Greg McElhatton

Once again, I went and tracked how many movies, books, and graphic novels I saw/read over the course of the year. Last year’s tally had me at at 31 movies, 21 books, 1 fiction magazine, and 124 graphic novels. This year? 31 movies, 24 books, 13 fiction magazines, and 110 graphic novels. Two increases, one decrease, and one exactly the same. Not bad overall… And now, let the counting start all over again!

Movies:

1. True Grit
2. Rabbit Hole
3. Another Year
4. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2011: Live Action
5. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2011: Animated
6. The Illusionist
7. All About Eve
8. Cedar Rapids
9. Source Code
10. Scream 4
11. POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
12. Bridesmaids
13. Potiche
14. Meek’s Cutoff
15. Midnight in Paris
16. Super 8
17. X-Men: First Class
18. The Future
19. The Prestige
20. The Help
21. Griff the Invisible
22. The Debt
23. Weekend
24. The Skin I Live In
25. Martha Marcy May Marlene
26. Le Gamin au Velo
27. The Deep Blue Sea
28. The Descendants
29. Shame
30. Hugo
31. Young Adult

Books:

1. Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder
2. The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
3. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
4. Last Summer by Michael Thomas Ford
5. Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
6. Shopgirl by Steve Martin
7. The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa
8. This Is NPR: The First Forty Years by NPR
9. The Diary of a Dr Who Addict by Paul Magrs
10. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
11. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
12. Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia by Samuel R. Delany
13. The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee
14. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
15. Going Bovine by Libba Bray
16. Twinkle Twinkle by Kaori Ekuni
17. D.C. Noir edited by George Pelecanos
18. Homemade Living: Canning & Preserving with Ashley English: All You Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More by Ashley English
19. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
20. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee
21. The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
22. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
23. Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy edited by Ellen Datlow
24. Bob the Book by David Pratt

Fiction Magazines, Chapbooks, and Zines:

1. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #23
2. Lightspeed Magazine, January 2011
3. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #24
4. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #26
5. Lightspeed Magazine, February 2011
6. Fantasy Magazine, March 2011
7. Fantasy Magazine, April 2011
8. Lightspeed Magazine, March 2011
9. Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011
10. Fantasy Magazine, May 2011
11. Lightspeed Magazine, May 2011
12. Fantasy Magazine, June 2011
13. Lightspeed Magazine, June 2011

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Once again, I went and tracked how many movies, books, and graphic novels I saw/read over the course of the year. Last year’s tally had me at at 20 movies, 20 books, and 123 graphic novels. This year? 31 movies, 21 books, and 124 graphic novels. The “just one higher” for the last two categories was a happy accident, really…

Movies:

1. Avatar
2. Invictus
3. Alice in Wonderland
4. Greenberg
5. How to Train Your Dragon
6. Iron Man 2
7. Please Give
8. The City of Your Final Destination
9. Micmacs
10. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
11. Winter’s Bone
12. Toy Story 3
13. Despicable Me
14. Inception
15. The Kids Are All Right
16. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
17. Salt
18. Christmas in Connecticut
19. A Letter to Three Women
20. Easy A
21. Heartbreaker
22. Never Let Me Go
23. Waiting For “Superman”
24. The Social Network
25. Red
26. Fair Game
27. Certified Copy
28. Tangled
29. Black Swan
30. The King’s Speech
31. Somewhere

Books:

1. Havemercy by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
3. Hapworth 16, 1924 by J.D. Salinger
4. Aye, and Gomorrah: And Other Stories by Samuel R. Delany
5. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
6. Blackout by Connie Willis
7. Ash by Malinda Lo
8. Twelve Stories by Paul Magrs
9. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
10. The City & The City by China Miéville
11. Stealing Fire by Jo Graham
12. Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison
13. Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney’s Humor Category ed. by Dave Eggers
14. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
15. Second Line by Poppy Z. Brite
16. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa
17. The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff
18. Soulless by Gail Carriger
19. Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson
20. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
21. All Clear by Connie Willis

Fiction Magazines, Chapbooks, and Zines:

1. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #25

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For the past few years, I tracked which movies that I saw in the theatre. It was fun to look back and see how many (and what) I’d seen, and this year I decided to take it a step further and add books and graphic novels into the mix, with the help of Goodreads. (I also decided to allow movies I saw on DVD, even though that tally turned out to be just one.)

I ended up tying 2007′s movie tally with 20 films, and amusingly enough that was also the number of novels I read. As for graphic novels… well, let’s just say the final tally was a wee bit higher.

Movies:

1. The Women (the 1939 version)
2. Frost/Nixon
3. Watchmen
4. Every Little Step
5. Star Trek
6. Little Ashes
7. Away We Go
8. Up
9. Public Enemies
10. The Hurt Locker
11. (500) Days of Summer
12. Paris
13. Inglorious Basterds
14. An Education
15. Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire
16. A Room With a View
17. A Serious Man
18. Fantastic Mr. Fox
19. Up in the Air
20. A Single Man

Books:

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
2. Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
3. Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale
4. All Seated On The Ground by Connie Willis
5. Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
6. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
7. Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories by Craig Laurance Gidney
8. The Cabinet of Light by Daniel O’Mahony
9. The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks
10. Shell Shock by Simon A. Forward
11. Farthing by Jo Walton
12. The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories by John Kessel
13. Listening Is an Act of Love edited by Dave Isay
14. A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
15. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen
16. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
17. Psycho by Robert Bloch
18. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
19. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
20. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

(more…)

This is more for my own amusement than anything else; these are the movies that I saw in the theatre (versus on DVD, or watched on a plane, or some other non-movie-theatre option) in 2008.

1. Charlie Wilson’s War (1/11)
2. Persepolis (1/25)
3. 27 Dresses (2/02)
4. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (3/08)
5. Run, Fat Boy, Run (03/30)
6. Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge (04/18)
7. Baby Mama (04/26)
8. Jellyfish (05/21)
9. Iron Man (05/25)
10. Sex and the City (06/07)
11. WALL-E (07/13)
12. The Dark Knight (7/26)
13. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (8/23)
14. Frozen River (8/30)

…and then I forgot to keep this listing up to date. But here are some other movies, in no particular order, that (upon retrospect) I did also see in 2008:

15. The Quantum of Solace
16. Slumdog Millionaire
17. Milk
18. Rachel Getting Married

There might have been more!

This is more for my own amusement than anything else; these are the movies that I saw in the theatre (versus on DVD, or watched on a plane, or some other non-movie-theatre option) in 2007. My list for 2006 is pretty pathetic (it was a bad year for me getting out and catching a flick!), so the difference should hopefully be pretty significant!

1. Dreamgirls (01/07)
2. Pan’s Labyrinth (01/11)
3. Casino Royale (01/14)
4. Volver (02/09)
5. Children of Men (02/10)
6. Babel (02/24)
7. Hot Fuzz (05/06)
8. Ratatouille (07/01)
9. 1408 (07/13)
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (07/15)
11. The Bourne Ultimatum (08/18)
12. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (09/03)
13. The Brave One (09/16)
14. Death at a Funeral (09/26)
15. Eastern Promises (09/30)
16. The Darjeeling Limited (10/07)
17. Michael Clayton (10/21)
18. Enchanted (11/25)
19. Atonement (12/15)
20. The Savages (12/30)

This is more for my own amusement than anything else; these are the movies that I saw in the theatre (versus on DVD, or watched on a plane, or some other non-movie-theatre option) in 2006.

1. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (01/01)
2. Last Holiday (01/15)
3. The Devil Wears Prada (06/30)
4. Superman Returns (07/03)
5. X-Men: The Last Stand (07/04)
6. Snakes on a Plane (08/19)
7. Feast (09/18)
8. For Your Consideration (12/09)
9. The Good Shepherd (12/23)