Month in Review: June 2013

Letterboxd is a fairly new social networking site I've been writing on recently. Specifically for movie lovers, it allows you to keep a running diary of films you're watching, along with the ability to rate them, "like" them, and write short or long reviews. Like Twitter, it allows you to follow other people (and they you) with the ability to comment on their reviews like a blog and even create lists (both private and public) for any purpose you'd like.

So instead of writing a long month-in-review post at the end of each month (which I sadly have neglected to do here for awhile now), I'll link to my mini-reviews here with perhaps some additional commentary if I'm so inclined. I'll also no longer maintain the separate Movie Journal page as Letterboxd now allows me to do that, with all the neat extra bells and whistles. You can follow me on the site here.

6/1 After Life (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
6/1 Now You See Me (Louis Leterrier)
6/5 Blow Out (Brian De Palma)
6/6 Lay the Favorite (Stephen Frears)
6/7 Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)
6/8 The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann)
6/8 Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach)
6/8 Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (Richard Donner)
6/21 The 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow)
6/22 This is the End (Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen)
6/25 Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)
6/28 The Good Fairy (William Wyler)
6/28 Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon)
6/29 The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola)

Over the past couple of years, there has been a lot of discussion (in critical circles, anyway) about the idea of Vulgar Auteurism. And particularly, in the more recent months, a real eruption seems to have taken place and critics from all sides seem to be lobbing their own thoughts into the muck. My twitter feed, which consists largely of said critics, has vacillated between cogent conversation and downright yelling.

I personally choose to recuse myself from the arguments--mainly because I don't feel equipped to properly engage with either the subject or the faux controversy, but here are a few thoughts from others which I think will enlighten readers perhaps new to the subject:

Girish Shambu
Peter Labuza
Calum Marsh (in The Village Voice)
Jack Lehtonen (on Mubi.com)
Andreas Stoehr

My job situation has changed fairly recently--for the better--and I find myself driving a lot more these days, which means I've been catching up on some podcasts. I've been listening to Trash, Art, and the Movies for a little while now, but wanted to give them a plug here as I've been catching up on older episodes. The Canadian based podcast was at one time called DVD Afternoon, but at some point changed their format to feature one "trash" or lowbrow movie and one "art" movie and declare a winner. Sometimes the connection is based on theme, sometimes actor or director, or sometimes merely something as banal as having the same word in each of their titles (see: Where the Wild Things Are vs. Wild Things).

I've been looking for more film podcasts recently (and please send them my way if you know of any) but it seems that most of the ones I've come across are nothing more than some friends sitting around a table saying something to the effect of, "Yeah, I don't know, I kind of liked it." The hosts of TAATM are smart, thoughtful, and--regardless of whether I agree with their assessments or not--always making real arguments, approaching their subjects seriously, though never dryly.

The news of Wendy Davis's filibuster in the Texas state legislature on June 25 not only filled my cynical heart with joy but also reminded me of an episode of The West Wing called "The Stackhouse Filibuster". And like all the great episodes of that show, which I've been voraciously streaming instantly on Netflix, it remains clear-eyed about the machinations of insider politics, yet refusing to be entirely cynical about it as well. All the while, of course, retaining the essential need to be captivating drama.