Story and You

( Source ) Last August, I was preparing to begin my first semester of my freshman year in university, and I went all out, watching as many movies as I could squeeze into my days. It was Summer Under the Stars on TCM, and I exclusively watched movies playing on the channel during that month, making a point to watch at least one film from each featured star. I considered trying that again this year, but I just wasn't as enthused by the selection of stars and films this year as I was in 2017--and more than that, I was feeling kind of burnt out this month and did not want to commit myself to any specific movie-watching challenges. The closest I came to that was getting a few 2017 releases out of the library and watching through them; this turned out to be a great decision, as most of my selections were excellent and I discovered some new favorites among those films I missed out on seeing last year. My classic film watching was less successful, and I watched a disproportionate nu...

(image via The New York Times) Despite my continued lack of posting, I've actually been doing more writing in the past few weeks than I have all summer; somehow, I just cannot bring myself to actually go back and edit everything I have been writing and post it. Instead, I write these massive essays in a creative furor, sometimes staying up half of the night getting them done, and then abandon them to move onto something else. Hopefully in the future I actually work up the motivation--and the nerve--to get these pieces out there, but in the meantime, I'm at least keeping up with these recaps. July saw a whole bunch of first time viewings, as usual, but also a number of re-watches. Often I feel so overwhelmed by the number of films out there that I've yet to see that I neglect returning to old favorites, but when I finally do I remember that it's in re-watching that you really learn about a film and come to appreciate it; a single viewing is never enough. In particul...

(image via Criterion) Midway through the summer, and my quest to purge my DVR of old recordings is still going strong. As always, I am impressed by the quality of the films that I have been allowing to sit un-watched for months on end; it makes for a potent reminder not to let them build up like that again. Over the course of the month I caught up on my Anthony Perkins films from when he was Star of the Month on TCM; I watched some really excellent films from 2017, including Game Night and Last Flag Flying , and the Pride Month triple feature of Thelma , Beach Rats , and God's Own Country ; I had a fantastic Noir double feature, Kiss of Death and Inferno , with Blu-rays that I blind-bought from Twilight Time; I saw Hereditary and Incredibles 2 in theaters, both great experiences in entirely different ways; and I discovered the films of Albert Brooks, a filmmaker who has immediately become one of my favorite directors. Read on to see the full list of films I watched, and a mor...

(image via The Playlist) May was the kind of month where I look back and think, hey, maybe I really do watch too many movies. I watched so much and to be honest, some of these films could have used more time for reflection than I gave them as I just kept moving on to the next thing. With that being said, this was also a month where I often went out of my comfort zone and really learned a lot a variety of filmmakers and styles of filmmaking that I was previously ignorant of. In particular, I watched a lot of documentaries this month, my supposed least favorite genre--and discovered that I just have not been watching the right documentaries, as is usually the case when I make broad statements about film genres or movements. I watched Monterey Pop, Gimme Shelter, and Dont Look Back , all incredible and engaging looks into the 60s rock scene; the adorable and informative Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story ; Icarus Film's 8-film DVD retrospective of Jean Rouch's work; ...

(image via Criterion) April has essentially followed the same pattern as December: I finish my courses, do my final exams, and prepare for a nice, relaxing break, only for a big movie to come out and suddenly I have 8-hour shifts every day and I can barely stay awake from sheer exhaustion when I finally do get some free time at home. While all of this business is excellent for my theater, I am looking forward to things quieting down so I can finally get that much-needed break. In the meantime, I have been watching a lot of movies; I mentioned, also back in December, that I was making my way through old recordings on my DVR, and that process is still ongoing. Much of the backlog was recordings from TCM Imports, so I have been watching a lot of subtitled, black-and-white films from the 1950s and 60s, which has been a lot more fun and enlightening than one might expect. Again, it was very difficult to narrow down my highlights list to five, and I had to skip some truly excellent film...

(image via the Nerdist) I am pretty sure that I have never been so busy in my life as I have been in the first three months of this year; certainly, the time has never seemed to pass by so quickly. Despite all of my schoolwork and work at the theater, my movie-watching actually went up this month, and I saw a lot of really fantastic films—so many that it was much more difficult than usual to narrow the list down to 5 favorites to talk about. I saw some really excellent films in my foreign film class, including the Canadian films Atanarjuat: The Long Runner and Water ; I saw the adorable  Love, Simon and the brutal Red Sparrow at the theater; I saw the great Vincent Price movies House of Wax and The Tingler, and re-watched my inexplicable new favorite film The Monster Club, which was just as good the second time; I watched some fantastic pre-Codes with the underrated The Maltese Falcon , Waterloo Bridge , and The Old Dark House ; and, most significantly, I finished the...

(image via medium.com) Despite having a number of assignments and exams to do in February, and my spring break getting eaten up by too many shifts at work, I somehow managed to watch more movies this month than last without dropping the ball on anything else. Even better, the quality of the movies I saw increased greatly; while January seemed like a good month for movies looking back at it, February is definitely even better. I had a best picture double feature at my theater with The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (my first ever double feature at a movie theater, actually); I re-watched the incredible In the Mood for Love in my foreign film class and wrote my exam essay on it, two events that re-affirmed my love for this incredible film; I got my Vincent Price fix with While the City Sleeps and The Monster Club ; and I went to see Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which actually turned out to be a really fun time at the movies. Read on to see a breakdo...

(image via cinemaclock.com) I thought January was going to be a return to normal, or at least as normal as you could call the past few months, but yet again I was in for a surprise. I started taking my first university-level English classes this semester, one focused on literature and the other on academic writing, and they have proven to be much more work than any of the classes I took in the fall. I am definitely learning a lot, but the clear drawback is yet another reduction in my free time. I watched a lot less movies than is typical for me, less than 1 a day, and I often found myself missing my routine of winding down to a movie at the end of each day. Despite the reduction, I did still find the time to watch some great stuff: I continued to work my way through those DVR recordings from 2016, which resulted in watching 3 films each from two of my favorite classic actors, Norma Shearer and Charles Laughton; I watched the silent film Where Are My Children? from 1916, which now ...