2011: My Film Blog Year in Review

At times I was disappointed in myself for watching forgettable schlock rather than "important" movies of substance, and I believe I did a better job of sticking to quality in 2011 than in the past. The movies I rated highest last year were Night of the Demon, I Walked with a Zombie, The Sting, and Frankenstein, legendary films all. In addition, I rated thirteen movies a 4.0, which is a lot for one year. And of these seventeen movies, only two had I seen before. So, I give myself high marks for including more good movies and not rehashing what I'd seen before. Good job, Fred!

Christmas frequently brings movies from my Amazon wish list, but this year it brought only one: Kentucky Fried Movie. I hadn't seen it since my bachelor party (seventeen years, by the way) so maybe it will be in our blog future. With the advent of Netflix on my life, personal copies of movies become much less important. What did come was far better: A Roku LT. What I needed was to be able to watch Netflix in the bedroom and this little box totally does that. In fact, it does a better job than my Wii. In addition, there are other "channels" that offer content, though nothing is nearly as exhaustive as Netflix. One that got my interest is a "private" channel (not found in the Channel Store) that streams the Internet Movie Archive. Soon I will review the first movie I saw this way. So, if you find a need to watch Netflix (or Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, or whatever) on another television, the Roku LT is totally worth the $50. I hope that doesn't sound too much like a commercial. I don't do advertising. Ever.

In my 2009 recap I listed the biggest surprises of the year (I didn't do a year in review after 2010 for the following well thought out reason: I forgot) and for 2011 I'd start with the first movie of the year: A Farewell to Arms. A frank story about war and sex that the Hayes Code disallowed for decades afterwards. In addition I'll list Night of the Demon, Diabolique, and To Be or Not to Be. As far as movies I saw in the theater, that's an easy list: None. I hope to double that total in 2012. Actually, the new Stooges movie has me intrigued.

What was the worst movie of the year? Without a doubt it is The Beast of Yucca Flats. I haven't seen many movies on the all time worst list, in fact I had only seen Santa Claus via MST3K on IMdb's bottom 100 list, but I can't imagine any movie with less entertainment value than the Beast. I rated five movies a 2.0 but I'll mention The Three Musketeers serial as almost unwatchable. Sorry Duke.

Now, when December began it was unthinkable that I wouldn't hit seventy movies. I missed the mark partially because something happened to the Blogger.com interface that wouldn't allow me to compose entries outside of the HTML interface. Well, they did eventually fix that and I got my last one in, but I have three more waiting. Besides, the last half of December is rather busy for me, this year more than usual.

Well, enough blah blah blah me me me for now. I hope to have more interesting content before the Aztec zombies raise from the grave to conquer the earth sometime in December. And maybe along the way a little movie education will slip into my head. It could happen.