So for the new year, I decided I would log every movie I see, either in theaters or on streaming and give some personal thoughts on the movie. If this post is moderately successful, then I will do this for every month.

For January, I watched a total of 14 movies, mainly on streaming, though I did watch a couple in theaters. Without further ado, here are the 14 movies I watched in January in chronological order:

• Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
  • Day Watched: January 3, 2023
  • Directed by James Cameron
  • Overall, this movie was a sight to behold. Before going to see this in theaters, I watched the original one and it is so fascinating to see just how far CGI has come in the past decade. That's not to say that the 2009 movie is dated in any means. It's still a visually stunning movie. But this movie was even more visually stunning, even if it gave me a headache on occasion. The story left a little to be desired, as it was a little forgettable, but for a movie that is such a technical marvel, it's easy to forgive the story's shortcomings when it's just so pretty and beautiful to look at
• Babylon (2022)
  • Day Watched: January 6, 2023
  • Directed by Damien Chazelle
  • This movie left me very disappointed. As someone who loved La La Land and Whiplash, this movie was just a hot mess from a competent director. It went on too long and it was just too bawdy on occasion. The performances and the cinematography were great. It's just unfortunate that everything around it was mediocre to bad. I could easily cut out 20 to 30 minutes, if not more, and the movie would be a much better and tighter experience.
• Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
  • Day Watched: January 9, 2023
  • Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
  • As someone who is a big fan of the choose your own adventure genre, this movie was absolutely phenomenal. The performances, especially Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh, were top notch and frankly, it was nice to get a multiverse movie that wasn't a Marvel movie. Unfortunately, I just had one qualm with this movie and that is that I thought the story was a little confusing and hard to understand, but upon multiple rewatches (I think I've seen the movie like three or four times now) it's still a little confusing, but the movie is still phenomenal nonetheless. Here's hoping it cleans up at the Oscars in March
• The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
  • Day Watched: January 12, 2023
  • Directed by David Frankel
  • So I might be a little biased here since this is one of my favorite movies of all time, but this is easily my favorite movie that I watched this month. Meryl Streep was just phenomenal as the domineering Miranda Priestly, and frankly, she deserved the Oscar over Helen Mirren that year. Helen Mirren was good with her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth, but Meryl Streep I thought was just better since she's playing an original character. Objectively, it's not the best movie I watched movie this month. There's nothing flashy about the cinematography or the direction, and the subplot with Andy's friends can just go in the trash with how unsupportive they are to her. But I just love the movie so much so it's easily my favorite movie I watched this month
• Bridesmaids (2011)
  • Day Watched: January 14, 2023
  • Directed by Paul Feig
  • I grew up watching Kristen Wiig on SNL. She was 'the' female performer from that era and so as someone who watched that era of SNL when it was initially on, I had a lot of exposure to her as a performer. That's why Bridesmaids was such a pleasant surprise for me. It's such a change from the overly broad characters that she played on SNL that it was nice to see her portray a character that had a lot of depth. And it helps that the movie was hilarious. From that opening scene with Jon Hamm to Melissa McCarthy driving that van with the puppies, I was laughing a lot during this movie. And for a movie that is a pure comedy, that is a good thing. Plus, I'll watch anything with Roy from the IT Crowd in it.
• Inglourious Basterds (2009)
  • Day Watched: January 17, 2023
  • Directed by Quentin Tarantino
  • Watching this movie, it is easy to see why Christoph Waltz won the Oscar that year. He is absolutely terrifying and intimidating as Hans Landa and Waltz played him to perfection. The rest of the movie is absolutely phenomenal too, especially the ending when the theater is burned to the ground and all the Nazis are inside and Shoshanna is just watching from the screen just laughing maniacally. I love Quentin Tarantino movies, and this is easily my favorite movie of his. It's just phenomenal from start to finish and frankly, Mélanie Laurent should've been nominated for an Oscar alongside Christoph Waltz because she is just phenomenal as Shoshanna
• Missing (2023)
  • Day Watched: January 19, 2023
  • Directed by Nick Johnson and Will Merrick
  • Me and my boyfriend went into this movie knowing almost nothing about it. Which is almost always risky because you never know what you are going to get. But watching it, there were so many twists and turns in the story that it kept me engaged all the way through. The presentation was really cool too, as it was all shot like it was on a Mac and an iPhone. I had only seen it done once before and that was on an episode of Modern Family. The third act lost me a little bit but overall the first two acts were so engaging and shocking that I didn't mind it. Any mystery movie that leaves me saying "what?!" numerous times is good in my book
• Searching (2018)
  • Day Watched: January 21, 2023
  • Directed by Aneesh Chaganty
  • So for those of you who are unaware, Missing is an unofficial sequel to Searching. And frankly, Searching is in my opinion the inferior of the two movies. There was just something about it that I didn't like. The plot twist involving the cop I could see from a mile away and I feel like Missing integrated its use of Apple products better than Searching did. And the story in Missing was better than the story in searching. On its own, Searching is a serviceable movie. But compared to Missing, it's incredibly inferior.
• Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar (2021)
  • Day Watched: January 23, 2023
  • Directed by Josh Greenbaum
  • Like Missing, I watched this movie not really knowing much about it, other than it had Kristen Wiig in it. What I was not expecting was the guy from the Fifty Shades of Grey movies singing a song with the line "I'm going up a palm tree like a cat up a palm tree who's decided to go up on a palm tree!" And I loved every minute of it. It was just so unabashedly silly and reminded me of the Austin Powers movies of the late '90s. The villains motives in the movie had me howling with laughter and it was just so silly and funny and it was a nice little movie to shut your brain off to and just laugh. I actually liked this more than Bridesmaids, mainly because I was laughing more throughout this movie than I was the former.
• Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
  • Day Watched: January 24, 2023
  • Directed by Robert Benton
  • I loved this movie, especially Dustin Hoffman's portrayal as Ted Kramer. Doing a little research on this movie, this movie made $173 million dollars in 1979, which, adjusted for inflation, is about $700 million in 2023. That's wild to me that a movie like this would do that well at the box office. The movie wasn't perfect by any means. The court system was unrealistic and incomplete, and I feel like we didn't really get enough of Meryl Streep's Joanna to really get her side of the story. The movie was still really good regardless, but I wish we had gotten to understand more of her motivations and why she chose to leave and go to California. Streep made the most out of her screen time though and deserved that Oscar
• Office Space (1999)
  • Day Watched: January 24, 2023
  • Directed by Mike Judge
  • This may be a little controversial, but I didn't really find Office Space that funny. I really wanted to like this movie, but it just wasn't funny enough for me to really enjoy it. And it's a shame because I like Mike Judge's other work. I like King of the Hill and Silicon Valley. But this movie just wasn't that funny to me and it's a shame. Plus the ending was a little too neat for me. The office gets set on fire and that's it. I can see why other people would like it and maybe if I rewatch it, I'll come around, but for now, I just didn't care for it
• Obvious Child (2014)
  • Day Watched: January 26, 2023
  • Directed by Gillian Robespierre
  • I liked this movie. I thought it was funny and watching it, I could definitely tell this is an A24 movie. However, it didn't really resonate with me. And I think that's because I know I will never find myself in that situation. I'm a gay man. I won't have to worry about getting a girl pregnant and that girl deciding to get that abortion and all the thoughts and emotions that go into that. So I definitely think I was not the intended audience for it. On its own I liked it and Jenny Slate was good in it, but it just didn't really resonate with me since I know I'll never be in that situation.
• La La Land (2016)
  • Day Watched: January 27, 2023
  • Directed by Damien Chazelle
  • After watching the misfire that was Babylon, I decided I would take a little break from Chazelle, and that when I return to one of his movies, I would come back to the movie that won him an Oscar: La La Land. The movie is so good and the cinematography is absolutely phenomenal with the way all the different colors popped out and it creates this sort of dreamscape grounded in a Technicolor fantasy. And that's nothing to say of the music in the movie. Although City of Stars won the Oscar, Another Day of Sun has been on repeat for me for the past couple of days. It's easily one of my favorite movie songs. Plus Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are phenomenal as Sebastian and Mia. Stone especially. She is so dynamite as Mia and the whole movie wouldn't work without the two central performances being as good as they are.
• Mean Girls (2004)
  • Day Watched: January 30, 2023
  • Directed by Mark Waters
  • So I had never seen Mean Girls outside of the stray clip here and there. And I really missed out. Although Cady is the main character and Lohan does a great job playing her, the obvious stand out is of course Rachel McAdams as Regina George. The whole movie would not work if Regina was not as conniving and manipulative while giving off a friendly facade as she is. The rest of the cast is funny too, but easily the funniest part for me is Regina and her mom. Tina Fey's screenplay is brilliant, and it's so easy to see why the movie has endured for almost 20 years, even if fetch isn't going to happen

So these were all the movies that I watched in January. If this post is somewhat successful, I'll do this again for the rest of the year. If not, well, I enjoyed writing and talking about the movies I watched so there's that. Hope you all enjoyed reading my thoughts on the movies I watched