Theater 114 was always something I loved dearly. Letterboxd never had a social media aspect to it, so I just threw up my discord handle on my bio and people joined. I met so many amazing directors, writers, projectionists, and “regular joes” who loved movies. Watching all together turned us into lifelong friends and reminded me when I most needed it: we are not alone.

I’ve always wanted to spin it into something, and over the past month or so, we’ve done just that. Welcome to Pulp Time — a website with public (or private) watch parties, filmmaker or user generated commentaries, and movies that you may (or may not) have seen before.

We did five beta test streams and covered everything from Sherlock Jr to All Quiet on the Western Front, and honestly it was amazing being able to join up with strangers who quickly became familiar faces. Free users get 2 movies a month, while paying subscribers get unlimited access and the ability to host one watch party a month.

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We’re doing our first watch party on Thursday, August 6th and plan on having a rolling time schedule throughout the month. Like the hands of the clock, we’ll go from 9 to 12 to 3 to 6. That way, everyone in every time zone has a chance to join.

I’m really excited about this website, and we’re already in talks to host independent filmmakers commentaries. I see it as a place for legitimate film discussion, which you know I’ve been craving. And — yes — we’re adding a diary feature along with a forum board, but more on that later…

Thanks for checking out Pulp Time. If you make it to a watch party and you’re from my Substack, make sure to say so in the chat so I can say hello. And, share it with a friend! Watch parties are always better with those you know … but they’re also great with complete strangers, so feel free to fly solo.

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I remember when I made the announcement on Twitter that Rick Dalton had died. Roger, Josh (my fellow producer), and I were eating lunch at Toi on Sunset when I pushed the button. It was a weird feeling: I got to pick the day Rick Dalton died. Even stranger, it was picked up by all sorts of news outlets. Even Vanity Fair wrote an article.

While doing my compendium, I contemplated writing up fake history for the four movies we covered. On the show, we were really Rick Dalton focussed and even went as far as to edit a picture of our VHS to put his face onto it. However, it felt wrong to the actors who had actually played those roles as if I was erasing those histories while writing my history book. So, I removed the fake histories from my Compendium.

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But that doesn’t stop them from living on over on Substack. I’ve decided to post the un-edited versions here. They contain a mixture of real information from the films along with information Quentin crafted for Dalton’s backstory.

BEHIND THE SCENES

We were in the middle of recording the episode for Rollerball when we heard of the passing of actor Rick Dalton. So, we broke for the day, and came back the next day to watch movies. Then, we recorded this two parter in one go. There was very little preparation time for the episode. Quentin had the interview he had conducted with Dalton, Roger knew of him from his film school Bounty Law and Dalton’s other colorful businesses, and I knew … well, nothing. I hate going in blind. Thankfully, Quentin invited me to watch the movies because they would have been hard for me to source on such short notice, and he wanted me to be able to pay tribute to Dalton.

These episodes aired on 2023/05/23 & 2023/06/06 respectively.

THE MARSHAL OF MADRID (1972)

In 1971, actor Rick Dalton was cast as Billy Dobbs — a wannabe Billy the Kid — in Episode 10 of TV series Cade’s County. Dalton was no stranger to the screen. The actor got his start in the industry in 1955 playing a radio operator in Target Zero. He had a smattering of bit parts before landing the series lead (and perhaps the role he is best known for) Jake Cahill in Bounty Law.

Then, over the next ten years, Dalton starred in films such as The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey, Nebraska Jim, and Hell Boats and had guest spots on TV series like Tarzan, Land of the Giants, and Mission: Impossible. Finally, in 1971, it was his turn to guest on Cade’s County.

The episode that Dalton stars in was directed by Richard Donner, who you probably know as the director of The Goonies, The Omen, or Lethal Weapon. Roger suspects that Dalton and Ford did not get along. The way that the shots were set up, one can notice that the two men are rarely in the same frame. During my research, I wasn’t able to find anything to back this up, and it seems like the set was a professionally run one.

Cade’s County only ran for one season. The TV series aired on Sundays at 9:30pm EST on CBS between 1971 and 1972. Glenn Ford starred as Sam Cade, the sheriff of Madrid County. The series seemed to do well, however, during the hiatus it was replaced by the soon to be iconic M*A*S*H*. Thus, Cade’s County lost the war and its spot on CBS.

MANHUNTER (1974)

After having the guest spot in his episode of Cade’s County, Dalton spent a lot of time in television. He had guest spots on shows like Dan August, The Night Gallery, and another guest spot on Mission: Impossible.

Deciding it was time to return to the leading man role on the screen, Dalton was pitched The Manhunter and thought the role was a good one. He would be returning to his bounty hunter days a la Bounty Law but in a new, modern way.

The pilot episode Manhunter was aired on February 26th, 1974 and picked up as a regular series by CBS called The Manhunter. The show ran one season and consisted of 22 more episodes that began showing on September 11, 1974.

Despite the show having great numbers, it was unfortunately cancelled by CBS because it competed with ABC’s Get Christie Love! And NBC’s Petrocelli.

OPERATION NAM (1986)

Under the moniker “Larry Ludman”, producer Fabrizio De Angelis would direct his first movie. Prior to directing Operation Nam, Angelis produced films such as Umberto Lenzi’s Violent Naples, Joe D’Amato’s Emanuelle Around the World, and Enzo Sciotti’s The Beyond. He had produced four films for Lucio Fulci: Zombi 2 (aka Zombie), The House by the Cemetery, The New York Ripper, and Manhattan Baby. Now, it was time for him to make his directing debut.

Operation Nam was touched by many hands. The first of which was Erwin C. Dietrich, most commonly known as one of the most influential cinematographers in Switzerland. The next was Vincenzo Mannino, who had worked with Angelis before. Then, Gianfranco Clerici gave a pass over the script. Clerici collaborated with several exploitation directors and was no stranger to Angelis. He is best known for his controversial writing on Cannibal Holocaust.

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By 1986, actor Rick Dalton’s career was winding down. He had already starred in the next two films we’d cover in our tribute to him (Blastfighter and Jungle Raiders), as well as The Fireman and The Fireman Part 2. The Fireman 3: C.I.A. Crackdown, would be released this year.

Starring alongside Dalton was Ethan Wayne, son of John Wayne, Olivier Tobias, and John Steiner. As an added bonus, Donald Pleasance (who is Roger and Quentin’s Blofeld…) made an appearance. This was his sole movie of that year.

An actor that we grew to love this episode, Luciano Pigozzi made an appearance both in Operation Nam and Jungle Raiders. Professionally known as Alan Collins, you can read more about him in the section for Jungle Raiders.

As far as I can tell, Operation Nam was a West German-Italian co-production. Under the title Die Rückkehr Der Wildgänse, Operation Nam was released in West Germany on July 31st, 1986. The film is also known in the United States as Cobra Mission.

BLASTFIGHTER (1984)

In the late 1960’s, director Lamberto Bava got his start in the industry as the assistant director on his father’s film Planet of the Vampire. His father, Mario Bava, is often times referred to as one of the Masters of Italian Horror. Mario Bava’s influence has been longstanding in the film community, movies like Blood and Black Lace, Black Sunday, and Bay of Blood became classics. Quentin has a Danger: Diabolik poster hanging in his living room above the television that we watched this tape on. My personal favorite, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, was briefly discussed during our American Giallo segment. I even love his barbarian films and western movies.

Lamberto Bava collaborated with his father on several movies besides Planet of the Vampire. He was the assistant director for Danger: Diabolik and Twitch of the Death Nerve. Besides being an assistant director, he also wrote on Shock.

His father wasn’t the only Italian director he would collaborate with. In the late 1970’s, Bava collaborated with Ruggero Deodato on Ultimo mondo cannibale and Cannibal Holocaust.

In 1980, Lamberto Bava directed his first feature: Macabre. Following his directing debut, Lamberto assisted Dario Argento on Tenebre. He learned from this set and went on to direct a Giallo of his own: A Blade in the Dark.

Not tied to any particular genre, Lamberto was given a script for Blastfighter. The script had a bit of a sordid past. Originally written by Darando Sarchetti and intended for Lucio Fulci to direct, the movie was supposed to be a follow up to Fulci’s Warriors of the Year 2072. However, Fulci got into countless arguments with the producers and ended up settling in court so that he could be removed from the project.

The film had already been sold in markets with the intention of using the original script, but now they did not have one. However, they still had the title, so they decided to hire Massimo De Rita and Luca De Rita to write a new story based on the title. Some say that this script was intended to be a remake of Mad Max, and perhaps some of the DNA remains from both Mad Max and Blastfighter, but it has more in common with Deliverance than anything.

When casting Blastfighter Lamberto Bava met with Rick Dalton. Of course, Lamberto was a huge fan of Bounty Law (which had played on TV in Italy when he was a child), but interestingly enough the two bonded over Dalton’s role in Dingo Dan.

Starring opposite of Dalton was George Eastman, also known as Luigi Montefiori. Eastman was a frequent collaborator with Joe D’Amato and stood an impressive 6 ft 9 inches. Bava wanted the height difference for the villain of the film. With the script being about a man returning home and having all odds against him, he thought that it would make the fight scenes between best friends even better.

It seems that Eastman and Dalton had a good time on set together. I wasn’t able to find out much about the set, but I did find one story about Eastman and Dalton wrestling for fun when the cameras weren’t rolling. I think this friendship showed on screen — the connection of the two men as friends, which then turns sour simply because of circumstance, is an honest one.

Blastfighter was released theatrically in Italy on July 25th, 1984 by Medusa Distribuzione. The film appears to have been an Italian-French co-production, as four of the production companies were Italian and one (Films Jacques Leitienne) was French.

JUNGLE RAIDERS (1985)

Also known as Legend of the Malaysian Ruby, Jungle Raiders marked the reuniting of Antonio Margheriti (under the pseudonym Anthony M. Dawson) and Rick Dalton. They had worked previously together on Operation Dy-No-Mite! Margheriti was towards the middle of his career when this movie was made.

In one of his final roles, Lee Van Cleef made an appearance in the film. A prolific actor, Cleef appears to have literally rolled onto set with his own wardrobe. At the end of Cleef’s career, he was largely starring in films directed by Antonio Margheriti, so the two must have been friends.

Starring as the love interest was Marina Costa. This is a very important notice: the information available online on Marina Costa is largely false. All links tie her to being Mary Costa, the voice of Aurora in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. These two women are not the same.

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One of the stand out character actors in the film, Dalton would go on to work with Luciano Pigozzi again in Operation Nam. Pigozzi, professionally known as Alan Collins, was noted for his resemblance to Peter Lorre. Collins appeared in more than a hundred films throughout his career, retiring shortly after Operation Nam was filmed. Collins and Dalton had a positive time working on Jungle Raiders, and it was Dalton that suggested Collins for the bit part of the father in Operation Nam when an actor fell through.

It’s important to note that Rick Dalton does not use the flame thrower in this movie. Everyone but Dalton pretty much uses it. Quentin believed that he did not want to use the flame thrower because he was, at the time, best known for his character Eddie Karpinskey in The Fireman. However, after doing some digging, I found out it was a little bit more than that. With The Fireman 3: C.I.A. Crackdown to be released the next year, Dalton actually negotiated a stipulation in his contract that his character would not use a flamethrower.

Insiders say this was for two reasons. The first was that he did not want to be shoehorned into a single weapon — a flamethrower — for the rest of his career. The second was that he did not want productions to capitalize off of the success of his very personal series. If anything, he was going to be the one capitalizing off of his character using the iconic flamethrower. In the end, it worked out for the best, as The Fireman 3: C.I.A. Crackdown directed by Cliff Booth was released in 1987, and Jungle Raiders wasn’t pretending to be related to the series in any way.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

Julie was kind enough to sit down with me on Friday, April 21st, 2023 (just goes to show you how long I’ve been working on this Compendium!). I thought I’d share this interview publicly, along with a picture or two I snapped that day.

Jules McLean, better known to Video Archives employees as “Unruly Julie” (a nickname Quentin gave her), originally rented from Video Archives while she worked at Licorice Pizza. Employee Steve-o helped set her up with an account but was regularly giving her free tapes for being a friend. She recalls that she once rented the tape for BLUE ANGEL. When she was watching the film, the tape cut out at the end. When she went to return the tape, she let the guys behind the counter know
that the tape abruptly stopped, and they gave her a look like ‘why are you complaining, you’re getting it for free!’ That was her first taste of what the video store was like, and it’s a memory that’s stuck with her.

Video Archives was Julie’s film school. Originally a business major at Cal State Long Beach, Julie switched her major to theater arts after she was in a car accident turning in to the Video Archives parking lot. Then, she became an employee at Video Archives so that she had some extra spending money to go see movies. To her, VHS meant accessibility. Would she have ever had her eyes open to all of the foreign titles without them being on the shelves at Video Archives? Or learned about movies
like JOY HOUSE from Quentin?

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After working at Video Archives, Julie did odd jobs in the film industry. She did PA work for a TV movie office, was a production coordinator, worked in the accounting department, and even worked for MTV in their rights and clearances. One day, Quentin’s old assistant called Julie and told her that she was retiring and that Quentin needed a new assistant and was wondering if Julie would be up for it. The only catch was that Quentin needed a one year commitment because he was about to
make a movie. The movie was Inglourious Basterds, which interestingly enough he shelved for a short period of time and switched gears to make Kill Bill.

That was twenty five years ago, and Julie is still working with Quentin. Now the Director of Operations for The New Beverly Cinema, the city of Los Angeles and cinephiles everywhere have her to thank for our church that is always on film. Yes, she and I both agree — it’s her job to make Quentin’s vision a reality (the pre-show talks are one of the many Quentin touches) ... but Julie is a hidden hero. She has worked hard to pull The New Beverly out of the red and has succeeded in transforming the theater into one of the highest grossing indie cinemas in the nation. Whether it’s coming up with cool merch ideas, making sure that the vegan hot dog buns really are vegan, or working with Phil Blankenship and Brian Quinn to put together the latest calendar, she is an integral part of the cinema that we all know and love.

In her spare time, Julie is a collector of all things wonderful. She’s an animal lover — Woof the Dog (The New Beverly’s mascot) is an homage to the pup that both she (and Quentin!) loved. She’s also a Fantasy Football player and used to host one of the most popular Fantasy Football podcasts — Fantasy Freakin’ Football — with co-host Garrett Mathary. When I sat across the table from her and asked her what her favorite movie right now was, she said the one that popped to mind was ALIEN. Is ALIENS better than ALIEN? Sometimes she and I both agree, but today she settled that ALIEN was the better of the two. As far as recent movies go, she loved COCAINE BEAR. And a movie she can not stand? Arthur Hiller’s THE HOSPITAL (VAP 021), but she says she’ll have to watch it again with Quentin’s reading to see if
he changed her mind...

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Julie is hesitant to say that her time working at Video Archives were the best years of her life because she’s pretty happy now — but it definitely was a fantastic stretch of time in which she made lifelong friends and really found herself. Without Video Archives, she wouldn’t be where she is today, and she’s
grateful. I am too.

When Julie returned to the store for VAP 022, she did not choose the three movies we watched — if she had an option, the lineup would have been JOY HOUSE / STARSTRUCK / PRIVATE HELL 36. However, Quentin took her interests into consideration. Julie is a huge Kaiju fan but an even bigger one for PLANET OF THE
APES. Her introduction to both of these franchises was through television. She has vivid memories of watching the first PLANET OF THE APES (which is still her favorite) on Chanel 7 during Ape Week. Like me, she’s also a big fan of Westerns. When she was six years old, she saw BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID on TV. Like the ending in PLANET OF THE APES, her mind was blown when the freeze frame happened in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. Although she prefers American Westerns, Julie has an affinity for the Spaghetti variant, but wasn’t introduced to those until she was an adult.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

This episode of The Gala Show was originally aired December 31st, 2023. For Substack, there are no commercials or breaks!

I’ve honestly been blessed and am so grateful to say “I am a writer”. I’ve worked in writer’s rooms, I’ve pitched at huge companies, gotten to rub elbows with some of my heroes, and had spec scripts picked up. I’ve gotten to travel for work in the United States, Canada, France, and even China. I’ve experienced the highest highs of seeing movies I’ve produced on the big screen, and I’ve experienced the lows that come with the industry as well: rejection, criticism, having projects that are legitimately good not happen for reasons out of my control, and having my friends ask me … “Hey, what’s happening with that thing you told me about?” only for it to never be released.

That’s the business, but I love it.

I’ve been lucky to be a screen writer, and it’s how I make my bread and butter — but my real dream is to become an author. When I was in middle school I wrote my first novel and planned out a three or four part YA series … and even though it’s written as if a twelve year old wrote it (well, because, I was twelve), it was something that motivated me to keep going and see that my dream could one day be a reality.

Between podcasting, mentorship programs, producing movies, researching film history, and writing TV episodes — I’ve found time to work on my own passion projects: my novels. I got close with publishing them and was partnered with an agent at one point (an achievement in itself), but it ultimately went nowhere. That was one of the hardest blows for me. I got that close but it didn’t pan out.

I was really disappointed, but I’m a firm believer that when things are supposed happen they do. Not just that: but they have to happen in the way they’re meant to happen.

With the help of my family — because it really has been a family affair — I’m inching closer and closer to self publishing my series The Cat’s Familiar. Like indie filmmaking, self publishing will allow me to maintain ownership over my material, and publish it exactly the way I want to. I’ve spent years working on the novels (with five completed already) and countless hours on mocking up covers and designing the characters.

I was inspired by Ursula Le Guin. In her forward for The Tales From Earthsea, she talked about exactly how the story came about. She had never written fantasy before but her publisher demanded it. She didn’t know where to start. But then she took a big piece of parchment paper in her kitchen and sprawled it out on the island.

The first thing I did was sit down and draw a map. I saw and named Earthsea and all its islands. I knew almost nothing about them, but I knew their names. In the name is the magic. - Ursula Le Guin

This quote inspired me more than I would ever know, and so following the footsteps of my forefathers, I sat down at the boba shop and drew a map. Then, I used my Harvard anthropology background and wrote up an entire anthropological document about each place I drew … the story thus followed, and with it my dreams became a reality.

You have to follow your dreams. This life is worth living because of them.

I guess me announcing this is my first step in speaking it into existence.

My name is Gala Avary, and I’m an author.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

I’ve finished most of Season One and am trying to figure out what to do with all of the information I’ve gathered. It’s still a work in progress and needs editing, but I decided to share a few select essays here on Substack just for fun. For that reason, the essay will remain behind paywall as it’s still a work in progress. If there’s another movie that we covered on the podcast that you’d like to read my essay on, let me know in the chat.

If you’d like to read my previous essay on The Great Waldo Pepper, click here.

This essay features information from several interviews. The first is from Mark Silverman, the son of producer Ron Silverman. The next is from a fan of the movie — writer Larry Karaszewski. Larry is awesome. Period.

PS: Larry just screened Buster and Billie during Bleak Week 2026. He moderated for actor Robert Englund, whose people declined an interview request when I originally was writing this — so I know I’ll have to update with whatever information Larry received from Robert about the movie! Unfortunately I missed the screening, but I’m sure I’ll get to hear plenty of second hand information about it…

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I’ve finished most of Season One and am trying to figure out what to do with all of the information I’ve gathered. It’s still a work in progress and needs editing, but I decided to share a few select essays here on Substack just for fun. For that reason, the essay will remain behind paywall as it’s still a work in progress. If there’s another movie that we covered on the podcast that you’d like to read my essay on, let me know in the chat.

If you want to read my last essay on The Jet Benny Show, click here. This essay features information from an interview with actor Bo Svenson.

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There’s something really scary about sharing a movie that you love with someone you care about. I once had an ex-boyfriend tell me, “It’s not that serious, Gala. We don’t have to like the same things.”

But, to me, it is that serious. To quote the title of Josh Olson and Joe Dante’s podcast: these are the movies that made me.

What if Scott had turned off The Thing and said that he hated it? Had an extremely strong opinion. Said that the movie was too gory, or that he didn’t like the characters.

I could have lived with that. But what if he had turned to me and said, “Eh, it was okay. I don’t really get it.” What if he had experienced complete ambivalence to a movie that I like?

Of course, that wasn’t the case. We stayed up late talking about The Thing: questioning if Childs and MacReady were an alien, looking up Rob Bottin and discussing the cool effects, and generally enjoying a conversation on a movie that we both enjoyed watching.

I think Scott felt the same nerves about Almost Famous. We had circled the movie for the last five months and finally sat down to watch it. We both agreed we had to be in the right mood to see it, and we wanted to make sure we watched the correct version. Everyone had told me to see the longer uncut version, but to my delight Scott said he wanted to watch the theatrical version. I sighed a huge sigh of relief. I always want to watch theatrical before directors cut.

Almost Famous was a lot of fun, and as we watched it, I loved seeing my boyfriend spot things he had never seen before. This time, it was that they were reading the same copy of The Illustrated Man that my dad had gifted him for Christmas — and the fact that Penny Lane’s polaroid camera is the same as mine. Suddenly, personal connections that had never been there before were made. Days later, we spent time talking about Penny Lane and the power of the muse, on if actors could look like rockstars, and if Still Water was a real band or not (it’s not, but there’s a 1973 band called Stillwater, all one word).

The most surprising thing that stuck with me, though was something he said before the movie.

“What if you don’t like it?”

That was the exact same way I felt about movies I wanted to share with him. Why were we both so nervous about showing something we loved to each other? Maybe it’s because I feel like I’m opening myself up bare, stripping completely naked, and explaining to another person exactly what makes me tick. The Thing isn’t even one of my top favorite movies, so it was a soft landing to test out the waters when it came to sharing media. Still, I was nervous.

I remember showing a guy Frantic. In the first 15 minutes he got up to do dishes. I was appalled. I had been gingerly waiting to show him the movie, even stating to him before we watched it, “This is the greatest love story of all time.”

It suddenly set in that we weren’t going to last very long.

When you sit down with someone and share something with them, be it music, movies, art, video games, or a hobby that’s important to you … it says a lot about a person if they connect with it or not. I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to like something to connect with it. Often times, I find more of a connection to a movie by talking to someone who really liked it. If you choose to disengage from a piece of art that someone you love appreciates, then maybe that says more about you than anything.

Sharing a piece of art with someone is my love language. Sending a friend an album that I love and having them listen to the whole thing — man, is there any feeling better than that? Or swapping movies and having them actually watch it, not just putting it on their ever expanding watch list. Or what about going to a museum and picking out pieces of art that remind you of each other and taking pictures next to it?

As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that it’s less about liking the piece of art and more about seeing the person you love within it. It’s about the time, effort, and care that it takes to find interest where you may never have found it before.

Thanks for reading my little love letter. Sometimes, with all the media we consume, it’s nice to go back and watch the stuff that made us fall in love with movies. Be it Altered States or Jesus Christ Superstar, getting to share the movies that made me fall in love with cinema, and getting to experience it through someone else’s eyes … well, it makes me fall back in love all over again.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

I’ve finished most of Season One and am trying to figure out what to do with all of the information I’ve gathered. It’s still a work in progress and needs editing, but I decided to share a few select essays here on Substack just for fun. For that reason, the essay will remain behind paywall as it’s still a work in progress. If there’s another movie that we covered on the podcast that you’d like to read my essay on, let me know in the chat.

If you’d like to read my previous essay on American Nitro, click here. This essay features information from an interview with director Roger Evans.

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I’m leaving the movies unranked. I know a few of you wanted longer, more in depth reviews … so if any of these capsules leave you wanting more, leave a comment and I’ll expand on some of the thoughts.

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It’s important to note that there are spoilers ahead.

I was so bored during F1 and I found it so visually unappealing, so I've been shocked when the majority of people I’ve talked to loved it. I asked them, “Did you see it in theaters?”. They all said yes. Maybe F1 needed to be watched on a big screen, but when I see that it’s an Apple Original, my immediate thought is that it should work on an iPhone and at the theater. Of course, I watched it on my TV and not my iPhone, but I was so bored. I felt like the performances were lackluster, I didn’t believe the relationship between any of the characters, and I was just waiting for it to end. For me, it was the slowest paced racing movie.

I know that Brad Pitt really wants to achieve Steve McQueen status a la Le Mans, but this movie doesn’t even get close. I know that there are reports that Pitt did 4 weeks of training and drove a modified F1 vehicle on the track, but it doesn’t feel that way through the screen. The way it’s shot makes it feel like we’re stagnant. I just don’t believe it, and honestly, I don’t care if he wins or loses the race.

Although the visuals were etherial and beautiful, the movie did little for me. The best part of the movie is the beginning where Paul Mescal’s William Shakespeare is giddy with delight over Agnes, and in all honesty he makes the movie bearable for me. There’s a lot of screaming, groaning, and grunting in this that could have been trimmed down. Plus, the etherial witchy nature of the first part of the movie is completely lost by the end.

I know some people had their heart strings tugged at in the final scene, where they quite literally go watch Hamlet, but I was just so bothered by Agnes that I couldn’t enjoy the scene.

I really wanted to like Train Dreams, and although the movie has stayed with me more than I thought it would, it was kind of a nothing burger. The only saving grace was the run time, but this was the longest shortest movie I’ve ever seen. Especially the ending, where we see his life flash before his eyes … and then he doesn’t die, and then dies alone in his cabin years later. “Nobody cared.”

There’s very little emotional connection to the main character, and I see where it’s supposed to occur but it just didn’t hit for me. The most interesting part of the movie is when he’s off logging because it’s just visually beautiful, but it’s more of a tone piece than anything, and I’m kind of surprised by the Best Picture nomination.

In the end though, I have to hand it to Clint Bentley for working with the budget he had, and making a movie that had some visuals that I think back to.

Scott and I had been trying to watch this since October, but the preview on Netflix was so unappealing that we had turned it off several times. Finally we sat down and watched it, and quite honestly parts of this are ridiculous. It’s not as unattractive as I had originally anticipated. I think the opening scenes of Dr. Frankenstein as a child were the most visually interesting of the movie (albeit, totally unnecessary, even story wise as he’s telling the captain about his life).

Actually, I chose that poster above which was an IMAX re-release poster over the traditional poster … and I wish the movie had looked more like that rather than the color palate the movie adopts towards the middle half.

The movie is bifurcated to Frankenstein’s story and the Monster’s story … and Frankenstein’s story goes on way too long. The movie only becomes interesting when Jacob Elordi embodies the Monster. I think he does a really great job. That being said, I don’t believe Lady Elizabeth’s love for the Monster and the turn that she takes to despising Frankenstein. Horror darling Mia Goth in this role wasn’t my favorite, but that being said I didn’t realize she was also playing his mother, so I suppose she did a good job in that regard. I also didn’t believe Frankenstein when he had his “turn” in the end to accept the Monster as his son. I felt emotionally unconnected from the story — and having seen so many Frankenstein adaptations (mostly Japanese ones), I just feel like I’ve seen the story told better. It’s a hard thing to come overcome.

Besides Elordi’s monster movements, the best part of this iteration of Frankenstein were the costumes.

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I did not like this at all. Putting aside the fact that Chalamet has always annoyed me in press interviews and performances since the beginning of time, this was such a disappointment to me from the opening credits.

I didn’t care about any of the characters or their dreams. Even if I had rooted against Marty it would have been better than the ambivalence I felt. I don’t believe his relationship with his taxi driving best friend, and it feels forced when they’re dancing together. None of the characters have satisfying endings. Gwen cries alone in a room, Odessa just lays in a bed without a word, Tyler is a random “Marty!” in a dark room. I could have cut out all of the Paltrow scenes and the movie would have worked fine.

My emotional connection to Marty could have been solved in one single moment of him showing an ounce of humanity alone in a room, that this dream meant something to him. We see him practicing, but we don’t ever find out why ping pong is important to him and why he cares so much. He doesn’t seem fulfilled by just playing ping pong either. Which makes it impossible for me to connect to his dream. I don’t buy for a second that this emotional connection is when he allows himself to get paddled.

Plus, what the heck is that closing shot? If they had put the baby with Marty and Rachel, and the three of them sat together and he cried, realizing that THIS was the true win … okay, I could have gotten behind that. But instead we get the lapping sound of babies crying over the credits set to 80’s music.

The shining star of the movie is Abel Ferrara playing, well, himself. And Kevin O’Leary does an okay job but is distracting. This movie was made literally for him to announce to the world the truth: he is a 106 year old vampire.

My biggest gripe with the movie has been the marketing. The constant espousing of “We are an indie film”. At an estimated 70 million dollars, this movie cost more than any A24 film to date — and let’s be real, A24 isn’t indie. You guys are a studio movie touting as a low budget independent, and it annoys me to no end. I could go on and on about how I feel like Marty Supreme is a stunt, how it’s aping Cassavetes with it’s casting, but it’s not worth it for me to complain anymore.

This being the movie that broke all nomination records is beyond me. Call me a hater, or say I just don’t get it — but this movie was not that good. It picks up in the last 40 minutes when the vampires show up, but I have so many issues with this movie that go beyond the hype.

My biggest problem is the color grading. The poster promised deep color saturation with reds and golds, so I was excited for that but was delivered muddy visuals and characters in light that’s so low you can’t see what’s going on. I get what they’re doing with the red and the blue colors throughout the movie, and I don’t necessarily think this is a problem with Sinners but perhaps modern day color grading in general.

When I think of other vampire movies, the ones that pop in my head are Near Dark, Lost Boys, Let The Right One In, Interview With the Vampire, Fright Night, and From Dusk till Dawn. All of these movies are dark (taking place mostly at night, hence vampires), but Sinners is so dark that half the time you can’t see the actors faces, and you can barely make out what’s going on during the very short climactic fight scene because, well, it’s so muddy.

Even though I don’t like certain things I can still give a nod to the fact that its a stylistic attempt from Coogler. Changing aspect ratios in movies is one of my big pet peeves, and I get why he’s doing it, but it’s inconsistently done. I also enjoyed the scene where he’s playing music in the bar and we see the lineage of his power through the ages … but the music ended up being a mishmash of beats and drums with no real congruence, and I felt like it could have been executed better with a cooler remix.

When an actor plays two characters it can be tough, and in all honesty I don’t think Michael B. Jordan differentiated the two brothers enough. He could have really gone for it, but they ended up just being the same character and, honestly, confusing at times. I liked some of the auxiliary players, but they didn’t have enough emotional weight for me to care when they were taken by the vampires.

Speaking of the vampires, they were my favorite part. The best sequence is either the Irish Jig (which, again, was shot too dark for me to really enjoy it), or the scene where the three vampires sing in harmony.

Also there was a lot of random vulgarity that didn’t quite make sense to me. Was the catalyst for the Chinese shopkeep’s freakout really the vampire saying, in Chinese, that she liked to be licked all over? That was how she knew that her husband and this guy shared a mind? That was the big secret? This is the script that broke all sale records? Seriously?

When people asked me what I thought of One Battle After Another, I really only had one thing to say: this is a movie made by someone who knows how to make one.

And that’s the truth. Paul Thomas Anderson knows exactly what he’s doing. He keeps the pace going for nearly three hours, and he manages to connect you to every single character that is on screen in one way or another. Love them or hate them, you end up wanting to see what happens to his eclectic cast.

The stand out performance in the film is Sean Penn, who does such an amazing job. He’s pulling a full General Buck Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had studied that movie and George C. Scott specifically when planning for the role. Besides Sean Penn, my other favorite performance is Regina Hall. She lends empathy to her character in a way that we don’t see in many others.

For me, the movie lost steam in the second half. However, most people I’ve talked to prefer the second half to the first. Once Perfidia Beverly Hills is out of the picture, the movie changes. And that’s fine: I enjoy the bumbling Bob to an extent. My boyfriend was laughing out loud when he couldn’t remember the code on the phone, and he really loved Benicio Del Toro’s performance.

My problem with the movie is what I call a “me problem”. It’s not a problem so much with the movie, but it’s just that I didn’t feel like the movie needed to end the way it did. I thought the ending with Willia screaming at her “dad” was so powerful. Who are you? Did we need to see Sean Penn get gassed, and did we really want to end on Bob taking selfies on his couch as his daughter runs off to another battle?

It’s such a letdown that Bob remains a total loser in the end, but maybe that’s what PTA wants to say. There’s always one battle after another — for better or for worse. This movie succeeds mostly because no matter what your political affiliation or opinions are, you’re able to read the movie in a different way. Must we keep fighting the good fight? Or are we exhausted seeing people going from one battle to another? That’s up to the audience to decide.

It’s crazy to me that the director who made one of my least favorite movies of all time could turn around two years later and make what I’d say is one of the most interesting and enjoyable films of the year. If you had asked me in 2023, 2024, or 2025 if I’d be saying that I liked a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, let alone was putting it at the top spot in my Awards Ballot … I would have told you you were crazy.

I guess that’s the proof on why you have to enter into all movies with an open mind. You can’t exclude a movie just because it’s from someone who tends to make things you don’t enjoy. From the moment Bugonia began I was pulled into the story, and just as quickly as I was pulled in it was over. The two hour movie sped by like lightning. Emma Stone does a good job, but really the stand out performances come from Jesse Plemons and newcomer Aidan Delbis.

The story itself was fun (a remake of the Korean movie Save the Green Planet!). For me, there was no question on if she was or wasn’t an alien. I’m predisposed to think she is, so the reveal wasn’t as great as it could have been, but it was still pretty darn satisfying. I think the reason why this movie worked for me in comparison to the others he’s done was that it was … well, strangely, less “him”. It felt like Yorgos dialed it back and really allowed the performances to shine, and I see a lot of Ari Aster’s footprint in this movie (and that’s not to say that I like Ari Aster’s work).

The movie stayed with me, and even though I could go into some of the story beats I didn’t necessarily agree with, it was an overall strong film that allows for a continued dialogue. Do I think it’s best picture? No. I think that should go to One Battle After Another, but this is my pick for most enjoyable movie of the awards season nominees.

PS: Shout out to canonically flat earth.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

I’ve finished most of Season One and am trying to figure out what to do with all of the information I’ve gathered. It’s still a work in progress and needs editing, but I decided to share a few select essays here on Substack just for fun. For that reason, the essay will remain behind paywall as it’s still a work in progress. If there’s another movie that we covered on the podcast that you’d like to read my essay on, let me know in the chat.

If you’d like to read my previous essay on Haunted Honeymoon, click here. This essay features an interview with director Bill Kimberlin.

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And now, the franchise goes completely off the rails. Enter the character that is going to change it all, and the overarching plot that will be the engine that drives the rest of the franchise now that Paul is gone.

“Family no more.” God. Even that tagline hurts.

Toretto discovers that he has a secret child with Elena that he never knew about, and that Cipher (played by Charlize Theron) has abducted Elena and his son. She blackmails him and turns him into Evil Toretto. So, his crew has to fight against him. And, of course, the crew is mixed up with people from all of the previous movies … even Statham, who was trying to murder them all a few movies ago, is now their friend.

A series of movies that started off as racing for pink-slips turned into a heist/crime franchise … and now, it’s all about hacking. This is a really boring trope to me. I hate when characters just have to get some kind of intangible microchip that will give the villain utmost power over everything. It’s so blah, and it’s so overused.

This movie would fall flat if it wasn’t for the intensity that Vin dedicates himself to the role, and a few of the interesting “car” moments that happen. At least we open with a pink slips race, and we have that cool autonomous car moment (although it just looks like a mess of CGI at a certain point). And — as far as action moments go, they rip off Hardboiled with the baby in the fight scene sequence.

Cipher is an interesting, monotone villain. I appreciate the ferocity in which she kills (she literally murders Elena in front of Vin) … but man what is up with her hair. Are we trying to do a nordic thing here? It’s such a terrible haircut but it becomes comical later, and you’ll see why.

The highlight of the movie is one hundred percent Vin. It’s so much fun seeing Vin be evil, and he’s really moody and channeling all of his angst and emotion into this film. He’s given the chance to really show his range in this one, and of course in the end the baddy becomes a goodie, and Vin heroically saves his family.

And he names his son Brian. He and Letty decide to raise the child together and honor Elena’s spirit.

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This may be an unpopular opinion … but F9 may be one of my favorites in the franchise.

Before you jump on me and say GALA! This movie is terrible. There’s tons of plot holes. There’s no continuity. The acting isn’t great. It makes no sense. They go to space! And why is Han in the poster!

Hear me out.

I don’t disagree with you on any of that.

However. The movie does some really interesting things with the characters, and it has some stand out moments. First, we get a back story for Vin and the “beating a man with a tire iron” story. We learn that he and Mia have a brother (played by John Cena), who Vin thought killed his father by rigging a race so he banished him from the family, when in actuality his father asked him to do that because he was in debt. And, biproxy, he has become a super spy?

Pretty wild but I like those flashback scenes, and I liked seeing more of the Toretto family backstory.

But my favorite sequence in the franchise is in this movie. And it’s when Dominic Toretto dies. Check it out below.

Justin Lin, you are a true filmmaker. The transition from Dom falling in the water to him in his memories emulates a near death experience, and as he watches his life and somehow psychically discovers that his brother was telling the truth … man, this is one of the best dream sequences I have ever seen. It’s when Toretto has to face his own pride. He has to acknowledge that he was wrong and his anger, his grief, was misplaced, and because of that, he’s lost years with family.

And family is the only thing that really matters. Because things come and go, but people are forever. Within this sequence, we have the entire thesis of the franchise.

“See, cars like this are immortal. 70’s Chargers are designed so well that if you take care of them, they’ll run for a hundred years.”

“Immortal?”

“Just like a family, Dom. Build it right, take care of it, it’ll live beyond you.”

Am I over exaggerating? No. This is real cinema hiding deep within a franchise that has gone so off the rails that it’s becoming surrealism. F9 is a grief piece that’s helping Vin Diesel get through the emotions of losing Paul Walker.

And as Toretto realizes the wrong he’s done, the years lost with his brother — as he descends deep into darkness, he is saved by an angel. Letty descends into the water, bathed in light, and reaches out to him.

It’s the equivalent of a modern day Renaissance painting, and you can quote me on that.

What else happens in this one? I have no clue, to be honest. Cipher is still the main villain and has a new equally terrible haircut, Ludacris and Roman go to space … John Cena ends up joining forces with his siblings. In the end, Han randomly shows up to confront Jason Statham. And, The Rock isn’t in this one. My boyfriend really missed him (words he never thought he’d say).

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Unfortunately, Fast X does not live up to F9, or really any movie in the franchise. They largely rely on the stunt work in F5 since they basically replay the majority of the bank heist sequence at the beginning to place Jason Mamoa as the son of the villain in the 5th movie.

Mamoa makes some really interesting character choices with his villain character. He’s completely flamboyant and somehow all knowing. Again, we have another hacker who can do just about anything. What’s up with all these hackers? I am really bored of it, but it continues the Cipher storyline … and yes, she has yet again another bad haircut.

We learn how Han survived, and to be honest this entire plot line was incredibly boring to me. I could have done without it, I felt like it was unnecessary. We’re introduced to the daughter of Mr. Nobody (which I realize I haven’t mentioned until now). Mr. Nobody was a funny character, but his daughter Tess is insufferably millennial, especially with her bright blue suit and her studded Sam Edelman sneakers she wears on the bridge in Brasil.

And I know this is a product of its time, which I feel like has been corrected since they’re basically announcing that the next Fast and Furious movie will be number 11 — but this was said, in theaters, to be X Part 1. In 2023, every movie was doing Part 1 / Part 2 things … and honestly, it just doesn’t work. Especially since this is part 10 of the franchise, and part 3 of the Cipher arc.

This one did very little for me, and I’m hoping that 11 redeems it. However, there is one shot that’s just so cinematically wild that you know a French guy directed this movie. If you’ve seen it, you know, but it’s at the very end at the dam when Vin drives the car off of it, and you go into slow motion and go into the engine.

Am I looking forward to Fast Forever? Yes. I’m seated! Am I sad that it’s the last they’re doing? No, because it’s time the franchise ends or takes another direction entirely. It would be ripe for an awesome TV series that got back to the roots of racing, but as I’ve discussed with some friends privately, car culture is completely different these days.

Still, Sung Kang recently announced his participation in his directorial debut Drifter … which could be tangental to the universe or not. We’ll have to wait and see. Another movie that would have been tangental was a movie my dad was actually working on with Paul Walker right before he died, which was called Driver. Unfortunately, Paul passed away right before they went into production, so we’ll never end up getting to see that … but it would have been cool.

What am I going to do now that I’ve finished these?! Well, I’ve been convinced by my boyfriend to throw a bunch of 2025 movies into a jar and pick them at random … so we’ll see what comes next.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

And now, I welcome you to the wild and wonderful world of the Fast Franchise.

Yup, you are seeing that right. The Avengers have assembled. We got the best of the best from all of the previous movies in one place. Tej and Roman are back, Han and Gisele are chilling with each other, and, wait … is that The Rock?!

The Rock’s acting is really bad in this movie, but before long we’re going to end up loving him as a character. He ends up playing the agent trying to track Dom and his crew down, and he does a pretty good job.

I’d say that this is the last good “car” movie in the franchise. It has some really cool chase sequences through Brasil, specifically the vault sequence, but … it’s not realistically street racing anymore. Now, they’re doing a bank heist. They’re still criminals, and I like the scene where they steal cars from the train, but the driving just feels different in this one. It’s a big stunt rather than a cool race for pink slips. However, I won’t complain: we do get some racing in this movie.

With Letty dead, it opens up the possibility for Dom to have a love interest. Enter Elena, a BOP agent who works alongside The Rock in order to capture Toretto and his crew. When she’s saved by Toretto in tha favela she realizes that maybe Toretto and his crew aren’t so bad after all. The two become lovers and bond over the fact that both of their spouses have been murdered by terrorists.

I really liked the Brasil aspect of this one, and I loved having the crew all together. The bank heist car scene is one of the best in the entire franchise and still utilized practical stunt work. However, I really felt the hole that Letty’s death left in this one, because Michelle is my girl. No matter how many women they add into the mix, no one can replace Letty!

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And good news, they don’t have to. Because Letty isn’t actually dead.

The movie starts out in bliss: everyone is a high roller after the Brasilian bank heist. Toretto and Elena are now living together, Mia and Brian have their son Jack, and Gisele and Han are now an item. Oh, and Ludacris and Roman are always trying to one up each other. Yes they are the comedic buddy relief.

Side note, I love how Ludacris’ character started off as some guy in Miami who owned a mechanic shop and now he’s some kind of world class hacker? He even says, “I had a life before you knew me.” How wild.

Anyway, everyone has retired from a life of crime. There’s no reason to return. Well, that is, until The Rock reveals that Letty is actually alive. She wasn’t really murdered.

Oh my god the emotions I felt when Letty shows back up, and honestly it becomes really emotional because this is Dom’s girl, and Elena is somehow super understanding of that. She even says that if her husband showed up, she would have to go after him too…

Wow, I got goosebumps, and they were only amplified when Dom and Letty come face to face. Did Letty turn to a life of crime because Dom abandoned her? No. She’s completely lost her memory.

A bunch of really crazy stuff happens in this one stunt wise, and to be honest, I got kind of bored in the end. My favorite fight of course was Michelle and Gina Carano, because I love a girl fight. A lot of practical stunts still happen, but there’s just a lot of motion that made me really sleepy. Especially in the end in the plane sequence. The movie becomes difficult to keep track of because there are so many characters and so much going on, but the big thing that happens here is that Gisele sacrifices herself for Han to survive (which I still don’t think she needed to do…).

And, of course, the end credit sequence. Han goes to Japan (all of Tokyo Drift happens), and we finally see who killed Han.

It’s Jason-mother-flippin-Statham.

Jason Statham is revealed to be the brother of the villain in six, and he’s coming to get revenge in seven.

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Well, that ends the run of movies from Justin Lin, unfortunately. We’ll have him return for F9, but it’s okay because James Wan steps in for Furious 7.

This movie had a lot going against it, namely the death of Paul Walker. I don’t think it’s really worth picking apart this movie for being boring, confusing, or looking strange at times because, well, the crew did something pretty spectacular with bringing as much Paul Walker into the movie as they could. Paul had filmed some of his scenes, but others were composite/CGI shots using his brothers, or pulled from outtakes from previous movies.

And again — a lot of the stunts were real, which is insane to me, because I swore up and down that a few (especially the plane and bus stunts) were CGI. It’s pretty spectacular work. Plus, Michelle got to fight Rhonda Rousey — which was awesome!

The plot of this movie makes very little sense to me so I’m not going to try to explain it to you. The only thing that you need to know is that Letty regains her memory, reveals that she and Toretto are actually married, and somehow this is what brings Toretto back to life when he dies.

So I don’t think this movie is good by any means, I actually think it’s one of the weakest in the franchise … but there’s a moment in it that becomes so emotional that I can only imagine what it would have been like to watch this in the theater after Paul Walker had died … because the Fast Franchise does something completely unexpected.

They keep Brian alive.

You heard that right. Artfully, the franchise decides to keep his character alive despite the actor’s passing away. You can watch a little bit of the scene in the video linked below (starting around 2:41).

At the end, everyone watches him with his wife and son in the waves, and they all know that that’s where he’s meant to be — not on the road with us. Each character gets their own moment on screen as they watch Brian in the waves, and you can tell that each and every one of them is having their heart break in real time at the loss of Paul.

And Toretto leaves without saying goodbye.

It’s incredibly emotional, but as he’s at a stop sign, that import car pulls up … white like an angel, and even though CGI Paul Walker is incredibly unsettling to me, I cried like a baby as See You Again started playing and the two drove side by side one final time before Paul veered off. James Wan artfully stays with Brian’s white car instead of Vin’s black muscle … and wow, it leaves you emotional.

“For Paul.”

Despite hearing See You Again constantly upon its release, I didn’t know that it was made for Paul Walker. No one can change my mind: It’s basically Vin Diesel’s love letter to his brother in heaven.

After watching, my boyfriend and I listened to this song for days on end. And we couldn’t believe it: we felt like we were part of the family, and that we had just lost someone at family dinner. Say Grace.

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For better or for worse, the franchise changes completely upon Paul Walker’s passing. Unknown to me at the time, Paul was the emotional grounding force of the franchise, and I think Vin never truly recovers after his death.

I’ll be writing about the last three oddball movies, where it really goes off the rail, in next week’s article.

Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

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However, my friend Ramon had been a huge advocate for them. He and I both agree that Twilight is a masterpiece, so I knew he had to be on to something. It wasn’t until a clip circulated instagram of Paul Walker saying ‘cuh’, and my boyfriend and I repeatedly sending it back and forth, that I knew we had to watch the franchise.

“Let’s just watch the first few and see how it goes.” Oh, famous last words, because before we knew it we were ten movies deep.

“I don’t know if I’ve watched ten movies of any franchise.” My boyfriend said that the day after we finished Fast X, and to be honest, I think it’s the same for me. Somehow, someway, this franchise pulled me in so hard that even when it went off the rails I was emotionally swayed and excited to watch the next one.

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Before I get into a franchise review, I’m going to make the statement that everyone should watch this franchise. I know there’s been a lot of talk about which ones you should watch — some people claim you should stop after Furious 7 when Paul Walker died (in real life), or that you should skip Tokyo Drift entirely, but I’m going to advocate that you take it in as a whole.

Here’s Gala’s recommended watch order, if you don’t feel like going in numerical order.

1. The Fast and the Furious (2001)

2. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

3. Fast and Furious (2009)

4. Fast Five (2011)

5. Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

6. Tokyo Drift (2006)

7. Furious 7 (2015)

8. The Fate of the Furious (2017)

9. F9 (2021)

10. Fast X (2023)

You’ll notice that the only real movie out of order is Tokyo Drift, which I think makes much more sense when it’s played as a flash back from the after credit’s sequence from Fast & Furious 6. You’ll notice that I omitted the spin off Hobbs & Shaw, which I think everyone can skip even though it has one of the oddball battle sequences I’ve ever seen where it turns from day to night and back to day several times while they’re fighting.

I’ve also omitted all of the short films, as I think the franchise should be able to stand alone.

As a bonus, you could always add in Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow — which shows Han’s backstory before he joined the crew. Technically, this would be the first movie you watch, but I haven’t actually checked it out yet. Once I do, a review will follow!

Now, let’s get into the franchise, and I’m going to talk about them in chronological order (which is how I watched them). Be warned, there are spoilers ahead.

For a car lover and enthusiast, this movie ticks all the boxes. There’s fast cars, modded vehicles, and the big question of are you “import” or are you “muscle”. My boyfriend and I both decided that we are “import”. Not only that, but this movie is so Los Angeles. I loved seeing LA in the early 2000’s, especially when Brian (Paul Walker) and Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) race through downtown Los Angeles in a “final battle” — a quarter mile race.

My boyfriend looked over to me when the movie ended and said, “Hey, this is just Point Break with cars.” And he wasn’t wrong: but that’s what makes it so good. The movie is a legitimate crime thriller, a racing movie a la Gone in Sixty Seconds (1974). The stunt work is thrilling, the family dynamics are complicated, and it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that David Ayer is credited on the script (even as third writer).

Like Point Break, The Fast and the Furious does a great job of making the criminals be beloved characters. When Brian is revealed to be a federal agent, and Toretto is revealed to be the man he’s trying to catch … wow, this itched one of my favorite tropes. Typically it’s a romantic one, but I love cop and robber dynamics.

Not only that, but I love friendship. I love family. And I love God — three things that this franchise will only expand upon.

In the end, Brian lets Toretto go. I’m not sure if a sequel was planned, but it was definitely hinted at. Also, shout out to one of my favorite actresses Michelle Rodriguez. Love you Letty.

I just read a funny fact: both Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez didn’t have driver’s licenses before filming, so they had to take driving lessons during the production.

With director John Singleton at the helm of 2 Fast 2 Furious, the franchise headed to Miami and takes an equally serious tone as the first, albeit a little bit darker in my opinion. This movie does a few really important things: it introduces key players that will continue throughout the franchise: Tyrese Gibson as Roman and Ludacris as Tej. Toretto isn’t anywhere in the movie, and although we are left wondering why, it’s okay because villains don’t always carry over.

The truth is, Vin wasn’t there because, despite a 25 million dollar offer, he didn’t think the script was as good as the first. “They didn’t take a Francis Ford Coppola approach to it”. So, he went to do The Chronicles of Riddick instead.

Let’s talk about Vin real quick. He’s one of the top grossing actors of all time. I don’t think enough respect gets put on his name for what he’s done. I’m going to have to dive into this in a different article.

With Toretto out of the picture for the second movie, it takes a slightly darker turn. The Miami nightlife, the rat in the bucket … this villain is hard core. That’s really all I remember about it, because I was squirming in my seat. I liked the storyline, and I liked the aggressiveness of the driving. However, I wouldn’t reach to this one for a rewatch.

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Let’s take a left turn and divert entirely from everything we know. Third movies in franchises are always the bastard child, typically where the producers try and decide what they can and can’t do. So, when I read online that people said to skip Tokyo Drift, I said no way. We had to watch it.

Justin Lin steps in as director, and he will go on to do five more movies in the franchise.

Tokyo Drift follows an entirely new set of characters, and instead of being introduced to a main guy like Brian who knows how to drive, we get Sean (Lucas Black) who doesn’t know how to drift at all. In fact, he makes a fool of himself in quite a lot of driving sequences. The stunts are all really fun, and I love seeing Japanese car culture. Unfortunately, Sean isn’t as compelling of a character as Brian, and the story doesn’t really grip us as much as the previous two.

It’s been said that Tokyo Drift is a stand alone movie. Nope, it’s not, because it introduces Han Lue (Sung Kang) who, well, dies at the end of this movie…

EXCEPT HE DOESN’T. Because he’s back at the start of Fast & Furious in Dom’s crew with absolutely no explanation as to if it’s a flash back, flash forward, or what. Did he actually die?! Tokyo Drift’s end credit sequence loops in Toretto coming to race for “an old friend”, aka Han. (Seeing Toretto again was really awesome and got me hyped for the next movie.)

Obviously, Tokyo Drift is a flash back (flash forward?). That’s why I would recommend it be watched out of order … because Han will later go on to Tokyo, but I digress — because we are back with the OG crew.

In Fast & Furious, Toretto and Brian are forced to work together and get over their differences to avenge the death of Letty. The crew isn’t entirely together, but we’re introduced to Gisele (played by Gal Gadot in her breakout role), who will continue on throughout the franchise.

This installment is heart wrenching, honestly, since I’m a huge Letty fan. First, Toretto disappears after a car jacking job. He just abandons Letty. He says it’s to protect her from being caught, but my heart hurt for Letty. They were supposed to be ride or die! Months later, Dom gets a call that Letty is dead.

Dom teams up with Brian (begrudgingly) to get revenge on the man who killed Letty. I wanted him to get revenge for my girl Michelle!

And, of course, they succeed, but Toretto gets captured by authorities, and the movie ends with our crew breaking him out of the prison transport bus, and we’re ready to go on the run.

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Wow, I wrote out my entire review and there was so much I had to split it into three different articles. After a bit of analysis I’ve broken up the franchise into three distinct “eras”. And, yes, I know i’m breaking up Justin Lin’s movies into two different sections! How unlike me.

I’ve ended this post at the fourth movie, because I believe that five is really when this series turns into an actual franchise. If you’re reading this after the fact, you can click here to head on over to the next set of movies.

Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

Despite being a theater kid, I can count on both hands the amount of plays I have seen in my lifetime. Live theater is completely different from watching a movie. Once the doors close, you aren’t supposed to leave: you become fully immersed into the world that the director has designed. These people have been workshopping whatever they’re working on, and if you happen to go twice to the same production, you may see a different show. Actors get swapped out for understudies, jokes land differently, and the overall feel of the performance is different with every audience.

So, there’s a little more stability with a movie. That being said, whenever my friends who are actors or playwrights have a production going, I always try to make it into the theater to see what they’ve done. When Michelle Kholos Brooks’ War Words played out in Los Feliz, my family and I made the trek — and when Ayinde Howell performed in Topsy Turvy, directed by Tim Robbins, I ended up seeing it twice. Once by myself on a Sunday when I snuck in and out without even letting Ayinde know I was there, and another time with a group of friends who came out to support him.

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I first met Ayinde Howell at Little Beach House Malibu back in early 2024. He was the guy in yoga class who had an infectious personality, a big smile, and always brightened up the room. So, it was no surprise to me when I found out he was an actor.

But what did end up surprising me, over the two years that I’ve known him, was the amount of lives that Ayinde has lived. So, when I first heard him mention to me that he was writing a one man play reflecting back on his life, I was intrigued.

Ayinde took 16 Summers to the Fringe festival and the reviews and reactions over on Instagram were so good that I almost couldn’t believe it. Then, when some of my fellow yogis went to see a 10PM show in Los Angeles, their reviews were raving! Someone said they went three times.

Three times?! No way. Could it really be that good? The final nail was in the coffin when one of my best friends leaned across the table and told me,

“You won’t believe how it opens.”

“…How?”

When she told me I was gobsmacked, and so I’ll omit the sentence so that you can get the full effect of the play.

Unfortunately I missed the first Los Angeles run, but Ayinde brought 16 Summers to Little Beach House for one night only. I cleared my schedule and made sure to get there early to get a good seat. My boyfriend and I sat in the front row, and I was not prepared for what was about to unfold.

I was floored. I laughed, I cheered — and at one point, I even cried.

You might think I liked this play because I know Ayinde, but as I was watching it … I realized, I didn’t really. I know the Ayinde now. I know the guy who can do a scorpion drop back at yoga, who did a popup at Donna Jean’s that was so good I’m still dreaming of it…

But do I know the Ayinde who had to learn how to fight as a boy, or Ayinde the rapper? The man who fell in love on the metro in New York? Who had to travel away from home to realize that what he was looking for was there the entire time? Who realized that time was the most valuable commodity we had, but maybe realized it too late?

What would you do if you knew you only had sixteen summers left with the ones you loved?

I have goosebumps just thinking about it.

16 Summers is the epitome of someone opening themselves up naked for the entire audience to see. It’s hard to put into words how unexpectedly funny and emotional Ayinde’s performance is. Aided by his director Gloria Briseño, Ayinde weaves music and audience participation into a story that will have you rolling on the floor laughing until you realize that the punchline isn’t funny anymore. He pushes your emotional buttons, and reminds you that love and faith are two things we all need a little more of.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, do yourself a favor and go see 16 Summers. It’s a part of a trio of one act plays. Tickets are available now, and runs until February 21st. The other two look fantastic, so I’m hoping to make my way down to Culver City to see all three together. If any friends of mine want to make a day of it, let’s do it.

If you aren’t in the Los Angeles area, I’m hoping that 16 Summers is eventually available for all to see, but there is something magical about sitting in front of Ayinde as he brings you into his world. Until then, you can keep up with Ayinde over on social media — and you can listen to his episode of The Gala Show to get to know him a little better.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

However, my interest in the show was piqued because my best friend and her team took over post production in Season 2, and all of our Girl Dinners were filled with conversations about the second season as it was being watched by the third girl at the table. I sat and listened as the two talked about the show sans spoilers, and I shrugged: I could watch this to support my friend and check out what she worked on!

Then, something miraculous happened that set everything into perfect motion. My boyfriend logged into Netflix on my TV and we decided, hey, we need a show together after the second season of Love is Blind made us want to never watch it again. He had seen the first season of Nobody Wants This and actually cited it as one of the reasons why he wanted to move to Los Angeles, so this only added to my interest. Now that the second season was out we decided we’d watch the whole show together.

What followed was an experience that I didn’t expect. Nobody Wants This turned out to be a show that I really didn’t like while watching it … but ended up being something that I am eagerly waiting to return.

There will of course be spoilers ahead for both seasons.

For those of you that haven’t seen Nobody Wants This but don’t care about spoilers, the show follows Joanne (Kristen Bell), an Angelino who chronicles her love life via her podcast. After a string of terrible dates that she freely discusses on the air with her sister, she meets Noah (Adrian Brody) at a party. It’s attraction at first sight, and she’s even more intrigued when she discovers that he’s a rabbi. What follows is a “can they, can’t they” archetype. Can they make a relationship work when their belief structures are so different? Her, a gentile who doesn’t believe in God, and him, a rabbi whose entire life revolves around his religion.

What’s great about this show are the surrounding characters. You have Morgan (Justine Lupe), Joanne’s younger sister and podcast co-host who is always getting into hilarious situations; Sasha (Timothy Simons), Noah’s older brother who is relaxed and relatable; and season one’s “villain” Esther (Jackie Tohn), Sasha’s wife and a very lovable and complicated character. Besides these three you have a whole cast peppered throughout the show — Sasha and Noah’s mom Bina, Ashley the podcast agent, and Noah’s ex-fiancé Rebecca.

I didn’t realize this until I was talking to my friends about my thoughts on the show overall, but the creator of the show is Erin Foster (David Foster’s daughter). Along with her sister Sara, Erin hosts The World's First Podcast with Erin & Sara Foster. Essentially, without this show being completely autobiographical, Joann is based largely on her.

Which is part of the problem, but I’ll get to that later.

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The first season is largely unoffensive to me, albeit a little boring at times. The show successfully spends time developing the characters and the stakes: Noah and Joanne aren’t supposed to be together, Sasha and Morgan naturally build a compelling friendship, and Esther transforms from a one dimensional villainess to someone we end up rooting for.

In Season One, Joanne and Noah navigate the age old question of “can we be together”. They share their first kiss, deal with Noah’s ex, go on their first official date, and deal with a lot of criticism surrounding their relationship from Noah’s family. In the end, they decide to stay together, and Joanne announces that she’ll convert to Judaism since it’s important to Noah.

For the first season, my biggest problem is that I don’t believe the relationship between Noah and Joanne. I still don’t understand exactly what they like about each other, and this only continues in Season Two. There’s a clear instant attraction, but they didn’t successfully get across “love at first sight” to me.

I don’t understand how Joanne doesn’t know that Noah will need her to convert. Not only is he Jewish but he’s a rabbi — he is a pillar in the community and an example to everyone at his temple, and Joanne needs to convert if their children will be Jewish, as its traditionally passed down through the maternal line. I feel like this is common knowledge in Los Angeles. Furthermore, Joanne treats his religion as something that’s no big deal and is often times flippant about it.

There’s a few other issues I have character wise in the first season. The biggest is the revelation in episode 9 that Bina (the very strict Jewish mother) is secretly eating prosciutto … out of the trash. It just felt inauthentic to her character, and a “gotcha” moment that cleared Joanne of a previous faux pas. The second is a minor one but it’s their use of Ojai (lol). I grew up there, and when they announced they were going to Ojai at Camp Haverim … well, that’s not in Ojai, and where they filmed was most certainly not Ojai. That’s just a minor thing, but it started to make the show feel inauthentic. I get that they have to do things like make fake museums (in season 2) to get around certain production clearances, but when the show has Los Angeles as a character, I want to see it well represented.

Now that I got all of that off my chest, let me say the things I did like about Season One. I liked that all of the auxiliary characters blossomed into people I wanted to follow (since I can’t stand Joanne), and I appreciated how they handled the podcast. I have my fair share of on air time with The Video Archives Podcast and The Gala Show, and I felt like Joanne and Morgan’s podcast was not only authentic but enjoyable. I also liked how Morgan’s character really grew through the episodes, how Esther naturally warmed to Joanne and Morgan, and how Rebecca was a really vulnerable character in the end. “You’re living my dream.” Plus, the basketball stuff was fun to watch, because it just felt so authentically Los Angeles.

My favorite part of the show is yet to come. Before I get into that, let me give a brief rundown of Season Two.

After Joanne decides that she wants to convert, she thinks about it and realizes she doesn’t want to. So, we have the same issue as Season One: will she convert and can their relationship survive if she doesn’t? The answer is no, it can’t survive, but Noah and Joanne don’t seem to realize that. Noah ends up passed over as head rabbi because he’s dating a shiksa who has no intention to convert. He struggles to find his place making these compromises, and the show does a really weird thing with his character. Meanwhile, Morgan falls in love with her therapist, and Joanne spends the majority of the season meddling in her relationship and ultimately facilitates its demise. To make matters even worse, in the finale Esther and Sasha decide to take a break from their marriage so Esther can find herself. And then the final nail in the coffin: Joanne and Noah call it quits.

Oh no, everyone is separating! Wait, except, we get the exact same ending as Season One. Joanne and Noah run away, then run after each other, before embracing at the iconic LACMA light posts to say “I choose you”.

Snore.

Unfortunately Season Two made me rip my hair out way more than Season One (yet, again, I’m still kind of excited for Season Three). I’m going to get a little more granular here.

All of the cool auxiliary characters disappear in Season Two. Yes, we get introduced to some new characters in season two like Rabbi Neil (Seth Rogan) and Abby (Leighton Meester) … but a lot of people just disappear. Bini is sadly absent for the majority of the season (due to scheduling conflicts, I believe), and the Matza Ballers basketball group of eclectic Jewish guys wearing yamakas while they play ball have gone “poof”. They’ve been replaced by Miles Fowler playing Lenny who … yeah, he’s cool, but he feels so out of place. Where did Ashley go? She was my one of my favorite characters (one of the only people to call Joanne out for her insanity) and clearly a friend of both Joanne and Noah (and Morgan) because she, well, introduced the two of them at her party and literally set them up.

Which leads me to my second point. The podcast also disappears in Season Two.

At a certain point, when the girls are fighting, they just say, “Well, we aren’t going to do the podcast anymore.” Didn’t you just sell your podcast to a big studio and need to put episodes out? Not that much time has passed between seasons.

Speaking of how much time has passed, I’ve actually been trying to calculate how long they’ve been together. The Jewish Holidays they celebrate happen in February (I believe), but they aren’t together during Christmas or Hanukkah … so have they only been dating a month when Season Two begins? Someone who is a super fan — help me out with this one!

Back to the podcast, how are they going to pay your rent if they stop doing episodes, especially when Joanne gets evicted? The creator of the show is well off, but Joanne and Morgan aren’t. It feels like one of the most interesting parts of the show has been completely removed. The podcast was a great tool for them to discuss the issues that the show brings up, which leads me to my next problem (and solution)…

The product placement is crazy. I get that the show needs to make money, but holy cannoli. It is so completely out of place, and so wildly brazen that my boyfriend and I made a game of picking which items were product placement.

My solution to the product placement, which is a necessary evil when making the show: make the girls get these products as sponsors on their podcast. Podcasting commercials are something that really happen, and they could so easily have the girls showcasing the products on their show, or have been sent items by Estee Lauderdale or Dunkin. It would be great to incorporate it naturally, and if someone on the team is reading this … you can have this idea for free!

Esther & Sasha. In Season Two, they deliver the idea that Esther and Sasha got married young because Esther got pregnant and they had to. Sasha suddenly wants another child, and Esther flips out saying she’s finally ready to be an empty nester and move on with her life. She becomes very frustrated with Sasha at the littlest things, basically stating that he’s a man child, but she doesn’t pay attention to any of the adult things he does. She doesn’t know about his dance classes, or about his workout (judo?) classes he’s been taking, and she doesn’t care that he’s trying to include her in his day to day life.

Then she becomes enticed by Rebecca who is now single and going out on dates. There’s a lot of “grass is always greener”, but Esther’s eventual decision to tell Sasha she wants a “break” from their relationship feels like total betrayal … both for Sasha, and me as an audience member.

The value and delight of Esther’s character was that she was a really cool, no nonsense, Jewish lady who could be an unlikely ally to Joanne. She felt like a rock and a good example. When they introduce Esther being jealous/insecure about Sasha and Morgan’s friendship, it weakened her character far too much. Morgan is her potential sister-in-law, and Sasha fully respected Esther’s boundaries.

Side note, I’ve heard that a lot of Esther’s character growth and reasoning had to be cut, which is a shame.

Sasha states that he’ll remain loyal to Esther while she … well, opens up their marriage … but even that feels incorrect. And on the flip side, there’s a part of me that’s terrified that they’re going to put him and Morgan together. I may have to turn the TV off if they do that. Sasha and Morgan’s completely platonic relationship is one of the best parts of the show. Please, writers, don’t betray me!

Okay, I guess I like the show if I’m writing four paragraphs on Esther … but again, the surrounding characters are the best part of the show, because…

Joanne is insufferable. There is no better way to put it. I’m going to bullet point this one because I could write an entire Substack article just on her character.

• Joanne is terrible to Morgan. She actively works against her this season, and no one calls her out about it. You could say that they’re sisters, and this is sometimes how sisters are, but this is over the top. The worst example is the wedding dress scene. Morgan is trying on wedding dresses, and Joanne goes and tries one on. Who does that! That is unforgivable.

• In order to make Joanne seem like the bigger and better person in every situation, they dumb down Noah’s character, especially in the Valentine’s Day episode. I think the conundrum of doing something the same because you believe a relationship has benchmarks is a great conflict for an episode … but the way they go about it (along with fitting in an Airbnb advertisement) is wild. Noah does a lot wrong in this episode, but Joanne does too, and somehow isn’t called out about it.

• Not only that, but in order to support Joanne’s character, they erase the reason why Noah broke up with Rebecca. Joanne and Rebecca end up meeting and Rebecca says that Noah was a terrible boyfriend, inattentive, and then that’s supported by another girl calling in on the podcast … we’ve never seen evidence of this before this moment, and also — are we forgetting why Rebecca and Noah broke up?! She bypassed his proposal by putting the ring on herself when she found it! That’s wild!

• The “one day break” episode. I don’t even know if I can get into this but Joanne was actually unhinged during this episode. Her boyfriend gets passed over and has the opportunity to become head rabbi somewhere else … and she doesn’t want him to take a night to focus himself and prepare for his interview. It comes off as borderline abusive on her part.

Maybe Joanne isn’t being accepted by Noah’s family because she’s not Jewish. Maybe she’s not being accepted because she is not likable.

Okay, well, with all of my picking apart the show above I must not like it, right?

Ehh … if I can write this much about something, it means it has a special place in my heart. And that special place is growing every single day. Watching the show I didn’t imagine I was going to be thinking about it, criticizing it, or wanting to watch a third season … but yes, I’m eagerly awaiting the third season to be written so I can watch it with my boyfriend, because it opens up a lot of opportunities for conversations.

And here in lies my favorite thing about the show.

Every episode we watch where Joanne and Noah are facing an issue, it allowed my boyfriend and I to talk about what we’d do in that same situation. Everything from how we want to spend Valentine’s Day to living arrangements to spending a weekend apart … my favorite moment though is when Joanne gets the ick from Noah yelling “Prego!”. Not only did we discuss if the “ick” was a real thing, but we started saying Prego! to each other at random moments.

So I may not like Joanne (and that has nothing to do with Kristen Bell), and I may not believe that Noah and Joanne’s relationship has any sort of real foundation … but I really like all of the auxiliary characters, and I love the conversations the show facilitates with me and my guy.

So yeah, Nobody Wants This … but I kind of do.

I don’t usually talk about television shows, so I appreciate you all for reading my rant on a show that I have to admit, kind of love.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, Snap Inc., and Soho House.

Whenever I’d talk to anyone about movies, I’d ask them a single question: “Have you ever heard of Letterboxd?”

My four favorites used to rotate every week. I paid for the full ad-free service. I loved the analytics I received at year’s end. I would add movies to the platform using The Open Movie Database, clearing up issues with cast and crew. I even made a lot of friends through the app despite it “not being a social media platform”. Guys like Timnado, Greenman, Frankie2Films, and Explodist became every day parts of my cinema life — eventually we’d even meet in person at the theater.

But a strange thing happened. Over the years, I became less and less interested in the app and the direction it was heading, and now, 13 years after my first log, I’ve stopped using it entirely.

So, sorry Letterboxd, but it’s over between us.

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I’m happy for the growth the website has had over the years, but in the past five years, something has really changed. Maybe it’s the boom of users that occurred over Covid, or that in September 2023 Letterboxd got partially acquired by a Canadian investment company called Tiny (they purchased a 60% majority stake).

Or, maybe, it’s just that I’ve noticed that it’s changed how (and why) people watch movies now.

I’ve noticed a trend of collecting movies like playing cards. Now, it’s all about how many movies you can watch rather than the quality of discussion surrounding them. Letterboxd is flooded with one line meme reviews and the desire to go viral. For a few years I blocked the majority of “popular” one line review accounts because, well, I wanted to see people doing actual criticism … and it helped, but there’s so much to wade through on the website that it became almost pointless to do, and I stopped reading the reviews entirely. This is what originally drew me to the website: I liked reading other people’s criticisms. The discussions I’d have in the comments with other users are partly responsible for how I talk about movies today. Even more than that: I grew up in a small town where none of my friends were interested in movies like I was. It sounds crazy, but Letterboxd allowed me to find my tribe.

So, yes, I had become disillusioned from the lack of actual criticism on the website, but there’s more to it than that. I loved Letterboxd, but the website has evolved into something that I’m not so happy with.

It started with their journal — which is nothing new. They’ve been making posts since 2012 when they transitioned out of beta, but those posts were all written by Matthew Buchanan, the co-creator of the website. It wouldn’t be until 2015 when Gemma Gracewood joined the writing team and penned her first journal article.

Her article shows a shift in culture on the website. No longer were the journals an update about the goings on in Letterboxd UI, or perhaps a year end review — it was an interview with a filmmaker. It wasn’t a bad thing either. It was a natural evolution of the website, but it definitely changed things. Letterboxd had now become a platform for press.

And that’s my biggest issue. I’m not sure when exactly it happened, but somewhere along the way, Letterboxd became a press outlet. It became less and less about the users watching movies, their cool challenges they were creating via lists, and the reviews they were writing … and more about, well, promoting what was about to be released into theaters or streaming.

Now, when you look at their Instagram, it feels like it’s an ever churning press machine. Yes, they do “Four Favorites” at events with regular people, but they’re also constantly asking celebrities (who are definitely on the press circuit) what their “Four Favorites” are. I can’t fault them for this: again, it’s a progression of a platform … but in the end, it just feels like they’re trying to sell me something, and it doesn’t feel genuine anymore.

The final nail in the coffin, for me, was the announcement of their Video Store. I’m happy for Letterboxd that they’re doing something akin to Mubi’s curation, but then I realized: everything I’ve logged has just become an analytic for them to see what movies would be good to pick up for their platform. “What do our users want to see?”

It’s like when Amazon bought IMDB. It feels like inside baseball.

In the end, it’s important to state: I’m happy that people use the platform. Just because I’m breaking up with it doesn’t mean that anyone else has to. I’m happy that people (especially the youth) are finding cinema, and discovery is a personal thing. If this app is helping people do that, and fostering a love of watching movies — then great.

My problem comes from how the desire for a one line viral review is completely eroding the ability to actually discuss the art form, and when the discussion around the art form collapses, the art form is sure to follow. When people are desperate to collect as many movies as possible, to watch them so fast that they can’t recall what’s happened in them, and then show them off to their friends as if they are a coin collection … it’s not necessarily how movies were designed to be viewed, but I guess that’s our modern times.

It’s not just Letterboxd’s fault that people have changed how they interact with cinema: Twitter (and Reddit) are also to blame. The “film Twitter bros” that fill Los Angeles repertory theaters drive me nuts. The trend of “a person like me is supposed to have seen that movie, even though I have no interest in it” needs to end. You should go to a movie because you want to, not because you are supposed to. A movie isn’t a checkbox that you tick to create a personality, and that’s no way to build up your own individual uniqueness.

When one starts doing something like that, the overall experience in the theater completely degrades. Even in repertory theaters: you end up having audiences laughing at Sorcerer’s poignant ending scene, or erupting in laughter during Eyes Wide Shut or Altered States at parts that are not meant to be funny.

Of course, a huge part of the laughing audience issue are people getting absolutely obliterated with alcohol and weed before a movie. This isn’t anything new, but it seems to have grown more in recent years, and I’m not really quite sure why.

I’ll end this essay by thanking Letterboxd. Thanks for everything you gave me over these 13 years: all of the movies I discovered, all of the friends I made, all of the facts I learned, and all of the good times. All of Letterboxd’s data (besides reviews and what people have watched) comes from The Open Movie Database, which anyone can pull from.

I hope people continue to use the app if it brings joy to them, but me? I’m going back to my notebook.

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Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, and Snap Inc.

I’ve finished most of Season One and am trying to figure out what to do with all of the information I’ve gathered. It’s still a work in progress and needs editing, but I decided to share a few select essays here on Substack just for fun. For that reason, the essay will remain behind paywall as it’s still a work in progress. If there’s another movie that we covered on the podcast that you’d like to read my essay on, let me know in the chat.

If you’d like to read my previous essay on Lipstick, click here.

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Meanwhile, I had a different thought: “This could be great for independent cinema! Movie theaters could team up with independents, and they could distribute directly with longer windows! Like Kentucky Fried Movie!”

“Yeah, Gala, they could…” A VP of production at an independent distributor and production company told me over dinner, “But the theaters are really bad partners. They don’t want to work with us.”

That comment solidified my need to write this “open letter”, an idea that had been percolating for months but I was afraid to take the plunge and be honest about the situation at hand. So I’m going to go ahead and say something a lot of people are thinking, but not a lot of people are saying.

Movie theaters, it’s your fault too.

Streamers are not the only one’s responsible for the state of the cinema, and the economy isn’t entirely at fault either. In truth, it’s the experience you get at the theater that is ruining people’s desire to attend.

I’ve started a Supper Club in Los Angeles, and since most of the people I know are film buffs, we typically end up talking a lot about movies. At that supper club, we shared our sentiment that we’re going to the movies less and less, and people shared a lot of insights on to exactly why people like us — avid movie goers — don’t want to head to the multiplex. It’s not just us though: casual movie viewers share these same sentiments.

To begin, let’s do a thought experiment.

Say I go into an AMC on a movie pass rather than a ticket — because with an average of 18 dollars a ticket, I can’t see why anyone would just buy a ticket instead of the pass at this point. I sit down in the theater in a reclining seat that’s probably ripped, and I settle into a less than desirable experience. The person in front of me has brought a baby and a dog into the theater. The person a few rows ahead of me is on their phone blaring tik toks the entire time — and if they’re polite they’re just checking their Facebook at full brightness. The couple behind me is talking the entire movie. People are drunk or stoned or rowdy. The movie itself is over two hours long with no intermission, I have to get up to pee at least once (and can’t pause), the screen is either out of focus or isn’t at the correct luminosity. Does this sound like an experience you’d want?

The first problem is the pass itself.

Admittedly, I’ve been banned from AMC’s A-List twice now because I’ve canceled my membership. After you cancel, they ban you for 6 months from re-subscribing. Year round, there’s never enough inventory to make the movie pass worth it for a casual viewer, and quite a few movies are exempt from the pass itself. There’s not enough new releases, and when there are new releases the window for them is so short that it’s impossible to see everything.

One person I know, a comedian, offered up a fix for this: “I only want to go to the movies when awards season is happening. What if they offered a pass for just that time?”

The second problem is concessions.

I didn’t even include the price of popcorn, drinks, and candy in my thought experiment — but let’s just say for a family of four, it’s cost prohibitive to go to the movies on the regular when you combine ticket and concession prices. Movies have become a luxury event for every day people, but the experience you get isn’t a luxury one.

My gripe with concessions, though, isn’t the price of them. I fully understand that this is where most theaters are making their money. A movie theater insider told me that sometimes, when ticket sales are good, the distributor can take up to 90% of the profits from those sales.

My problem is the popcorn buckets. The popcorn bucket economy is something that I could not understand when it was in its peak, and I still can’t wrap my head around it. Every single movie is getting one, and half of them aren’t even functional. The huge multiplexes are, in my opinion, a little predatory with people’s FOMO when it comes to eventization of the theater experience.

I can’t fault a theater for wanting to make money, especially when the majority of income comes from concessions, but does everything really need a popcorn bucket?

The third is the experience itself.

This is the most important aspect of going to see a movie in theaters, and it boils down to one thing: movie theaters don’t hold people accountable for their behavior.

Like I said above, it’s a luxury price tag without a luxury experience. An indie filmmaker friend of mine likened it to what’s happened to travel, “The movie theater experience is on par with how flying on a planes has diminished to where it’s not luxurious anymore.”

Those of us who had the pleasure of patroning Arclight will remember what it was like to have an employee sit in the theater (or nearby) in case you needed them. They’d make sure the picture quality was up to standard and ensure that no one was being disruptive.

Those days are long gone. Every situation I mentioned in my “thought experiment” was something that happened to me in either a multiplex, a repertoire theater, or at a press screening.

People might chalk the behavior up to the new generation not knowing how to behave in the theater, or perhaps that streaming has made everyone feel like they can act like they’re in their living room in their pajamas and blankets while at the theater.

I stand by the fact that it’s the theater’s responsibility to teach the audience how to act in their establishment. Restaurants and bars are the same way. There is a code of conduct, and if someone breaks the rules they’re warned or kicked out.

So when did audiences stop being held accountable for how they behave? When did it become acceptable to trash the theater by throwing your popcorn and soda at the screen, or standing in the aisles scream singing? When did going to the movies become more about posting a picture of your popcorn bucket on Instagram or logging it on Letterboxd than actually watching the movie?

The fourth issue, which I’ll briefly touch on, is the distribution window of the movies … but this isn’t necessarily the theater’s fault. Everyone is rushing to streaming, and I can’t fathom why. Your movie, especially if independent, will get lost in the stream. If you leave a movie in a theater for long enough, it will find its audience. So, maybe, just maybe, theaters should become better partners with the independents, and maybe we’ll have a cinema revival. The younger generations are desperate for tangible shared experiences, and the movie theater is exactly that. It’s a place to expand your mind, escape the heat, and make new friends. For some small towns, their movie theater is all they have.

One suggestion a friend of mine had was that Netflix should purchase theater chains and offer a subscription (on top of, or in addition to their streaming price) to enter the theater at any time and watch anything you wanted to play. I thought that was a pretty interesting idea.

One question I have, though, is what happened to the matinee? I used to love going to a 10AM movie, but it seems like they’re being phased out. Has anyone else noticed this?

Although it seems dire, not all hope is lost. In big cities like Los Angeles, we’re blessed to have repertoire theaters like The New Beverly Cinema that try to hold their audiences to a certain standard, or microcinemas that pop up and play movies for their communities. Over in Dallas, The Texas Theater does an excellent job of catering to the community and fostering personal connections through events, screenings, and special guests. Plus, their projectionists in the booth (shout out to Chad) really care about the experience you get there, both on film and digital.

Outside of the big cities, we have independently owned theater chains like Galaxy Cinemas that service their community. If you ever end up in one of their theaters, you’ll see how they care about their neighborhood. Not only that, but their projectionists (who aren’t projecting film, but rather DCPs), really care about how their screens look. Plus, they’re open to partnering with independent filmmakers on distribution.

I don’t believe that the art of watching a movie on the big screen is going to die. I do believe that there’s been an inflation in theaters and multiplexes, and I do forsee a die off. The theatrical experience may change, but the theater is something that will live on forever. Perhaps just in a smaller way.

Thank you to all of the distributors, indie filmmakers, projectionists, and casual movie viewers who contributed their thoughts on this topic to me via private conversation.

Gala Avary is a 30 year old writer, producer, film critic, and podcaster. You might know her from all the VHS tape talk on The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary — or maybe The Gala Show, her LA based anthropological interview series. She’s curated for Arrow Streaming (twice!), been featured in Fangoria, moderated for The New Beverly Cinema, and spoken at establishments like Creator Camp, Southern Oasis Film Festival, and Snap Inc.

I’ve finished most of Season One and am trying to figure out what to do with all of the information I’ve gathered. It’s still a work in progress and needs editing, but I decided to share a few select essays here on Substack just for fun. For that reason, the essay will remain behind paywall as it’s still a work in progress. If there’s another movie that we covered on the podcast that you’d like to read my essay on, let me know in the chat.

If you’d like to read my previous essay on Piranha, click here.

This essay includes information from an interview with actor Chris Sarandon. Chris was my very first interview for my Compendium and is actually responsible for me doing The Gala Show. Thank you, Chris, for accepting the interview and being such a kind and generous soul. I owe you a lot.

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