One Year of Frankly Speaking

Wow, has it really been a year already?

I'm just gonna throw aesthetically pleasing shots in here. Ford v Ferrari was a good flick, though, I need to return to it.

On May 13th, 2019, I released Frankly Speaking into the world. I didn’t have any real game plan, I just wanted to take things to the next level. It was time. Since then, there have been many reviews and a few experiments here and there on the side. So far, it's just been whatever I really want to do. There have been a few times where I’ve walked out of the theatre with a friend and they’ve asked “so, is this going to be a review?” and, while I don’t really want every experience to be forced into a post (and there have been plenty of movies this year I haven’t reviewed – Parasite is a pretty notable exception, for instance) the ‘pressure’ of this blog has honestly given me a real solid push. Partially there were just a lot of good movies in 2019, but I think having a clear outlet really encouraged me to step out of a box of comfortability and really see more movies on release.

I just rewatched this movie and this scene still makes me more emotional than you would expect it to.

I saw 1917 and Little Women and others that I definitely would have watched eventually but really felt the need to see them ‘in time’ to say something relevant about them. I forget about Tolkien and Ad Astra – movies that everyone else also kind of forgot about – but they were both early reviews I’m pretty happy with. To my surprise, my most viewed review is the Joker tear-down, which I think is funny because most of my reviews are gushing with positivity. But, hey, I’ll take the cred. I got to finally rant about trilogy structure in Star Wars, and the relevancy of politics in pop-culture (which is still probably my personal favourite article). I also watched Cats (2019) three times and wound up shaming myself by publicly talking about it, which was a thing. Another favourite was the style I took with Little Women and Knives Out, where I talked about those movies through the lens of the directors’ filmography (which I explicitly watched Lady Bird for), and I don’t mind the idea of expanding on that idea in the future.

See, it's funny because I'm talking about the future now and this movie operates on two time frames. I don't know. Watch Little Women, it's a perfect movie.

Which, let’s talk about. Because, well, it’s kind of a crazy time outside right now. I think the last movie I saw in theatres was Birds of Prey (which was really fun and people should read the review for), and I don’t expect to be seeing anything ‘new’ in a hot second. Tenet and Wonder Woman 1984 are still tracked for release but… that will change. So, what do I do? Well, I have a small handful of things I’ve been wanting to write about – expect an article about Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens and how it set us up for the sort of soulless familiar imagery we got in The Rise of Skywalker. But I really don’t want to write about Star Wars for the rest of my life, and I need outside material. What do you guys want? I have a long backlog of movies I want to catch up on which I might talk about, including the entire Planet of the Apes trilogy. Do people want content about television, or something else? Is there a movie you’re itching to hear my thoughts on? A director? I don’t know. Maybe you have an idea for something else entirely, or a way to improve the site. I’m going to open the floodgates a little, and I’m excited to see what people say. Get in touch with me through my Facebook and Twitter comment, or DMs, or whatever else. Frankly Speaking is open for business. I look forward to what we're capable of.

Strolling into Year 2.

All in all, I've been really happy with this first year. Frankly Speaking has grown into something I'm pretty pleased with, and I look forward to pushing it into something even more. Year one was a good one, let’s make year two even better.

(Oh, I also have a Letterboxd now at https://letterboxd.com/FranklySpeaking/ so follow me there for more updates and such. I've learned that the Letterboxd review is an artform and I seek to perfect it.)