Highlight Reel – December 23-31, 2024

Our holiday week-plus has been lovely. I hope yours has been, too. Now gearing up for 2025! Wishing you peace, health, and prosperity in the coming year. Thank you for being with me.

Quote of the Week

New Movie of the Week

Episode of the Week

Re-Watch of the Week

Song of the Week

“Blowin’ in the Wind,” by Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro, from A Complete Unknown (written by Bob Dylan)

Other “Songs of the Day” this week: (only one other one, so I’ll go on and embed the video)

“For the Dancing and the Dreaming,” by Peter and Evynne Hollens [note: this is a cappella!], from How to Train Your Dragon 2

Headlines, Highlights, and Lowlights

• Only one new movie: A Complete Unknown (full review here); great performances all around, decent movie but not as amazing as I hoped.
• We rewatched Red One, The Wizard of Oz, and Transformers One with my parents.
• We did our own countdown to New Year’s by binging all 8 episodes of the final season of Marvel’s What If…? And we finished with 30 minutes to spare! I had two observations: Pacific Rim will be suing for copyright infringement, and the Howard the Duck episode felt like it was written by someone filling out a Marvel Mad Lib while on a bad acid trip (but in the best possible way; it was actually pretty funny). No amazing episodes, but no duds either, and no zombies! (They’re getting their own series in 2025. Yes, really.)
• As for other shows, we watched the LEGO Masters Celebrity Holiday Bricktacular with my parents. We also did our traditional rewatch of the two Prep & Landing specials. (Did you know a new one is coming next year?!). And we did manage to finish off The Penguin before the end of the year (full review to come).
• I did *not* finish reading Children of Dune, though, as I had hoped, and there’s too much left to finish by morning (at least if I want to spend any time with my family today/tonight). I’ll definitely get it done in January.
• I am ending the year officially down 54 lbs (gained a little over Christmas, as expected). Here’s hoping that my insurance plan will continue to cover Zepbound for me with a new prior authorization that will be submitted in February.
• 2024 decided to end with one final news-worthy passing: former President Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100 on December 29.
• Sadly, we also learned the day after Christmas that our Mexican restaurant is closing. We’ve been eating at El Matador for 15 of their 27 years in business!

Coming Soon

• My 2025 Movie and Series Preview will be published tomorrow. Yes, I already have 25 (or more) picks for each, and the year has barely even started!
• However, to that point, the choices are a bit thin in January. We still need to see Moana 2, and I’ll probably catch Wicked again if I can, but there isn’t much else interesting in January.
• But fear not, Marvel has our backs in February with Sam Wilson’s first outing as Captain America. I really hope it does well. There are a few “maybes” in March, and nothing at all on my radar for April. It’s going to be a long wait until things really pick up in May! (Maybe that will give us time to figure out which location will be our new movie theater.) If I run across anything interesting in the meantime, I’ll be sure to let you know.
• At least we will have plenty of shows to keep us busy. All of our new fall shows will pick up with part 2 of their seasons, as well as the couple of shows that hadn’t started yet putting out new episodes. And there are a few upcoming “premiere series” (on streaming and/or premium channels) that have caught my attention. More on all of those in my preview tomorrow.