First superhero movie this time around with the animated Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse from 2018.

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Are you familiar with Spiderman, from other movies or the comic - and how does it compare? Have you seen the sequel Across the Spider-Verse? All comments are welcome.

The rest of the schedule for February is:

• 12th: The Aviator
• 19th: Batman Begins
• 26th: Gangs of New York

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Final movie for January is Brad Bird's animated The Iron Giant from 1999.

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Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.

The schedule for February is:

• 5th: Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
• 12th: The Aviator
• 19th: Batman Begins
• 26th: Gangs of New York

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Fourth movie with a running time of 100 minutes or less is Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (90 minutes) from 2021

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Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.

The final movie for January is next Monday on the 29th with The Iron Giant

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

We got our first silent movie (almost) with Charlie Chaplin's City Lights from 1931.

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How familiar are you with silent films and Charlie Chaplin? Is a movie that is more than 90 years old still worth watching today? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.

Rest of the schedule for January is:

• 22nd: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
• 29th: The Iron Giant

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

We begin the new year with a movie that takes place on new year's eve with Four Rooms from 1995. Written and directed by four direcors - Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.

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How was the movie as a whole? Were there any of the four segments that you particularly liked - or hated?

Rest of schedule for January is:

• 8th: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
• 15th: City Lights
• 22nd: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
• 29th: The Iron Giant

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Next movie with a running time of less than 100 minutes is Planes, Trains, and Automobiles directed by John Hughes from 1987.

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Is this movie a Thanksgiving tradition for you? How did you find the humor in this movie? Still funny or dated? How does it compare to other John Hughes movies? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.

Rest of the schedule for January is:

• 15th: City Lights
• 22nd: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
• 29th: The Iron Giant

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

I didn't have as much time for reading this year. My daughters kept me quite busy (and happy). However, I managed to squeeze in one or the other title. I don't want to discuss all of the forty-something books I read, but here's an incomplete list of what I can recommend (and what not).

I really enjoyed the following books:

• number9dream by David Mitchell
• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
• Red Rising (all six books) by Pierce Brown
• The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis
• Dark Rome by Michael Sommer
• A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman
• The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
• At Night all Blood is Black by David Diop
• The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World by Tim Marshall
• First Person Singular by by Haruki Murakami
• Guitar Zero by Gary Marcus
• This is your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin
• The History of Heavy Metal by Andrew O'Neill

I think my favorites were Black Swan Green and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Both are very powerful stories with complex protagonists.

I didn't really enjoy these books:

• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (seriously, I like Murakami, but I hated this book – the plot was annoying, stylistic choices were questionable and the protagonist bland)
• The Vegetarian by Han Kang (the book was interesting, but also a bit "too much" for me)

I think those books taught me something, although they weren't necessarily fun to read:

• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
• The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• The Great Mental Models Volume 3: Systems and Mathematics

Especially Chris Voss and James Clear can't stop boasting and/or advertising. I learned something from their books, but I found them annoying to read. The mental models book and the Phoenix project were fun, though.

I'm a software developer and read quite some books about this topic this year. I can recommend the following of them:

• Efficient Linux at the Command Line
• 100 Go Mistakes
• The Staff Engineer's Path
• TypeScript Cookbook
• Principles of Package Design

But I didn't really like those (although they're good from a technical perspective):

• Cloud Native Go
• Security and Microservice Architecture on AWS

So, what did you guys read? What can you recommend? Which books disappointed you?

We end the month of 1990s movies with a Christmas classic. Home Alone from 1990.

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Is this a stable Christmas movie in your household or is it perhaps the first time you see it?

Next months schedule for January is:

• 1st: Four Rooms
• 8th: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
• 15th: City Lights
• 22nd: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
• 29th: The Iron Giant