70mm films cost extra, but they often come with fun perks, like this handout for the Brutalist. It contained a sleeve, a brochure highlighting the architect’s works, and a postcard. A24 did a great job of promoting this film and sustaining the idea that László Tóth was a real architect.
Letterboxd is like Goodreads for movies, but not owned by Amazon. If you like to keep track of movies you watch, and see your friends’ reviews, check out Letterboxd.
I’m a paying member (It’s like $20/year), so I get stuff, one of which is an expanded year in review.
Here are screenshots from mine:
While I logged 209 films, some of those are short films. I’ve tallied the feature-length films watched in 2024 and the number is 190. As you will see below, July was the biggest month with 25 films (thanks, Covid) and October was the lowest month, with 8 (thanks 50th birthday party).
You can see the influence of both the Hollywood Movie Musical project where I attempted to watch as many movie musicals during my unemployment, starting with the Jazz Singer. That’s how I got five Janette McDonald features. William Wyler being the most-seen director is due to the Filmspotting marathon in the first half of the year.
My biggest week was the week in July I had Covid, when I watched 15 movies. (15!) The movie musicals project really took a great leap forward then. Those high numbers in early February are the Oscar-nominated shorts program, which always throw off the count early in the year. There was only one week I didn’t watch a film, and that (ironically) was the week of my birthday, when I was neck deep in party prep.
I’m glad that my first and last movies of 2024 were both directed by women. I kept track of women-directed films watched, and the total was 57. I’m glad my past goal to watch 52 movies by women in a year has become routine enough that this year I just tracked movies directed by women, rather than written by or directed by women. I think this reflects a slight upswing in directing jobs for women, but probably more my habits and my ability to find movies directed by women.
The Diary Milestones section was interesting, including one movie I watched and had no idea it was a rewatch (Gurnesy), a movie I remembered too late that I barely tolerated one of the actors (Babes), one of my favorite films (Good One) and one of my favorite theater experiences (Outliers and Outlaws).
The other fun thing in this screenshot is the most watched theme: Moving relationship stories (yep, 37 films including Challengers, Nowhere Special, A Real Pain, and Take This Waltz) and the nanogenre weird, dream, journey. That one I had too look up, but yep. Things like Barbie, Turtles All the Way Down, and Nightbitch.
This is always the fun quiz part. Can I remember the films I saw these actors in? We’ve covered Janette MacDonald, but Mr. Chalamet? A Complete Unknown. And what else? Did I watch Call Me By Your Name again?
[Checks]. Ah. I rewatched Lady Bird, plus rewatched Dune, in preparation for Dune: Part Two. So four. No rewatch of Call Me By Your Name.
I am not very good at this game.
I know Catherine O’Hara was in both Beetlejuices, but what about the other two films I saw her in? Apparently she did voice work in Elemental and the Wild Robot. Interestingly, my Zendaya streak is also due to the Dunes, plus Challengers.
Of this list, I think it’s fun that Luca Guadagnino had both one of my favorite films this year (Challengers) and one film that I really did not like (Queer).
Also included in this stat: Longest: Ben Hur (222 minutes, and I watched it over two days). Shortest: I’m Hip (4 minutes, which was an add-on to the Oscar Nominated Short Films Animated Program.
For posterity, here is an alphabetical list of the movies I rated five stars (as of 1/20/25):
And here are the films I rated four stars (as of 1/20/25)
As always, I look at those lists and think, eh, some of those can be adjusted. My Old Ass? Probably should be in the 5-star crowd. Mean Girls? Maybe actually a four-star movie that I watched very early in the year. But the adjusting can go on forever. I really liked all of these movies.
Our friend, Brooke Hogan is pursuing an acting career and was cast in the movie Breakup Season. It didn’t get a wide theatrical release, but it has been making the rounds. Today it came to the Hollywood Theatre.
Fun fact: the person sitting in that seat you see the back of was one of the cast members, Carly Stewart.
This was a great screening. Aside from Brooke and Carly Stewart (the daughter Liz) being local actors, the movie was filmed in La Grande, Oregon, and a lot of the crew was from Portland. The theater was full of friends and family and we had a great time watching.
Afterward, there was a Q&A with the two actors, the director, and the DP, one more person, and the interviewer. We learned fun facts, like the story of how the puzzle really got finished in time for its final shot.
Breakup Season is now available to rent, and is currently on Hoopla. I recommend it. It’s quite the funny movie.
Letterboxd hooked me up with a free ticket to see Didi, a film I was planning on prioritizing. I got to the theater early as directed in the email. It was a little chaotic because the people with the list were nowhere to be found. It turns out they were at the Lloyd Center theater and had to make their way from Northeast Portland to Northwest Portland and then find parking in Northwest Portland.*
*There is off-street parking for Cinema 21 after hours, but people have to know to look it up on the website. Most don’t, and they circle endlessly looking for a spot.
But they got to the right place and we got to see a fine film about the summer before high school. The woman playing the grandmother looked familiar to me, and it turns out the director of Didi, Sean Wang, was also the director of the short film Nai Nai & Wài Pó, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary short for the 2024 awards. The grandmother was Wang’s own grandmother (Nai Nai, in the short film).
Thanks, Letterboxd and Cinema 21 for this good movie outing.
Sara and I took in the pre-Code film Jewel Robbery, which was part of the Hollywood Babylon series. Before the film, this helpful graphic was displayed.
You can see the picture includes all of the “shalt nots.”
We counted quite a few shalt-nots in our movie. Jewel Robbery was fun, though a very brief 68 minutes that has me wishing the tickets were slightly discounted.
Somewhere in our travels, I came across this much appreciated sign in a gender neutral bathroom.
I’m completely for gender neutral bathrooms, especially when the bathroom has just one toilet and one sink. However, my experience has been that it’s quite common to walk in and have to kick the seat down. Drives me crazy.
When the Oscar nominations were announced this year, I was very pleased that I had already watched all the films in many categories: Picture (all 10!), Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Costume Design, Editing, and Production Design.
But then I needed to catch up with the animated shorts. It took some planning, but I fit all three programs into one weekend. Here were my favorites.
Favorite overall program: documentary short (as per usual).
Favorite documentary short: The Last Repair Shop (one of the best shorts I’ve seen in years.)
Favorite live-action short: tie: Red, White and Blue, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.
Favorite animated short: Our Uniform
It was a good weekend of moviegoing.
Not on my list of movies to see in this post, but one I fit in anyway, was a 70mm showing of Napoleon at the Hollywood Theatre. It’s fun to see the super big format, though I overall don’t love war movies. I was hedging my bets that this movie will be nominated for several Academy Awards, thus it was good to cross it off the to-watch list now.
As is my annual tradition, I pick a movie to attend on Christmas Eve as it provides a stopping point for preparation. There was essentially no preparation this year, so it was fine to see a movie at 9:45 a.m.
It was just me in the Istanbul room today at Studio One. I sat in all the seats and took notes as to which might be the best to reserve next time. I also had Studio One popcorn for the first time. It was delicious. Even at 9:45 in the morning.
Thanks to the holiday schedule and a contest at work, we got Monday through Thursday of the Christmas week off, plus I took off Friday. What does that mean? Much time to watch movies in theaters. And this is great timing as there are many movies to see. Here was my planning sheet. As you can see, I had moviegoing companions for many of these.
Of this list I didn’t make it to Fallen Leaves (which is supposed to be great) and Boys in the Boat (which I’m somewhat ambivalent about given how much I liked the book.)
Kelly asked if I wanted to see The Color Purple, so I ended up seeing four of five movies with people. That’s pretty rare.
My ranking: Iron Claw (recommended), the Color Purple (recommended), Anyone But You (good), Poor Things (I liked things about it, but kind of really hated it, Skip), Wonka (the fat jokes entirely ruined this somewhat okay film, Skip).
This theater certainly sets the stage for a great time at the movies.
The shine on that gold curtain! Mesmerizing.
