January | 2022 | Cavalcade of Awesome

Archive for January, 2022

2021 Year End Honorable Mentions – Books/Comics

I posted my favorite books/comics of 2021 a few weeks ago. As usual, I had a few entries that didn’t necessarily make my favorites list, but I still wanted to talk about them. Good and bad.

Starting with books…LET’S BEGIN!

Shadow & Bone / Seige & Storm – The first two books in the Grishaverse series. This is what the Netflix show is based on, well the first book here, and another book in the series are mashed together. I read the first two books in 2021. I like a lot of what’s in them. The world that’s set up is awesome. This version of magic is closer to super powers than actual sorcery. I like the main protagonist, Alina. She’s got a nice arc through 2/3 of the first book, until she doesn’t. The biggest issue I have with this series is Alina’s love interest, Mal. He is the f**king WORST. Completely worthless. Shadow & Bone starts off with Alina being best friends with Mal and pining for him while he goes off completely ignoring her. Typical storyline. But then Alina is found to be Grisha, which means she goes off to a special school to learn about her powers. At this school, she discovers that she can’t use her powers. They refuse to work on command. She has to work through her feelings about Mal, who isn’t Grisha, and realize that she was suppressing her powers and hiding them from Mal so he didn’t find out. because he was kind of anti-Grisha. Alina ultimately gains control of her powers again because she gives up this weird attachment to Mal. BUT THEN, Mal returns and completely destroys everything Alina had gained from the previous portion of the book. And he’s terrible to Alina. He says he loves her, but his actions say otherwise. He treats her like garbage. I hate him. And I don’t know why he came back. Alina didn’t need his love or his help in the climax of the book. And he’s still there being a complete wet blanket throughout the second book. So, these books are great. The characters are awesome. The world is interesting. The one character of MAL is *very* close to being a deal breaker. I hate him so much.

Nathaniel Cade
The President’s Vampire series by Christopher Farnsworth – This series is so high premise I get vertigo just thinking about it. One hundred and fifty years ago a vampire was discovered on a whaling vessel that had docked in Boston Harbor. Thinking quickly, President Andrew Johnson has a voodoo witch doctor bind the vampire to the office of the President of the United States. From then forward, the vampire, now known as Nathaniel Cade, is sworn to protect the office and the country from all unnatural enemies. I love the idea of this series; imagine the series 24 but swap out Jack Bauer for a vampire. That’s essentially what this is. And it’s totally played straight. They handle all the supernatural elements very well. And along with all the unnatural goings on, we do get a bit of political intrigue as well. So far it’s only these three books, but Farnsworth also wrote two novellas featuring Nathaniel Cade; The Burning Men and Deep State. This is a fun series that I really enjoyed reading this year.

Recursion by Blake Crouch – I love time travel. Especially when a book does something different with it. And this book sort of intertwines time travel, with memory, and alternate realities. I really don’t want to give anything away, because there’s a lot of surprises here, but, on a high level, there is a doctor that is working on a cure for Alzheimers. Her mother has it. She is hoping to create a system that allows people to relive their memories in a fully immersive VR environment. Needless to say, her work is picked up and sort of steered into a new direction and all hell breaks loose. Like seriously. This book gets BANANAS. I really enjoyed it. It literally just missed out on being in my “favorites” list.

Now, how about some comic book honorable mentions?

Maniac of NY
Maniac of New York by Elliott Kalan – This comic is a *lot* of fun. It takes the premise of…”What if Jason Voorhees were real, and nobody could stop him? So city officials and the people in the city decide to make the best and just live with him.” How would peoples’ lives change? This really puts forth some interesting thoughts. Radio morning shows have a Killer Watch during the traffic report. They let you know if he’s been seen on the subway. And there’s a task force set up to stop him, but no one seems to be able to as he appears and disappears like a ghost. I read the first 5-6 issues of this and really liked it.

Flash 36 Flash 61
The Flash (1987-) #36 – 61 – Being a big fan of The Flash, I read this title as it was coming out starting with issue #3 in 1987. Back then I probably read up to like issue 50 or so. I only stopped about the time I went to college and stopped reading comics for the most part. Back in 2020, I decided to start a reread of this title. I read issues #1-35 in 2020, and then I continued through issue 61 in 2021. Mark Waid started his storied run in issue #62, but my memories of this series are the first 61 issues before Mark even got there. And I thoroughly enjoyed my reread of this series. These Wally West issues are pretty great. He loses his powers. Gains them back. He wins the lottery and becomes rich. Then loses all his money and becomes poor only to get rich again. It’s a roller coaster. And there are more than a few issues that are weird and not great. Linda Park is completely wasted in her run, even becoming possessed by what seems like an ancient Irish wizard, but turns out to be the Kilg%re. Lots of weirdness and wackiness. But most of it is really good.

So there are a few extra book/comic recommendations. Look for some movie honorable mentions later this week!

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My Favorite Movies I Saw in 2021

Posted in Blog Series, Movie Board, movies with tags Marvel, Movie Board, movies, reviews, Star Wars on January 14, 2022 by Paxton

2021 continues to be an odd year for movie watching. I got to go to the theater for a few things, yes, but most of the movies I watched this past year were at home.

Anyway, I keep my list of movies watched (with some small reviews) in two places, similar to my books list. The first is the usual Google Spreadsheet. That list is easier to get an overall view of the year and pick out favorite entries because I have it all color coded based on rating and year released. The other place I keep a list of the movies I watch is over on Letterboxd. So check me out there. I’ve been trying to keep up with my reviews on that site much better than I have previously.

So, on to my list. Rules are like my books, only movies new to me in 2021 are eligible. So in 2021, I was able to see a bunch of “released in 2021” movies. Not all of them. Probably less than I really would have liked, but it was a good amount. So I can go back to the original way I used to present this list, before having to abandon it last year. So first I’ll do a list of my favorite movies released in 2021. Then, I think in a separate article, I’ll do a list of my favorite movies I watched for the first time in 2021. Those can be from any year. But in this article I’m focusing on 2021 released movies and a few stats from Letterboxd.

So let’s see what my favorite things to watch in 2021 were. And like my books/comics, I’ll give you a “Baker’s Five” (which means 6).

I got most of my images and links from Wikipedia.

Old Henry (2021) – This movie snuck in at the literal last minute. I watched it on 12/31/2021. I had heard a podcaster talk about this for their year end round up, and I was intrigued, so I looked it up. It sounded interesting, so I watched it. And WOW. This movie was fantastic. An old farmer and his son are living in the Oklahoma territory in the early 1900s when they discover an unconscious man with a saddlebag full of cash. He claims to be a lawman. But a group of men show up to the farm asking about the man and they claim to also be the law. Go in knowing only that much. I don’t want to give away any of the twists and turns. Enjoy. So happy to have a western on the list this year.

The Harder They Fall (2021) – What’s this? A *second* western made it on the list this year? Honestly, a third western could have also made it on the list here but it was made in 2020, not 2021. Anyway, this western has a dynamite cast with Idris Elba, Regina King, Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, and Lakeith Stanfield. They are all playing actual historical figures like Stagecoach Mary, Cherokee Bill, Rufus Buck, and Bass Reeves. It’s a super stylish western, that reminds me of old spaghetti westerns, but it also has a more modern soundtrack with a super eclectic mix of music that sounds like blues, gospel, rock and rap. It’s a revenge western where Nat Love is after Rufus Buck and his gang for something that happened when he was a kid. Like I said, very stylish, great dialogue, wonderful cast. Check it out.

Army of Thieves – This movie is a prequel to Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead. So I saw that movie last year and didn’t like it. It was two half baked ideas smashed into one; an okay zombie movie and a not very good heist movie. So when this came out, I was not interested in a Zack Snyder prequel to Army of the Dead. AT ALL. However, then I realized that Zack only produced this. It’s directed and produced by the movie’s star, Matthias Schweighöfer. And Schweighöfer’s character, Deiter, is the only one that shows up from the previous movie. It’s about Deiter’s first heist job that puts him on the path to become the best safe cracker in the world. Also in this is Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Ramsey in the last few Fast & Furious movies. This movie was a lot of fun. It was very stylish. And most importantly, you don’t need to have seen Army of the Dead to enjoy it.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – I had a hard time nailing down the final three movies in this list. Two of them are Marvel movies and one is a DC movie. But they could have been three others. But I’m sticking to my guns. Shang-Chi. I’ve been a fan of kung fu movies forever. And comics books. So I became a fan of Shang-Chi back in junior high when I discovered him in one of those Handbook to the Marvel Universe character guides. I used to draw pictures of him for extra credit in art class. Anyway, this movie was simultaneously not what I expected, but almost everything I wanted. The lead, Simu Liu, is a great Shang-Chi. I love Awkwafina as his comedic partner. Michelle Yeoh. The fight choreography. The epic storytelling. Tony Leung as Wenwu. And Trevor Slattery. I loved it all. If I had to nit pick something, it’d be the end. When the giant CGI dragons come out. I didn’t need that. It took focus away from Shang-Chi and his dad. But again, that’s a nit pick, I loved everything else.

Black Widow – Here we go, another Marvel movie. Yes, I am 100% in the bag for most of these movies. This one is no different. We finally get the Black Widow movie we should have gotten back after the first Avengers movie in 2012. I’m sad Hawkeye had virtually no part in this. However, ScarJo and Florence are amazing as Natasha and Yelena. We are introduced to Yelena here and if she’s becoming the “new Black Widow”, then I am totally on board. She is awesome. I love Rachel Weisz, and she’s pretty good in here. I’m not a big fan of David Harbour, but he’s actually pretty funny as Alexei. If I have any problem at all, it’s with how Alexei is written, not Harbour’s performance. At the beginning of the movie he gives up the two girls to the Red Room too easily. He knows where they are going. He should have said something. I get it, he’s Russian, he does what his gov’t says. But he barely looked torn or upset at what was happening. Just reserved. Then, when he returns later, the character is all laughs and one-liners and it felt like they were trying to make you forget the fact he gave the girls up to the Red Room in the beginning of the movie. I really didn’t like that. But, that’s a small problem in a movie I loved so much else. I also liked this movie’s version of Taskmaster. Lots of fun action beats and a good amount of humor, especially between Natasha and Yelena, which is the heart of this movie.

Suicide Squad – I had revolved through several choices for this last pick. I’m going to go with this for several reasons. It surprised me. I saw the first Suicide Squad movie in the theater, and I watched it later on home video. I liked it in the beginning, but it went WAY off the rails by the middle of the movie. The Birds of Prey movie I saw on streaming and while it had a few funny moments, it was only ok. So even though it’s directed by James Gunn, who I mostly like, I was not very interested in this sem-sequel-reboot. But Michael May assured me it was good, so I gave it a shot. And he was right, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Idris Elba is a better version of Will Smith’s Deadshot. Robbie’s Harley Quinn is awesome as usual. John Cena’s Peacemaker is really funny. And Joel Kinnaman’s Flagg is a character I *did not* like in the original movie. He is *much* better in this movie. He feels a little more loose, a little more natural of a character. I actually reallly liked him in this. So, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie and that’s why it made it here. I’ll definitely give the Peacemaker show a shot.

So that was all movies released in 2021. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ll do a second part of this list where I talk about movies made before 2021 that I saw for the first time in 2021.

Let’s take a look at some of my movie watching stats from my account over on Letterboxd.

Here is a graph showing how many films I watched broken down by week. The week I watched the most movies was Dec 24-30. I saw 13 movies. Steph and the kids were gone for a few days and I did a Fast & the Furious/Paul Walker marathon. The second biggest week was Mar 5-11. I was actually at my dad’s that week pretty much by myself. I saw 12 films. June 11-17 gets third place for most movies watched. I watched 9 movies that week. All that led up to me watching 194 movies in 2021. Which is 16.2 movies per month. 3.7 movies per week. That’s just 6 away from 200. SO CLOSE.

Here is the list of actors that I watched the most movies of this year. Scott Adkins had the most with 12 films. I have been exploring his filmography a lot this year. He’s quickly become one of my favorite action stars. In second place, surprisingly, but also not so surprisingly, is Paul Walker. If you look at the rest of the top 10, you will notice a trend. I did a full Fast & Furious rewatch this year; Fast 1 through Fast 9. And this list clearly reflects that. But I also went on a small Paul Walker non-F&F marathon, so that’s why he’s second. Tony Todd snuck in there at the end because I did a full Final Destination marathon as well as watching two of the Candyman movies. I love this top 10.

This is the top 10 list of directors I watched this year. Again, Justin Lin is in there because of my F&F rewatch. Isaac Florentine is tied for first place because he directed 5 of the Scott Adkins movies I watched last year. And James Wan directed Furious 7 as well as the Conjuring movies, which I watched this year. It’s really interesting to see how these lists develop based on what you watched over the year. I did a few full franchise marathons and you’re seeing that reflected in these lists.

According to these stats, the first movie I watched in 2021 was El Dorado on Jan 16. The last movie I watched in 2021 was Timeline on Dec 31.

Okay, that about wraps up my 2021 movies list. Stay tuned, I have a second movie list where I’ll go over the movies made before 2021 I watched for the first time last year, maybe I’ll also talk about some of my favorite TV series I watched, as well as some “honorable mentions” articles for books, comics, and movies.

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Year End Book Report: My Favorite Books/Comics I Read in 2021

Posted in Blog Series, Book Report, books, comic books with tags Book Report, books, comic books, Marvel Comics, reviews, Year End Books on January 12, 2022 by Paxton

2021. What can I say. I’m still working from home. Things got a little better in some respects, a little worse in others. But through it all I was able to keep reading. And logging my reading.

So, as usual, you can find my reading logs on Goodreads. I log everything I read there. My reading goal for 2021 was originally 115 books. However, I reached that goal in like October. So, I went in and readjusted my reading goal to 140. And according to Goodreads, I finished out the year with 170 books. I tied my total from last year. Let’s take a look at some of GoodReads’ stats for my reading last year.

Reading 170 books certainly sounds impressive. And I did it twice. It’s not all novels, obviously. There are a generous amount of comics in there. And several smaller kids books. I actually didn’t even log *all* the books I read to my kids. Only some of them. The newer ones.

Let’s look at some of my other Reading totals.

Here’s my shortest and longest book I read. The shortest was one issue of The Flash (1987-). Starting in 2020, I did a read through of the first 62 issues of that Flash series. An issue at a time. In 2021 I read #36 through #61. That was a fun re-read. The longest book as you can see is Stephen King’s The Institute. That was a pretty good book too. It felt like there should have been a small connection to Firestarter in that book. But it never materialized.

Here are my “most popular” and “least popular” shelved books. Most popular was Huck Finn. I had started a re-read of the three Mark Twain books I’d read back in high school; A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Adventures of Huck Finn. I read all three last year. I hope to read the two other Tom Sawyer books he wrote that I’d never read; Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer Detective. Again, one of the least popular things I read was an issue of my The Flash (1987-) re-read.

I’ve already set my GoodReads reading goal for this year. I set it to 150. I’m not trying to stress myself out with this goal. But I am trying to up it a little every year.

Let’s move on with my recap of my favorite books I read this year.

Rules are the same. Only books/comics I read for the first time in 2021 are eligible for this list. No re-reads, of which I had a few (I think I mentioned most of them earlier). I don’t typically read brand new stuff the year it comes out, but it happens. This year I read 5 novels that were released in 2021. I wonder if any of them made the list. Let’s find out.

Here are the top 5 books I read last year in no particular order.

Images and links are from GoodReads pages.

Books

Project Hail Mary (2021) by Andy Weir – I had wanted to read The Martian for years, and then the Matt Damon movie came out. I loved it, and kind of thought, “Well, now I don’t need to read that book.” Which is not true, I really should. However, when Weir put out his next book, Artemis (2017), I checked it out and read it. And promptly hated it. So, when Project Hail Mary came out this year, I was a bit cautious. This looked a lot more like The Martian than his previous book, so I gave it a shot. And I really really liked it. A guy wakes up on a spaceship. He’s clearly not in our solar system. He seems to have previously been in a coma. His crew mates are dead. And he can’t remember anything. This is where you start in the book and we have to learn everything along with the main character. The story goes into some surprising places. I really enjoyed it. The strength of this is making me want to read The Martian again.

The Tournament (2014) by Matthew Reilly – I love Matthew Reilly. His Jack West Jr books have made it onto my “best of” list. I think his Scarecrow series has also made it onto my lists. He’s a really fun action author and I really enjoy reading his books. I think at this point, I’ve only not read maybe 2-3 of his books. This had been on my “to read” list for a while, but for some reason Reilly’s Kindle books very rarely go on sale. I typcially like to pick up Kindle books when they are $2.99 or less. His rarely go there. So it wasn’t until this year that I finally used a gift card to buy this book. And I’m glad I did. This book is GREAT. It takes place in the 1500s. Queen Elizabeth II is just a teenager. Her teacher is Roger Ascham. They travel to Constantinople to witness a grand chess tournament to determine the greatest chess master in the world. But a murder during the tournament sends Roger Ascham, a smart, amateur detective, into the depths of the sultan’s palace to discover a murderer. Lots of mystery and suspense in this one.

BTTF Ultimate Visual History
Back to the Future Ultimate Visual History (2015) by Michael Klastorin with Randal Atamaniuk – I’ve mentioned before I love oral histories. I previous read all three of JW Rinzler’s “Making of” Star Wars books. I want to read Rinzler’s Indiana Jones “Making of” book. Last year I read one on Jaws and one on one of my favorite video games, NBA Jam. I’d also many years ago read one on Saturday Night Live. I’ve even read a Back to the Future “Making of” book before. And I didn’t love it because, honestly, I already knew all the stuff in that book. So, while I bought this newer Back to the Future Ultimate Visual History, I was worried I wasn’t going to like it because I thought I would already know everything it had to tell me. But I was wrong. This book is so well laid out. Lots of great info. There was even a bunch of stuff I didn’t know. They dig into many aspects of the production of the movie. Even the whole Eric Stoltz debacle. And it tackles both sequels, as well as Back to the Future The Ride, and Back to the Future The Animated Series. So it’s comprehensive. And very readable. Thoroughly enjoyed this.

The Director Should Have Shot You: Memoirs of the Film Trade by Alan Dean Foster – By Subterranean Press. Being a movie novelization junkie, and host of a movie novelization podcast, I was super excited to discover Alan Dean Foster, the godfather of movie novelizations, wrote a memoir. And it’s not just a memoir. It’s a deep dive into all of the movie novelizations that he’s written, including one that was never published. He goes through each book one by one in chronological order and gives anecdotes about the writing of the book. It’s a lot of fun, super informative, with lots of good pictures. Highly recommend this, especially to novelization fans. Unsigned copies of this book are still available. Click the image of the book above to go get one.

Six of Crows Duology (2015/2016) by Leigh Bardugo – This is by the same author that started the Shadow and Bone series that is now a series on Netflix. Technically, these two books are a part of that Shadow and Bone series. In fact, the Netflix series adapts part of Six of Crows in its first season. Anyway, I was aware of the Shadow and Bone series and wanted to read it. But then I was searching “heist” books and Six of Crows kept coming up on people’s lists. So I went ahead and read it. And loved it. THEN, I figured out that Six of Crows takes place a few years after the three Shadow and Bone books. The timeline here is complicated, but in the books, Shadow and Bone is the first trilogy. Then chronologically comes Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom. Then taking place a few years after these books is another trilogy. But I enjoyed Six of Crows so much I just read these two books first anyway. And they are amazing. Great characters. Lots of fun intricate plans. Good dialogue. Really enjoyed this. I also read the first two Shadow and Bone books after these, and I can see where I may have spoiled myself on a few things by doing it this way, but I don’t care. Reading these two first were worth it.

I’m going to throw in one extra. Call it a “Baker’s Five” of books.

The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton – This book was on this list until literally the last 5 days of 2021. I read Turton’s first book in 2019. It was mostly good, but sort of went off the rails towards the end. However it was written engagingly enough that I was interested in his next book. And this was it. It is sort of a Sherlockian setup. Takes place in the 16th century on a sailing ship. Murders start happening. The “Sherlock” character is locked up in the brig as a suspect. And the “Watson” character has to solve the mystery on his own. That’s a very basic setup. There’s a lot going on in this book. But it has a great atmosphere, I loved the mystery, and I really enjoyed the characters. There are a couple of Macguffins in the story. But I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As usual, I also read a bunch of movie novelizations this year for I Read Movies. However, I don’t include those in this list. I do a separate write up for I Read Movies year end. Check it out here.

Let’s switch over to comics! Here are the top 5 comics I read last year in no particular order.

Comics

Red Hood 1
Red Hood and the Outlaws (Rebirth) by Scott Lobdell and Dexter Soy – So, as I do, I sort of got on a Jason Todd kick this year. I was always curious about the Red Hood, so I decided to check out Lobdell’s Rebirth series. And loved it. I read through the whole thing. Jason Todd as Red Hood, Artemis, and Bizarro make a great team. And they were like a family. It was such a good dynamic. And Lobdell brought the humor. Jason Todd’s relationship with Batman and the rest of the family is so sardonic. But it’s clear that he appreciates them. His whole sardonic attitude is great and it belies the fact that he’s great at what he does. He’s usually as prepared as Batman is. This is a great series and I wanted to delve more into Jason Todd’s adventures, so next I read…

Batman: Under the Red Hood/Lost Days by Judd Winick, Doug Mahnke, and Jeremy Haun – These books are two different runs separated by 5-6 years, but I’m putting them together because they are by the same author and they are mirrors of each other. Under the Red Hood was the original run where Winick had Jason Todd return as the titular character. It’s a great story, told from Batman’s POV that involves the Joker, Talia al Ghul, and Nightwing. I loved it. Red Hood: Lost Days is a follow up to the original run, also written by Winick, but many years later. Essentially, it’s Under the Red Hood, but this time it’s from Red Hood’s POV. So we get a lot of what you didn’t see in the first book. This one is also excellent and I highly recommend it.

Fire Power by Robert Kirkman and Chris Samnee – I’m a fan of Robert Kirkman. Unlike others, I don’t worship at the altar of Walking Dead, but I love Kirkman’s work on Astounding Wolf-Man, Invincible, and Marvel Zombies. I’m also a big fan of Samnee’s art. One of my all time favorite things is his Black Widow run with Mark Waid. So combine these two on a kung fu tale and YES PLEASE. I read the first three volumes of this which goes up to about issue 12. It’s about an ancient shaolin temple that seeks to rediscover the art of throwing fire. And one man comes to the temple to learn. Then, the story shifts like 15 years, and we see the man with his wife and kids, and his days at the shaolin temple come back to haunt him when a rival temple comes to attack his family. It’s really good, I really enjoyed this title. Great art, of course. And the story really picks up during the “15 years later” part.

Marvel Masterworks (Thor, Hulk, X-Men) – Continuing my journey reading through some of these old Marvel issues. I had set a goal for myself earlier this year to read all the Marvel Masterworks volume 1s featuring the original line up of the Avengers; Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man, Wasp, and Captain America. Yes, Captain America wasn’t in Avengers #1, but he showed up in #4, and he’s so linked to the group at this point I’m including him. I’ve done all of those now except Captain America, Ant-Man and Wasp. Captain America has two, the Golden Age archive, and the Modern Age archive (essentially before and after “frozen in ice”). I’ll probably just do both. Anyway, this year I tackled The Mighty Thor (Journey into Mystery), The Incredible Hulk, and in a break from my Avengers challenge, the original X-Men. I loved all of these. In X-Men you see a ton of firsts including Cerebro, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver. And everyone is in love with Jean Grey. Hulk’s is super weird. Originally he only changes at night. Then, he has an accident where in order to change into the Hulk, Banner has to bathe himself in Gamma Rays with a radiation gun. EVERY TIME. And Thor’s is a lot of fun too with appearances by Loki and Odin. And Thor has his Doctor Blake secret identity. And his nurse Jane Foster. OMG. So much drama. I really recommend reading these early adventures of your favorite heroes. They are so much fun. Like I said, this year I hope to do Captain America, Ant-Man/Wasp (Tales to Astonish), and maybe Uncanny X-Men.

Black Widow by Kelly Thompson – Kelly Thompson is the best. I originally discovered her on Kate Bishop: Hawkeye. Then I followed her to West Coast Avengers. Which I loved and was sad it didn’t continue after issue #10. Now I’m reading her Deadpool series and this, her Black Widow series. This is so good. The first collection has Bucky and Hawkeye, the second collection has Yelena and Spider-Girl. I love Thompson’s voice. Her dialogue is so great. The art is by Elena Casagrande and Rafael de Latorre. And it’s *also* fantastic. This is a great series. Love it.

And those were my favorite books and comics I read in 2021. I’ll maybe have a followup article to this talking about some Honorable Mentions. You know, things that maybe I liked that almost made the list, but also things I didn’t like and really want to talk about.

Hope you enjoyed this article and found something new that you may eventually love. Let me know if you do!

Okay, that covers EVERYTHING I’ve read. Next up…MOVIES! Stay tuned.

I Read Movies’ 2021 Year End Round up

Posted in Blog Series, Book Report, books, movies, pop culture with tags Book Report, books, I Read Movies, Movie Novelizations, movies, podcast, reviews, Year End Books on January 10, 2022 by Paxton

As you probably know, I host a movie novelization podcast called I Read Movies. Every month I read a movie novelization and then on the podcast I talk about the differences between the movie and the novelization. Last year, I decided to add to my usual “Best of” lists a year end round up for I Read Movies where I listed out my favorite novelizations that I covered on the show. So, this year, I’m doing it again.

September 2021 was a big year for I Read Movies. Not only was it IRM’s 4th birthday but September was the show’s 50th episode! Hard to believe I’ve done that many episodes. On the main podcast, I covered 12 novelizations in 2021. You can see the covers of the novelizations I covered above. I say, “on the main podcast”, because I did cover a few extra books on other podcasts. I did the 1995 Mortal Kombat novelization for Cult Film Club, as well as an Appendix episode on the original Stephen King novel, Running Man, that inspired the movie.

So that makes 13 novelizations covered by me in 2021. I’m very happy with the group of novelizations I picked this year (and you guys, you definitely helped me decide). Out of 13 novelizations, it would have been easy to pick nearly 10 as my favorites. But I really dug deep and narrowed it down to my five favorite novelizations.

So let’s see which novelizations I most enjoyed covering on the show in 2021!

FYI, most images and links are to movienovelizations.com.

Batman Forever (1995) by Peter David – I covered the first two Burton Batman movies back in 2019. So I continue the coverage of the 90s Batman movies with the third movie in the series. Like the previous two, I had read this novelization when it originally came out and remember loving it. So I was very excited to cover it for the show. And it is still very good. David manages to squeeze in lots of Batman easter eggs as well as lots of early story elements that did not make the movie. Like the giant bat. It’s definitely a fun read. I originally had no real intention to cover the final movie, Batman & Robin. I had read it several years ago and my memory was that it wasn’t very different. Well, I recently appeared on the Authorized Novelizations Podcast and we discussed Batman and Robin, so I read it for them, and I discovered I was wrong. There was lots to talk about. So, now, expect to see Michael Jan Friedman’s Batman & Robin novelization on IRM in 2022!

The A-Team (1983) by Glen A Larson – A few years ago I started trying to cover at least one TV novelization during the year. I covered two Knight Rider episodes the last two years. This year, I decided to do The A-Team. This novelizes the very first episode, Mexican Slayride. It’s a lot of fun and adds a lot of fun tidbits and scenes to the action of the show. On the other side of the coin, it also doesn’t add any context to things in the episode that aren’t great. Like Hannibal dressing up as a *very* stereotypical Chinese laundry owner, and the part of the show where Hannibal doesn’t help Amy when she’s accosted and nearly raped by two dudes coming out of a strip club. That being said, the book is a lot of fun and I think the show turned out to be a good one. 2022 will bring another TV novelization to the show, so stay tuned!

WarGames
Robocop (1987) by Ed Naha – Shawn had covered this in an article on movienovelizations.com. It sounded bonkers and could be a lot of fun. I mean, in it, Robocop gets a dog! And Murphy’s wife, who shows up in all the movies, actually moves to the moon in this book! They colonized the moon! So yes, I was excited to cover it, and the book delivered. It’s definitely a lot of fun. And actually, I had so much fun, I decided as soon as I finished it, that I wanted to cover the Robocop 2 novelization right after it. And so I did. And it was just as fun. This was a reallly fun 1-2 punch and the episodes I think show how much fun the books were to read.

Back to the Future Part II/Part III by Craig Shaw Gardner – For my first anniversary back in 2018, I covered the first Back to the Future novelization by George Gipe. That was a *lot* of fun because you could tell the book really followed the original version of the movie that had Eric Stoltz. A lot of the gags from the Michael J Fox version just weren’t there, like all of the “Coast Guard” and “life jacket” jokes from the movie. Plus the “Darth Vader from the Planet Vulcan” scene was extended. It was a lot of fun to do that episode. So for my big 50th episode I thought, it’s time to cover the sequels. So I did both in one episode. And while these books weren’t as bizarre and different as the first book, they had a lot of fun diversions in them. They even address one aspect of time travel I had always wondered about in the BTTF universe. When does a person from the future receive updated memories from a timeline change? Like Marty at the end of the first movie, will he receive all the memories from his childhood with a more loving and healthy version of his parents? Or will he always have that hole in his memory and when the family is reminicising he just has to play along? These books, at least a little bit, address that. And I appreciate that.

The Mummy 1999
The Mummy (1999) by Max Allan Collins – This one was a surprise to me. I forgot how much I love this movie. Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz are so adorable. It’s just a lot of fun to watch this movie. And when I rewatched it for the show, I found myself not taking notes and just watching the movie. And the novelization continues that fun. It front loads the book with a lot more of the ancient Egypt stuff, and adds a few extra scenes at the end. Like I said it just surprised me how much I enjoyed revisiting the movie and reading the novelization. So, now I want to do the sequel, The Mummy Returns. Max Allan Collins actually wrote all three Mummy novelizations as well as the very first Mummy spin off with the Rock, Scorpion King. And you know how much I enjoy one author writing multiple books in a franchise. So, this may be the beginning of another sub-series on IRM.

So those were my favorite novelizations I covered on the show this year. Let’s take a look at a few overall stats for I Read Movies.

Over the course of the show I’ve covered just over 60 books and novelizations. That includes the 53 episodes of the main show, as well as the Apendix special episodes, and any other special episodes I did for Nerd Lunch and Cult Film Club. How about an author breakdown?

Currently, the author I’ve covered the most on I Read Movies is Craig Shaw Gardner. I’ve covered five of his books (Batman 89, Batman Returns, The Lost Boys, Back to the Future Part II, and Back to the Future Part II).

In second place is Alan Dean Foster with four books on the show (Star Wars ’77, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, The Last Starfighter, Star Wars: The Force Awakens).

Third place is a tie between James Kahn and Jeffrey Cooper with three titles each. Then there are a bunch of authors where I’ve covered only one or two titles.

So, that’s my I Read Movies year end novelization round up. Hope you enjoyed this past year of the podcast. I believe I have a lot of good novelizations coming up in 2022.

What usually happens with IRM at year end is that I take a break in January, and then new episodes start again in February. And this February IRM is going to debut new episodes on the CultFilmClub.com podcast feed. However, due to behind the scenes stuff, I want to move my break to later in the year, so I’m going to go ahead and do a January episode this year. So expect that soon. And I’ll go ahead and reveal it to you now, I’ll be covering the novelization of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Up, up, and Away!

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