The next couple of entries probably aren’t going to be of any interest to anyone except me — and isn’t it cute that I think any<\/i> of my entries are of interest to anyone except myself? — but these are housekeeping-type things that I feel obligated to do in order to satisfy my own OCD-fueled mania for lists and historical accounting, and I need to do them pretty damn quick, too, since the first month of 2011 is already gone. Anyhow, if for some reason you are interested in reading on, here’s everything on which I wasted my meager leisure time during the previous year…<\/p>\n
\nBooks Completed in 2010:<\/b>
\nNot a bad reading year with 22 books completed, roughly the same as in 2009, and just about the same breakdown, too: six non-fiction, two graphic novels (that’s a fancy comic book to the uninitiated), and the rest mostly trashy paperback entertainments. Hey, I like what I like, and I don’t feel the need to apologize for it today. Tomorrow may be another story, but today, I’m secure in my own tastes.<\/p>\n
It was kind of a strange year in that so much of it was devoted to a single series, Charlaine Harris’ delightful Southern Vampire Mysteries, but these books are fast, addicting reads of the type where you just don’t want to leave the vivid, likable characters when you finish one, so you immediately have to pick up the next one. They’ve all blurred together in my mind so I couldn’t tell you what happened in which volume, but they were definitely the high point of the year.
\nHere’s the rest of the list with occasional comments:<\/p>\n
And speaking of movies… Movies Seen at Home in 2010:<\/b> *<\/b> indicates a repeat viewing, i.e., something I’ve seen before. My reason for those notes — aside from just satisfying my own obsessiveness, of course — is to make a point to a couple of people who have questioned whether it’s worth having a big DVD collection, as opposed to just renting or watching everything on demand or whatever. Basically, I’m trying to demonstrate that I do<\/i> watch things from my own library, and I do<\/i> watch movies more than once. It isn’t simply a “collecting mindset” that causes me to buy all these shiny discs. Oh, and just to make a further point to these same people, I’ll also be marking the movies I watched on VHS cassette<\/i>… Yeah, baby, I’m an iconoclast!<\/p>\n Final total: 46, 21 of which I’d seen before, 24 of which I own, five of which were VHS. Just in case you’re keeping track.<\/p>\n And finally: And there you have it, another year’s pointless entertainment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The next couple of entries probably aren’t going to be of any interest to anyone except me — and isn’t it cute that I think any of my entries are of interest to anyone except myself? — but these are housekeeping-type things that I feel obligated to do in order to satisfy my own OCD-fueled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,24,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-studies","category-the-bookshelf","category-the-glass-teat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMovies Seen in a Theater in 2010:<\/b>
\nOnly one fewer than I saw in 2009, but the count nevertheless feels<\/i> like a major drop-off to me. Partly there weren’t that many films I wanted to see desperately enough to go out for them, and partly I just plain don’t have the kind of discretionary time I once took for granted, but whatever the reason for my lifestyle change, it seems almost inconceivable that entire months can now pass without a trip to the movies. My 21-year-old self, the one who worked as an usher and later projectionist for the multiplex, would be flabbergasted. Hell, so is my 41-year-old self. Anyhow, the list:<\/p>\n\n
\nI liked this far more than I expected to, largely because of the chemistry between Robert Downey, Jr., and Jude Law. I still despise the herky-jerky editing style, but at least it was used sparingly and to somewhat good effect in this one.<\/li>\n
\nWell, it had a broader color palette than the first one.<\/li>\n
\nA more accurate title: Dances with Wolves with Blue People<\/i>. Way overrated and not nearly the transformative cinema experience so many claim it is. But then, I always thought the same thing about The Matrix<\/i>, too, and look how many folks went gaga for that thing..<\/li>\n
\nWhat does it say about 2010 that the best film I saw all year was actually released in 2009? What does it say about me that a story about a broken-down has-been who’s made a complete shambles of his life resonated so strongly with me? Seriously, I can’t recall having such a powerful reaction to any movie in ages.<\/li>\n
\nI knew next to nothing about the titular band going in, so while I’m sure the movie plays fast and loose with the facts, and it’s really only about two of the band’s members (Cherie Curie and Joan Jett, to the exclusion of Sandy West and Lita Ford), I enjoyed it. I’m a sucker for these musician biopics anyhow, the performances were good, and I thought the movie captured the look of the pre-disco ’70s rock scene really well.<\/li>\n
\nI liked it. A bit messier than the first one, yes, but Downey pulls it off, and it’s just plain fun, something damn few of the oh-so-serious summer flicks these days manage. So there.<\/li>\n
\nAnother one that surprised me. Despite my usual “remakes suck” philosophy, I thought this one worked pretty well, and Jackie Chan broke my heart in a scene where he breaks down talking about what happened to his wife and child.<\/li>\n
\nI remember enjoying it. That’s about all I remember about it, though. Disposable.<\/li>\n
\nAnd I’m finished with these. Thank you, Anne, for releasing me from my obligation to go with you to the next one.<\/li>\n
\nAgain: I remember enjoying it, but that’s it.<\/li>\n
\nGreat Saturday-afternoon movie. The entire cast rocks in a slight but fun action flick, and Helen Mirren especially is a delight.<\/li>\n
\nIt’s a Harry Potter movie. At this point in the series, they’re not even trying to make them accessible for newcomers, and I think they’ve gotten better for it. Looking forward to the conclusion this summer.<\/li>\n
\nYes, I’m talking about the Chevy Chase classic from 1989, which I have of course seen many times. My account team at work rented a theater for our holiday party and screened this. Great fun to see it in a theater again; I still remember the exact moment I used to swing the auditorium doors open as the end credits began. (I was an usher at the time this was playing.)<\/li>\n
\nI hope to write in more detail about this one, but the short version is that I liked it much more than I expected to. As I expected, it was in many ways a remake of the original TRON<\/i>, but it respected the source instead of pissing on it. Jeff Bridges was good, as always.<\/li>\n
\nMore Jeff Bridges. 2010 was definitely the year for him. I run hot-and-cold on the Coen Brothers, and don’t always get what they’re up to. This was possibly their most commercial film (at least out of the ones I’ve seen), and I thought it was their best one to date. Utterly engrossing, authentic, and moving. Bridges is excellent again, as is Matt Damon and young Hailee Steinfeld. The affected language got a bit tedious in places — I’m pretty sure people used contractions in the 1880s! — but this was a minor complaint. Great flick.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\nWhile my theater-going has been way down the last two years, I’ve more than made up for it on the homefront. I won’t comment on these individually, since we’re running very long here, but I will make a couple notations:<\/p>\n
\n+<\/b> indicates something I own; everything else came from Netflix or was borrowed from friends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
\nTV Shows Viewed on DVD in 2010:<\/b><\/p>\n\n