With the essential end of non-Zoom socializing, I had originally thought that I’d play a lot more video games and read more novels. In the end, game playing was about even and I only read a few more novels than normal. What I really ended up doing was watching a ton of movies, both classic and contemporary, “serious” and for fun. Indeed, my best purchase when this all started was a subscription to the Criterion Channel. Now that we’re at the one-year anniversary of the pandemic, I thought I’d revisit what I’ve watched. Those films in bold are the ones I simulwatched (almost weekly now for an entire year), with my close friend, the art historian Jessica Fripp:
- The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
- Snow Trail (1947)
- Drunken Angel (1948)
- Les Misérables (2019)
- The Big Heat (1953)
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
- Foreign Correspondent (1940)
- Evangelion: Death and Rebirth (1998)
- End of Evangelion (1997)
- In a Lonely Place (1950)
- The Lighthouse (2019)
- Police Story (1985)
- Birds of Prey (2020)
- Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
- Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014)
- A Cat in Paris (2010)
- Anatomy of A Murder (1959)
- I Kill Giants (2017)
- The Nice Guys (2016)
- Of Human Bondage (1934)
- The Odd Couple (1968)
- The Man Who Knew Too Much (1952)
- Fatal Attraction (1987)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
- Sanshiro Sugata (1943)
- John Wick: Chapter 3 (2019)
- The Watermelon Woman (1996)
- Overlord (2018)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2018)
- The Vast of Night (2020)
- My Own Private Idaho (1991)
- Purple Noon (1960)
- But I’m a Cheerleader (1995)
- My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
- Hamilton (2020)
- Ad Astra (2019)
- Dick Tracy (1993)
- The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
- Starship Troopers (1997)
- The Old Guard (2020)
- Hail Caesar (2016)
- Clueless (1995)
- Black Girl (1964)
- Double Indemnity (1944)
- Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
- The Bad Seed (1956)
- The Squid and the Whale (2005)
- Saboteur (1947)
- Inception (2010)
- Do the Right Thing (1989)
- Where is the Friend’s House (1987)
- Possessed (1947)
- Dr. Strange (2016)
- Le Samouraï (1967)
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
- A Fish CAlled Wander (1988)
- Gohatto (1995)
- Practical Magic (1998)
- Macbeth (2010)
- Weathering with You (2019)
- Grand Hotel (1932)
- Midsommar (2019)
- Mildred Pierce (1945)
- Hocus Pocus (1993)
- Cabaret (1972)
- Under the Skin (2013)
- From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)
- Beetlejuice (1988)
- The Godfather (1972)
- Taste of Cherry (1997)
- Easy A (2010)
- Pitch Black (2000)
- Jupiter Ascending (2015)
- Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy (1981)
- Xanadu (1980)
- Trouble in Paradise (1932)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
- Stranger by the Lake (2013)
- The Searchers (1956)
- The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)
- A Simple Favor (2018)
- Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
- Black Panther (2018)
- Diabolique (1955)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
- Rashomon (1950)
- Citizen Kane (1941)
- The Parallax View (1974)
- Mangrove (2020)
- Yentl (1983)
- Prince of Tides (1991)
- The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
- Ghost in the Shell (1996)
- Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
- Lady Snowblood (1973)
- Pierrot le fou (1965)
- Wolfwalkers (2020)
- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
- Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)
- Tenet (2020)
- Stray Dog (1945)
- The Princess Bride (1987)
- Kill Bill Vol 2 (2004)
- Wanda (1970)
- Willow (1988)
- Mr. Klein (1976)
- Time Bandits (1981)
- Les Dames du bois de Boulogne (1945)
- Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
- Stardust (2007)
- Red, White, and Blue (2020)
- Midnight Cowboy (1969)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
- L’Avventura (1960)
- Ministry of Feaar (1944)