letterboxd, the vexing and sometimes OK film logging website

but yknow I should really just get tf over it

a few things I don't like about letterboxd

- we all know this, the TV non inclusion or semi sometimes inclusion is bad and silly and completely arbitrary
- certain types of bad takes rewarded
- a minor thing, but as with RYM, odd preferences/fetishes for certain types of content or certain stylistic or formal features. sometimes it's interesting other times it's just annoying

definitely wish that they allowed TV and episode reviews. or hell, spin off another site for that and video games. the personal logging is what i most like about it, i guess

i use it mostly as a tracker of stuff i've watched and don't really "engage with the community" but it's a really well-designed site that is a pleasure to use if you just want to track some films and make or read a watchlist.

I would be fine with one entry per series, only added once it's finished airing / being released. that also means no MCU reviews :)

i am furious that i cannot write a review of true detective season 2 on letterboxd but someone can write about the queen or the queen's gambit or twin queens the return

it's so silly

one other thing that's dumb: apparently if you log a movie without rating it, you drag down its rating

what? that's stupid. no rating should not = 0 rating.

I can't personally prove that but I have heard it alleged

The other good websites are Bandcamp and Lichess. This is my theory of websites.

what about ilx i can has cheezburger

A friend of mine worked there and it was a train wreck as you might imagine

1. !!

2. "A group of investors acquired the website in September 2007 for US$2 million"

3. oh

looool

having worked at some sketchy ass train wrecks, I salute silby's friend

brad thank you for the nathaxnne tip, anyone else have accts they like?

I've been using Letterboxd for years, but literally the only thing I use it for is to maintain the film diary I've been keeping since 1992. So I just go on and log a movie and leave. I don't do ratings or write reviews. I do follow a handful of people, but I honestly don't spend much time there. I do like being able to look up when in 1997 I saw The Ice Storm or whatever.

we all know this, the TV non inclusion or semi sometimes inclusion is bad and silly and completely arbitrary

The rule I made in 1992 (when I was 12 lol) was that I only logged movies that had, at some point, been released theatrically (regardless of where I personally saw them). So no TV movies, no straight-to-video, no Netflix-only. (But film festival releases are OK.) The last year has made me rethink that, though. Esp. since there's lots of stuff in the Letterboxd database that would be easy enough to log, if I wanted to.

here's mine: https://letterboxd.com/adamt/

Oh hey, look at that. I just assumed this thing was already passe and that's why no one ever talked about it. I use it pretty regularly, mostly to keep track of what I've watched/intend to watch (because my brain is sieve-like with respect to keeping track of such things), partly to read what others think of what I've watched (I follow some of y'all, I'm PlooplePop). I guess there's a social media aspect to it but I don't really engage with that as such.

Oh right, the polite way of doing this: https://letterboxd.com/plooplepop/

xp i would definitely rethink the TV/STV/streaming exceptions. i mean, even decades past, there were notable TV movies, sadly never to be seen or heard from again!

i don't find Letterboxd vexing at all! it's fun! my movie watching habits got way better since i started using it. i like the challenge of trying to write funny blurbs, which has kinda gamified movie-watching

My frustration is actually less about the hot takes and more the dudes who seem to watch only hyper-canonical stuff and dutifully give everything five stars. Then I remember I was 18 once, too.

I think the site is best for finding out about off-the-beaten-path films rather than engaging with long reviews that could be blog entries - I'm sure there's ppl out there who do that well but I've not found much so I stick with Xgau-style capsule reviews in both reading and writing.

The stats are super fun tho my regular viewing of shorts means my most watched actors always end up being Mel Blanc or Buster Keaton.

100% would not want TV to be included, far too many places online to talk about that shit. I do agree the currently available TV should be removed tho.

Anyway: https://letterboxd.com/Reifferschizzle/

The lists (+ the presence of hyper-obsessive users) are one of the best features imo. Would you like to see all of the hard sci-fi films written by first-generation Italian Americans between '75 and '80? There's probably a list for that.

https://letterboxd.com/glumdalclitch/

If Letterbox had a recommendation engine I'd be all in, but outside of meme lists and pithy gag reviews I'm not sure I've much use for it. I've been using Movielens for the last decade for movie discovery and it hasn't done wrong by me so far.

I use the Activity feed as my de facto recommendations guide

i’m like nearly on the verge of paying for a subscription just for those sweet sweet activity feed filters

The fav streaming services feature is also good, and they’ve started sending notifications when something on your watchlist appears on one of your services.

I'm really unclear on what the actual benefits of a paid membership are. Like, if it included the ability to get really fiddly with the filters or, say, compare the content of different lists, I'd pony up in a heartbeat.

doc casino is an excellent letterboxd follow btw

As are you! ILXors unsurprisingly showing the other users of that site how it's done.

I would go "pro" just to check it out but I don't want it to say "pro" next to my name, that's nerd shit

some of my other favorite writers:

- claire diane: https://letterboxd.com/fieldmouse/ (doesn't update often, but when she does, watch out. responsible for the most beautiful film criticism i've ever read, this review of nightmare on elm street 3: https://letterboxd.com/fieldmouse/film/a-nightmare-on-elm-street-3-dream-warriors/ )

- scumbalina: https://letterboxd.com/scumbalina/ (if you want earnest well-written discursive five star reviews about shot-on-video horror, look no further)

- sydney: https://letterboxd.com/campbart/ (a lot of the writers i love on letterboxd have an almost stream-of-consciousness thing going on, but sydney's reviews are all precision, and she has the best taste on earth. currently going through a bollywood thing, very cool to keep up with)

- j0siah m0rgan: https://letterboxd.com/josiahmorgan11/

j@ke c0le and j0sh l3wis are also very good but are very popular on the site. m@tt lynch ostensibly shares a lot of my taste and priorities but i think he's just terrible. i don't exactly know why i'm google-proofing but simon did it earlier and it seems like a good practice lol

one of the appeals of letterboxd when i joined was finding all of these trans writers writing these beautiful reviews that explore both their own identity and the hidden or not-so-hidden depths of trashy horror films. i assume that is not covered in the nyt piece but that's the no. 1 reason the website is so so valuable to me

My updates have gotten extremely sporadic, but here's me: https://letterboxd.com/ephender/

brad thank you for those, most of the ppl I'm encountering online who use it are like 19 which is.....cool but not all the time lol

https://letterboxd.com/1000TimesYes/

other than twitter, the best "Social media" platform

lol I was wondering why so many people were following me

I just started using it and haven't figured out how I want to use the "like" and rating features.

Anyway, I'm https://letterboxd.com/Anniella/

when I started using it (2014) I enjoyed rating movies, but now all I do is "like" if I like a movie even a little bit, and occasionally write a lil blurb

The Pro sub is like, $12 during Thanksgiving, easily worth it for me

https://letterboxd.com/jaymc/

http://letterboxd.com/unbornwhiskey

way too self-conscious to actually review things these days but sometimes i try

https://letterboxd.com/junkzone/film/the-box-2009/

this review should be more popular

I like looking at other people's favorite films. I've watched enough meh films for a second time that I like being able to check whether or not I've already seen something. And I live in hope that my pithy comments--when I feel sufficiently moved to write them--will one of these days catch the attention of someone who is intrigued, rather than alienated, by my sense of humor. But you'd think by now I'd know better about getting the things that I want.

I do like being able to look up when in 1997 I saw The Ice Storm or whatever.

― jaymc, Tuesday, February 9, 2021 10:56 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I have scattered movie logs back to 2001 I've been wanting to do this with! Someday...

https://letterboxd.com/geoffreyess/

Most watched are Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc; if shorts are excluded, Scorsese and Michael Caine.

i'm an idiot, how do you see your most watched actor, director, etc?

If you have at least a Pro subscription, you can click on your All Time stats and look.

That themes & nanogenres thing is relatively new innit?

Yeah...it sucks.

Apparently I've watched a lot of movies about "Humanity and the World Around Us." Very informative.

Family drama = Ozu watches

https://i.imgur.com/2iQJmdh.jpeg

Humanity and the world around us is probably Kor-eda

Ugh, just realized Woody Allen is somehow my most watched (non-animated shorts) director despite the fact that I maybe only saw the first two or so movies that he made in this century.

My most watched (non-animated shorts) actor is Tim Heidecker, lol. Closely followed by Samuel L. Jackson and Cary Grant.

Samuel L.Jackson will sneak in there yeah, especially if you didn't get off the mcu train early enough

taking a look mine and -

* Chishū Ryū ✅
* Tim Heidecker ✅
* Samuel L. Jackson ✅ (17 movies with no MCU!)

but laughing pretty hard at my #1 -

* Sylvester Stallone, 22 films!

even tho sly isn't usually in em, I generally watch a lot of horror and exploitation so my "nanogenres" are also pretty funny -

* Gruesome, Terrifying, Imaginative 62 films
* Eerie, Graphic, Screaming 52 films
* Blood, Shock, Gross 50 films
* Killer, Terror, Brutally 49 films
* Violence, Bizarre, Extreme 49 films
* Blood, Horrific, Unsettling 48 films
* Action, Gangster, Violence 48 films
* Death, Psychopath, Graphic 47 films
* Brutal, Shock, Extreme 47 films
* Victim, Bloody, Terrifying 47 films

My Highest Rated actors is weird.

I didn't attempt to log everything until recent years and Ethan Hawke is inexplicably one of my most-watched actors

These are still the only user stats I'm ever interested in:

https://scontent.ffcm1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/417445545_10159945532767358_7139205201699595527_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=Hu99-2B0hnEAb60djCT&_nc_ht=scontent.ffcm1-2.fna&oh=00_AfD-9ufrsDcnRCLVW009eX6LM95x-W1MfrujCWqLRqDQOA&oe=66288D3A

https://scontent.ffcm1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/417457570_10159945532787358_7353406479538643797_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=9XPJ8KpycroAb7YxzNL&_nc_ht=scontent.ffcm1-2.fna&oh=00_AfDU-_iWiZqWRq5H3LPmNuaguwQRh1jS-TwPMUQLM8Nv8Q&oe=66288DAB

lmao those are great, especially the higher than average one

also the goonies truly sucks, thanking u

I've only rated three movies, I like that letterboxd gives me the freedom not to rate things

A lot of ratings I have in there came from importing them from IMDB, where many grades date back to, like, the year 2000, and I'm pretty sure that version of me just went to the list of the top 250 rated movies and gave roughly half of them 1-outta-10 ratings

https://i.imgur.com/lBbJSwv.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/wUMrQVT.jpeg

oh, these pics are too big. I don't know how to post them any smaller. Sorry.

Femme Fatale is not a five star movie

It's more of a five star than Poltergeist

I like to think we all agree on Braveheart being a half star

3 and a half stars imo. The half star is for Mel Gibson's accent.

I upgraded to Patron

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/434045500476620840/1230981105230938235/Screenshot_20240419_213742_com.letterboxd.letterboxd.jpg?ex=66354b7e&is=6622d67e&hm=bb3ab9a6bb535c03391b20a11b2e2d2bd60cfe91c9097cb6bf10a22171ac12ac&=&format=webp&width=210&height=454

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/434045500476620840/1230981125774512318/Screenshot_20240419_213818_com.letterboxd.letterboxd.jpg?ex=66242802&is=6622d682&hm=aac48ab0cea8eeb6799b1b466890405ba7ac67f4d29c3cfd80046935aeea0125&=&format=webp&width=210&height=454

lol, small image size led me to wonder what A Simple Plan did to piss you off.

https://resizing.flixster.com/edCns7oCRFGZToHUcqvKFtQmrXA=/fit-in/705x460/v2/https://resizing.flixster.com/-XZAfHZM39UwaGJIFWKAE8fS0ak=/v3/t/assets/p21705_v_v10_ac.jpg
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/dh0AAOSwyQtV3MGD/s-l1600.jpg

(I was impressed with myself for catching that visual parallel but of course there's already a Letterboxd list for that: https://letterboxd.com/cinemommie/list/hello-id-like-to-report-a-poster-theft/)

Xpost
I'm actually not keen on A Simple Plan but it's been a long time

4 stars for That's My Boy is fun

And Poltergeist and Femme Fatale are, in fact, both 5-star movies, so glad I could clear that up here

Brain De Palma's horniness is truly powerful.

Brain lol

ha, love that cover connection

is that rated higher/lower than average only at the Patron level? I'm on the cheaper sub and don't see that part

Yes, that's Patron-only. It would be a neat feature to have, but I'll live.

I think it will be coming to Pro in the near future. Patron gets early access to beta features.

You can also get a pretty clear idea of divergences by looking up only the movies you’ve ranked high or low and then organizing according to average user rating

I've never given star ratings to anything, so this is kinda lost on me. (my watching queue is so long that if something isn't working for me, I'm out - can't hatewatch anymore)

You don't have to rate anything, you can just log and/or review and/or like