Welcome 2 Right Now, You Like Me

This post is like..... an establishing shot 😎 Just a little bit of filmmaking jargon for you freaks

Sally Field accepting her Best Actress Oscar for Places in the Heart. Artwork by Dylan Lathrop

I once found myself hate-listening to a terrible podcast¹ about movies, started by a guy I went to elementary school with. Yes, this is a very normal thing to be doing. I started listening out of morbid curiosity, to see what kind of insight a guy from suburban Pennsylvania, whom I haven’t spoken to in well over 30 years, had to say about movies. He hosts the podcast with two of his friends, and out of the three, the guy I used to know seems to actually know what he’s talking about with the most authority. So I’ll give him that. But otherwise, the podcast is truly a masterclass in Dudes Just Kinda Talking, and when I listen, I have to pause it every few minutes to scream and vent to my fiancé about a dogshit opinion I just heard.

I know that hate-listening, hate-watching, and hate-reading things is probably bad for my brain and I could simply stop listening to this Bad Podcast. But the thing is, sometimes I like getting mad. You’re also on the internet currently, so I imagine you know what that’s like to some degree.

In the episode, the fellas talked about which filmmaker, actor, and movie character they would want to have a drink with, and why. Fine, whatever. One of them chose John Cena. The other, apropos of nothing, said that he thought talking to Keanu Reeves would be boring (like, come on, what did Actual Angel on Earth Keanu Reeves ever do to you???). I was aghast throughout. But the truly shocking moment came toward the end of the episode, when one of the co-hosts asked if the director of The Graduate was a director “of merit,” or if this film was just a one-off.

I thought, huh, must be a lapse in memory. No way could these guys, claiming to be movie buffs, not know who directed The Graduate. But, to my dismay, when they looked up the director and discovered it was Mike Nichols, this name apparently didn’t ring any sort of bell to either of them. When they then continued to look up Nichols’ filmography, containing such films as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Birdcage, Working Girl, Closer, and yes, The fucking Graduate, they just kind of… moved on. 

Folks… the rage I felt in this moment was indescribable. The thought of anyone hosting a movie podcast without ever having heard of Mike fucking Nichols was unconscionable to me. It made me want to buy a gun. I screamed, then I laughed to keep from screaming. I felt insane. I never ran into the living room to complain to my fiancé faster.

This moment was a turning point for me. If these goons are completely confident in sharing their bad opinions, and fully revealing their lack of expertise on the topic they claim to be experts on, then what the hell is stopping me? At least I know who Mike Nichols is. At least my point of view is somewhat more unique. At least I’ve partially written multiple screenplays! At least I have a film degree from a state school!!

The thing is, I’ve always been too shy and afraid to write for an audience. I’ll write something that I think is pretty good, then when it comes time to show it to someone, anyone, I retreat and deny that I even wrote anything. You didn’t see that, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m not even a writer, I’ve never written anything. Sorry for gaslighting!

I think at least part of what makes me reluctant to share my writing is: who cares? I am a completely average, borderline unremarkable white lady creeping towards middle age, living in Los Angeles and working an extremely mundane job that doesn’t even matter. Does anybody really need to read my opinions on anything? Who could possibly care? And, truly, I would never begrudge anyone for not caring. I am nobody! And I’m not very smart! I might be kind of funny sometimes but I’m not everyone’s cup of tea!

I’ve been writing and oversharing on the internet ever since I could Log On, so I’m not sure when or why I got so weird about it as an adult. I’m not half bad at this! I’ve gotten awards for writing!² But it somehow became this thing where I love to talk and Discuss Things and get my opinions and insight Out There, but I do not want attention. I think what I have to say is interesting, but I’ll be damned if I let anyone else be the judge of that. Probably has something to do with not feeling heard or understood by the adults in my life when I was a child. I don’t know! That’s none of your business! What?

But, I mean, fuck it, right? This space is still overwhelmingly saturated with men’s voices, and dumb, insufferable men at that. It’s time for the dumb, insufferable women to be heard.

I want to start this off with a mission, a goal, because otherwise I’m confident I will quickly abandon this. Because I have a sick fascination with the Oscars, I’ve decided to take on the perverted task of watching as close to all of the Best Picture nominees as possible. A number of early Best Picture nominees are presumed lost or only survive in private archives, so unfortunately this task is destined to be incomplete. But if the movie is available to stream or has physical copies to rent or buy, I will watch it. Then I’ll write about it! I’ll summarize, reflect, contextualize, and express my opinions, including whether or not I think the Academy got it right. If I’ve already seen a movie, I’ll watch it again, even if I’m firm in how I feel about it, and even if I’ve seen it many times before. I’ll be viewing the movies in mostly chronological order,³ starting with the 1927/1928 Academy Awards and I’ll keep going until I’m current. I am not the first person to ever do this, but I am the hottest and most interesting person to ever do this. That is an objective fact, sorry if you don’t like it.

What I like about this project is that it will help me address some of my own movie blind spots — yes, I am one of those people who has never seen The Godfather,⁴ but at least I know who directed it! Truthfully, there are a lot of iconic films that have just never really interested me for one reason or another, so I’ve never watched them. A lot of them have been Academy Award nominees and winners. So this gives me an excuse to finally sit down and watch these so-called Best Films of All Time as Determined by a Bunch of Guys.

There are also a lot of stinkers that have been nominated for Best Picture, so this unfortunately means I’m going to have to make myself watch things like American Beauty, and Crash, and Green Book. I’ll do this because, like I said, I enjoy being angry sometimes and also, even though you already never had to watch these movies, now you really really don’t have to. You’re welcome, friends.

Here’s how this is roughly going to go:

• Each film will get its own dedicated newsletter, so you can expect to see me in your inbox a couple times a week at least. 

• The Best Picture winner will always be the last movie I watch/review for any given year

• I’ll watch every movie, even if I’ve already seen it and even if I already know I hate it. My aim is to watch and evaluate each film as objectively as possible. In the words of the great Billie Jean, fair is fair!

• I’ll rate each film using the classic five-star system, and once I’ve gotten through each of the years’ nominees, I’ll give my thoughts on whether I think The Academy got it right, and what my personal Best Picture of that year would have been.

• Whenever possible, I’ll provide a list of streaming services that are showing whichever movie I’m writing about, so that we can all share in the splendor and magic of Cinema!! If it’s not streaming, well… you’ll just have to be resourceful.

• There WILL be spoilers!! If it upsets you to have the plot of a movie spoiled despite being released years, decades, or almost a full century ago, this may not be the newsletter for you. Sorry, I guess, but also stop being weird about spoilers.

I’ll have some other, non-Oscar-related bits and bobs along the way for paying subscribers. Nothing serious, maybe 1000-ish words a couple times a month with reviews, scorching hot Cinema Takes™, double feature recommendations, or truly just whatever the hell I want, to give us all an occasional break from what I’ll refer to as my Best Picture Project. I know attention spans are going extinct!! So I appreciate any and all eyeballs that this thing gets, even if it’s a scant few. I just know this is something I would like to do and I think at least some other folks would like to see me do it. The worst that could happen is that no one reads any of it.

1. I will not name the podcast, because I don’t want to do that to you. I also don’t want them to get more listenership, even if it would be hate-listens like mine. I also also don’t *completely* want to embarrass these guys or bring any harassment onto them. I’m not a monster, just a very beautiful, juggy cinephile.

2. In college. From a state school. But still!!!

3. Like, I’m not going to be super anal about actual release dates or anything. I simply do not have the energy to get that granular, sorry purists.

4. This should go without saying, but every time The Godfather is mentioned in this newsletter it should be pronounced the same way that Issa Rae pronounces it in Barbie.