Christmas has come and gone, a new year arriving today. Hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating last night… but not too much fun, eh? Here in the movie blogosphere, a new month means it’s time to take a look at the past month in viewing… so let’s get to it!

New-to-me viewings: 23

Re-watches: 10

Total for December: 33

Total for 2015: 329 (Full year wrap-up coming soon!)

The new-to-me list:

  • The Christmas Card (2006)
  • Christmas Crush (2012)
  • The Ballad of Shovels & Rope (2014)
  • Seven Sweethearts (1942)
  • Flesh and the Devil (1927)
  • Lured (1947)
  • Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943)
  • Brooklyn (2015)
  • The Mysterious Lady (1928)
  • The Constant Woman (1933) (aka Hell in a Circus)
  • Cattle Town (1952)
  • Apartment for Peggy (1948)
  • Polly of the Circus (1932)
  • The Christmas Party (Short, 1931)
  • The Gay Deception (1935)
  • Make Mine Mink (1960)
  • Bundle of Joy (1956)
  • The Temptress (1926)
  • Larceny, Inc. (1942)
  • Julia Misbehaves (1948)
  • Key to the City (1950)
  • The Accursed (1958)
  • Escape Me Never (1947)

A pretty good month, with 33 total viewings and 23 of them new-to-me! Ten re-watched films is a high number for me, but several of them were viewings for blog posts — Remember the Night for my Eight Days of Christmas series, and East of Eden for an upcoming review of The Complete James Dean Collection DVD set, just to name a couple.

Viewing methods:

  • At the cinema – 1
  • DVR (non-TCM) – 2
  • From my collection – 10
  • Hulu – 2
  • Internet Archive – 1
  • Netflix Instant – 2
  • TCM/WatchTCM – 11
  • Warner Archive Instant – 4

A new category here this month — Warner Archive Instant! I signed up earlier this week and have already watched a handful of films, as well as building a queue of about 70 films. My viewing schedule for 2016 is looking pretty full with the addition of this streaming service! I had been putting off a subscription after doing a trial of the site in its infancy, but was finally lured in after browsing the site again and realizing just how many of their titles are unavailable on other streaming services.

By decade:

  • 1910s – 0
  • 1920s – 3
  • 1930s – 4
  • 1940s – 9
  • 1950s – 5
  • 1960s – 2
  • 1970s – 0
  • 1980s – 1
  • 1990s – 0
  • 2000s – 6
  • 2010s – 3

I watched a total of 10 films released after 1970 and 23 films released before 1970 — so, a little over two classics for each modern movie. Or, to put it in different terms, about 70% of my viewings were of classic films. A good variety of decades this month, with the 1940s taking the top spot at a total of 9 viewings.

Entertainment-related books read in December:
  • Stay Tuned: Television’s Unforgettable Moments by Joe Garner
  • Cagney by Cagney (James Cagney’s autobiography)

The month in blogging:

December is usually a pretty crazy month for just about everyone. It seemed like a very busy month for me but apparently it wasn’t too busy, since I managed to watch over 30 films!

The holidays did keep me somewhat busy, but I’ve had a nice little break from school work. With my master’s graduation on December 12 (which I celebrated with a review of the librarian-centric film Desk Set), I was highly motivated to get all of my final assignments done before walking at the graduation ceremony. I managed to turn in my very last assignment as an MLIS candidate on December 11 and have been home free since! That gave me a lot of time for viewing in the second half of the month. On a related note, two more semesters for a technology certificate and I’ll be done with school forever, which is surreal.

December is, of course, a month for holiday celebration. Since I personally celebrate Christmas, I chose to bring back a series first appearing on TMP in 2013: “Eight Days of Christmas,” which is just what it sounds like — eight days of reviewing Christmas films. This year’s films were The Bishop’s Wife, Boys Town, Miracle on 34th Street, Bundle of Joy, A Christmas Wish, Beyond Christmas, Remember the Night, and It’s a Wonderful Life. All reviews are linked in the blog’s Index page.

Also to celebrate the holidays, I joined Aurora of Once Upon a Screen’s #PayClassicsForward movement, sharing “12 Days of Classics.”

My entertainment-related reads for the month are listed above, and I also shared some bookish love on the blog. The month ended with a review of After All by Mary Tyler Moore, one of my favorite memoirs. I had drafted the review in 2014 after reading the book for the first time, but had never added it to the schedule! So here it finally is, over a year late, proving that even a blogger dedicated enough to post every day makes blogging mistakes, haha. I also reviewed The First King of Hollywood, Tracey Goessel’s stellar biography of Douglas Fairbanks.

Finally, I must extend another thank you to The Old Hollywood Garden for nominating TMP for a Liebster Award in December. I don’t blog for the awards, obviously, but this reminder that others appreciate the effort I put into TMP was a delightful thing to end 2015 with.

Happy new year to all, and happy viewing!