Notes from a bibliophile

Indie films are fantastic. While mainstream Hollywood is beating the same dead horse it's beaten for the last few decades (e.g. A Star is Born was first made 81 years ago! ), the indie scene is where the creative and innovative films get made. Unfortunately they rarely get seen. I think social media helps get the word out for new films, but if you aren't following the right people, you still may not hear about interesting little gems that are hitting the market. I was lucky enough to follow at least one right person who made me aware of the film Sorry to Bother You . After reading a bit about it, watching the trailer, and seeing the talent involved, I decided it was something I really wanted to see. The story is about Cassius "Cash" Green, played by Get Out 's Lakeith Stanfield, who gets a telemarketing job. His first day there, he learns about the power sellers and how they have their own private elevator. But his initial attempts to sell don't go over w...

It’s been a while since I posted anything on here. Part of the reason is that I haven’t really had anything to write about; the other part is I’m not sure anyone really cares what I think. Now at least, I’ve found something I want to tell people about, no matter how few people see it. I joined Moviepass a few months ago. I won’t shill it here, but I think it’s great. If you want more information let me know & I’ll wax rhapsodic there. The thing I love most about it is that it makes me feel able to see films I wouldn’t normally see. There’s at least four films I’ve seen since joining that I wouldn’t have seen without Moviepass, and every one of them I have enjoyed. Maybe I’ll write more on those later. Three Identical Strangers is a documentary that is hard to believe is true. What would you do if you suddenly found out you had a twin? When 19-year-old Bobby attends his first day of college, he is greeted warmly by every stranger he meets, but they all keep calling him Eddie. Af...

Back in the day, I worked at a little mom-and-pop video store. It was pretty cool. We rented VHS and Beta. They had a pretty awesome backlist of titles, too many to work through. Also a lot of soft porn. The best was working on Saturday mornings. The boss didn’t come in til late in the day, and no one came in the story, or if they did, it was just to drop off and run back out. So you had all morning and an extensive library at your fingertips. I saw Eraserhead on one of those Saturdays, and after I transferred to closing their other branch, I was able to watch pretty much watch the entire run of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Not to mention the screeners we’d get in advance of the tapes hitting the shelves. Those were good times. A friend and I had a pool going every year about which of us could predict the most Oscar wins. I invariably lost every year, because I tend to vote with my heart and not like an Oscar voter (and who knows what they vote with). Granted, I haven’t seen a lot of...

For such a short month, February already looks like a much more promising month than January. I’ve never paid this much attention to it before, so maybe that’s the way it always is. But there’s one thing that I find that’s really annoying me. The point of making and distributing a film/television show is to get viewers. Viewers bring in revenue, which means people can make more films and television shows that viewers will want to watch. Pretty basic stuff. So why, pray tell, am I finding it so hard to access trailers for upcoming titles? It’s not like I’m trying to see a trailer of Infinity War  or anything. These things are a month or so out. If I can’t find something online by now that intrigues me enough to say, I gotta see that, then someone is not doing their job. More on that later. First up, on February 2nd, there’s two Netflix originals that look really promising while appearing to be worlds apart. First is Altered Carbon . I...