My Ten Favorite New-to-Me Movies of 2019

Happy New Year!!!

In 2019, I watched 102 movies.  Not 102 separate titles, as I am a major re-watcher, but I sat down and watched a movie 102 times. T'was a happy year.  As always, I'm here with a retrospective in the form of a list of the 10 new-to-me movies I liked best this past year.  Titles are linked to my reviews where applicable.

1. Midway (2019).  Faithful, dazzling, elegant presentation of the early Pacific Theater of Operations during WWII, from the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, through the Battle of Midway June 4-7, 1942.  I love this movie so much, I've put it at #14 on my list of my 100 favorite movies.  I've seen it in the theater four times now, and I'm aching to see it again.

2. Captain Marvel (2019).  This movie is just plain, unadulterated fun.  A woman (Brie Larson) learns the truth about her identity and sets about undoing all manner of injustices she was an unwitting part of.  Yes, it's a superhero movie, but it speaks to the universal longing for self-knowledge and finding your true place and purpose.

3. Avengers: Endgame (2019).  I'm okay now.  I was not okay after Avengers: Infinity War (2018), but I am okay now.  The Avengers have triumphed.  The saga is basically complete, and I will tentatively be interested in the MCU going forward, but I might be okay just letting the story be done here for me.  We'll see.

4. Captain Carey, USA (1949).  An OSS agent (Alan Ladd) gets betrayed to the Nazis while on a mission in Italy.  When the war is over, he goes back to seek vengeance for the death of the woman he loved, only to discover that much of what he thought he knew about that fateful night was a lie.  Ladd is the best part of this movie, but it's still a solid watch even if you're not his fan.

5. The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017).  Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) needs money.  And he needs his career to stop fizzling.  And he needs these grumpy characters in his head (especially Scrooge, played by Christopher Plummer) to cooperate.  And he needs people to stop pestering him so he can just write his next book.  I was WAY more charmed by this movie than I expected to be!

6. Up (2009).  Cute kid and grumpy old guy and funny dog have an adventure.  This movie made me cry a lot.  Pixar does that well.

7. 17 Again (2009).  Middle-aged guy (Matthew Perry) thinks his life would have been so much better if he'd only fulfilled his potential as a basketball player after high school.  Then he gets turned back into his 17-yr-old self (Zac Efron) and sees his life in a whole new light.  I thought this movie would be dumb, but wound up totally digging it.

8. Dodge City (1939).  A cowpuncher (Errol Flynn) becomes a lawman so he can bring law and order to Dodge City.  And also to gain the respect of a woman (Olivia de Havilland).  My first Errol Flynn western!  Won't be the last, I assure you.

9. The Thin Man Goes Home (1944).  Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy) visit Nick's hometown, where he gets no respect, no respect at all.  But he does get to solve a mystery.

10. How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019).  Every story has a ending, including Hiccup and Toothless's.  This movie also makes me cry, but I like it anyway.  So do my daughters.  My son hates it.

Special Mention: They Shall Not Grow Old (2018).  Peter Jackson's haunting presentation of WWI that transcends the documentary genre.

What wonderful movies did you discover this year?  Did you see any of these?

If you want to see my lists from 2014 through 2018, there are links to them at the bottom of my "Ten Favorites Lists" page.

Here's to a new year of watching movies!

"Moana" (2016) -- Initial Thoughts

Yes, I've finally seen this!  Squeezed in one last new-to-me movie before the end of the year :-)

Overall, I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it.  I might have loved it if we hadn't had twenty minutes of nonsense in the middle of it -- that crab did not need a song-and-dance routine, and those coconut critters were pointless.  But the middle and the end were good.

And Dwayne Johnson was hilarious.  Even with just his voice present, he was still the best part of this movie.  Like he is with every movie.  In fact, of the 11 things I've seen him in, the only one he wasn't the best part of was The Mummy Returns (2001), and that was his first movie, so let's all cut him some slack on that one. 

Know what else I really dug about this movie?  That Moana was strong-willed, but not rebellious.  I mean, you could boil this movie down to "royal daughter disobeys father to follow dream," and it would sound just like The Little Mermaid (1989), which I hate.  Because Ariel is a foolish, rebellious child, and everyone acts like she's a great heroine.  No, she's not.  So yeah, that's a hard thing to portray, being strong-willed without being rebellious and defiant.  I think the difference is, Moana isn't selfish.  She's not following her dream because doggone it, that's what SHE wants!  And she needs to get what she wants!  Nope, she disobeys her parents in order to save her people.  Also, you know, she's an adult and a leader, and she's doing what leaders are supposed to do: make hard choices and lead by example. 

Anyway.  Yeah.  I wouldn't mind watching this with my kids sometime, and a second or third viewing might bump it up in my estimation.  Especially if I can fast-forward through a couple chunks of the middle.

"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" (2019) -- Initial Thoughts

Thanks to my intense feeling of ho-hum-ness regarding The Last Jedi (2017), I went into Rise of Skywalker with very few hopes.  Aside from the hope that it would make sense of this trilogy, if possible.

And happily, it did make this trilogy make sense.  Honestly, it's no worse than the prequels.  Not better either, overall, even though The Force Awakens (2015) was awesome.  I mean, I guess that does make it better than the prequels, since none of them were awesome, though I liked Revenge of the Sith (2005) enough to go see it three times.

Overall, I found this movie emotionally satisfying, and I'm good with that.  I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it, and I feel like that's a win.

Anyway.  Um.  Spoilage below, as I'm mostly just going to talk about the things I did like, and the one thing I loved.

OBVIOUSLY, the one thing I loved was Han Solo (Harrison Ford) appearing to his son in a... vision?  Dream?  Imagining?  thing.  That scene, I loved so much, I could see myself watching this movie again just for it.  Everything there pleased me.  Ben Solo (Adam Driver) echoing his words from the moment he killed his father in The Force Awakens, but meaning something totally different with it.  Him not being able to tell his father he loved him, but Han saying, "I know," and we all know what he means by that.  Ben flinging his lightsaber into the sea. (At which point, I was like, "CRAP!  All of a sudden, I like him, and now he's gonna die.  Phooey.")

Also, I really dug Ben Solo willingly, knowingly, deliberately spending himself to bring Rey (Daisy Ridley) back.  It completed his redemption arc, and I'm pleased.

I like that Leia (Carrie Fisher) was an active part in bringing her son back to the light side.  Her using all her life force to save Ben nicely foreshadowed him doing the same to save Rey.  I like that sort of thing.  And I reeeally liked the flashback of Leia training to be a Jedi with Luke when they were young.  That was nifty.

Also, Poe (Oscar Isaac) was really hot in this.  I don't remember him being this hot before.  Yummy.

Finn (John Boyega) felt a little shunted off to the side at times, but him meeting up with other former Storm Troopers and bonding with them was excellent.  And I love that he and Poe got to just hang out and have adventures together again.  I missed that so much in The Last Jedi.

Honestly, I saw this before Christmas, well over a week ago, and my memories on it are fading.  I went to see Midway again yesterday (twice!), and that's what most of my mind is focused on.  But I promised a few people I'd write up my thoughts on this, so... now I have :-)

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen! (And Why I Love Persuasion So Much)

It's Jane Austen's 244th birthday!  To celebrate, I'm burning a candle from Floating Starlights, I shared a pretty candy-cane-inspired picture of Austen-related books on Instagram, and it just so happens that my latest Femnista article is all about my favorite Austen novel, Persuasion.  You can read that right here.

How are YOU celebrating Jane Austen today?

Winter 2019/20 To-Do List

I've got lots of things I want to do between now and the end of February!  How about you?  And man oh man, it's almost mid-December already.  That cold really pushed a lot of things to the side for me, including posting this list.

Anyway, here are the things I want to do over the next 2 1/2 months:

~ Finish the second draft of One Bad Apple and be editing it

~ Read 3 titles for my Classics Club list

~ Read 6 books off my TBR shelves

~ Read 3 books from the library

~ Watch 5 movies off my TBW shelves

~ Go see A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

~ Go see Frozen II

~ Go see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

~ Go see Little Women

~ Go see Dolittle

~ Go see The Call of the Wild

~ Go see An American in Paris (1951) on the big screen, via TCM & Fathom Events

~ Finish decorating for Christmas

~ Get my Christmas cards sent

~ Finish wrapping gifts in time for them to get opened

~ Finish the Christmas skirt I started making last year

~ Make Christmas dresses for my daughters' 18" and 14" dolls

~ Host a Ukrainian Christmas shindig at our house

~ Repaint my kitchen

Okay, that's plenty to keep me hopping, don't you think?  Especially over the next couple weeks...

I'm Not Dead Yet!

Just a little timely levity from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).

I've had a cold.  Not the worst cold I've ever had, to be honest, except that it knocked me off my feet for about three days straight. I can't remember ever being this tired when I didn't also have a newborn around.  So, so tired.

But today, I'm back to feeling like I can do more than the bare minimum required to keep my kids happy and healthy.  Which means... blogging :-)

Mainly, I'm here to tell you I've had another article about homeschooling published by Blest the House.  It's called "This is How We Do It," and it's all about our typical school day routine.  If that sounds interesting to you, you can read it here.

In other news... I'm still tired.  I'm still not quite better.  But I hope to be soon.  Because the only Christmas decorating I've done so far is to put up our tree and decorate it, and That Is Not Enough.  So I'm hoping that this weekend will be a whirlwind of decorating and general festivity and cheer.

How are you faring this December?  Egad, it's the 11th already.  Christmas is two weeks from today!  It's a good thing I shop early!!!  I'd be soooo behind right now if I didn't...

This is How We Do It -- Article at Blest the House

I've got a second article called "This is How We Do It" posted here on the homeschooling blog Blest The House today.  This one is part of a series of homeschool families sharing what their daily school routines look like.  If you're curious about what a day in our house looks like, check it out!