Tag: lists
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A to-do menu
In the latest issue of his newsletter The Imperfectionist, Oliver Burkeman posits that we should treat our to-do lists more like menus: One great benefit of doing this more consciously, though – of facing the fact that lists are menus – is that it shifts the source of gratification. The reward of pleasure, or a…
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Favorite Films of 2022
Pretty much every year I’ve done this list (since 2007), I’ve published it soon after the beginning of the year to coincide with the bevy of other year-end lists. But every year I’d end up watching more movies after publishing that would have been eligible and affected my list. So I realized: what’s the rush?…
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Favorite TV Shows of 2022
I realized this year that I’ve pretty much stopped watching traditional TV, i.e. shows with 22-ish episodes per season and an undetermined end date. I’m much more interested in limited series and shows with short seasons—the key being intentional and self-contained ideas from the show and a predictable time commitment from me. Luckily that’s becoming…
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Favorite Books of 2022
Gotta be honest: 2022 wasn’t a great reading year for me. I read 22 books, which was much worse than 31 in 2021 and just barely better than the 18 in 2020. A lot of my potential reading opportunities were either taken up by movie watching, Cinema Sugar, or other leisure activities. Not a bad…
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2022 in review
See previous year in review posts. My view from the end of all things 2022: (Not visible: the buffalo plaid pocket square accompanying the bowtie.) The biggest thing that happened to my family this year was trying to have a second child. It was a long and demoralizing journey that ultimately ended successfully (due in late May),…
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Top 5 Christmas Movies
Originally published at Cinema Sugar. 1. It’s A Wonderful Life The once and future king of Christmas movies. I could praise a lot of things: the cinematography, the supporting cast, the dramatic depth of Jimmy Stewart’s first postwar performance. But its magic ultimately comes down to Harry’s closing line—“A toast to my big brother, George,…
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7 Hard-Boiled Lessons from Noir Films Old and New
Originally published at Cinema Sugar. These are dark times. It’s tempting to feel that it’s never been darker, that the weight of our modern struggles is unprecedented. But I take comfort in knowing that film noir—a genre that has existed for almost 100 years—has been there before. It’s seen some shit. To show this, I’ve…
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Top 5 Noir Movies
Originally published at Cinema Sugar. 1. Double Indemnity This isn’t the first major noir (fedora-tip to The Maltese Falcon) but damned if it isn’t the genre’s absolute peak: femme fatale, no-nonsense narration, crime gone wrong, investigator on the case. It’s hard to pick Billy Wilder’s best movie but this has to be near the top.…
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Top 5 Horror Movies
Originally published at Cinema Sugar. 1. The Ring Seeing this Gore Verbinski joint in early high school did three important things: it initiated my undying love of Naomi Watts, it showed me how artful scary movies can be, and it scarred me so deeply that I subsequently swore off horror for a long time. So…
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Top 5 High School Movies
Originally published at Cinema Sugar. 1. Brick If you found high school to be a dark, inscrutable enigma with a rigidly enforced social-class structure and impenetrable lingo, you’ll deeply appreciate Rian Johnson’s lean and masterful debut feature that renders adolescence as gritty film noir. A young, sphinx-like Joseph Gordon-Levitt investigates his ex-girlfriend’s mysterious disappearance like…