Our Halloween episode was one of my favorites this season on the podcast.
If you haven't listened -- go ahead, slap yourself, I can't reach your face from here -- Nick and I filled out a bracket with Halloween movie titles, and we proceeded to play one of those "knockout tournaments". The average bear plays the game with college football teams, but I don't know any college football teams. However, I know a lot about lists.
I'll let you in on a little secret about me: I have an inveterate obsession with lists. I love lists. I love reading lists. I love asking people about their lists. What's your top 3 favorite Sherlock Holmes movies? What's your list of best screwball comedies? Can you list for me 10 must-see episodes of the Jetsons?
Give me an AFI Top 10 list and a bottle of Poland Spring water, and that's my idea of a swell night.
Most of all, I love making lists.
Since January 2018, I've kept my own daily record of every movie and TV show I've watch, as well as every book I've finished. Aside from my list fetish, I do find it fun to look back on my year or the year before. There's something cathartic about choosing a random date from May 2019 and seeing what movie I saw that day.
It becomes greater than the title itself. I can peer back through time, getting a sense of where my life was at that moment. What was I doing? How was I feeling? What was going on? I can glean all this just by noting what I was watching. A movie title can trigger vivid and salient memories. That's why it's good to maintain a record.
In keeping with my plug for our Halloween episode -- available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc. -- I'm sharing with you everything I watched in October 2021.
I attempted a month long marathon of Halloween-themed films. I wasn't entirely successful. Keened-eyed list-readers will notice several titles, such as Judy Garland's The Pirate (1948) and Daniel Craig's No Time to Die (2021), as having NOTHING to do with ghouls, goblins, and Cromwell witches.
The marathon reached an odd culmination on Halloween Day. I suppose Planet of the Apes (1968) could be classified as a monster movie but only with the broadest of definitions. The family friendly Andre (1994), the heartwarming story of a girl and her pet seal, might not seem like spooky fare. But a brief scene set on Halloween meets one of the following criteria I used in order to designate my choices as Halloween appropriate:
1) The film (entirely, partially, or a single scene) is set near, about, or on Halloween.
2) A monster, vampire, ghost, or zombie is featured.
3) The presence of a mad scientist or mad scientist-type.
4) A horror film made by Universal Studios during the 1930s or 40s.
5) Any Disney Channel Original Movie that premiered during October in the 90s/2000s.
Meeting at least one of these made the film eligible for the marathon. (By the way, how incredibly insane am I?)
The marathon got off to a slow start, though October 1st did include Batman: The Long Halloween Parts One and Two (2021). Things really got monster-mashing on October 5th with The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944). Classic Universal Monster flicks and sprinklings of Disney Channel Original Movies comprised the bulk of my marathon.
Seinfeld and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (that's the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares) appear frequently. I was doing simultaneous rewatches of both.
Are you equally marveled and disturbed at how much I watched? Thank my chronic insomnia for the extra time.
Here's my list:
(movie titles are FULLY CAPITALIZED. Television show titles are not)
(I've put in bold some titles that I especially recommend you check out.)
OCTOBER 2021
10/1 THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK; SPACE COWBOYS; BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN, PART ONE; BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN, PART TWO; Seinfeld
10/2 CRY MACHO, Seinfeld
10/3 THE GAUNTLET, GOING IN STYLE, Seinfeld
10/4 THE PIRATE, Seinfeld
10/5 THE INVISIBLE MAN’S REVENGE, Seinfeld
10/6 HOCUS POCUS, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Seinfeld
10/7 NO TIME TO DIE, Seinfeld
10/8 WEREWOLF OF LONDON, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/9 THE MUMMY’S TOMB, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/10 FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/11 SON OF DRACULA, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/12 THE MUMMY’S GHOST, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/13 HALLOWEENTOWN II: KALABAR’S REVENGE, HALLOWEENTOWN HIGH, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/14 THE BLOB (1958), THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES (1948), Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/15 DRACULA A.D. 1972, LITTLE GIANT, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/16 THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/17 DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT, HORROR OF DRACULA, Seinfeld
10/18 DRACULA’S DAUGHTER, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/19 CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, THE HAUNTED MANSION, Seinfeld, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
10/20 SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, Muppets Haunted Mansion
10/21 THE RAVEN (1935), NIGHT MONSTER, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN
10/22 THE HALLOWEEN TREE, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, Seinfeld
10/23 HALLOWEENTOWN, THE BLACK CAT (1934), Seinfeld, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
10/24 BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
10/25 THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. RX, DRACULA (1931), Seinfeld
10/26 THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN Seinfeld
10/27 THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933), MOM’S GOT A DATE WITH A VAMPIRE, Seinfeld
10/28 THE WITCHES (1990), THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS
10/29 I MARRIED A WITCH, HOUSE OF DRACULA, The Outer Limits
10/30 THE WOLF MAN (1941), THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD, Seinfeld
10/31 ANDRE, PLANET OF THE APES (1968), Seinfeld
-T.Z.
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