The Way We Were in 2017

Welcome to 2018 - time for one of my patented half-hearted year in review posts. I want to note that this was my tenth year operating this blog. This is my 1184th post. And I never seem to get better at it.

I don't have a top 10 list - I've always been terrible about those. I'll post my top movie of 2017, though: Bringing Up Baby, same as every year. I don't think we actually watched it this year, but that doesn't matter. Best is best.

Reviewing my viewing for the year, I see that we watched a fair number of "classic" movies. By "classic" I mean either "black and white" or "made before the studio system was broken up". It doesn't mean "high quality". It's what the Self-Styled Siren calls simply "old movies", but that could include anything made after, say, 1992.

Anyway, we've watched good, or at least interesting, old movies, mostly crime (noir or noir adjacent) and horror. This is a good strategy because they are often short, so you can watch them when you're pressed for time and they often come two or even three on a disc.

For crime, I'm going to nominate Decoy as best of year, because it is so WTF, right up to the ending. Also for Sheldon Leonard as Jo Jo Portugal.

For old horror, the 8-pack we watched in October really pushed the numbers up. But I think my favorite was The Devil Commands, Boris Karloff as a perfect mad scientist.

We watched some non-classic horror as well, but mostly horror-comedy, due to my sensitive nature. I'll nominate Night of the Creeps for best, but the two versions of Fright Night are a close second (original) and third (remake).

It seems that we watched a bunch of Shakespeare, although maybe no more than usual (3-4/year). I'll put Branagh's wacky  Loves Labour Lost at the top of the list.

We didn't watch as many foreign films as maybe we should have, but we saw some samurai movies. The best was probably Harakiri. I also saw Drunken Angel for the first time, but (although directed by Kurosawa), it is not a samurai.

For the rest, we saw a lot of the usual remakes, sequels, reboots, comic book, and car chase movies, often in combination. We regret nothing - we enjoyed almost all of them - even Suicide Squad. The ones we liked best had something that was missing in too many movies in general: fun! Movies like Gaurdians of the Galaxy II and Spider-Man: Homecoming were filled with joy. When Drax does something stupid and glorious and then throws back his head and laughs, you can't help but laugh along.

Best DVD purchases of the year? Probably the three Marx Bros. movies I picked up in used CD/DVD stores: Animal Crackers, Night at the Opera, and Night in Casablanca. Casablanca may not be top-shelf Marx Bros., but it has some good stuff, including Harpo playing Liszt on the harp. It was our first movie of the new year.

Oh yes, and our New Year's cocktail was a Mai Tai:

1/2 oz. lime juice
3/4 oz. orange juice
1/2 oz. triple sec
1/2 oz. Frangelico
2 oz. dark rum
splash of prosecco
Garnish w/ cherry

Cheers!