Blog Archives
July 2021 in Films
This month I watched quite a bit more films (I curbed my rewatch of The X-Files, but it’s still happening. Trust.) But before we get into the log, here’s a recap of all the writing I did this month. For The Classic Film Collective I recommended a great silent film and wrote a poem about Merle Oberon. On my podcast Prog Save America I had director Allan Arkush (Rock and Roll High School, Get Crazy) on to talk about being a teen Bob Dylan fan in the 60s and working at the Fillmore East, and I had Amanda from the podcast Discord & Rhyme talk about The Moody Blues. Speaking of podcasts, I joined Ryan from the Matineecast to talk about Zola. For Nerdist I wrote about crazy credits, the classic films that may have inspired Captain America: The First Avenger, and Arthurian adaptations you may have forgotten about. For Moviefone, I wrote about Zola & American Honey, films that inspired The Last Letter From Your Lover, and interviewed Shahad Ameen about her film Scales, Leigh Janiak about the Fear Street Trilogy, Augustine Frizzell about The Last Letter From Your Lover, and Sonia Kennebeck about Enemies of the State. For The Playlist I reviewed This Way Up season 2, The Last Letter From Your Lover, and The Pursuit of Love. For RogerEbert.com I wrote about how the doc about Anthony Bourdain is a disaster. Lastly, one of the pieces I am the most proud of yet, for Musings I wrote about how Ethan Hawke has infused autobiography into his body of work.
As always, after the cut you can find everything I watched in July as well as some of the highlights of my month in film.
January 2021 in Films
My watching as I dove head first into the New Year followed a few distinct phases. For the first week or so I did not have a working computer, so rather than relying on streaming I delved into the wild world of blind-bought Blu-rays that had been piling up (mostly from Kino, Twilight Time, and Criterion). You can also detect some frantic catching up on films on the Criterion Channel that expired at the end of January, films on Netflix that I had actually watched months ago back when that was my job, a deluge of screeners for Best International Oscar contenders (lots of free screenings of those popping into my inbox; I was overjoyed!), and lastly a handful of films from the Sundance Film Festival. As always, I’ll highlight a few favorites after the cut.
Movie Quote of the Day – I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!, 1968 (dir. Hy Averback)
Guru: Who are you? Do you know who you are?
Harold Fine: I’m trying. Guru, I’m really trying.
Guru: When you stop trying, then you’ll know who you are.
Harold Fine: Well, I’m trying to stop trying.
Guru: Good.
Movie Quote of the Day – An Unmarried Woman, 1978 (dir. Paul Mazursky)
Erica: You know what I did yesterday? I threw out a whole new jar of blackberry jam. Martin loved blackberry jam. I think the problem was that I didn’t do things as myself, you know? I did things as this Martin & Erica, Martin & Erica. It wasn’t his fault. I liked it.
Saul: Saul & Erica will be different from Martin & Erica.
Erica: You wanna see other women?
Saul: I want you.
Erica: You’re free to.
Saul: I don’t want to.
Erica: Then don’t.
Saul: Do you want to see other men?
Erica: Not today.
Saul: I’m getting a headache.
Joan Crawford, Indies and Docs: March 2014 in Films
March was a pretty good month. I picked up from last month and managed to watch just slightly more than a film a day, so everything feels much more normal. I also saw a lot of great new and rep releases in theaters during the month – and coming up in just over a week is the TCM Film Festival! That’s going to be fabulous, as it always is. I continued with Female Filmmaker Friday, and I hope y’all have been enjoying reading that feature as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I’ve also watch A LOT of Joan Crawford movies. I didn’t make it through all of the ones I brought home from work to watch (still have six more!), but my total for Miss Crawford is now up to 51 movies! I’m gonna do what I can to see the rest by the end of the year. Wish me luck! Anyways, as always, the full list of what I watched is after the cut, as well as a few stand out favorites.
the diary of a film history fanatic 