I’ll be back…

Remember me? Why would you? It’s been literally years since I embarked on my Julie and Julia adventure to watch the 100 Best American Films per the BBC critics poll. The list was complied over five years ago in 2015, and think of how many more movies have been release since. Could any recent additions have made the cut? Probably only one or two — but still, those five years have given us some incredible work, like Moonlight or 1917 or Ladybird, that continue to challenge expectations, and push the limits of the medium forward.

But, I had a life to live when I started this project in 2016. We were making a podcast (which I recently heard described as the 20-teens equivalent of a lower back tattoo, shame shame), I was in my twenties and in the process of shedding that part of my identity, and so I quit this little venture — not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Then came 2020 and quarantine, a period of my life tailor made to watch movies and write about them because what else would I do to distract myself from the world crumbling around me? This time, I’ve watched the films, wrote first drafts, and have committed to posting two a week through the end of 2021. So here we go, climbing another rung in my self indulgent ladder of atonement for giving up years ago… here is my under-educated perspective on the top 100 American films according to dated list of foreign film critics…