Nostalgia Nugget: Looking at 2014

Feeling nostalgic or just a bit confused? Maybe both.

Are you ready for a nostalgic look back at 2014? Is that even possible? Of course not, but I felt like doing a recap of the year and Nostalgia Nugget seemed like a great place to put it. So lets begin with my big goal. I wanted to hit 100 posts for the year. It seemed possible especially considering I nearly hit it last year. Well, I did it. Not bad for a guy with a day job and who spends way too much time watching movies. 2015 is going to be a bit lighter, I’m going to start working on my fiction writing this year, and that means the movie blog will be closer to 2012 numbers.

I tried to provide a nice spread of mini reviews and full-length reviews this year. Each month featured at least one of each, and in most cases you got two minis and one full-length review. The big exception was October. I went all mini-reviews for the horror flicks. But that balanced out with November where I packed in four MST3K reviews (full length) and a top ten list.

Hey, the MCP kinda looks like the Kool-Aid
Man from this angle!

It was a bit tricky determining when I wanted to write a full-length review versus a mini. In some cases it was just a whim, like when I wrote about Tron, which was not planned as a review at all. My review of Zeffirelli’s Hamlet also came out of nowhere, but after viewing it, I felt the need to defend the film a bit (since I see reviewers coming down kinda hard on it).

Most of the time, I had a readymade source for full-length reviews. I ran two series in 2014 and I covered them both pretty well.

I don't think the Connery fans are going
to like my review.

First up was my continued exploration of the James Bond series. I revisited a couple reviews giving them better content and more images: Goldeneye and Casino Royale. But I also offered reviews of three of my favorite James Bond films: Thunderball, The Spy WhoLoved Me and On Her Majesty’s SecretService. In 2015 I may be able to finish off the Bond reviews, but we’ll see. We’re heading into some really poor ones. Not sure if could handle a back-to-back viewing of Diamonds are Forever and Octopussy, but we’ll see.

Previously I explored the work of Japanese animator Satoshi Kon, and had a lot of fun delving into his films and television series. In 2014 I attempted something similar for Mamoru Oshii. I covered his work on UruseiYatsura, Patlabor OAVs, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence and Avalon. I had already tackled his films Ghost in the Shell and Jin-Roh back in 2013. But I wasn’t able to review a few other items he’s worked on such as Sky Crawlers, Assault Girls and the Patlabor movies. Being a fan of Oshii, I’ll make sure to give them a go, if and when I can get my hands on them.

Eagerly awaiting my review of Spirited Away.

In 2015 I’m going to switch gears and go with Hayao Miyazaki. This will be a real treat, because I haven’t revisited some of his films in a number of years, and I’ll be able to go into more detail on some of my favorites that I keep mentioning (Spirited Away I’m looking at you).

When it came to Mystery Science Theater 3000 I had two goals. To provide at least one review a month and to tackle at least one per season. I almost made it, but was unable to update a Season Ten episode (I covered nearly all the season ten episodes back in 2010). But I did tackle each and every single Gamera episode the crew watched. That was quite a bit of fun to write about, even if some of the episodes meandered more than I remembered. It was certainly less of a chore than my insane attempt to watch and review all three Coleman Francis films back in 2013. For 2015, I’m thinking of tackling the three Russian fantasy films for November.

I had some fun with top ten lists in 2014. The James Bond Pre-CreditSequences was a spontaneous one and was a lot of fun to put together. I also enjoyed putting together a list of TheStrangest Movies Watched on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The toughest one was probably my top ten Favorite Anime. I'm still not sure I'm happy with all my picks. Maybe I'll revisit that one next year.

Not nearly enough Jerry Goldsmith related blogs
on this site. I will rectify that.

A couple lists focused on film music (from the 1980s and electronic specifically). But I also wrote a bit on the subject of film music in my Movie Music Musings. I shared the amazing work of Charles Gerhardt and his work on classic film scores. After writing that blog post, I picked up his album covering the work of Franz Waxman, and it was excellent. If you are interested in classic film music, seek out Gerhardt’s rerecordings. They are a perfect place to start. I delved into the complete Matrix Soundtrack Trilogy. I also focused on specific scores to specific films including: 2001: A Space Odyessey, TotalRecall and On Her Majesty’s SecretService. I also kept sharing my favorite tracks with the Score Samples and Anime Jukebox posts.

Blogging on the brain? I've
been there.

Not too many Nostalgia Nuggets this year. But I did share my experiences with James Bond and Planet of the Apes. I also participated in a fun October Blog-a-thon that featured cosmic horror. These posts tend to be spontaneous so I can’t predict when they’ll pop up.

So all in all it was a fun year of watching and writing about movies. I hope you enjoyed taking the ride with me. As usual, feel free to send me suggestions on topics, movies or anything else you want me to write about or explore. 2015 may be a lighter year for this blog, but that won’t stop me from having some fun with it.

Finally, thanks to everyone for reading and commenting. Even if we don’t always agree on some of the posts, I appreciate the fact that you are reading my random musings about the film, animation and music.