2013 Movies - NO top ten list!

There will be no top ten list this year. It's going to be a top five. Two reasons why.

How I spent my summer vacation.

The first is that I didn't see nearly as many movies. I was still pretty busy planning two new curricula in the spring, so I only saw a few of the big movies. And then I was in Europe for almost seven weeks in the summer. When school started again, it took a bit to get going. I've been catching up for the last few weeks, but not enough. While I usually see 40-50+ movies, I saw 23.

The second is that the movies I saw just weren't as good. Quite often I have a top ten that I'm happy with, then a few runners up that might have made it. This year, I have five movies I really liked. I have a few more that were all right, but I just don't think they make it to a top list. The rest? Meh.

I'm trying to do a little catching up on missed movies via Netflix, but first I only count movies I saw in the theaters, and second, they aren't that great, either. I recently caught This is the End and Pacific Rim, two movies that I likely would have seen in the theaters if I hadn't been on vacation. This is the End had some funny stuff, but it was skip worthy. Pacific Rim would make a top ten list of movies that might cure my insomnia. It was a three nap movie.

One of my favorite movie going experiences didn't count. I saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at the Paramount last Friday night. It was the first time I had watched it all the way through in a long, long time. It turns out that it's a great movie to watch with a crowd that loves the movie. Everyone laughed at the funny parts, laughed at the cheesy parts (plenty of those), laughed at Grandpa Joe's tobacco addiction that is ruining in family, and cheered for Veruca Salt with every tantrum. And for the most part, people didn't sing along.

So tomorrow I'll write about the movies I didn't pick, then start the top five countdown on 1/1 as usual. With only five days, there's no way I miss a day, right? It's not like I would ever finish a blog project later than scheduled.