Boy Movies #90

An announcement and the Best Movies of the 21st Century

Something good happened in New York so here’s a rare Wednesday edition of Boy Movies. I have news!

QUITE POSSIBLY…

The fabulous Hannah very kindly had me on

never cursed

’s Phoenician Scheme-themed Prix Fixe, in which I recommend Paul F. Tompkins’ rant about Jeffrey Wright in conjunction with Wes Anderson’s latest. I loved doing this and I loved being one part of such a fun group. Let’s hear it for the most underrated and underused actor of his caliber AND a generation!

Alright alright

So, okay, Boy Movies is launching a paid tier.

I was going cause theater and wait until the 100th issue to “announce” the “news,” and then I forced myself to acknowledge the very real fact that I’ve been putting off doing this for a long, long, long time, out of some falsely bohemian sense of being in it (it = writing a newsletter) for the love of the game (the game = writing a newsletter). I know myself quite well, and if I held off for ten more issues, I’d keep finding excuses not to do it. When I was on my recent Euro trip (which was lovely, even with my two sprained ankles and giant walking boot), I was scolded by three separate friends/readers (freaders) for my adamant refusal to let people pay for this thing. It’s not the first time I’ve been scolded (AHEM, SARAH, AHEM), but it really got to me this time. Maybe it’s the elusive clarity that comes with turning 30 (I turned 30 last week btw) that I have repeatedly been told I’m going to experience, or maybe I just got tired of being told I’m “allergic to making money.” It could be anything.

What exactly am I trying to prove by giving my writing away for free? I have a job where I am paid to write, but writing is also a habit I enjoy enough to have spent almost three years doing it regularly in my spare time, too. Blogging purely for fun is a lost art, one I look back on fondly yet distantly. Like, I loved Mindy Kaling’s Things I Bought That I Love Tumblr, but she was also doing The Office when she came out with that. In general, I believe that writing should be paid for and I was running out of excuses for why my writing was the exception.

Clare wrote a great post about making money on Substack that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past few weeks, particularly these two lines:

“This is a website and does not contribute to anyone’s 401(k).”

and

“Not getting paid for media contributions that take a lot of time, cultural memory, and skill is not heroic and in fact it is stupid.”

Thus, Boy Movies will follow in the footsteps of many, many, many Substacks before it and, as of this issue, officially give subscribers the option to pay to read it. I haven’t fully worked out what my posting schedule will be yet, but I can promise that paid subscribers will get at least two posts per month, which I envision will be round-ups of things I’ve watched recently, longer movie reviews, reader mail, and… drum roll… the Boy Movies Movie Club, which is something I’ve wanted to do since I started writing this old so and so. Older posts will also go behind a paywall, so paying subscribers will have access to the full archive.

If you pledged a subscription, you don’t have to do anything! You’ll automatically see this whole post. Big ups to you, you forward-thinking genius. If you’re deeply offended by this and are absolutely not interested in becoming a paid Boy Movista, you are of course still welcome here. There will still be public posts, likely one per month. If you want to read the rest of today’s issue, sign up for a paid subscription. If you don’t care, I’ll see you when I publish the next free one.

Pomp and circumstance aside, thank you so much for sticking with me, whether you subscribed two minutes ago or two years ago. If you’ve ever read and enjoyed my writing, please know that I am eternally grateful. I literally love you and will kiss you on the mouth if ever given the opportunity. I hope we can continue to have fun behind the newly constructed paywall at Boy Movies HQ.

Can we get back to movies

Despite once famously mentioning the Boy Movies newsletter on its website, the failing New York Times did not ask me to submit an official ballot for the Best Movies of the 21st Century project. That’s fine: I can only hope to someday be as utterly rindom as Bryce Dallas Howard. But because everything must be for everyone these days, the NYT has deigned to allow its lowly readers to submit their own ballots. Submit them where? To whom? For what? I’m not sure, as — from my understanding, anyway — the list has already been decided on. No one else was asking these questions, though, which means that for the past few days, X, The Everything App has been taken over by NYT-sanctioned screenshots of everyone’s little picks. Obviously I am above nothing so I made one: