2019

Let me preface this by saying that I meant to post this MUCH earlier, but I kept having problems uploading photos and then I’ve been sick since Friday the 3rd. Suffice it to say, 2020 is off to a rough start, but I’m confident there is no where to go but up!

All in all, I had an absolutely terrific year! I saw one of my favorite bands, CNCO in Chicago back in February! Went to California in March and created hoards of new memories with some of my favorite people on this planet they call Earth! Started writing my book in June and FINISHED IT in October – just before experiencing the GREATEST CONCERT EVER in Céline Dion’s Courage World Tour that same month! 2019 was a banner year for me and I am beyond excited for what lies ahead in 2020!

Writing my book was an accomplishment I had been working towards my entire adult life, but writing the book has proven to be only the beginning of this literary journey. I am determined to get my work published and while the necessary book proposal is taking more time to complete than originally anticipated, I refuse to give up. I didn’t write an entire book so it can go unread! I will finish my book proposal and begin my search for a literary agent in the first couple months of the new year and cannot wait to see my hard work manifest itself into further success.

I want to share with you all in this post all of my favorite movies and songs from 2019. I listened to a LOT of music and saw a LOT of movies, but I definitely listened to and watched some more than others and cannot wait to share those with you here!

Let me start by saying that I have a tendency to favor movies that I emotionally connect with and the five listed below are all ideal examples of such. I’m a BIG movie crier and the more I cry in something the more I love it. While I don’t want to make a list of the worst movies of the year I do want to take the time to call-out two HUGE disappointments for me:

The Lion King – first off, what the fucking fuck!?! I was INSANELY excited for this! I cried all through the opening sequence of Circle of Life, but that was the beginning and end of my tears. The rest of the movie was a steep slope downhill for me from there. I thought FOR SURE it was going to be my greatest cinematic disappointment of the year until…

The Rise of Skywalker – what the Hell Disney!?! This movie made this entire new trilogy useless and a complete waste of time! We already witnessed the destruction of the Emperor and the Empire in Return of the Jedi! Now we get a new movie where we can witness it all over again in a significantly lesser fashion! I cannot believe what a giant piece of galactic garbage this movie was for me. I didn’t cry a single time! In comparison, I cry four times in The Last Jedi! Ugh! I hope I am NEVER as disappointed leaving the theater as I was after this mess.

Okay, enough with the negativity! Let’s shift the focus onto the movies and musics I LOVED above all others this year…

Top Five Favorite Films

5. Last Christmas – Set to the music of the late great George Michael, this film had a lot of heart and left me leaving the theater much happier than when I arrived. The chemistry between Henry Goulding and Emilia Clarke was undeniable and kept me constantly smiling. Despite an ending that came with zero surprise for me, I still loved every second of it and found myself in tears on two separate occasions. This is definitely a Christmas film that I will return to each holiday season.

4. Frozen 2 – Initially I had little love for the original Frozen. It took several years and a Broadway-style show at Disney’s California Adventure Park to win me over, but that wasn’t at all the case with it’s sequel. I found the messages of righting the wrongs of our ancestor’s and discovering who we were meant to be were incredibly pertinent in today’s day and age. The songs were even stronger than those from the original (you’ll find one of them on my top five songs list below) and the animation was breathtaking. I cried four times in my initial viewing. Disney’s done an incredible job with this franchise and I’ll happily wait another six years if I must for the inevitable third installment.

3. Shazam! – Aside from Wonder Woman, this was the first DC Comics Universe film that Warner Bros. has given us that wasn’t a complete piece of cinematic garbage. This endearing story about a foster child who becomes a superhero gave me three cries in my initial viewing and there are still two moments when I tear up each time watching it since. The superhero schtick was every bit the backstory in this beautiful movie about self-acceptance and self-discovery through the makings of familial love.

2. Toy Story 4 – I was ill-prepared for just how much I loved this movie. In my opinion this is the finest in the Toy Story franchise, which is truly saying something given how phenomenal all the others are. I essentially spent the final thirty minutes of this film sobbing hysterically because everything about the ending is just plain beautiful. This was the Paddington 2 of 2019 for me. I didn’t think Disney/Pixar could conclude the franchise more perfectly than they did with Toy Story 3, but they proved me wrong, and for that I’m incredibly thankful.

1. Aladdin – I saw this picture perfect cinematic triumph four times in theaters and that’s only because I couldn’t find the time to go more. It was the very first Disney live-action remake where I loved it even more than I already loved the animated original. The cast was perfect, the music soared, and the story expanded on a foundation that is already one of the strongest in Disney’s incredible history. I still cry a solid nine times each time I watch it. Honestly, it wasn’t just my favorite movie of 2019, but one of my favorite movies of all time. I cannot stress enough just how much I loved this movie.

Top Five Favorite Songs

5. Show Yourself – Idina Menzel & Evan Rachel Wood – Disney was really pushing Into the Unknown around the release of Frozen 2, but while that song is incredible in it’s own right, I can’t help but feel that they made a slight misstep by not placing their musical focus on this anthem of empowerment. I refused to listen to the soundtrack to the movie prior to watching the film and I’m so happy I did. Watching the sequence unfold around this song was one of the four times I cried in Frozen 2. It’s an incredible moment in a near-perfect film that caused me to put this one on repeat for weeks! I love this song so much and I will never Let It Go!

4. Cold – James Blunt – While I was writing my book I was listening almost exclusively to Mariah Carey, but this song was able to penetrate those five octave walls. I was Obsessed with this British Pop/Rock hit for the entire last half of the summer and still return to it whenever I need a quick bounce in spirit. I’ve been a fan of James Blunt ever since 2006’s You’re Beautiful and while he hasn’t churned out anymore hits for us here stateside, he’s still going strong abroad, and I’ll forever be right there jammin’ alongside him. This infectious number is my favorite from him yet!

3. Pretend – CNCO – Anyone who saw my Spotify 2019 roundup knows that I’m OBSESSED with CNCO! They were my most listened to artist of the decade on that platform! I discovered them back in the fall of 2017 after seeing what became a life-changing film for me, Disney/Pixar’s Coco. I downloaded so much latin music after that movie that I just completely inundated myself with it, but from all the new acts I discovered, one rose above all the others: CNCO. Seeing them in Chicago back in February was one of the highlights of the year for me and this song came right around that time. Built around a sampling of one of my favorite jams of all time, DeBarge’s Rhythm of the Night, this Spanglish single had me hooked from the get-go!

2. A Whole New World – Mena Massoud & Naomi Scott – It’s quite literally impossible for me to listen to this song and not cry at least once. At 1:31 when they both say “feelings” in unison is usually the point that always gets me right in the feelings! I just think it’s so damn beautiful! I have always loved this song and never heard a bad rendition of it, but Mena and Naomi’s chemistry on-screen radiates off as well and is perfectly captured in this masterpiece of a cover. It should have been released to radio because I guarantee this would have been a HUGE adult contemporary hit!

1. Lying Down – Céline Dion – Céline has given us some of the greatest songs of ALL time and this one falls right in there with the rest of them. Here she showcases why no one has ever, nor ever will sing as perfectly as she. Céline is reserved and soft when the track calls for it and then she soars to the heavens when the time is right. Seeing her perform this live was like watching your greatest dream manifest itself into reality. I have goosebumps just reliving it in my mind. Courage was a perfect album, but this particular number made it entirely next level.

In 2018 (and let’s be real here, in many years prior) I stated my New Year’s Resolution would be to finish my book. Well, now that that is (finally) finished my 2020 resolution is to secure a literary agent and do whatever it takes to get a publishing house to publish my novel. Now that I have an entire body of work that I believe strongly in, I feel that like with finishing the book, I too can Make It Happen!

To be honest, that’s really the only resolution I feel it necessary to set for myself. Since New Year’s Eve, I have been tanning and running as part of my Buff. Bronze. Beautiful. campaign, but that’s just me doing what I believe is best for myself. No resolution required. I’m returning to California in March and want to make sure that I look my absolute best for the HUNDREDS of pictures I’ll have taken of me when I return to Disneyland and visit THE BRITNEY SPEARS MUSEUM, THE ZONE, IN LA! Between those two places alone I’ll acquire countless photos and who even knows what else is on the lineup! All I know is that I CANNOT WAIT for 2020 because if it’s anything like 2019 then I know it’ll be quite the year!

Hope that you all had a terrific 2019 as well and that 2020 is THE BEST yet for you! As always, THANK YOU for reading and PLEASE feel free to leave me a comment below! There is truly nothing I love more than reading and responding to them! I appreciate you all and look forward to sharing with you all again soon!