A Few of My Favorite Things (This Year)

Movies, Music, Books, TV, Photography, and Fashion

Looking back at the last two end-of-year round-ups I have written is an amusement, as they look nothing like what I have written this year. It feels like a miffed opportunity to not create patterns and familiarity, but I also feel that projects like this, newsletters, should contain your voice, your human voice, and my voice and perspective and ideas are changing all of the time. I’m going to let my writing and my style change, too.

Without further ado, here are some things I loved this year.

Movies

I have logged 162 movies since January 1st. That number is slightly below my average, which is a difference that I can feel. There are (always) so many things I wish I had watched, and that I hope to eventually watch.

Here were my favorite movie-going experiences in 2024:

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) (in 35mm) at The Hollywood Theater

A frigid, icy night in Portland where we camped out in the theater and watched, for my first time, an old 35mm print of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, a story of manifesting destiny in the frigid and snowy pacific northwest. This was immediately one of my favorite movies ever, and I’ve never seen anything else like it. I got to see it with my good friend Whitney, who already adored the film, and having her pass it off to me was a delight.

Master and Commander (2003) at home

My friend Eric let me host his birthday party, where we watched the 2003 masterpiece of male friendship Master and Commander, which has become a strange inside joke for men of a certain age. I have a projector and screen, and love hosting, so this was a treat for me. Let me host your birthday parties!

Perfect Days (2024) at the Laurelhurst Theater

Just a stunning movie that felt like it was made for me, and I got to see it in my second favorite theater with a friend who I don’t get to see too many movies with. I just bought this movie on Bluray from The Criterion Collection, and I look forward to watching it annually.

Run Lola Run (1998) at The Hollywood Theatre

Another Whitney joint. This movie is electric, and seeing it big and loud at the theater with a huge crowd was a thrill.

Challengers (2024) at the Laurelhurst Theater

This was the dynamite that kicked off my 2024 release year. This movie is exhilarating, breathtaking, and massively fun. The soundtrack, basically club music, is just pumping relentlessly throughout this sports melodrama starring hot people. You gotta see this, and you should see it with as many people as possible.

The Bikeriders (2024) at the Laurelhurst Theater

Boy, this movie really evaporated in the public consciousness, but has really stuck with me. I aligned myself with the goals of this movie — joining a filmic conversation that is seventy years old — unintentionally at first, and with extreme intention upon its arrival. I started a writing project that I never finished about The Bikeriders in connection with The Wild One (1953), which is literally shown on a screen in The Bikeriders, and Easy Rider (1969), three motorcycle movies that are about the state of America, and the men inside of it, all of which are artfully made. This was a special experience for me, and maybe one day I will finish that piece. The Bikeriders is fun, and I recommend it to everyone!

The Last Picture Show (1971) at Cinema 21

Frequently noted as an all-time classic and a game changer in movie history, I saw The Last Picture Show at Cinema 21’s magical Saturday 11:00AM spot this year with a bunch of movie-lovers, most of them notably older than me, and had an amazing time discovering this skeleton key for myself. Much of film that came afterwards is obviously cribbing from Picture Show, and thinking about what this movie would have felt like at the time, in 1971, especially for a teenager or young adult? Sensational.

All That Heaven Allows (1955) at the Hollywood Theatre

This is just one of my favorite movies, and the first Douglas Sirk melodrama that I ever saw, and I got to see it projected on film in a movie theater. God bless the Hollywood.

My Old Ass (2024) at Laurelhurst Theater

This was the crowd pleaser of the year. Using Aubri Plaza’s presence as bait, I got more friends to see this than any other movie I saw in a theater this year, and everyone had a great time, and we stood talking about it in the lobby for a dozen or two minutes. That’s what it’s all about, baby.

My entire October

There are a ton of great sounding 2024 releases that I have not yet seen, which is always the case in December. I hope to see a big handful of them soon, and January/February are typically catch-up months for this purpose.

I live in a great film city, and I feel fortunate and lucky. I didn’t know this was the case when I moved here, and it’s a big reason I’m so in love with the place. Please, I beg you, ask to go to any movie with me. I’ll do my best to say yes. And please, I beg you, let me host a birthday movie watching party for you.

Music

My Spotify wrapped was terrible, for the second or third year in a row. I am too steeped in projects, including this newsletter and a party time, very informal “band” that I am in. But this generative annual feedback does make me reflect upon my listening habits this past year, and they were certainly sporadic. My new album intake was weighted towards the first half of the year, and heavily weighted towards my Katie Crutchfield writing project, and the discovery — through that project — of MJ Lenderman, who’s new album Manning Fireworks probably takes my Favorite Album of the Year slot, if I had to pick one. The album just flat out rocks and rolls; I love the instrumentation, especially the scratchy fiddle and the harmonizing from Lenderman’s former partner and current bandleader for Wednesday, Karly Hartzman. The album is silly, yet wise, and has stretches and segments that I’ll never forget.

I adore Nala Sinephro’s Endlessness, which is a ten piece album of ambient, playful jazz that frequently transports me to wonderful places. It’s a record I could just put on and sit down in front of, no devices or vices, and consume on its own, and it would be time well spent.

Since they happen to be on my mind right now, shout out to Sam Gendel and Sam Welkes, who released an album together in 2018, Music for Saxophone and Bass Guitar, that I have listened to more than any other record since. They continue to collaborate with a seemingly endless list of interesting and talented musicians, and release a ton of stuff every year. Wilkes’ iiyo iiyo iiyo and Gendel’s The Room are 2024’s standouts for me. There’s no one doing it like these two.

It was a great year in music reading for me, and my two biggest blog recommendations are No Expectations, which I have already written about frequently, and New Bands for Old Heads, who’s project involves recommending new music by relating it to 80’s/90’s/00’s sounds that you may already be familiar with. It is a great place to hear new things that sound like things you already know you like.

Television

I have no idea how many TV shows I watched this year, as this is one of the rare media forms that I do not track in any way, and that I don’t consume with too much thought or effort. Many things come to me through friends’ recommendation or through critical acclaim, and the rest of the things come from having already watched them 100 times (my most watched show of the last 10 years running: 30 Rock).

I’ll give a shout out to Slow Horses, which I watched after so much praise from Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald from The Watch podcast. I finished the entire series in a month, and loved almost every minute of it. Deeply recommend!

Books

I read 17 books this year, another number that I wish was higher. When I curb my senseless phone scrolling habit, which I am genuinely making ground on, this number will go up, and I will love that.

By far the best experience of the lot was reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn immediately before reading the new adaptation/reclamation project James. I wrote about that here.

Additionally, I am cramming in the final pages of Tricia Romano’s The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of The Village Voice before heading home for the holidays, and this oral history has been a great read, a great education on New York City in the last seventy years, and a great source of writing and thinking inspiration.

Photography

I have dabbled in photography for several years now. This year, I pivoted from digital (a Fujifilm X-T4) to film (a $50 plastic point-and-shoot). I gave up control, fidelity, features, and the option to do every part of the process by myself. I gained insight, perspective, and deep appreciation. I miss my digital camera, and the photos that I was able to take with it, but I love the experience of my current film photography life-stlye. Maybe someday I’ll have both.

I would recommend the camera I bought, but it is the same as every other ~$50 plastic point-and-shoot film camera, so you can pick whatever one you want. But the real move is to get the one that is sitting in your parents’ basement, and just start shooting.

Fashion

I spent a surprising amount of time reading about fashion this year, with Blackbird Spyplane leading the way (they are some of the coolest and innovative writers I have found on Substack. I deeply recommend them). I don’t introduce any concrete fashion ideas or trends into my own life/lifestyle/closet, but I’m gaining appreciation for the form, and I’m excited to announce that I do have a style that I am slowly aspiring to fit into: an Actor’s Studio Student In New York that is Taking a Trip Upstate in Autumn.

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Election years are a slog, and this year was particularly tough. I hope you, and I, continue to return to art as escape, as inspiration, as joy, as experimentation, as community, as solidarity. Keep making things, keep supporting makers, and keep going. We need you, and I love you.

Happy holidays.