Author Archives: Marya E. Gates
It’s Cinema Fanatic’s 11th Anniversary!
Truly baffling that today is the blog’s 11th anniversary. Back when I started this blog it was during the recession and I was living in the back of my parents’ house working a job I did not care for in my hometown. Watching films, writing about them, just sharing my love for them gave me a sense of purpose.
In the ensuing decade plus I have attended grad school and received an MFA in Film Production, I have worked at Warner Bros., Rotten Tomatoes, TCM/FilmStruck, and Netflix. Jobs I would never have dreamed I would have back when I started this.
But in doing those jobs I lost touch with the pure love of it all. I slowly stopped blogging as much. First went all the lengthy features, and then even Movie Quote of the Day. Now I don’t even write about the films during my monthly write-up. I’ve just gotten so tired.
I learned a lot at every single one of those jobs and am grateful for the experiences I would not have had over the last decade without them.
But as anyone who follows me elsewhere knows, I left my most recent job as the Editorial Manger for NetflixFilm at the beginning of the month. It was a weird, strange departure. But I think for the best. I am proud of all the work I did there in the last 19 months. It was surely some of the best work I’ve done.
I’m not sure yet what I am doing next. I am weighing some options for what ~ the future ~ holds.
With the pandemic raging I’ve been as isolated as I was in those years when I first started this blog. In the last two weeks I’ve found the joy of just watching cinema again. Just sharing my love of it again. It seems everything has come full circle.
The one constant is always cinema. Always.
Noirvember 2020 in FIlms
Y’all this month was Noirvember 11!! I cannot even believe I’ve been doing this for that long. Every year more and more people (and libraries!) participate and it fills me with such joy (which is maybe the opposite of what noir should do???). I didn’t watch much this month beyond the one noir a day, but as always you can see everything I watched after the cut, plus a breakdown by decade and a few favorites.
September and October 2020 in Films
September was a terrible month. I spent much of the month with my family up in the northern California because my grandfather died. Needless to say, not a lot of new-to-me movie watching happened that month. Hence why there was no post. I decided to combine the two months into one post. October included a virtual version of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, so like most years there is an uptick in silent film, but not as much as past years. As always, you can see everything I watched and a breakdown by year after the cut.
August 2020 in Films
I spent the bulk of my August re-watching all of Sex and the City from the beginning, plus the movie (and watching the sequel for the first time). You can find a very in depth documentation of that re-watch here. I did, however, also watch some movies. As always after the cut you can find a list of all the new-to-me films I watched, plus a highlighted selection of my favorites.
July 2020 in Films
I spent much of July catching up on some female directed films from earlier in 2020 that I missed, as well as still working my way through Criterion Channel’s Tell Me collection (I only have one film left!!) and honestly that made for a great month of viewing. As always, after the cut you can see everything I watched in July, a breakdown by decade, and a few favorites.
May and June 2020 in Films
I didn’t do a round up post for May due to the state of things at the beginning of June, but I do want to do the films I watched in May justice, so I am doing a two month post this month. So, after the cut you will find everything I watched in May *and* June, a breakdown by decade, and my favorites.
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No Post For May
It doesn’t feel right to do a post this month, but I want to push you all to watch the films in Tell Me: Women Filmmaker, Women’s Stories on Criterion Channel.
Here’s the log:
- All Day and a Night
- The Half of It
- Ema
- Joyce at 34
- Becoming
- Selah and the Spades
- Clotheslines
- Un beau soleil intérieur (Let the Sunshine In)
- Carrie Pilby
- Loser
- Diabolo menthe (Peppermint Soda)
- Outside In
- Jean of the Joneses
- Qarib Qarib Singlle
- Galveston
- Rough Night
- Ophelia
- The Weekend
- Sword of Trust
- Paper Year
- Growing Up Female
- Janie’s Janie
- Betty Tells Her Story
- It Happens to Us
- Yudie
- Second Cousins Once Removed
April 2020 in Films
It is the truth universally acknowledged that April 2020 flew by at the speed of light. March seemed interminably long, but I don’t even know where April went. I definitely watched less films in April, but I did watch some truly stunning ones. As always you can find the whole list, a breakdown by decade, and a few of my favorites after the cut.
March 2020 in Films
It feels like March was a month that just would not end. As is with many people, I haven’t left my house in several weeks (except for a few trips to the grocery store), so my movie watching increased quite a bit this month. As you will see after the cut, I’ve continued watching A LOT of Japanese films. I feel that trend will continue for the foreseeable future. As always, after the cut you can see everything I watched, plus a few highlighted favorites.
December 2020 in Films
Jan 8
Posted by Marya E. Gates
Apologies for the delay on this post. My computer died at the end of December so this post as well as my end of the year wrap-up and my Favorite Fifteen Films of 2020 were delayed. If you follow me on social, you probably saw that I left my job at the beginning of December as well, so this month threw me for a bit of a loop. As always though, you will find everything I watched in December, a breakdown by decade, and a few favorites after the cut.
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Posted in 2020 in Films
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