movies

We can forgive the Criterion Channel for failing yet again to provide the much desired Boston Crime collection, since it’s Halloween season and that simply wouldn’t make sense. No, today I’m going to complain about their failure to provide a New England Horror collection. The Dunwich Horror, Jaws, The Witch, The Haunting, and I suppose one could make room for some adaptations of that Maine guy’s novels. I get it. Criterion is a New York company and New Yorkers are allergic to Boston. I won’t dwell on this further; let’s get to the October lineup. It’s scary. ...

I saw Buddy and Coyote vs. Acme within a couple of days of each other and I was struck by how much they occupy the same territory while still being wildly different movies. One is horror, and one’s a heartwarming comedy. Both are about the border between reality and children’s television; both are surrealist exercises. Will Forte and Cristin Milioti are the pivot points, the humans with a foot in both worlds. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more discussion of this, but I suppose the circumstances of Coyote vs. Acme’s release were the elephant in the discourse room. ...

So that’s the first week in the Twin Cities. We’re loving it so far although we’re about ready to get our stuff back; fortunately it shows up Tuesday. I dropped an AirTag in one of the moving boxes to figure out if it’d be an effective tracker and it sure was; I can see our things in a warehouse to the northwest after a somewhat alarming trip down to Chicago. ...

Here we are in the middle of 2026, which is as good a marker as any to see where my movie watching is at. Thanks, Letterboxd, for enabling my OCD! All stats are as of June 30th. I watched 197 movies in the first half of the year. I have a not totally serious goal of 500 this year, which is a number I hit in 2023 after which I decided to stop being quite so obsessive. You don’t need to make the number go up every year, so I pulled back for the sake of my sanity. Now, however, I have more free time. The math says… maybe, particularly since I’m gonna see like 75 movies at Fantasia. (I do count shorts in this.) ...

Now that I’ve slept for a week or so, it’s about time I wrote a post about my SIFF experience. (Link goes to the stable film program page for 2026, not the top level page which is subject to change.) I made a mistake by attending a midnight showing the first Friday of the festival, which left me pretty wrung out for the rest of the week. I feel better now, though. ...

Another year, another batch of Letterboxd stats. I’m pretty happy with it once again. Let’s see what they remind me of… ...

OK, this time I really did cut back on movies. When I say “cut back” what I mean is I watched only 291 movies, which is only cutting back if you start at a baseline of 508 movies watched. Partially this is because we didn’t do Fantasia in 2024; really, though, I made myself be less obsessive, watched more TV, and so on. Also I had a nasty case of something at the beginning of the year which left me exhausted for most of the rest of the year; I want to say it was COVID but who knows? Either way my workday evenings were less useful than once they were. ...

Aw, that’s cute, I thought I wasn’t going to watch as many movies as I did in 2022. Instead I went from 423 watched to 508 watched. Remember when I said “I want to spend more time following my whims”? That worked out really well. In 2022, I did a weekly challenge plus a weekly movie watching club plus another weekly movie watching club – it got to be a grind. In 2023 I was more varied about my tastes and I had more fun. ...

Pitchfork dug deep for this review of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 1-3. Cool for the music but also cool for the esoterica. Anyone who claimed to be Crowley’s kid and had a passion for folk music is worth investigating in my book. Alejandro Galindo seems like a really interesting director. A fair amount of his movies are available on the commercial-based streaming services. I wonder if these weren’t an influence on Roma? ...

Mmm, a whole month’s worth. Look! Finally an article about “the average rural voter” that doesn’t turn out to be about a local Republican activist! I need to remember to check out this online course about modern Ukrainian history from Yale. The trap everyone falls into with technical debt is basically the result of the fact that human instincts are terrible at risk analysis. “It’s been OK so far!” And then your entire airline stops being able to fly. ...