My First Experience at the New York Film Festival

I've been living in New York a few years now and I had never been to the New York Film Festival. I can fully blame it on my working schedule for most of it, but I also think to check for screenings of movies I'd like to see way too late and they'd all be sold out. 

But this year is the first year where I heard about their trivia nights. I love trivia, and I know so much useless stuff, a lot of which is pop culture related. Now, I'm not a bar person, so I don't go to bar trivia nights, which is a shame. Mainly because I've never had the chance to compete in a public forum and put my trivia brain to the test. 

There were a bunch of different trivia games played, and the one I volunteered for was a game called Filmography. You and your opponent go back and forth naming films in an actor’s filmography, and you go until one of you blanks and then the other person has to name one more to seal the win. The actor I got was George Clooney. And lucky for me, I spent this past summer watching ER, and sometimes when I’m watching a new to me show, I go to the actor’s Wikipedia pages and look at what else they’ve done and look for future recommendations, so I had looked at Clooney’s filmography quite recently, on top of me having actually seen a bunch of his movies. As the game was going along, I felt like I was getting non-obvious picks in. I remembered Good Night and Good Luck, which I have seen, thanks to the new play, and Midnight Sky, again thank you Wikipedia. I also got in Return of the Killer Tomatoes because I've seen enough interviews of him bringing it up, and my brain stores information like that for seemingly no reason other than trivia. So, I ended up winning this game. And the prize for this round was a free ticket to the first screening of Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly, starring George Clooney, at the fest. 

Then the final game of the night, where everyone who wanted to could compete, was a game of Movie-Actor. You're given a card with an actor's name and a movie of theirs, and then the next person has to pick another actor in that movie, then the next person has to pick another movie of that actor's, and the line keeps going until someone breaks, that person is eliminated, and you keep going like that until only one is left standing. I managed to make it to the last two people, and I had to name an Elle Fanning movie, and just went blank. Somewhere was my lead in for her so I couldn't say that, and then I kept seeing two different characters of hers but I just could not pull out a title. So I came in second place. My consolation prize was a free ticket to a screening of Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague. 

And then going to the screenings and getting to go to the actual festival was so cool. To be in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and see all the NYFF signs around, it felt like more than just seeing a movie at my local AMC. It felt like it was a special thing. I loved it. I can't wait to go back next year.

cinema, journal

Haven't Listened to the New Taylor Swift Album and Feeling Smug About It

I also haven't listened to The Tortured Poets Department. And the -more albums. It would be dishonest to include Midnights, because I did listen to a few songs when it came out, but then never listened again. So I’ve been pretty out of Taylor Swift for the last five years. This is something I am perfectly okay with. I don’t feel like I’m missing out, because what she does is so pervasive in the culture, I feel like I get the gist of the music. 

The fact of the matter is, she’s just not doing anything interesting. She’s not taking big wild swings musically. She’s writing about the same old things she’s been writing about since she was 16, with seemingly no new perspective. Frankly I’m bored.

But the worst parts of the Taylor Swift Experience, especially of the last few years, are her fans and her seeming greed.

Her fans are no longer a fan base, it is a cult. The way they mobilize around her, talk about her, and defend her against anybody who dares say anything negative about her, is wild. They have no concept of pop culture out side of her and relate everything can back to her. I’m sorry but Taylor Swift is not the center of the universe, and it’s fine if people don’t like her. Chill out.

The thing that really kills me is the greed. Just the amount of different variant covers of albums, and certain songs only available on certain additions. And because her fanbase is a cult, they buy it all. Not to mention all of the merch. I know trademarking is important for art ownership, but I remember when she tried to trademark “1989”. Just the number. There was no art or image as a part of it, she tried to trademark the year 1989. 

So yeah, feeling a bit smug not listening to her.

earworm

These Shows Could Have Been on Television

There are so many shows on streaming that I wish we could go back to the days before these platforms took over television. And there are some shows I see on streaming that just scream to me, "this should've been on real television". And I'm gonna take a pretty good stab at what networks they should've been aired on.

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the telly

I've Had a Great Run of Seeing Theater The Last Couple Months

Now, I usually see 2-3 shows a year. Obviously, I would always like to see more, but there are things called time and money that can put limitations on things. I have a whole rant on ticket prices, not just for theater, but in general, that I could go on, but I'll save that for another time. And I never win lotteries. I enter them, never win.

However, the same could not be said for my sister the last couple months. It seemed like the only lottery she couldn't win was the one for Oh, Mary. In the last two months we saw The Notebook, Our Town, and Gypsy (in previews). That's a pretty good run. The Notebook really is a notch above most of the other movie to musical adaptations we've been getting lately. It changed enough from the movie, especially how the flashbacks to Young Noah and Allie were told to us, to make it feel like it's own little thing. Our Town is Our Town. I had never seen it before and now I can say I have. And now I can say  I've seen a Kenny Leon directed show, too. 

But the grandmommy of them all was Gypsy. I got to see Audra on stage for the second time, and my sister got to see her for the first time, and what an introduction for her. It's such a staggering performance. This production better be filmed for PBS Great Performances or something because it's a great revival that makes such smart choices. I want to see it again. And I need the cast recording so I can listen Audra's "Rose's Turn" on repeat.

Then my family sees a show together every Christmastime, and this year's selection was Sunset Boulevard because that was the one my dad was most interested in seeing. Thank god he's not a Gypsy fan, or otherwise we would've been out of luck when they had their flu outbreak. It's a great production no doubt. With multimedia becoming a trend on Broadway in recent years, this seems to be the only show that it really felt essential to the telling. But I'm still not an Andrew Lloyd Webber fan.

And there's so much theater coming this spring that I want to see. 

I still need to see Death Becomes Her. That looks like a freaking blast of musical comedy. I want to see Maybe Happy Ending because I've heard nothing but good things, and if we want original musicals on Broadway, we should go see the ones that make it to the Great White Way. I want to see BOOP! The Betty Boop Musical. And now I'm blanking on what's coming but I know there will be more. There will always be more.

journal, the theatre

The Best Movies I Watched in 2024

Here are the best movies I watched this year. Also check me out on Letterboxd. Honestly, not my best year for watching new movies, but I did catch up on a bunch of classics. And since I'm posting this late, I'm including one Babygirl, even though I just saw it yesterday and it is now 2025.

• Babygirl
• Challengers
• Conclave
• Fly Me to the Moon
• Gladiator II
• The Greatest Night in Pop
• Hit Man
• Juror #2
• Twisters
• Wicked

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cinema, lists

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. 

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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.

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journal, sportsball