We now have one month of 2021 behind us! And so far my movie-watching habits remain the same from how it was in the last half of 2020, in which I’m just watching a bunch of them, both ones I haven’t seen before and ones I’ve seen at least once. Some of my film trends this month include ’30s films starring Miriam Hopkins (she was TCM’s Star of the Month), early films of Pedro Almodóvar (a special month-long retrospective on TCM Imports), and TCM’s month-long spotlight on whodunits! I’m also still catching up on new releases from last year, as the delayed awards season is just about to get started. Until then, a quick look back at what I’ve watched so far in this new year.

New-to-Me: 62

Re-Watched: 27

New-to-Me Films by Decade:

• 1910s – 0
• 1920s – 1
• 1930s – 9
• 1940s – 14
• 1950s – 2
• 1960s – 13
• 1970s – 6
• 1980s – 6
• 1990s – 4
• 2000s – 0
• 2010s – 1
• 2020s – 6

List of New-to-Me Films:

1. Faces (1968)
2. David and Lisa (1962)
3. The Pumpkin Eater (1964)
4. The Mark (1961)
5. The Go-Between (1971)
6. Two Girls on Broadway (1940)
7. Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942)
8. Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938)
9. Bride by Mistake (1944)
10. Easy to Wed (1946)
11. The Cobweb (1955)
12. The President’s Analyst (1967)
13. Death on the Nile (1978)
14. Prescription: Murder (1968)
15. Churchill and the Movie Mogul (2019)
16. Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (1980)
17. Labyrinth of Passion (1982)
18. Another Round (2020)
19. King of the Hill (1993)
20. The Underneath (1995)
21. Wedding Rehearsal (1932)
22. The Conquest of the Air (1936)
23. Men Are Not Gods (1936)
24. The Inspector General (1949)
25. Knight Without Armour (1937)
26. One Night in Miami… (2020)
27. Sylvie’s Love (2020)
28. Promising Young Woman (2020)
29. Pieces of a Woman (2020)
30. I’m Your Woman (2020)
31. Dark Habits (1983)
32. What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)
33. Midnight Lace (1960)
34. Murder She Said (1961)
35. Murder at the Gallop (1963)
36. Murder Most Foul (1964)
37. Murder Ahoy (1964)
38. Barbary Coast (1935)
39. Splendor (1935)
40. Woman Chases Man (1937)
41. The Great Santini (1979)
42. The Widow Couderc (1971)
43. Un flic (1972)
44. The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968)
45. Matador (1986)
46. If Winter Comes (1947)
47. Winter Meeting (1948)
48. Becky Sharp (1935)
49. The Last Command (1928)
50. They Knew What They Wanted (1940)
51. It Started with Eve (1941)
52. Faithful in My Fashion (1946)
53. Green Dolphin Street (1947)
54. Trouble Along the Way (1953)
55. Along Came Jones (1945)
56. Buck Privates (1941)
57. Road to Utopia (1945)
58. The Nutty Professor (1963)
59. When a Stranger Calls (1979)
60. The Caller (1987)
61. Kika (1993)
62. The Flower of My Secret (1995)

A Few Favorite Discoveries:

Prescription: Murder serves as the first pilot for Columbo, coming a couple of years before the second pilot and the show’s official launch. IMDb lists it separate from the rest of the episodes of the show and lists it as a TV movie, so that’s my justification for logging it among the other movies I watched… as the line is beginning to blur between what’s film and what’s TV. Anyway, one of my new year’s resolutions as far as media consumption goes was to watch more old TV shows, and Columbo is my first for the year! I just finished season 3 over the weekend and am just loving it so far. But it was this first iteration of Peter Falk as the title character in Prescription: Murder that immediately hooked me. It’s still among my top favorite Columbo mysteries, especially because of Gene Barry as the antagonist, who works great alongside Falk’s seemingly befuddled homicide detective.

Promising Young Woman was one of my most anticipated movies of 2020, and while I would’ve loved to see this in theaters, I’m glad I got to finally see it instead of waiting another year or so, as is the case for several other movies that were set to come out last year, unfortunately. Carey Mulligan has been an actress I’ve enjoyed watching since her breakout, Oscar-nominated role in An Education, and here she gives another stellar performance, one of my favorites of her work so far. She also has a great dynamic with the extensive supporting cast, especially Bo Burnhum as her character’s love interest. It’s a fantastic feature film debut from director and screenwriter Emerald Fennell, and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what movies she makes next.

It Started with Eve is a really fun romantic comedy, starring the always charming Deanna Durbin. Here she plays a hat check girl named Anne, who pretends to be engaged to Johnny (Robert Cummings) because his millionaire father (Charles Laughton) is on his deathbed and wants to meet who his son is engaged to. But shortly after meeting her, he suddenly recovers, and now Anne and Johnny have to figure out how to admit the truth to him while his health is still fragile. As you can imagine, screwball hijinks ensue because of the situation. As he often is, Laughton is the real scene-stealer here, but Durbin still holds her own, displaying both her comic and musical talent. The scenes between the two of them are especially enjoyable.