Professional Sweetheart: 7/29/24
The Shape I'm In
Welcome to another free edition of Professional Sweetheart — I always appreciate you! If you want to be a regular subscriber or share this mess around, smash this button, please.
Behold, some recent anonymous screen grabs:
Okay, normally I wince at the thought of posting my messages for all to see. However, I cannot stop thinking about this hilarious exchange I had with one of my Instagram followers the other day about the social media movie site Letterboxd. As you can see, I recently rewatched The Last Waltz (1978) and decided to rate it, which led to being called out on the weird way I use Letterboxd, which is clearly inconsistent and insincere at best! Afterwards, I started wondering whether or not I should be using it better considering I am a “film person” (barf) and whatnot. But I’ll tell you — there’s been something about going full on Letterboxd that either freaks me out or doesn’t interest me and I’m not entirely sure why. I’m usually really impressed by people who create extensive records of anything! It’s extremely helpful in any kind of archival or research work, both of which I do regularly. And on the lighter side of things, I love a nerdy cataloguing instinct, especially in service of a hobby or weird interest. It reminds me of the VHS dub-obsessed people in the 1980’s who would type out all the titles in their collection and staple the pages together to use as a personal reference guide. Even as a kid, I loved creating master lists of things and once wrote down the names of every toy I owned in one of my diaries just in case a hurricane came through my town. So, I have no idea why I’m one foot out with keeping good records on my Letterboxd account. You would think my newly confirmed ENTJ personality, one that craves organization and structure, would jump at the chance to be meticulous about it…but apparently not?!
First off, I’ll say this — if you’re not on Letterboxd, you should probably get an account. To me, Letterboxd is really the best place to keep a film journal online at the moment. This will be my only Madonna-like Rock the Vote plea; if you like movies, make your voice heard…to me. Only because it is the one aggregator for film opinions on the internet that I’ll actually read and semi-accept at this point. Turns out I’m dependent on the ways my friends have rated/reviewed movies on there. Maybe that’s not great, but it’s better than anything like Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB reviews at this point. I pretty much know I will like or hate a movie based on what a small handful of my real friends think. And you can read between these lines: not all of my real friends, just some. A control sample, if you will. I mean, don’t get me wrong, 99% of the time if these people hate it, I’ll still watch whatever it is I’m looking up. But I just really love having the info. And I actually read and am very amused by not only the lists but the Letterboxd reviews, even from strangers. There’s a certain cadence that a lot of people have adopted on Letterboxd, which is usually a very punchy one-or-two sentence log line that somehow also communicates most of what you need to know about any given movie. A long time ago when I joined, I decided my reviewing style would be this; short but extra-observant, about one or two things I noticed in a movie, usually something like a lamp I liked or some funny throw away scene. I wasn’t even trying to be funny. It was mostly out of laziness, to be really honest. Now if I see a review from a non-professional critic that’s more than, like, three sentences long? Bye!
Having said any of this, I am absolutely the worst at Letterboxd. A lot of times I don’t even rate the things I see, even if I really liked it. The things I choose to review are always completely random. And don’t get me started on the whole star rating spectrum. Generally I think it’s a broken system, but the convo above also proves my own method is completely diseased and disordered! This is a place where I consider Dirty Dancing (1987), Past Lives (2023), and the Adam Curtis doc Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone (2022) five star titles but My Own Private Idaho (1991) apparently got 2 1/2 stars?! (I’m going to need to investigate that one for sure.) Then there are literal hundreds of titles I’ve seen and didn’t rate at all, which helps no one. When I first signed up for Letterboxd, I was pretty compulsive about logging everything (and really using the Lists function precisely because it’s the only place I could post all the TCM Underground titles). Eventually it all morphed into what it is now, which is me being mostly ambivalent about everything, i.e. randomly reviewing things, placing more importance on 4 1/2 stars than 5 stars. If I was pressed for a vibe check on all of it, I think it’s that I moved away from being serious on Letterboxd because, as programmer, I didn’t find it productive to have firm, hard opinions on things online. Plus, it all just becomes fodder for defending your choices publicly for the rest of your life, which I ain’t about. There’s also probably something about being too cool to log everything, which is embarrassing to admit, but it’s sort of true. So, I guess that’s why I’m terrible at this website even though I really want you to join and use it properly. Yes, I’d like for you to be the stable one in this relationship. I’m sorry.
Anyway. If you’ll forgive my misuse of the site, please feel free to friend me on there! I do really love looking at what other people are watching.
Lastly, in other news, I started my new job last week and so far so good! It’s been a whirlwind of meetings and meeting people so I’ll probably have some more regularity with the newsletter starting next week. I know I owe y’all at least one bonus and I think it’s gonna be me going off on something that incorporates Korean rappers, shameless grifts, and physical media — just to warn you up front.
Talk soon my friends,
Millie
The way you feel about Letterboxd as a Film Person is the same way I feel about Goodreads as a Book Person (aka librarian). I use it so haphazardly, when really my life *should* be all about cataloging and recording my own personal record of reads. Especially when I'm supposed to be able to off the cuff recommend something to someone. I'll rave about a book, tell a friend they'll really love it, then go to my review and it says "I guess I like spicy cowboys now." It's telling, but not that helpful.
Maybe part of it is, when you really love something, spending a lot of time explaining it takes some of its magic away.
Also, that spaghetti list is still one of my favorite Letterboxd lists.
I struggle with the review part. I can rarely explain why I like or don't like something. It's all so visceral for me. Im a full emersion viewer (which is also why I think I don't watch as many things as other people).
Lars and the Real Girl, full on vacation into the community I crave. 4 stars, this world is mine now go away.
True Detective Night Country, the place I would delete from the map, 2 stars highly recommend.
And while I know it's controversial, watching anything with Daniel Day Lewis immediately puts me on spit watch. I can't focus on the film, only watch for the moment when the froth starts collecting in his mouth corners. How do rate that? Lincoln, 3 stars, 4 if you count lack of spitting, 5 if you watch as a double feature with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.