Blog Archives
14 Romantic Movies Directed By Women To Stream On Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day is coming up and thus many of us are in the mood for something romantic. I combed through Netflix and Amazon Prime to come up with a list of 14 romantic films directed by women that you can enjoy this holiday.
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.
Cinema Fanatic’s Favorite Fifteen Films of 2018
In 2017 I saw 72 new releases, which I believe was a record number for me. This year I saw 117! I attribute this to several of this year’s new releases being Netflix films (so convenient, if not ideal) and MoviePass. Yes, MoviePass. I saw a few things I may have skipped in previous years because of MoviePass. For awhile I could watch one film a day via MoviePass and then see a second one that I paid for. This led to a lot more double features at the Midtown Art Cinema than in pervious years. Also last year I saw 32 new releases that were directed by women. This year I saw 59 new release films directed by women (170 in total, but I’ll write more about that in tomorrow’s end of the year post), which is half of the new release films I saw this year. I plan to at least keep up that ratio next year, if not do better. You can see all the new release (and festival) films I watched in 2018 and how I ranked them here. After the cut you’ll find my Favorite Fifteen Films, and as always I remind you that this is subjective and in no way should be considered a “best” list.
August 2018 in Film
This monthly recap is a few days late because the month changed during DragonCon here in Atlanta and I was just too damn tired to get it written. This year I was on four panels and attended several more featuring my amazing coworkers at TCM/FilmStruck. I also wore five cosplay outfits. It was a lot. But also so so much fun. As for my watching in August, I had intended to watch a lot more Summer Under The Stars films on TCM in August, but somehow only managed to really tackle Barbra Streisand. I did, however, catch up on a ton of films about to expire on FilmStruck and saw several great new releases (including my favorite movie of the year so far). I also found myself finishing up my Downton Abbey binge that I started in July. More thoughts on that to come. As always, you can see everything I watched, a breakdown by year, and some favorites after the cut.
A Year With Women: 103 Essential Films By Female Filmmakers
Find out more about A Year With Women here.
Lately I’ve become more and more frustrated with the various “best ever” lists that have been released because they rarely feature films by women, or if they do it’s usually one or two films. I think this is more a reflection of those who are polled for these kinds of lists, as well as a compounding of history on itself. For so long films by men have made up the bulk of the film canon and I think people are afraid to add new films to these revered lists. I also think many people haven’t seen very many films by women, or if they have it’s always the same handful of films. In an attempt to create a better, more inclusive list of great films by women, I polled over 500 critics, filmmakers, bloggers, historians, professors and casual film viewers, asking them to tell me what films directed (or co-directed) by women are essential viewing. Some people only responded with as little as five votes, others submitted hundreds of films. In the end, I received over 7,000 votes for 1,100+ different films. After tallying up this data, with ties factored in, I then had a list of 103 essential films directed by women.
Movie Quote of the Day – Appropriate Behavior, 2015 (dir. Desiree Akhavan)
Shirin: I’m like one bad romantic encounter away from moving to France and changing my identity.
A Year With Women: January 2015 in Films
So January was officially my first month in A Year With Women and boy was it a great start to the year! For the first time in the longest time I pretty much loved everything I watched. I got to a bunch of films I had been meaning to watch for ages and saw some things I probably would never has sought out ordinarily. You can watch my video reviews of everything I watched in January here on YouTube. As always, after the cut is a full list of what I watched in January and a little bit on my five favorite films from the month.
the diary of a film history fanatic 