Currently Watching – Dec 2020

2020 is about to end and I have no idea what I did this year. It had been a long time since I found time to watch TV and movies so this year we just binge watched movies and TV shows. My earlier update on what I watched was in this post here.

In the last few months, we watched these movies and TV shows –

1. Night at the Museum (3 movies) –

I had only seen the first movie and saw the other two recently. This is a fun movie series – good for watching with young children. The first movie is based in New York Museum of Natural History, the second movie in Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC and the final movie is in London’s Natural History Museum. I have visited all the three museums and that made the movies even more interesting.

2. Maleficent 1 and 2

The only movie of Angelina Jolie that I had watched was “Mr and Mrs Smith” but she is great in this movie series. I hope they make a third part someday. It is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty where Maleficent (the evil witch) who curses her isn’t really evil. I loved the twist at the end of the first movie regarding true love’s kiss. I liked the second movie too. For the first time, my kid got emotional and started crying when *something*(spoiler) happens in the second movie towards the end. How wonderfully they turned a villain into a hero was amazing!

3. Abominable

Another cute movie that we watched recently. It is about a yeti who is trying to escape and a girl who helps the yeti. The yeti is extremely adorable and its magical powers are so cool!

4. Spiderman (New series -1 and 2 and 2002 movie)

We had not seen the new Spiderman series of movies starring Tom Holland. We finally caught up on all the Marvel movies that we had missed. While we were at it, we watched the original 2002 movie with Tobey Maguire as Spiderman again. I felt the original 2002 movie was a lot better, though towards the end of Far from Home, Tom Holland looks really cool. I wish there was more action though. I am sure there will be more action in the next Spiderman movie as now Tom is a proper independent superhero towards the end.

5. Sound of Music

We watched this classic movie for the nth time. This time with the kid who loved all the songs from the movie and can even sing a few of them. Their music teacher at school makes them sing some of these songs so it was definitely useful.

6. Parasite

It’s a South Korean movie that won Oscars. It is supposedly the first non-English movie to win Best Picture award. It is pretty violent so it is not appropriate to watch with kids. We watched it after our kid was asleep. But I loved this movie a lot. This is a story about two families – one rich and one poor and there are so twists and turns. Definitely worth watching. I kept thinking it was a paranormal movie, but it is not.

7. Star Wars

We binge watched the second prequel trilogy, then the Rogue One and first original trilogy. We wanted to watch them in chronological order. I had forgotten a lot from these movies as it had been more than 10 years or so since I saw them. It was a good refresher for Mandalorian TV series with cute Grogu which we are a big fan of. Rogue One and Mandalorian, along with the original trilogy are the best.

8. Star Trek (Kevin Timeline) trilogy

After watching Star Wars, how can we not watch Star Trek? We ended up watching the new Kevin series (the new movie series) again, mostly because of the cool CGI and Chris Pine.

9. Queen’s Gambit

We saw the famous Queen’s Gambit TV series which has become extremely popular. It is based on a novel about a chess prodigy who never loses any chess game she plays. She is a drug addict and an alcohol addict because of her horrible childhood which she spent at an orphanage. But she overcomes all these to end up winning world champion title after beating a Russian champion. It is partly based on a US chess champion but is mostly fiction. It was nice to see a woman kick ass of roomful of men for a change at a game that they thought women are bad at.

10. Studio Ghibli’s Movies – this is next on my pipeline.

I have only seen 3-4 Studio Ghibli (Miyasaki’s) movies in the past. Studio Ghibli makes quality animation movies and is a Japanese studio. I want to finish watching all the rest of the movies soon. There are 22 movies so it will keep me occupied for sometime, until this pandemic is over I guess. 🙂 It took me forever to create this collage of 22 movie posters. Phew!

11. Wonder Woman and WW 1984

Like everybody else, I am eagerly waiting for the new Wonder Woman movie to get released. I will probably watch the previous movie before watching the new movie.

12. Home Alone (5 movies)

Home Alone is the best Christmas movie according to me. I usually watch it almost every year during Christmas time. I would like to watch all the movies again. I love the first two movies the most. Second movie is my favorite. I just got to know that there are 3 more movies which I have not watched so maybe I will try to watch them this year.

So what are you watching this year? What are you planning to watch during the holidays? I have been reading less books and watching more movies this year.