Another year in the books. This one was a challenging one for movie watching, but had so many other wonderful things to fill that hole.
ARIK DEVENS
2022
It’s that time again. The annual tradition around here, to mark the end of a Gregorian year with a post summing things up. This is the ninth year I’ve been doing this. Holy wow. That’s hard to even imagine. When I started this, I had just begun dating my wife, had no kids, a completely different job, lived in a different city. It’s really something to contemplate.
Close readers (I have been assured there is at least one, hi Ryan!) will know that this has not been a very prolific year for me. After mentioning last year that I had watched an all-time low, I absolutely crushed that unfortunate statistic this time around. With my former toddler becoming a little kid, and a new baby zooming to toddlerdom, it was unbelievably hard to find the time to watch and think and write.
But that’s life. This is a long term project for a reason. I think, at the moment, the Criterion universe is expanding faster than I’m consuming it, but that’s ok. That just means that I have so many more wonderful experiences waiting for me as I find the time to, well, experience them.
Overall, what my year lacked in quantity, it made up in quality. This was a wonderful set of films, with the highlights being Children of Paradise, the Marlon Riggs films, and Down by Law. But, really, it was just a joy to get to watch any films at all.
My children remain the biggest thing taking up time, space, and effort in my life. But they also bring me the most love, so it’s hardly a fair bargain. I’m looking forward to seeing what 2023 has in store. I’ll make no predictions on my pace, but here’s hoping I can at least find a bit of time to continue on the long road ahead. Thanks for reading!