I’m a few days late, but I hope you all have had a fun start to 2023! I’ve been keeping busy!
Last month: December 2022 Recap
Reviews:
- The Goods published 14 reviews in January. The average “Is It Good?” score for reviewed films was a 5.07, or a “Good”
- I also published 17 capsules in January as I binged more movies than I had time to write full reviews for. The average “Is It Good?” for all ratings was a 4.90, or a low “Good”
- (In fact, I published about 50 additional capsules in January as I cleared out a backlog of films that I officially decided I won’t write full reviews for without a rewatch. But I set the publish date, in those cases, to the day I viewed the film, and many were from previous months. I keep capsules on the site for a number of reasons, but if you want to keep up with my ratings for all movies I watch, following me on Letterboxd is probably the best way to go — I’m trying to post ratings and short reviews there more promptly, and I tag reviews with the “Is It Good” rating.)
- I also revised 9 legacy reviews, per my 2023 goal to polish some of the older reviews in the archive
- New releases reviewed included M3GAN, GDT’s Pinocchio, The Fabelmans, and The Menu
- Best new release reviewed: The Fabelmans
- Worst new release reviewed: This space left blank, because you won’t hear me be critical of Snow Day
- Best classic first-time watch reviewed: Grand Piano (2013)
- Best rewatch reviewed: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1989)
- Ongoing Review Projects include my catch-up of 2022 movies, plus peeks into the work of Damien Chazelle
Lists/Rankings:
Podcast:
- The Goods: A Film Podcast continued weekly episodes
- We counted down our picks for the Top 5 Robert Zemeckis movies
- We celebrated Brian’s birthday with a look at the hilarious/depressing Henry’s Kitchen and the straight-to-video alien invasion thriller Feeders
- We invited Gargus join us for a third time to discuss two truly bizarre and/or bad films from 2009: After Last Season and Final Flesh
- February is Train Month, and we’ll be discussing all train-related and -themed movies
Site News and Updates:
- I shared my 2023 goals for the site
- According to my Letterboxd account, I watched 39 feature films and 1 short film in January
- I kicked off an overhaul of the Review Index, which is still in progress
- Today’s banner comes from the most-read new release review this month… The Fabelmans
- This month we had 245 readers. Thanks, all!
Next Month:
- I’ll be wrapping up an overhaul of the Review Index and figuring out how to better spotlight lists/rankings and review projects on the site
- I plan to revise (and/or recategorize as a capsule) a significant portion of the legacy reviews
- I’ll make some serious progress on the Damien Chazelle retrospective
- I will finally publish my 2022 annual recap, and also select my Top 10 movies of 2022, at least until I change my mind a week later
- If I still have the energy, I might do a mock awards show in honor of the Oscars
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