Join me on Letterboxd

I had to let the "7 Days in May" feature slip over the summer as I was getting caught up on Bond, but intended to come back to it. But since I was mostly using that for capsule reviews of things I've been watching, I realized that Letterboxd is a better way of doing that. So I started a page there.

I love the design of the site and how it lets me keep a diary of what I'm watching as well as create lists. Sadly, it doesn't let me track TV series as well, so it doesn't fully replace IMDB, but it's much prettier and consolidates all my activity into a single, easy-to-navigate page. So I probably won't be coming back to "7 Days in May," but if you want to read short thoughts on what I've been watching - and to share your own thoughts on what you've been watching - follow me on Letterboxd and I'll follow you back. I'm still in early days there and would love to add to the people I'm interacting with.

I used to worry about dispersing my content too much over multiple platforms, but now I enjoy having different tools for different jobs. Tumblr works really well for quickly sharing news links and inspirational artwork; Letterboxd is great for movie discussion. Blogging is still perfect for longer essays, so that's what this site has almost exclusively become. There's much less daily content than I used to put up back in the day, but my hope and goal has been that what does show up here will be more thoughtful.

Her (2013)

I've heard from several people that they have a hard time getting past the premise of Her. That's fair enough; it's about a dude who develops romantic feelings for his phone. If that's all you have to go on, it's a tough concept to buy into. Even if you accept the main character's feelings, how are you supposed to relate to them? Fortunately for me, I had several other ways into the film.

First is the cast. I love every one of the people mentioned on that poster. Joaquin Phoenix is one of the finest actors working today, as is Amy Adams. Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde are also very talented and I have good feelings about them from Side Effects and House respectively. And even though Scarlett Johansson's face never appears in the movie, she's also a great actor and I love her voice. Then there's Spike Jonze, an ambitious filmmaker with interesting things to say and powerful ways to say them. And finally, there was hardly a Top 10 list for 2013 that didn't include Her on it. I knew it would be about much more than a creepy relationship and I was right.

Her does have some things to say about the relationship between people and our technology. That's actually the least insightful commentary it offers though. It's not profound to suggest that we love our phones and computers, but Her goes much deeper than that. It's about relationships in general. What do we want from them? How much work are we willing to put in?