever seen, balancing outlandish humor, mindblowing action, and heartfelt family darma in a film that's both infinite and intimate in scope, with a brevy of phenomenal preformances, including the revolutionary return of Ke Huy Quan and the eternally excellent Michelle Yeoh.

So yeah, the Blockbuster is back, and better than ever.

2: A New Romance

Despite the resurgance of the blockbuster and as the year went on, I found myself drawn to a film genre I hadn't had much intrest in before: the romance movie. It all began, ironicly, with my viewing of the 1984 adventure comedy Romancing the Stone in late January. Micheal Douglas and Katheleen Turner's onscreen chemistry was impeccable and I greaty enjoyed their evolution from begrudging and bickering partners to a witty and charming couple.

So since then, I watch a whole host of love stories over the year, everything from rom-com staples (When Harry Met Sally, High Fidelity, Clueless), to foriegn affairs (In the Mood for Love, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Your Name). I had thought most romantic plotlines were nessicary evils in films, cliched additions forced in for the sake of tradition. But now I see, with a smart and heartfelt script and a pair of charismatic and compatable leads, I can get into a good love story.

3: Documentary Now!

There was another film genre that I found myself getting more into this year: documentaries. Now, I wasn't necessarily against documentaries in the past (when visiting my grandparents, I would sometimes watch one of the billion of WWII documentaries on the History Channel with my grandpa), they just were never my thing. But this year, I watched several fantastic docs that radically shifted my outlook on the genre.

One of the first being Flee, an animated documentary about a Afghan refugee telling his secret story of fleeing his home and his struggle for freedom and family, a flim both beautiful and haunting that absolutely shook me. I also really enjoyed Fire of Love, a fascinating film exploring the life and love of esteemed volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, and features some turly incredible footage of eruptions, lava flows, and various volcanic activity. I also saw a whole host of incredible music documentaries, including Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song, Rolling Thunde Revue, Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong Torres, and two brilliant Bowie docs (David Bowie: The Last Five Years and Moonage Daydream).

4: An Ode to Crowe

This year, Sam Rami returned to cinemas after nine years with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and to mark the occasion, I made it a mission to seek out as many of his films that I hadn't seen before as I can. The first of those was a film I had never heard of before: the 1995 western The Quick and the Dead. This was surprising to me because this film hosted an all star cast, including the likes of Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Tobin Bell, Lance Heriksen, Keith David, and even a young Leonardo DiCaprio. But the highlight of the cast was an, at the time, relatively unkown Australian actor making his Hollywood debut. His name is Russel Crowe and right from the start, he instantly proves he is one of the best actors of his generation.

In The Quick and the Dead, Crowe plays Cort, a former gunslinger turned preacher forced into a deadly competition against his will. From the get go, this preformance shows off some key aspects that will go on to define his carrer: a haggard, rough yet easy charisma and a careful balance of cool, controled calm and a firey rage with always a hint of emotional vurnability underneath. I thought this was a fantasic performace and throughout the year I watched many more of his movies, including revisiting some of his award-winning performance (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind) and also finally getting around to seeing some of his best films (LA Confidential, Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, The Insider). As well as his amazing dramatic roles, he is also a fantastic comedic actor, showcased exceptionaly in one of my favorite movies of all time, the 70's-set neo-noir buddy comedy The Nice Guys. I wouldn't say he is at all an underrated actor, but right now, I feel most people forget how damn good he is. I cernaintly did, but now I know better than to underestimate Russel Crowe.

5: My God, It's Jason Bourne!

Speaking of under-appreciation, we don't talk a lot about the cinema of the 2000's. Sure, we have nostalgia for 80's and 90's movies and recency bais towards films of the 2010's, but at the moment we seem to sweep the films of the Aughts under the rug. But there are some great films from that decade and right now I want to talk about three of them: The Bourne Trilogy. Yes, you might already know how awesome they are, but I only found that out this year after binging them over a weekend and and can confirm they are indeed awesome.

For those of you not in the know, The Bourne Trilogy (made up of The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum) follows Jason Bourne (played by the always great Matt Damon), a CIA assassin who loses his memory after a mission gone wrong and must go on a globe-trotting adventure to uncover his origin and the truth about Treadstone, all while his former employer hunts him down. These are incredlly tense and twisty espionage thrillers from writer Tony Gilroy and directors Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass, featuring great supporting preformances from Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen, and David Strathairn, and includes some of the most thrilling chases and the most brutal fight scenes ever put to film.

But my favorite part of these movies are what I like to call "evasion scenes", where Bourne has to navigate a large, densly populated area while CIA operatives attempt to track him down. While not as high octane as the traditional chase scene, it's just as engaging watching Bourne use his cunning and tactical prowess to singlehandly bamboozle the world's most powerful and advanced intellegence agency. There is nothing more exciting and entertaining than watching Matt Damon strategically speedwalk through a crowded European city, deflty avoiding enemy agents; meanwhile halfway across the world, a roomful of analysts are monitoring the situation and pouring over CTV footage as their boss paces in the back of the room yelling "Come on people! What's going on?! WHERE IS HE?!?"

6: Miyazaki don't Miss!!

So, up top I mentioned my first movie of the year was Sprited Away and when I started the challenge, I made it a goal to complete Hayao Miyazaki's filmography and finally watch all his movies that I never got around to seeing. There were only four I need to see: Porco Russo, Ponyo, Naussicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and My Neighbor Totoro (I know, I know, I can't believe it either). And now that I've watched every one of Miyazaki's film, I can now proudly report that they are all great, not a stinker among them!

Like, I had heard for years that Naussicaa wasn't that great, a little boring and uninspired. Well guess what: those idiots were wrong, this movie slaps!! It features one Miyazaki's most beautiful and fully formed fantasy worlds with amazing landscape, vehicle and creature design, charming charaters and exciting set pieces that elevate it above your typical fantasy story. The other three movies were incredible too; Porcco Russo is a fantasic swashbukling adventure featuring maybe possibly my favorite Ghibli protagonist, while My Nieghbor Totoro and Ponyo were both incredibly sweet and fun romps with gorgeous visuals.

7: The Odd Fantasy of the 80's

On the other hand, let's turn to the decade my parent's generation just can't seem to shut up about: the 1980's! They will claim everything about that decade was the best it's ever been, whether that be the music, the TV, the fashion, whatever it is it was better in the 80's (so they say). But I can tell you one thing that wasn't all that great: The big budget fantasy films.

One day at work, some guy came up to me and told me that The Neverending Story was his favorite movie of all time and changed his life. So I decided to to check it out for the first time and man I do not understand how this is an "80's classic". Sure the visuals are very nice at times, but the worldbuilding and characters are paper-thin and predictable and I found myself fighting sleep after only a half an hour.

It's a common theme across all these 80's fantasy films I watched: they often have some fantastic art direction, but they individual elements are all hapasardy thrown together around dull charaters and a cliched "chosen one" narrative. My favorites among them were Labyrinth and Willow mostly because they didn't take themselves to seriously and had an actual sense of humor that elevated the usually tired narrative. Also, putting Warwick Davis or David Bowie in any movie automaticlly makes it an all time classic.

8: Puppets, Muppets, and Gremlins, Oh My!

Another reason why I enjoyed Labyrinth much more than your average 80's fantasy flick was down to the work of a endlessly creative and innovative organization: The Jim Hensen Company and their amazing puppet they create. In today's day and age, dominated by CGI and motion capture preformances, we rarely see puppet anywhere in film and TV. But let me tell you, one of my favorite character in film last year was Sir Daidylmus for Labyrinth, a knight and little fox-like puppet guy who guards the bridge over the Bog of Eternal Stench. He is a fiesty little dude, so brave and overconfident he will throw himself at an entire army, jeering at them the whole time. Already a great character, but whe he calls his mount Ambrosious, who is just a normal sheepdog, and you watch this little muppet ride around on the back of this dog... just absolutely one of the most hysterical things I've ever seen.

That's the appeal of puppets: they are little dudes with big personalities. From the world famous Muppets in The Muppets Take Manhattan and A Muppet's Christmas Carol, to their distant stop motion cousins in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, these funky little guys are delightful. But my favorite of these films by far is the 1990 film Gremlin's 2: The New Batch. I watched both the original Gremlins and this movie for the first time, back-to-back this year and I love pretty much everything about this movie: the weird new Gremlin variants, all the strang quirks of Clamp Tower, Gizmo going full Rambo on that Spider Gremlin, Chrtistopher Lee, that brainy Gremlin voiced by Tony Randall; this movie has it all!!

9: Dark Room, Bright Screen

But while watching a metric ton of films was fun at times, I was surprised to find how difficult it was. Yes I know, I am about to complain for the next couple paragraphs about spending a year on my ass watching movies, but it really was a struggle at times. I'd miss somedays, so I'd have to watch a bunch of movies in a day even if i was tired and couldn't engage. And I'd watch so many movies they'd all blur together and I can't remember what I had and hadn't watched.

And why was I doing this in the first place? Just for the hell of it?! Was I just doing it for my own amusement?  If so, it was a fairly lonely experince, spending most of my time in my room, in the dark staring at the TV. Looking back, my favorite movie going experiences were with other people, whether that be cheering along in a crowded theater or laughing with friends on thier couch. I guess that's part of the reason why I started this site: to get out of my bubble and share my passion for film to the world.

So, the million dollar question: would I recommend watching 365 movies in a year? Sure, why not! It's solid way to get yourself to watch more films and discover new favorites. It is a struggle at times, so it's OK to take a day off every now and then. Find ways to mix things up, get your friends involved, and most importantly, have fun!!

If you want to see all 365 movies I watched in 2022, I made a Twitter thread on my personal account recording all of them that you can check out here.   And to wrap things up, in no particular order, here is an unranked list of 22 of my favorite movies I saw for the first time this year (not including 2022 releases, my Best of 2022 list will be coming at the end of the month!):

• The Firm
• Palm Springs
• Labyrinth
• The Bourne Trilogy
• Gremlins 2: The New Batch
• LA Confidential
• Short Term 12
• Columbus
• Blow Out
• Porco Russo
• Devil in a Blue Dress
• Master and Commander: Far Side of the World
• The Invisible Man (1933)
• When Harry Met Sally
• The Quick and the Dead
• The Talented Mr. Ripley
• The Sweet Smell of Success
• Clueless
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Chungking Express
• High Fidelity
• Willow