An October century mark in movies

Since I'm keeping my year-end rankings in real time, so that only a few final tweaks are needed before I publish in mid-January, I obviously notice when I've hit certain milestones in terms of total movies viewed for the year. As an extra bit of information that I don't publish, I also include in parentheses after each title which number it was in the chronology. For example, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania -- the first 2022 movie I watched back in late January -- appears as Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (1) for the whole year, until I finally remove that information before publishing. 

The reasons for that were originally so I'd be able to see, at a glance, things like whether I was showing a recency bias in the movies that made my top ten, that sort of thing. But it also helps determine my pace relative to previous years.

This year's 100th movie -- which is the Australian film Everything in Between -- has now come and gone as of Monday night. So for the rest of the year it will appear on my list as Everything in Between (100). 

It's all too easy for me to remember when I wouldn't see my 100th movie until late December or early January. I've been trying to pump the brakes a bit this year, whenever possible, to avoid setting another record for total movies watched, like I did last year when I ranked 170. (You'd think setting records would be a good thing, but this is when I have to look at myself hard in the mirror and consider how many books I could have read in those 340-odd hours.) 

But how has pumping the brakes worked? Because I still have last year's list with the numbers in parentheses, I can tell you exactly what #100 was last year, and exactly when I saw it.

It was Spiral: From the Book of Saw, and I saw it on ... October 16, 2021. 

So basically, I'm only a single day behind last year's pace.

Good grief.

There are explanations. I took a number of international and domestic flights in July and August, and watched a total of 13 movies on those flights ... though only ten of them were movies I'm ranking for this year. Most of that difference is made up by the fewer MIFF movies I saw because I was on that trip for most of MIFF.

I figured watching a total of 26 former #1 movies -- I've got five more to go -- would take up a number of available viewing spots for new movies. That would settle down my total a bit. But I've found other ways. Life finds a way.

The truth is, I can never really slow down that much because I have to keep feeding the review beast. Of the 100 movies I've watched that count for 2022, 45 have been films I've reviewed for ReelGood. And I still need to see the movies that other people review, or that I saw too late to review them. Plus there are movies I thought I might review but just never got around to it.

Oh well. One hundred seventy-one, here I come. 

Actually, as long as I stay one day behind, it will be only 169.