The Signal Watch: Movies 2021

Well. I watched, for me, *a lot* of movies in 2021. A number of things contributed to this.

1. My teams were incredibly bad. The Chicago Cubs decided to implode in late-June/ early-July, then trade away many of their franchise players. At some point, we just stopped watching the Cubs, which gave me back like 12 hours of screentime per week. The UT Longhorns football team did, uh, did not meet expectations, which gave me back my Saturdays in the Fall.

2. We did a lot of Watch Parties. It was fun! But it locked me in to many, many Friday and Tuesday nights with a fresh movie.

3. We did a bunch of podcasts.

4. I didn't watch a lot of new TV shows. Ted Lasso, sure. But I wasn't actively seeking new stuff and was happy watching movies instead of committing to a TV series.

5. I mean, I didn't have a job for a few months. Friends, that certainly frees you up.

6. I don't have kids. Turns out when you don't have kids, you can do whatever the @#$% you like.

If you like, review the spreadsheet on your own. I could probably break the numbers down more - but, no.

So.

How Many Movies Did I Watch?

I watched 302 movies.

For comparison:

Percentage increase from prior years:

2020: 12.27%
2019: 48.04%
2018: 68.72%

Genre

I'm always tweaking and simplifying genre, because, honestly, it's tough to categorize movies and it's kind of pointless. Everything is a mish-mash of genre. Some Superhero films are animated. Some Drama films are probably something else. And Comedy is always in the eye of the beholder.

But, still, I wouldn't want you to get lost in a Blockbuster Video. And, yeah, it's kind of interesting to give a broad sketch of what I'm watching. Interesting to me, anyway.

Action/ Adventure: 21

Animation: 6

Comedy: 49

Documentary: 14

Drama: 27

Holiday: 5

Horror: 52

Kids: 5

Musical: 15

Noir: 71

Sci-Fi: 23

Superheroes: 14

I'm stunned at how little Superhero stuff I watched. But, numbers don't lie. And that's waaay more comedy than I recall watching in years past. But I kinda think a good laugh in the middle of crumbling democracy and the second year of a pandemic is understandable. A smaller surprise was that I watched a ton of noir. It *felt* like I did, and, yes!

Decade

Y'all know I think of movies as something you pull off the shelf like books at the library. So, we tend to watch movies from the 1930's to today. In other years we've dipped into the 1920's and 1910's, but not this year.

Anyway...

1930's: 10

1940's: 41

1950's: 38

1960's: 16

1970's: 32

1980's: 54

1990's: 32

2000's: 17

2010's: 24

2020's: 38

Format

How did I catch these movies? After all, I didn't hit the movie theater even once in 2021. Well, we live in a bold new era.

Amazon 108

BluRay/DVD 35

CBS All-Access 1

Criterion 3

Disney+ 16

Google Play 1

Hallmark 3

HBOmax 30

Hulu 3

Netflix 11

Peacock 4

Pop 1

Shudder 6

TCM 75

Television? 1

YouTube 4

I'm not really surprised by the Amazon, HBO or TCM numbers. I am surprised how little I watched on Hulu and Netflix, which I think we use more for streaming TV programs. Shudder I turned on twice during the year for a month each time. I don't subscribe to Pop, but somehow it popped up when I was trying to watch something via YouTubeTV.

I am not making the most of my Criterion subscription, I can tell you that.

I do still collect physical media. I have my perfectly cromulent reasons for doing so. So, yes, I did watch a lot of movies on disc format.

First Viewing

Several years ago I realized I'd watched more movies for a second or more times than I had watched new-to-me movies. I don't mean "new movies" (we'll get to that), but there are tens of thousands of movies since the dawn of cinema. So, yes, many I will see for the first time no matter what year they saw release.

Of 302 movies, I managed to watch 180 new-to-me movies and 122 were not new-to-me.

Anyway, that's 59.6% of the movies watched which were new to me. I'll take it. Especially when you think, hey, that's one more movies than what I watched in total in 2018.

Somehow the only movie I think I watched twice all year was Hausu, the 1970's psychedelic horror film.

Speaking of...

For the PodCast and Watch Party

Hey, sure I do some sort of post about every movie watched, but some of this is social. (Demented and sad, but social.)

For the PodCast: 44 movies

For watch parties (hosted by both me and Jenifer): 53

So, yeah. 97 of the 304 movies were done with other folks one way or another.

Of the 122 repeat viewings (see above category):

27 were for a PodCast
25 were for a Watch Party

for a total of 52 of 122 non-first viewings having a particular reason we watched them.

This also means that

for the PodCast - 17 were new movies to me
for the Watch Parties, 28 movies were new to me

Actual Kind-of-New Movies

I was stuck at home, so I'm calling these movies "new" if they basically came out at the end of 2020 or in 2021. But, yeah, apparently I watched 35 "new" movies this year, which shocked the hell out of me.

That's roughly 11.59% of the movies we watched that were "new". In a year where I wasn't in a movie theater, it's okay.

That's It Til Next Year

There is no way in hell I'll ever watch that many movies again in a year. I think. And I posted, podcasted or watch partied all of them. It's a part-time job, man.

Anyway, thanks for sticking with us, I guess? I mean, if you're still here at this late date and don't care for what I'm up to, I can't help you.

But do feel free to use this blog to answer questions like "Have you seen INSERT MOVIE?". Because I've been tracking everything I've watched for quite some time now.

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Sunday, January 2, 2022

Movies 2021 - By the Numbers