new year, new movies, new me(?)
everything that happened at Flick Filosopher between Monday, January 18th, and Sunday, January 24th, 2021
Hello, lovely reader! Sorry to be late with the weekly digest this week — it should have gone out yesterday at the latest — but I spent much of Monday beginning to fiddle with the Flick Filosopher redesign. The first step is creating a mirror site to experiment on (you don’t want to mess around with a live site)… and since I mostly just fumpher around with the technical side of web stuff, this became a rabbit hole I fell down and had trouble extricating myself from. In the end, I trashed everything I’d done because I’d made such a mess of it, but I learned a lot that I can apply to the next attempt.
*sigh* I dream of a time when I can afford to have a staff who could handle this stuff. But I’ve been saying that for years, and it’s not likely to ever happen. Oh, well…
On the plus side, thinking about the redesign is given me a little boost of enthusiasm, and I do feel like I’ve gotten a bit of my creative mojo back in the past week. (This might also have something to do with the departure of a certain American president.) I wrote two reviews last week — see below — which wouldn’t have been anything to brag about a year ago, but feels like a big accomplishment these days. And I’m rarin’ to go for more.
The move to Substack has been invigorating, too, and I hope this week to post a freebie sample of what my paid Substack (perhaps launching in February?) will eventually offer.
Things are still plenty bad all over — 2021 is, alas, sure to be another year dominated by the coronavirus pandemic — but I feel slightly more motivated and optimistic about my work than I have been in many months.
I hope your 2021 is starting off better, too.
—MaryAnn
new at flick filosopher, Jan 18–24
the 2021 film ranking has begun!
Unlike in recent years, I’m not restricting the 2021 ranking to patrons only: everyone can see it. [read more]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, US/Can, Jan 19–22
A strange Moomins cartoon arrives in North America... [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, UK/Ire, Jan 18–22
Check out two timely documentaries about urgent current events (which — spoiler! — I haven’t seen yet)... [get the full rundown]
The Exception (Undtagelsen) movie review: and you thought your coworkers were horrible…
Nonsensical Danish thriller concocts absurd connections between the nature of evil and *checks notes* office politics among shallow clichés of women. Preposterously, this is not meant to be satire. [read the review | streaming UK, links at review link]
MLK/FBI documentary review: suppressing dissent, American style [pictured]
Beautiful in its style, enraging in its substance, this skewering of the FBI’s surveillance of the civil-rights icon is essential for understanding the near-term roots of white supremacy in America. [read the review | streaming US/UK, links at review link]
OFCS 2020 awards nominees announced
Winners to be announced on January 25. [read more]
Tweet of the week…
coming up at Flick Filosopher…
still need to get to reviews of:
Pixar’s latest, Soul
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, now that it’s available on demand at home
thriller #Like
documentary My Rembrandt
and hopefully more!