Movie Enthusiast

Movie Enthusiast Issue 68: Cannes 2019 In Review

June 17, 2019

The best way to experience the Cannes Film Festival is not to go. You’ll have a chance to see all the movies anyway—even all four and a half hours of the new...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 67: Thoughts on Q1 2019 New Movies; adieu à Agnès Varda; Cannes preview

April 8, 2019

Watching Everybody Knows (2018) I have to assume that the title refers to the audience, in that the twist about Javier Bardem being the father of Penélope...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 66: How to Make a Movie When You’re Banned by Law from Filmmaking

March 11, 2019

Watching 3 Faces (2018) Every winter the Smithsonian’s Freer|Sackler Galleries and the AFI Silver host the DC Iranian Film Festival. Because of the...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 65: Sundance and Berlin Recap

February 19, 2019

One of the theories behind this newsletter is that it’s much more fun to get your news about movies from someone who spends way more time thinking about...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 64: Experimental Film

February 4, 2019

Listening Michael Sicinski, is one of my favorite film critics who’s slightly outside of the critical establishment (emphasis on the slightly). This...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 63: My Favorite Films of 2018; The Markatos Oscars; Reviewing Monrovia, Indiana

December 31, 2018

Watching If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably already seen, but I reviewed Frederick Wiseman’s Monrovia, Indiana for The American Interest. Of the 5...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 62: I watched like a dozen new movies in the last two weeks and now I have to write about as many of them as I can

December 10, 2018

Watching The AFI Silver European Union Showcase is running through the end of this week, so besides all the end-of-year awards contenders I’ve been keeping...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 61: The Great Post-Thanksgiving Movie Dump (feat. Wisemanpalooza, Widows)

November 27, 2018

Watching High School (1968) Frederick Wiseman’s second feature took him to a high school in Philadelphia. Because of the era, there are lots of items of gee-...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 60: New York Film Festival, Some Stars Are Born, First Man, and more

October 29, 2018

Writing For The Weekly Standard I wrote about my visit to New York Film Festival—my first time ever going! I saw seven movies total but two of them were duds...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 59: Madeline’s Madeline, The Wild Pear Tree, 20 Pioneering Women in Film

September 24, 2018

Watching In the last month I’ve seen two of the best movies of 2018! Now I need to figure out how to convince you of the soundness of my judgment… Madeline’s...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 58: BlacKkKlansman, Bergman Centennial V, Farewell to the Village Voice

September 4, 2018

Watching BlacKkKlansman (2018) Spoilers ahoy! This feels like a fraught movie to have opinions on, so here goes nothing! I would say I fall somewhere in the...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 57: Sorry to Bother You! Bergman Centennial IV, 14 Hours of Experimental Argentinian Filmmaking If You Want It

August 20, 2018

Watching The Black Power Mixtape (1967–1975) (2011) It’s always been fascinating to me to discover how the rest of the world keeps tabs on American race...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 56: Fall Festival Preview, Joans of Arc, Eighth Grade, Bergman Centennial III

August 6, 2018

Watching Eighth Grade (2018) One of my coworkers and I saw this movie on the same night in the same theater at different screenings (I passed her on her way...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 55: French New Wave Diaries IV, Bergman Centennial II, RIP Claude Lanzmann

July 16, 2018

Watching The Virgin Spring (1960) By my own admission I am not the biggest fan of filmed adaptations of medieval folklore. This one I actually warmed to!...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 54: The Bergman Centennial Begins

July 2, 2018

Watching Mrs. Hyde (2017) Some movies are unclassifiable because they do startling new things with style and genre. Some are unclassifiable because they just...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 53: The Love Witch, Ocean’s 8, Incredibles 2, Kate Bush, and more!

June 18, 2018

Welcome back after a rather long and unplanned hiatus! As I adjust to my new work schedule, I am trying to figure out where writing fits into my life. This...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 52: French New Wave Diaries III; On evil films

May 7, 2018

Paris Belongs to Us (1961) Directed by Jacques Rivette Jacques Rivette served as the editor-in-chief of Cahiers du cinéma from 1963–1965. He assumed this...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 51: French New Wave Diaries II; Cannes Update

April 16, 2018

My mission to close all the gaps in my knowledge of the major films and filmmakers of the French New Wave continues this week with three more films! Lola...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 50: French New Wave Diaries I

April 2, 2018

Last time I mentioned that I’d be filling in the gaps of my knowledge of the French New Wave this spring. Over the next few months, I’ll be holding myself to...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 49: Cannes 2018 Preview; A Wrinkle in Time; Hong Sang-soo and Kim Min-hee in the news (again)

March 19, 2018

In just under a month, the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival will announce which movies will be competing for the Palme d’Or! This is always my favorite...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 48: Post-Oscars; Annihilation

March 5, 2018

Good morning, dear readers! I take it we all survived the Oscars? Kobe Bryant now has more competitive Oscars than Alfred Hitchcock, but Roger Deakins...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 47: Thoughts on Black Panther

February 19, 2018

This weekend I saw Black Panther! It was nice! Faithful readers of this newsletter know what that means—yes, this was Tim’s first Marvel movie! Thus I have a...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 46: Sundance 2018 in Review

February 5, 2018

Another year, another Sundance! The annual festival of independent narrative and documentary films took place this year from January 18 to January 28, as it...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 45: If I were an Oscar voter (my 2017 ballot)

January 22, 2018

The nominees for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced tomorrow! If I were an Oscar voter, which I’m not, and if the Oscars allowed all voters to elect...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 44: Phantom Thread, Graduation, and the Second Annual Box Office Olympics

January 8, 2018

Two new movie reviews from me this week, which is basically a rare astronomical event: First, I reviewed Phantom Thread, which is finally opening everywhere...

Movie Enthusiast Special Issue: The Best Films of 2017

January 1, 2018

Happy New Year everyone! Dropping into your inboxes this morning to announce that I’ve finally finished compiling (and copyediting—good grief am I prone to...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 43: 18 to Watch in 2018

December 18, 2017

2017 is almost over; good riddance! Let’s wrap up the year by looking forward to some movies set to open in 2018. I’m omitting movies that already have full...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 42: Three Notes on Claire Denis; Lady Bird Thoughts; Video Essay News

December 4, 2017

Cinephiles tend to have strong emotions about Claire Denis, the septuagenarian French director usually known if at all for her 1999 exercise-video-as-...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 41: I’m a Film Critic Who’s Never Seen a Marvel Movie

November 21, 2017

In May 2012 Marvel’s The Avengers arrived in theaters, right at the end of my first year of college. A friend had invited me to go see it during our reading...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 40

October 16, 2017

Welcome back! I took a short break to wait until I could send a robust newsletter rather than keep to schedule and have nothing to write about. Boy did I...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 39: Afghanistan’s Lost Films, Revisiting My Top 100, Don’t Tell Me About mother!

September 18, 2017

I am planning on seeing Darren Aronofsky’s mother! this week. Somehow, I have managed to avoid all trailers and plot descriptions of this movie. All I know...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 38: Books vs. Movies vs. Theater; Twin Peaks

September 6, 2017

I’ve been reading some André Bazin, the French intellectual who was among the founding editors of Cahiers du cinéma and whose writings on film are...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 37: The Festivals Are Coming, the Festivals Are Coming!

August 7, 2017

Brace yourselves—the fall film festival circuit is revving its engines! The big ones to be aware of this year: Venice International Film Festival (8/30–9/9)...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 36: Streaming vs. Theatrical, Death to Superheroes, and Upcoming Projects

July 17, 2017

Welcome back to Movie Enthusiast, after a short and unplanned July 4th hiatus! Summer is a bit slower on the film-world happenings, so this week will be more...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 35: Faith on Film (Again)

June 12, 2017

Without planning it I’ve recently seen a couple of movies where faith is a central element of the story. I’ll start with the most recent, since it’s fresh on...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 34: Cannes 2017 in Review

May 29, 2017

Coming to you a week ahead of schedule, it’s Tim’s comprehensive overview of this year’s Cannes Film Festival! Please excuse any details I may have gotten...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 33: Thoughts I have had while standing next to Alex Ross Perry in line to use the bathroom at a film festival

May 15, 2017

Two weekends ago I took the train up to Baltimore for the Maryland Film Festival! This was both my first medium-scale film festival (Film Fest DC is such a...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 32: TV Killed the Movie Star

May 1, 2017

Is it just me or are all the exciting movie directors going to TV now? To wit, we’re currently expecting miniseries from: Barry Jenkins – will adapt Colson...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 31: Who’s going to Cannes next month?

April 3, 2017

In my last newsletter I forgot to mention that I was planning on taking a short break through the month of April due to travel and holidays. Whoops! To atone...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 30: A good horror movie audience is hard to find, Japanese antiwar movies, and more

March 20, 2017

Earlier this month I saw Get Out, Jordan Peele’s fantastic horror-comedy (emphasis on the horror) about a black guy who goes to meet his white girlfriend’s...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 29: Where Are All the Women Filmmakers? (2017 Edition)

March 6, 2017

Since the last issue of this newsletter went out, two big news items have happened in film world. The first, as I’m sure you’re all aware, is La La Land was...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 28: “The Secret Progressivism of This Old French Film Will Shock You,” and other fictions

February 20, 2017

Previously on Movie Enthusiast, I mentioned that I was watching Éric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales. Brief background: Rohmer was one of the editors of the French...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 27: 12 films to watch from Sundance 2017 (Nuns! Manifestos! Rooney Mara eating pie!)

February 6, 2017

As the rest of the country was in chaos last month, the 2017 Sundance Film Festival proceeded as per usual. Even if the festival weren’t taking place in the...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 26: Hidden Figures, Paterson, and more end-of-2016 housekeeping

January 16, 2017

January always ends up an appendage to the previous calendar year when it comes to movies. Now that all the late-year films that opened in New York and L.A....

Movie Enthusiast Issue 25: If I Had an Oscar Ballot…

January 2, 2017

At this stage in the game, Oscar voters only cast their nominating votes for Best Picture and categories for whatever branch they’re a part of (e.g. actors...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 24: The Inaugural Box Office Olympics

December 19, 2016

Toward the end of every calendar year I like to check the box office returns on some of the more obscure movies I saw in theaters to find out how much I...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 23: Spontaneous Moviegoing, Scorsese's Silence, Sundance 2017 Lineup Revealed

December 5, 2016

Two months ago I saw Park Chan-Wook's new film, The Handmaiden, and subsequently wrote an essay on it, offline, and decided not to publish it (yet, if ever)....

Movie Enthusiast Issue 22: Another Milestone Crossed

November 7, 2016

As some of my more ardent admirers know, I've been keeping journals of every movie I've watched since September 2011. I follow a pretty standard rule: each...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 21: Selling Good Movies with Bad Writing

October 17, 2016

Back in June I caught the microbudget indie The Fits during its brief stint in theaters. (Evidently, my arthouse of choice in downtown DC was one of only...

Movie Enthusiast Issue 20: Movies—they make us throw things across the room in rage

October 3, 2016

I can vaguely recall an awards show opening number from a few years ago that celebrated all the many feelings we get at the movies. (Yes, I realize I’ve just...