I watched 119 films this year. That's definitely the most I've watched in one year. In 2013 I saw 100. The films were a mix of rentals and streaming, in the cinema, and festival screenings. Below are the posters for all but a couple that I couldn't find, or skip below them to a straight list of the films. Below is the list broken up into months. The italicized titles were some of my favourites. January 01. Scooby-Doo: AbracadabraDoo 02. The Fog of War 03. Breathless 04. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance February 05. M 06. Searching For Sugarman 07. Moon 08. Slacker 09. Following 10. Queen of Versailles 11. A Serious Man 12. Howl 13. The Lego Movie 14. The Artist 15. The Kids Are All Right March 16. Martha Marcy May Marlene 17. Dallas Buyers Club 18. 127 Hours 19. Like Father, Like Son 20. Brokeback Mountain 21. Thief 22. The Getaway 23. The Wolf of Wallstreet 24. Short Term 12 25. American Hustle April 26. Captain America: The Winter Solider 27. Inside Llewyn Davis 28. The Grand Budapest Hotel 29. In The Loop 30. Nebraska 31. Super 8 32. In Your Eyes 33. Boy 34. Mon Oncle Antoine May 35. Hot Docs - Shield and Spear 36. Hot Docs - The Writer With No Hands 37. Hot Docs - See No Evil 38. Hot Docs - Walking Under Water 39. Hot Docs - Focus On Infinity 40. Welfare 41. Lost Heroes 42. TCAF - The Killing 43. A Touch of Sin June 44. Pick Up On South Street 45. ORF - Enemy 46. ORF - Bad Words July 47. ORF - Locke 48. Veronica Mars 49. Cabin In The Woods 50. ORF - Ping Pong Summer 51. ORF - Frank 52. ORF - 20 Feet From Stardom 53. Snowpiercer 54. ORF - The Grand Seduction 55. Boyhood August 56. Guardians of the Galaxy 57. ORF - Chef 58. Edge of Tomorrow 59. Koyla 60. Only Lovers Left Alive 61. Christie Pits Film Festival - Rear Window 62. TIFF - The Little Death 63. TIFF - The Vanished Elephant 64. TIFF - 1001 Grams 65. TIFF - The Tribe 66. TIFF - Sunshine Superman September 67. Her 68. TIFF - The Judge 69. TIFF - October Gale 70. TIFF - Elephant Song 71. TIFF - The Riot Club 72. TIFF - The Imitation Game 73. TIFF - Maps To The Stars 74. TIFF - Out of Nature 75. TIFF - Song of the Sea 76. TIFF - '71 77. TIFF - Monsoon 78. TIFF - Adult Beginners 79. TIFF - Bang Bang Baby 80. TIFF - Before We Go 81. TIFF - Gentlemen 82. TIFF - Men Who Save The World 83. TIFF - A Little Chaos 84. TIFF - Hill of Freedom 85. TIFF - Atlantic 86. TIFF - What We Do In The Shadows 87. Museum Hours 88. In A World October 89. True Grit 90. Coherence 91. Harvey 92. Jaws 93. Frankenstein 94. Poltergeist 95. Bride of Frankenstein 96. The Wolf Man 97. The Thing 98. The Invisible Man 99. The Mummy 100. The Creature From the Black Lagoon 101. The Devil's Backbone 102. Sun Don't Shine 103. The Bird With the Crystal Plumage 104. The Orphanage 105. Paranormal Activity November 106. Criss Cross 107. Under The Skin 108. The Bicycle Thief 109. Red Obsession 110. Hey Bartender 111. Citizenfour 112. The Italian Job 113. Particle Fever December 114. Page One: Inside the New York Times 115. The Godfather Part II 116. Fargo 117. Force Majeure 118. Interstellar 119. Birdman The only films I had previously seen on this list were Fargo, Cabin In The Woods, and Rear Window. Outside of festival screenings I saw a lot more films in the cinema than I usually do, this year it was 16. I started off the year with a Scooby-Doo film, which is something I've done for a few years now. My year ended with a batch of Netflix films because I only just signed up for Netflix in November. This was the second year where I watched scary/classic horror films in October. June was the month I watched the least amount, which makes sense as it's a very busy work time for me every summer. It was a pretty great year of film watching, a fun mix of big action blockbusters, indie dramas, art house and festival stuff, some great noirs and old classics. Only a handful of disappointing films, really.
There's still a lot of films from 2014 I want to see and some from 2013 I haven't seen yet, plus a ton of classics I'm still missing. There's some TV shows I'd like to check out too, which will take away from film watching time, along with a bunch of books I want to read, and, you know, all that writing I have to do! So onward into 2015!
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I set out to read two books each month this past year and I hit that goal, reading 24 books in total. This was the year I really got back into using the library and checking off random books that have been on my 'to-read' list for awhile. Here they are below in order of my reading. I started off with a collection of short stories by Scott Snyder, whose comic work I really love. The second book I read, Map of Time, was one of the most disappointed reads I've had in a while, same with Fall of Hyperion. The first book, Hyperion, was great, unique sci-fi, but I found the sequel really boring. Embassytown by Mieville was amazing and a great exploration of language and linguistics, really freaking original, and only the second book of his I've read. I'll have to read more next year for sure. I read some random books I didn't know much about, like Arctic Rising, Fair Coin, Angelmaker - all really enjoyable reads. The Twenty-Year Death was a fun throwback noir story. I read a Joe Hill book for the first time and it was enjoyable. I dug into The Luminaries this past summer and liked it a lot, great settings and mood and a fun variety of characters. David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks was my favourite read of the year, but all of his books usually are. I've been working on my young adult novel so I dug into a few, House of Secrets, which I didn't like at all and felt it really needed an editor to reign it in and sharpen the characters, and Boundless by Kenneth Oppel, which was great as all of his books are. The editor of my novel recommended I read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, since my story is about an adventure. Jules Verne's novel is a classic for a reason, it's so great, full of exciting scenes and speculation. Chandler's The Long Goodbye is the only book this year that I've read before. I've read all of his books a couple of times now and it had been about ten years since reading this one and it was even better than I remembered. Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn was a great followup read, really cool look at a unique character in detective style of story.
I'm currently reading Donna Tart's The Goldfinch, but it'll take me into 2015 to finish it since it's long and this time of year is busy. I've got a long list of books to read in the new year, but with lots of things happening next year I'm not sure how many I'll get to. Hopefully a handful at least! On top of these books I also read a lot of comics each week. I might post about them later this week or next. Curious about what's been going on in independent Canadian music this past year? You're in luck! Toronto's Adam Bradley, a programmer for the Wavelength Music Series, has assembled a list of a hundred essential Canadian songs released in 2014. Check them out now because the year's almost over and 2015 will bring another hundred more. Canadians put out great music.
Woke up to find two new reviews of Hogtown Spirits. The blog All-Comic gave the book four stars and Omnicomic gave a nice detailed look at the book, with some much-deserved attention on Barb's art and layouts. Read Omnicomic's review of Hogtown Spirits here.
"...a book that manages to delve into quite a few emotions...presents the subtle beauty of music against a backdrop of a town teeming with ugly personalities." - Omnicomic Grab the book at Comixology or Gumroad and let us know what you think! Pop culture writer Josh McCullough and the fine folk at We The Nerdy interviewed me about my new noir one-shot comic Hogtown Spirits. You can read Josh's great review of the comic here and then head here to check out my ramblings about the story's influences, working with Barb, and what might be next in the city of Hogtown. The interview page has links to buy the comic or just head to Comixology or Gumroad to read it.
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