Boxing Day
These days, the only social networking site that doesn’t cause me actual physical pain is Letterboxd.
Maybe it’s a blessing. The lousiness of the current world, reflected in the lousiness of social media posts, is slowly weaning me off sites that were probably doing plenty of psychological harm even before that harm was acute enough for me to notice.
Meanwhile, Letterboxd is about movies – my refuge from the lousy world – and that site is still young enough that it hasn’t gone through inevitable enshittification. Even as it’s grown in popularity, it’s still made up of a self-selecting group of weirdos who care enough about movies that they must compulsively log and talk about them… rather than the larger, more unpleasant group of “everyone online.” And, while movies seem like an anti-social activity, I’ve gathered such a community of movie-lovers that I use Letterboxd as a genuine “social network” over platforms more explicitly geared that way. Seeing a friend whose Letterboxd you follow can be a nice icebreaker. I promise that I’m perfectly capable of talking about “feelings” and other “human” things, but I usually find it easier to ease myself into that particular pool through a little movie talk. It’s fun to track my friends’ viewing, so when I see them next, I can say, “I see you rewatched Corky Romano recently. Are you okay?”
I like Letterboxd weirdos, even if they aren’t the ones I know personally. They like movies, and I like them because they like movies. Many of them (myself included) feel no pressure to gear their ratings or reviews toward the fool’s errand of “objectivity.” (Yes, I believe there are benchmarks of craft and quality, but they’re ever-changing, the relative importance of each one is personal to you, and all of them are affected by years of implicit cultural decisions about the “right” and “wrong” ways to tell stories that are not inherently universal – which is why the best criticism is a personal argument that’s crafted well enough for a reader to decide whether or not they agree.) Star ratings are, imho, best treated as a nonsense declaration of individual enjoyment. Stop by my Letterboxd and you’ll find five star reviews for stuff like Boardinghouse and Creating Rem Lazar, a move that would make “objectivity”-chasing critics short circuit like a Star Trek robot caught in a logic puzzle.)
I increasingly supplement my diet of professional film critics (these days I like Bilge Ebiri, David Ehrlich, and my pals/friendly aquaintances Matt Singer, Kimber Myers, Alonso Duralde, Keith Phipps, Scott Tobias, and David Sims) with a heaping helping of Letterboxd irrational exuberance – it’s a particularly good place to go for cult objects or genres (horror for one) that have traditionally gotten less mainstream respect. On Letterboxd, you can get a much better sense of “if this is the kind of thing you like, you’ll like this kind of thing.” It’s easier to clock which “trash” is fun, swimming in a world of genre freaks, rather than reading a traditional critic who’s looking over their shoulder, wondering if the readers of… I dunno… The Dubuque Herald-Gazette will write angry letters if they’re too positive in their review of Slumber Party Massacre II.
(On the other side of the equation: 3.9 stars is way too low for Jaws, Letterboxd reviewers. Yes, all you three-star peeps, I get it – “the shark did nothing wrong.” I like animals too, but if you approach this mythic creature as a real-life shark, you’re taking things a bit too literall– eh fergit it. Do whatever you like.)
Letterboxd is my diary. It records my year, and reminds me of movies that, honestly, without its help, I’d swear to you I’d never seen. Everything goes in the records. I may feel slight shame when I look at my year-end total of films logged and I see how many hours I spent living fantasy lives, rather than my own. But it can be comforting as well, when I see how meager my own filmgoing total (323 movies logged last year, within spitting distance of watching a movie a day) is compared to some of my even MORE movie-mad friends (I know folks with numbers closer to 700).
The shame passes, though. At this point in my life, I’ve come to terms with the reality: watching movies is a cornerstone of my career. My time as a working TV comedy writer tops out at 11 years, whereas I’ve been a film podcaster for nearly 18 now. It’s my job to watch. I watch bad movies to discuss on my podcast, and good ones to recommend on my podcast, and all the other ones to keep myself knowledgeable about film in general, and make the ultra-specific cultural references that listeners have come to know and tolerate.
Like many nerds and neurodivergent folks (a Venn diagram that often overlaps), I love making systems and rules. Some are elaborate (several of my Letterboxd lists are designed to tell myself what movies I should watch next, and they’re assembled with great care, despite only the vaguest intention of following through and watching everything on them – the exercise itself is almost as satisfying), and some rules are more simple.
The simplest rule is this: every movie I watch, I rate. And everything I rate, I write SOMETHING about (there are some stray films on my account with a star rating but no associated review, but those are from the dark days before I laid down my own personal Letterboxed commandments).
In my early days on Letterboxd, I scoffed at the “reviews” that were just a pithy one-liner. I wanted criticism, and I disliked these for the same reason I’m not wild about New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane, a man who does not seem to particularly enjoy movies, and sees them rather as a vehicle for his witty remarks – something he can score points off of, en route toward turning a clever phrase. (Here’s where a straw man rears its hay-stuffed head inside my brain to cry, “Pretty RICH complaint coming from someone with a BAD MOVIE podcast!” but I vanquish ol’ straw-face by pointing out that we actually tend to try and engage with movies on their intended level. The criticism, at least, is serious, and the comedy mostly comes from unrelated silliness.)
Over time, however, I have lightened up considerably. The beauty of Letterboxd is that an account is whatever its owner wants it to be. It can be jokes. It can be insights. Mine has grown into a mix of both, plus the occasional entry that’s not much of anything, because I was tired and just because I’ve made this rule for myself doesn’t mean that everything I write has to be GOOD all the time.
But I do try for good. One bizarre side effect of critiquing movies for 18 years is that you, almost accidentally, become a movie critic. Not exactly the traditional kind, but I’m one all the same, and when my podcast co-host Elliott Kalan lauds my Letterboxd and tosses out a casual request to the world for someone to pay me for my criticism, I puff up a bit, inordinately proud of the praise.
Anyway. Just for fun, here are my top 10 “most liked” Letterboxd reviews. Because of what naturally draws likes, they almost all are on the “funny/pithy” side of the scale, rather than the “thoughtful criticism” side, but I thought I’d collect them here:
Fear (1996) ***½
This movie makes a good point. You shouldn’t have sex with Mark Wahlberg.
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2024) ***
Fulfilled my destiny as "unaccompanied adult man at matinee of Looney Tunes movie."
Superman (2025) ****½
Exactly what I needed right now.
I know it's necessary for plot expediency, but I think it's hilarious how much the people of Metropolis are "Springfield from the Simpsons" levels of being one nudge away from turning into an anti-or pro-Superman mob at any moment.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024) *****
So precisely my cup of tea that I'm worried this film broke into my apartment to steal my mugs and my tea.
The Pope’s Exorcist ****
I don't know what "good" or "bad" means anymore. I just know I got 4 stars worth of enjoyment from The Pope's Exorcist.
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985) ***
Problem is Thunderdome's the best part. Should've been "Mad Max: Thunderdome, Which We Stay at Throughout the Movie."
Heretic (2024) ***½
Someone should let him know -- you can just be an atheist without all the expensive construction work.
The Little Hours (2017) ***½
I've seen multiple reviews from people who liked this movie less than I dismissing it as "one joke," referring, I suppose, to the modern vernacular and its story of 14th-century nuns behaving badly.
Well, not to pull out my dusty English major snob card, but c'mon. This film is basically no different than one of those modern translations of classic literature that chooses to focus on accessibility of language for clarity of meaning. I'd daresay that this movie gets closer to what Boccaccio was getting at with sections of The Decameron that this movie adapts than a "straight" adaptation would, in that the original book satirized the Catholic church and reflected the growing distrust of the institution at the time. This lusty, funny-sad sex farce is in keeping with all of that.
Still, different strokes, as they say -- even if I feel that dismissing an approach to the material as a "joke," rather than the material itself -- I can't convince someone to find something funny when they don't.
For me, it was a delight to take a ridiculously stacked cast of comedy ringers, give them a script full of extreme bad behavior, and then watch them play it almost completely straight -- the great magic trick of comic acting being a funny person's ability to commit seriously to anything given.
And, ultimately, this movie full of priests and nuns running around, fucking one another, dancing nude in the wood, breaking nearly every commandment in turn, is oddly heartwarming, in that it confirms that whether back then or now, we're all idiotic, lusty creatures of the world, and if we're boxed into a forced system of "moral" behavior, that humanity will come bursting out.
Friendship (2025) ****
If Paul Rudd turned his mustachioed smile toward me, then took that light away, I too would be distressed.
I Saw the TV Glow (2024) *****
I had the damndest reaction to I Saw the TV Glow. I watched the whole thing, then the credits dropped, and THEN I started crying.
Horror is an inherently metaphorical genre, but I don't know that I've seen a film that communicates raw emotion with such effective metaphorical language as this one. I overheard some folks in the restroom afterward who enjoyed it, but found it impenetrable, which I'm sort of surprised by – I think the movie is particularly good at giving you a sense of what's "really" going on beneath layers of denial (if you need to treat it as something to puzzle out), while never feeling any obligation to over-explain or insist on simplifying itself to one definitive answer (although perhaps some familiarity with the director would help). Anyway, it's gorgeous, electrifying, and singular.
For earlier posts, check out the archive. In my other life, I’m a podcaster. Listen to my show The Flop House, here. In my other other life, I’m an Emmy-winning comedy writer. If you’re looking to staff, get in touch! And if you love the newsletter, you can always consider tipping me, by enrolling in the paid tier!