Hi. I've got a tape I want to play.

As of a week ago, I've been married for 28 years. My wife and I have been parntners for 37 years total.

I've been in love with the movies for longer than that. As of today I'm 56, and that means that love affair has been going on for at least 49 years.

That's if I start from seeing Star Wars when it came out — an experience I vaguely remember, and which wasn't actually what spurred my enthusiasm. 50+ years is likely.

But until a few years ago, I always felt a little sheepish about how much I loved movies.

In my 20s I flirted with writing screenplays and with writing movie reviews, but I shied away before giving anyone the chance to push back. Just didn't feel serious. Not a real career. And I wasn't good enough, or so I told myself before I let anyone else get a chance to tell me so.

A few years ago in therapy, focusing on other stuff, I mentioned that I felt embarrassed by how many movies I still wanted to see. (This when I was logging 80 movies a year, which felt both excessive and not nearly enough at the same time.)

"I shouldn't spend so much time on something frivolous," I mentioned, and my therapist pulled out the "why do you think you 'shouldn't' do that?" (Therapists: Not big on "should.")

I don't remember much of the conversation beyond that — I probably hemmed and hawed and invoked disapproval I had sensed from my mom, likely mostly in my head — but that's when a switch flipped and I said "fuck it" and decided movies were my main hobby and that I was fine with that.

Not long after that, Covid hit. That put a damper on moviegoing for a while. Yet I logged 120 movies on Letterboxd in 2020, then 200 in 2021, then 293 in 2023. Figured I might never top that ... then last year I managed 301. (Two movies on Dec 31!)

I'm happy to let that record stand — though I wouldn't cry if I broke it, either.

The way I read those numbers: I figured out how to make movie watching a real part of my life, not just something I crammed in around the edges. That's made me happy.

(That same therapist gets credit for starting me on daily meditation, something that I've kept up since late March 2020, and consistently for 20+ minutes since 2021. I may still be an asshole sometimes, but at least I'm usually mindful of it.)

Meditation helped make me a better movie watcher, a topic I have on deck for a future issue, assuming I keep it going.

I'd like to. I no longer have ambitions to write screenplays (and I've resolved my regrets about not pushing harder 30+ years ago), and I'm content writing "reviews" on Letterboxd more for myself than anyone else. This seems like the other outlet I'd like to explore.

I started this because a) I should (there's that word again) get back into writing for pleasure, b) I like my UX writing work, but I'd rather read for pleasure than write about work, and c) I believe that moviegoing and moviewatching are skills, or at least they can be, and I want to dig into that.

I'm inspired by a couple of non-movie newsletters: Mike Monteiro's Good News and Baldur Bjarnason's Out of the Software Crisis (scroll down).

I don't intend to turn The Kinogänger into a side hustle or charge for subscriptions. I'm not sure where it will go after a few issues that I have ideas for. The writing will be the discovery.

Why "Kinogänger"? I took German in high school and now speak it at about a B1 (intermediate) level. "The Moviegoer" sounds cool, but "the Kinogänger" sounds more cool. (Feminine version: die Kinogängerin.)

Links

Testify!

To my surprise, The Testament of Ann Lee was one of my favorite movies of 2025. (Surprising because I was not a fan of The Brutalist and movies about faith are pretty hit-or-miss for me.)

Riley Macleod's The Testament Of Ann Lee Makes A Dying Faith Radical is my favorite thing I've read about it so far.

Soderbergh

Two recent Steven Soderbergh interviews are pretty great:

• Steven's Selects: indie champion Steven Soderbergh on his favorite films across nine decades • Letterboxd Journal
• Inside Steven Soderbergh's Nitehawk Takeover

And more

Willow Maclay: The Mysteries of Dorothy Vallens: On Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet

Matt Zoller Seitz: A Beautiful Day for a Neighbor: Tom Noonan (1951–2026)

"Never panic, never give up, know what story you're telling, and be secure in your belief that you're doing something that's worth being experienced."

— Steven Soderbergh (which I can't help but read in Tim Allen's GalaxyQuest voice)

Issue 1: Done! This was an intro. Next issue (next week?) I'll pick a topic to focus on that goes beyond self-justification.

I love feedback. Ask questions! Suggest a topic! You can reply to this email.

Until then,

James