lystn

It’s been a year-end tradition that me, Aaron Smith, and Ted Haycraft usually meet sometime after Christmas but before New Years at an IHOP or Denny’s, recap the year among friends, and eventually get into an argument as to whether Richard Lester is the father of the music video. It happens. Every year. For the second podcasting year, we’ve migrated away from in-person dining to the podcast episode, where the three of us talk:

- how Ted’s disdain of making a top ten list, in a small market where most top ten films have not yet been shown, led to him creating his own year-end award categories;
- with categories such as Best End Credit Tag, Needless Film of the Year, Guy Ritchie Doing Michael Mann, Overlooked Indie, and Most Insightful Documentary;
- or other Ted categories like Most Fun Artsy-Fartsy Film, Deserves More Attention, or Number One Film of the Year (Question Mark?),

Also:

- Why that hasn’t stopped Smith or me from making our own top twenty lists;
- our mutual love of Mitchells vs. the Machines, which Smith has seen multiple times for his kids, and I’ve seen a second time just to confirm that I like it as much as the first time;
- and how, despite it all, we all mutually agreed on our number one movie from 2021.

Aaron Smith is the lead manager at Showplace Cinemas East in Evansville, IN.

Ted Haycraft is film critic for WFIE-14 and co-hosts Cinema Chat on its Midday show. He can also be found on Cinema Chat’s Facebook page.