Re-Watchterpiece Theater: Magnolia

Re-Watchterpiece Theater is a series that explores the organic way that attitudes about films change after you watch them a second time, a third time, or more, further down the line than the original viewing.

Today’s Re-Watchterpiece Theater episode has been in the works for a long time, although it took an unfortunate event to make it happen. I’ve been meaning to re-watch Magnolia for at least a year now. My attitude about P.T. Anderson has changed so much in that time. And it took the tragic death of Philip Seymour Hoffman to serve as the spark.

Deconstructing MASH (1970)

My friend Ryan- whose opinions I value as much or more than anyone else about movies- was recently singing the praises of the comedy in MASH (1970) to me when I was putting together my comedy flowchart. I’m ashamed to admit that as he was praising MASH, all I could remember from the first time I saw it was the overlapping dialogue and the Last Supper scene. In other words, I needed to re-watch it. Thanks to the fine folks at the Wildey Theater, I had my chance to re-watch it this past weekend, and on the big screen no less.

The Big Fat List of Directors I Don’t Talk About Enough

I love talking about movies. So do you. Why else would you be here? In the discussion process, it’s very easy to become enthusiastic about certain directors and their films. And the unfortunate byproduct of the genius of these various directors is that it’s easy to fixate on them, often at the detriment of other moviemakers who have plied their craft with similarly deft touches. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen at least a few articles about Ingmar Bergman, Buster Keaton, Louis Malle, Luis Buñuel, Martin Scorsese, Edgar Wright, and the Coen brothers. But there is a humongous list of other directors that I love just as much, if not more, than many of the names on that list. Here’s a list of directors that I don’t write about nearly enough.

100 Things I Love About the Movies

I passed a milestone recently here at TDYLF. Thanks to the help of the editors over at IMDB, I passed the 100,000 Hits milestone on Sunday (with a whopping 80,000+ of those hits coming just since September 30th). To celebrate, I’m beginning a brand new series called “100 Things I Love About the Movies”. To be sure, there a LOT more than 100 things that I love about the movies. As such, this has the potential to become a series- 100 Things I Love About Horror Movies, 100 Things I Love About Foreign Movies, and on and on. I present to you the first edition of “100 Things I Love About the Movies”.