Trying to Utilize YouTube Playlists More

When I watch videos on YouTube, even if I like a video, I very rarely hit the like button. So when I want to go back and watch one again, I have to scroll through my history to try and find it, and it's finding a needle in a haystack. 

Read more »

journal

I Think I'm Actually Going to Leave The Bad Place (Twitter)

I'm actually doing it, this is not an empty threat. My biggest obstacle in the past has always been me never deleting the app off of my phone, and I actually did it. it's no longer. 

I’ve just become a rat that keeps pressing the button. It’s the first thing I check in the morning, and I check it frequently, and just scroll. And scroll. And scroll. Even as a write this, I go to my phone and click the app that is now taking up Twitter’s spot.

I joined Threads when it first launched, and just today I joined Bluesky, so I am still on a social media platform like Twitter, but since I haven’t developed the habit like I have with Twitter, it might be easier to wean myself off the platforms.

We’ll see how long this lasts.

journal

Just Numb Right Now

How the hell is this happening again? Honestly I don't have anything else. We'll probably have a better picture in the next couple of weeks how this happened once every vote is counted and all the data is analyzed. Though I do have theories that I'm not brave enough at this moment to share. 

We have four more years of fighting like hell in front of us. But right now, I'm just numb.

journal

Not Every Movie Has to be the Best Movie Ever

I think the sentiment that every movie has to be 4/4, 5/5, or in the 90% range on the tomato meter to be worthy. Honestly, I think we see a lot of this discourse with the superhero franchises and the delusion of the stans about the real quality of the MCU and DCEU films, and that has spread to film discourse at large. Not every film needs to be defended to the death that it's great or shouted down for being bad.

Three-star films are still films people should see. People should even see bad movies, cause it's good for the film going diet, you might even find a good-bad movie, or a bad movie that you just can't stop thinking about. 

I also think this is a function of people misunderstanding how to actually read and use Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd. Those platforms are not meant to be the critical end all be all. I use Rotten Tomatoes rarely, but when I do,  I really scroll down to the critic's reviews and clink the links to take me to the full review on whatever site they write for, and then I spend more time on that site clicking around, or at least until I hit a paywall. I might even decide it's a site that's worth subscribing to. It really is a good starting place to find critics whose work you want to follow. Letterbox is a good way to log films you've watched, much like Goodreads for novels. Those two sites are not a place for critical discourse. It's a place to talk about things between peers, much like you would in real life. A written word of mouth, which is how movies can build momentum at the box office and gain more traction with audiences. Unless the review on Letterboxd are a professional film critic's, I don't think they should be given the same weight as a published review. Speaking of which, it's also a good place to follow your favorite critics as well, and see what they're watching and rewatching, get a real idea of their taste in film. 

Both of these sentiments I think are bad for movies across the board. If you expect movies to be 5/5 all of the time, and you build up this hype you can only be disappointed when a movie is only good or great, and angry when movies are bad. And it can lead to a frustration and an unwillingness to give a new film a chance. A healthy discourse and a healthy film industry means that the good, bad, and great films are made, released in theaters, given a chance to find an audience (and make money), and have people talk about them. 

cinema, thoughts

After the Madness of March, I’m Going to Try to Watch More Women’s Sports

 The WNBA draft is upon us, after an electric and record breaking Women’s March Madness. This was the first year I really paid attention to the tournament, after only watching last year’s championship. I watched as much of this year as I could, watched both Final Four games. I didn’t end up watching the final because I had tickets to the final performance of Spamalot on Broadway. I contain multitudes.

Read more »

journal

The Best Movies I Watched in 2023

I had a lot of time on my hands thanks to the dual strikes this year. So, I ended up having a lot of time to watch movies, especially movies that I had managed to miss up until this year.  

Here's what I watched. Check me out on Letterboxd.

Read more »

cinema, lists