Another year’s over… and a new one just begun. In years past, I’ve done a seperate post for my 2021 Reading Retrospective and 2021 TV & Movies Retrospective, but… that seems silly. Let’s do them all together this year!

In summary:

• 126 total books: 40 graphic novels, 52 audiobooks, and 8 short stories / children’s books)
• 24 seasons of TV shows
• 31 movies
• 2245 (!) plays across 207 different board games, 88 of them new to me!
• 45 different games played on Steam, 29 of them new to me

I really should add board games and Steam games to my lists. Not sure how to do that though. We’ll see.

Table of Contents

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An almost 100 year old movie, based on a story likely at least a century older, combining aspects of stories who knows how old, animated for the modern (of the time) movie going audience. It’s the beginning of a truely delightful era–that of the Disney animated classics. While they’ve certainly got their problems (the rather traditional gender roles and Disney’s ongoing copyright battles to name a pair), they’re still something elegant and innocent about them and Snow White is no exception.

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Whelp. That’s one major tear jerker of an intro. And it doesn’t even need words.

The rest of the movie is a pretty fun romp of an adventure as well. The old man, too old for this crap / young boy just trying so very hard to do the right thing is great; the talking collars and how dogs think is hilarious; and the adventurey bits are solid and almost too exciting (depending on the age of the viewers).

A solid Pixar, well worth watching.

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Guy: I know this world is just a game, but this place, these people, that’s all I have. So I’m not gonna be the good guy. I’m gonna be a great guy.

Molotov Girl: [inhales] Wow, enjoy your lifetime supply of virginity.

Ryan Reynolds plays Ryan Reynolds playing a guy named Guy in a game–but he doesn’t realize it. It’s… a lot of fun. Once you get the basic idea, you’ve got pretty much the entire plot, but it’s fun and well done.

Worth a watch.

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Laundry and taxes. Hotdog fingers and Raccacoonie. Googly third eyes and sex toy fueled kung fu fights. The truest everything bagel there ever was.

Well that was a delightfully weird movie.

If anything at all of that sounds interesting (especially the weird part) and you haven’t seen this movie yet, go see it. Don’t spoil it. I’ll wait.

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I’ve never actually watched any of the Land Before Time movie. They just didn’t really come up in our childhood. On watching them now with my own children–I see why they exist and why some children would get absolutely stuck on them.

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Thor was probably the most underwhelming of Phase 1, Thor: The Dark World tried to go more fantasy and was mostly forgettable, and Thor: Ragnarok was a blast. Getting better all the time, so … what about Thor: Love and Thunder?

Good question. There’s a lot to love about the movie: Hemsworth’s sense of humor, Portman back and then some, Thompson’s awesome and slightly awkward Valkyrie. And of course Bale plays a solidly terrifying baddy in Gorr.

On the other hand, there is a lot of movie to get through here, probably more than a bit too much. A cancer plot, succession jealousy, a threat spanning across the Galaxy (or at least the gods thereof)–heck, the idea that gods are just a thing now, Thor unpacking even more trauma. It’s a lot to put into a single movie and it doesn’t quite work. It’s still a solid enough flick, but not nearly up to what Ragnarok did.

Still, pretty impressive for the first 4th solo outing in the MCU. Because that’s a thing we can say now.

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So. That’s what what you get if you take a director best known for his horror movies¹ and let them loose in the MCU.

I like it. 😄

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Always interesting when a series decides to go back and do a prequel. For this though, given that we’re specifically dealing with centuries old immortals (especially ones killed in the previous films, thus not exactly available for any more sequels), there’s certainly room for it.

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