I’d be lying to say this wasn’t a trying year. I could go on and on but let’s just say we finally got COVID after bobbing and weaving for over two years, and then Warner Bros. decided to personally hurt me by canceling Batgirl, all within a couple of weeks. But let’s not dwell on that, if for no other reason than when was the last time any of us had a year that wasn’t trying.
There was good stuff to look to for the year as well. While I’ve spent the last couple of months giving my metabolism a bit of a reset (I’m off my diet, that’s what I’m trying to say), I can still fit into skinny pants, and if that’s not a win, then I don’t know what is. (I may, in fact, not know what winning is.) Burnout hovered over me like a rainstorm over Truman Burbank, but I played through. Grad school proceeds apace, with grades which would leave a younger me thinking I had been replaced by some kind of pod person. I’ve even managed to find a career path amidst this crazy exercise which is more than a little bit impractical, and really the kind of thing I should have been chasing down decades* ago.
Lora, Eris, Z, and I have continued our journey through the final frontier on The Holodeck is Broken, and we’ve even tweaked the format a little bit, so we’re not obligated to do the show for the next eighteen years. Eris and I did a complete run of Friendibals from beginning to end, from one Red Dragon to… the last time they did a version of Red Dragon. And the strangest, most surprising development in the podcast world is that not only after a two-year hiatus did I rejoin Donna and Kenzi on Beyond the Cabin in the Woods, but the show made its new home here on the site.
I published The Once and Future Orson Welles. Which, given the years full of false starts on that one, is a thoroughly weird reality in which to live. I started a new novel, got about 32,000 words into a draft before I realized it was a) boring, b) convoluted, and c) entirely too derivative of The Last Starfighter (1984) for its own good. It was only after I realized that Starfighter thing that I decided to throw in the towel. C’es la vie. I’m now about 9000 words into another novel, and its coming together nicely. Considering how long TOAFOW took, I’d definitely jinx myself if I tried to explain it any further. All in all, I wrote 213,341 words this year, a record to be sure, even if most of those words are destined to wither on the vine of OU’s Canvas servers.
Plus, I spent most of the summer watching old episodes of Siskel & Ebert, and enjoying it far more than I should have had any right to.
I usually hate best-of lists at the end of the year (although watching Gene and Roger duke it out over their annual lists remains a delight), but here are, in no particular order my top five favorite new movies of the year.
Again, in no particular order, save for the fact that EEAAO takes the number one spot. It was hard to whittle it down that far. Admitting that movie like Confess, Fletch or even Halloween Ends weren’t quite top five material. It also ignores the fact that on New Year’s Eve I watched Glass Onion, loved it, and haven’t yet written a review of it. I had half a mind for a moment to rank every new movie I saw this year, but the prospect threatened to bring me to the brink of madness. But, yes Firestarter—for all its improvement over the original—would have been dead last.
And, finally, we come to the books I’ve read this year. I finally did it, getting to 100 books read for the entire year (I got so close in 2021). Yes, some of them (c) are comic books, ahem, graphic novels. Yes, (several) some of them are (a) are audio books, or books Lora read to me. Yes, some (several) of them are based on media franchises with either the word “Star” in them. How I managed to finish the novelizations for both Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends this year, I’ll never know.
Raise the Dawn
Managerial Leadership for Librarians
Executive Orders (a)
All About Me (a)
Halloween Kills (novelization)
Legends of the Dark Knight Vol. 1 (c)
Superman 78 (c)
All the King's Men (a)
Live and Let Die
The Last Picture Show
The Passage of Power (a)
The Once and Future Orson Welles
Jim Henson - The Biography (a)
Lugosi: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Dracula (c)
Silence of the Lambs
Imzadi
Sphere (a)
Revenant (a)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (a)
Batgirl Vol. 1 The Darkest Reflection (c)
Street Gang (a)
Living Memory (a)
Twice Upon A Time (a)
The Untold Legend of the Batman (c)
The Outsiders
The Path to Power (a)
Macbeth
Hannibal
Moonshot (a)
Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli (a)
2001: A Space Odyssey
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (a)
Brinksmanship
The Dark Side of Genius (a)
The Organization of Information
The Hunger Games (a)
Hocus Pocus (a)
Hannibal Rising
First Blood (a)
Moonraker (a)
Bubba Ho-Tep
Catching Fire (a)
Four Screenplays
Means of Ascent (a)
Diamonds are Forever (a)
Batman: The Golden Age, Vol. 1 (c)
The Catcher in the Rye
2010: Odyssey Two
The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite (c)
The Godfather (a)
Batgirl - Vol. 2 (c)
Life Itself (a)
Dragon's Honor
Batman 1989 Comic Adaptation (c)
Batman Returns (c)
Batman '89 (c)
Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol 3 (c)
Mockingjay (a)
From Russia With Love
DS9: Too Long a Sacrifice (c)
Looking for Information
Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management
Your Movie Sucks
Gone With The Wind (a)
Confess, Fletch (a)
FADE IN: The Making of Star Trek Insurrection
Ayoade on Ayoade (a)
Captain Proton: Defender of Earth
Dr. No (a)
Believe Me (a)
The Lost World
A Man on the Moon (a)
Timequake (a)
Second Self (a)
Ready Player One (a)
Directed by James Burrows (a)
Fletch (a)
I Must Say (a)
The Persistence of Memory
Queen of the World (a)
The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History (a)
Star Trek Picard - Stargazer (c)
Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin (a)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (a)
Octopussy and The Living Daylights (a)
Halloween Ends (novelization)
Post Office (a)
Fan Fiction (a)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (a)
Embrace Your Weird (a)
Bluebeard (a)
Pinball Wizards
Jaws (a)
Carioca Fletch (a)
Star Trek (09) (novelization) (a)
Nitrate Won’t Wait
Star Trek: Lower Decks (c)
A Long Time Ago, In a Cutting Room Far, Far Away (a)
Introducing RDA - Volume 2
100.Fletch and the Man Who (a)
I guess that’s objectively not a bad year, despite any setbacks. I suppose if we can get only one film next year in which Michael Keaton is Batman, I’d be willing to dare thinking this decade isn’t a complete lost cause. I was promised at least three Batmen this year, and instead only got one for my troubles.
* I disappeared into a column of dust a la Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) typing that particular word.