Blog Archives
December 2021 in Films
Hard to believe 2021 has come to a close, and yet here we are. I’ve been blogging here for twelve years apparently! Starting in 2022 most of my non-paid writing will be moving to my newsletter, so please subscribe to that if you want to keep up with my work. On here I’ll publish my annual Favorite Fifteen Films list and my end of the year wrap-up, and then everything going forward will move to the newsletter.
In terms of writing in December for my column I interviewed Mary Lambert about A Castle For Christmas, Valerie Weiss about Mixtape, Lauren Hadaway about The Novice, Jules Williamson about Off The Rails, and Hannah Marks about Mark, Mary, + Some Other People. For The Playlist I review Nightmare Alley, Harlem S1, and The Unforgivable; I also wrote about Venom: Let There Be Carnage as a guilty pleasure. For the Classic Film Collective I recommended Bell, Book and Candle, and wrote a poem about It’s A Wonderful Life. For RogerEbert.com I interviewed Uzo Aduba about her role in National Champions, shared my Top Ten list, and wrote about Tessa Thompson’s exquisite performance in Passing. I hopped on the Matineecast to talk about The Power of the Dog, Battleship Pretension to talk about Christmas Noir, and NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour to talk about Nightmare Alley. For Crooked Marquee I reviewed Red Rocket and The Lost Daughter. And lastly, I made my Polygon debut discussing under seen X-Mas movies and why so many romances are set on New Year’s Eve.
As always, you can see everything I watched in December after the cut.
February 2021 In Films
February came and went so fast I feel like I have whiplash and I fear the bulk of 2021 will follow suit. Thankfully, there’ll always be movies to distract from the abyss that is time. Along with watching far too many films in February, I also started a column at Moviefone called Female Filmmaker In Focus which you can read here and I wrote about the movie parallels in the videos for The Weeknd’s After Hours which you can read here. As always, you can see everything I watched plus a breakdown by decade after the cut.
July 2019 In Films
July was another low new-to-me month for me. I blame my annual re-watch of Frasier, traveling for work, and all the rep cinema I watched (Pick up the new AGFA’s release of Sarah Jacobson’s films!!!). That said, I did see some true gems. As always, you can see everything I watch and my faves after the cut.
June 2019 in Films
June was a pretty great month in cinematic shenanigans for me, even if it was light on feature films (more on that after the cut). Halfway through the month I joined the Battleship Pretension podcast for their retrospective episode on the late Agnès Varda. I also saw a lot of really artistically challenging films (and binged a ton of soapy TV!). As always, you can see everything I watched and read a little bit about my favorites after the cut.
52 Films By Women To Stream On Netflix and Amazon Prime
To help people with their 52 Films By Women challenge this year I thought I’d put together a list of some of my favorite films directed by women that are easily accessible on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Keep in mind that this is in no way all of the films directed by women available on these services, but rather a selection of films I have seen and enjoy. There are also many more films available to rent on Amazon Video as well. Think of this as a jumping off point! Also if you have not taken the 52 Films By Women pledge yet you can do so here.
May 2018 in Films
So May was very different from April in that I didn’t watch nearly as many films directed by women as I had intended. Mostly this was because there were a bunch of films expiring from FilmStruck that I had to watch. Like, so many films. You’ll see. As always, the whole list of everything I watched in May plus my favorites can be found after the cut.
2017 in Films: 365 Days, 628 Films, and a Year Full of Cinema!
2017 was quite the film (and TV!) watching year for me. I got really obsessed with a lot of things and I watched more films this year than I have in a few years. After the cut you can see all 628 new-to-me films I watched (and you can read my monthly breakdowns here). This year was filled with a lot highlights both in terms of what I watched, but also places I visited and people I met. Here’s hoping 2018 will be even better!
July 2017 in Films
I watched way too many movies in July. Not only did I watch a lot of new-to-me films, I also did a ton of rewatching. This uptick in movie watching had a few factors: 1) holy wow we had a lot of good films on TCM last month! 2) I use movies to cope when I am stressed and current events are making me very stressed. 3) I broke my foot, so I stayed in a lot. As always, you can see all the films I watched in July after the cut, as well as some of my favorite first time watches.
May 2017 in Films
May was another month filled with auteurist completism. I tried to finish all of Michelangelo Antonioni’s films. While I didn’t finish all of his films, I did see everything we had streaming on FilmStruck and am only a few films shy of completing his directorial filmography. I also watched more Varda. My plan is to finish all her films on FilmStruck by the end of June. In May I also watched auteur television and by that I mean season two of Master of None, which was a fabulous tribute to Italian cinema. Check it out if you haven’t seen it already! As always, you can find my favorite films of the month + everything I watched after the cut.
April 2017 in Films
Here we are again! April mostly consisted of continuing my binge rewatch of Frasier – and I finally finished! Yes, 11 seasons, 263 episode – watched! That show really holds up, jsyk. I also spent a good deal of April in Los Angeles for the TCM Classic Film Festival (the highlight of my year every year!) and stayed an extra week on vacation. Despite all that, I did almost make it 30 films in April, thanks mostly to FilmStruck. So many films, so little time! As always, you can see everything I watched after the cut, as well as some highlights.
the diary of a film history fanatic 