Hello, friends. It has been a long time. Obviously, I haven’t been doing much writing in these pages of late. Before I disappeared, I talked a little bit about how my hit counter for this site was abysmal. People just don’t come here anymore.

There are probably lots of reasons for that, most of which are out of my control. The few things that I could do to get me more readers would feel more like work than fun and probably wouldn’t garner that many more visitors anyhow.

However, I find I still love this site. I still like writing about movies and music and whatever else I’ve got on my mind. I’ve been thinking about returning for a little while now, but the calendar rolling over to October has pushed me to just start writing again.

One of the first movie themes I created was 31 Days of Horror, and I just can’t not write about horror movies in October. I’m not sure how much I’ll do. I’d like to return to doing the Friday Night Horror Movie and my Picks of the Week. I’ll probably write at least a few horror movie reviews and maybe a few other things. I imagine I’ll post stuff I’ve written for Cinema Sentries here like I used to.

I’m sure I’ll stick around for Noirvember as well, but after that…well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

But I don’t know what the future holds. I may get fed up with this again and drop completely out. Or I may find some alternative place to post my words. Probably I’ll just keep writing things here whenever I feel like it.

I want to say that I’ll only post when I want to, that it will be a casual thing. That I don’t want to push myself to post things because then it becomes unfun. But the truth is I need a little bit of a push. If I don’t, then I get lazy and don’t do anything.

I’m also in the process of moving all the posts on the music site back to this one. It just seems silly to keep that music site if I’m not going to post any more music. But I’d hate to lose those old posts and the many comments you all left on them. I actually have some ideas about doing some music posts again (without download links), but I’ll save that discussion for another day.

Anyway, here I am, back for now. Since September just ended and I haven’t yet watched any horror movies, I thought I’d begin with my monthly wrap up. And here we go.

I watched 32 movies in September. Twenty three of them were new to me. Eight of them were made before I was born. My theme for the month was The Seventies in September, and I watched ten movies from that decade.

I’ve now watched 337 movies this year. Twenty one of them are from 2025. 73 percent of them have been new to me.

Willem Dafoe is tied with Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant for first place in my most watched actors category. The latter of which are due to me watching a full season’s worth of their Doctor Whos.

Johnnie To and David Lynch remain at the top of my director’s list with four films watched.

And that’s it. I do hope to keep writing, just for fun. Maybe I’ll get more readers, maybe I won’t. But if you enjoy my words, please do leave a comment, as that helps a great deal. And here’s the full list.

Ballerina (2025) ****
Dogtooth (2009) ****
Mystic Pizza (1988) ***
Rebel Ridge (2024) ****1/2
The Rapacious Jailbreaker (1974) ****
Mark Strikes Again (1976) **
Practical Magic (1998) **
The Raven (2012) ***/12
Peking Opera Blues (1986) ****
The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) ***1/2
The Great Gatsby (1974) **
The Thursday Murder Club (2025) ***
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009) ***1/2
Honey Don’t! (2025) ***1/2
Dracula (1958) ****
The Fog (1980) ****
When a Stranger Calls (1979) ***
The Craft (1996) ***1/2
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974 (2009) ***1/2
5 Fingers (1952) ***1/2
Alucarda (1977) ***1/2
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) ***1/2
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) ****
All the President’s Men (1976) ****1/2
Sisters (1972) ****
City of Ghosts (2002) **1/2
Blithe Spirit (2020) **1/2
The Devils (1971) ****
Winter Kills (1979) ***1/2
The Crow (1994) ****
Sorcerer (1977) ****1/2
The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion (2018) ***1/2
The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil (2019) ****

I watched 47 movies in June. 34 of them were new to me. 13 of them were made before I was born. The theme was War Movies in June, and I did a pretty bad job of it. I only watched four films that fit that category (technically I watched Flying Leathernecks in May so that would bring the total up to five).

Like last year, the theme for July will be Sci-Fi in July. I did pretty well with that last year, so hopefully I’ll watch lots of science fiction films this month.

We just finished the sixth month of 2025, which is the halfway point, so I like to spend a little time talking about my movie watching so far.

I’ve definitely slowed my movie watching down a little bit this year. I’ve only watched 209 movies so far (for comparison, I had watched 238 by this point last year). I’ve been catching up on a lot more television, which has been rewarding in its own right. That still comes out to an average of 29.9 movies per month or 8 per week.

Thrillers are my most-watched genre, coming in at 77 films watched. This is followed by Drama (72), Action (56), Horror (52), and Comedy (50). Naturally, I’ve watched the most films from the United States (138), with the UK coming in a distant second (37). After that, we have Japan (19), France (19), Italy (12), and Hong Kong (8).

I’ve watched 10 movies from 2025. 153 of the movies I’ve watched have been new to me. 73.2% of the films I’ve watched have been new to me which is just below where I like to be (I try to keep my ratio at 75%).

Favorite new to me movies I’ve watched in 2025 are Vampyr (1932), Smooth Talk (1985), Mad Detective (2007), and Midnight (2021).

My most watched actors list has changed quite a bit, mostly do to death and Doctor Who. Gene Hackman’s recent passing had me watching several films with him in them. I continue to watch films by David Lynch (and Twin Peaks, which counts as a film according to Letterboxd), and he was a big fan of using the same actors over and over, so Grace Zabriskie and Harry Dean Stanton have entered the charts. Then I watched an entire season of Colin Baker’s version of Doctor Who, which put him and his companion Nicola Bryant on the chart. I just really like Willem Dafoe so he’s made it to the lead without any extra help.

The Criterion Channel is showing a bunch of films from Hong Kong director Johnnie To. I’d never seen any of his films so I gave one of them a shot, and then another and then…well, now he’s tied with David Lynch on the most watched Directors List with four films.

Predator 2 (1990) **1/2
Smooth Talk (1985) ****1/2
Jaws (1975) *****
The Sky Crawlers (2008) ***1/2
Nosferatu (2024) ***
The Phantom of 42nd Street (1945) **1/2
House of Wax (2005) **
Look Back (2024) ****
Dante’s Peak (1997) ***
28 Years Later (2025) ****
Big Bad Mama II (1987) **1/2
Big Bad Mama (1974) **
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) ***1/2
Mad Detective (2007) ****
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks (1985) ***1/2
Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965) ***1/2
The Big Night (1951) ***1/2
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) ****1/2
Doctor Who: Timelash (1985) ***
Vampyr (1932) *****
The Loveless (1981) ***1/2
Another Simple Favor (2025) ***
Doctor Who: The Two Doctors (1985) ***
28 Weeks Later (2007) ***1/2
28 Days Later (2002) ***1/2
Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani (1985) ***
Doctor Who: Attack of the Cybermen (1985) ***
The Breaking Point (1950) ****
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) *****
Wild at Heart (1990) ****
Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos (1985) ***1/2
Army of Shadows (1969) *****
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) ****1/2
Port of Shadows (1938) ****
Friday Foster (1975) ****
Baron Blood (1972) ***1/2
The Ghoul (1975) **
The Heroic Trio (1993) ***
Drug War (2012) ****
Breaking News (2004) ***1/2
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) *****
The Thin Red Line (1998) ****
No Way Out (1987) ****
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) ****
Dracula (1979) ****
Blacula (1972) ***1/2
The Wild Geese (1978) *

I watched 46 movies in the month of June. Thirty-eight of those were new to me. Twenty-five of them were made before I was born.

I didn’t have a theme this month though I did have quite a bit of review material to watch which dictated my viewings somewhat. I also went down a bit of a 1980s rabbit hole for a little while.

I’ve started a series where I plan to watch one movie from every year I was born in chronological order. I’ll talk more about that in a different post, but that will explain why, here at the end of the month, I started watching a bunch of movies from the late 1970s.

Favorite new watches of the month include The Duellists, Ace in the Hole, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (a rare film watched in the theater).

James Coburn has entered my list of Top Actors Watched this month, he’s tied with Courteney Cox and Roger Jackson with six films watched this year. Randolph Scott and Wilbur Mack also enter the list with five films. I got a Scott boxed set for Father’s Day and have watched several films from it. Wilbur Mack starred in all of the Mr. Wong movies and I watched them for a review.

William Nigh jumps up to the number two spot for the Top Directors Watched list, he directed the Mr. Wong movies.

Here’s the complete list

Taste of Fear (1961)
Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
Mad Max (1979)
The Driver (1978)
The Duellists (1977)
The Cassandra Crossing (1976)
Waterworld (1995)
Christine (1983)
The Old Dark House (1963)
The Mosquito Coast (1986)
Footloose (1984)
Bloody Hell (2020)
Cold Eyes of Fear (1971)
Queen Christina (1933)
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Cocaine Bear (2023)
The Stranger Wore a Gun (1953)
Hangman’s Knot (1952)
The Mad Miss Manton (1938)
Doomed to Die (1940)
Boom Town (1940)
The Shout (1978)
The Fatal Hour (1940)
12 Feet Deep (2017)
Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939)
The Scarlet Claw (1944)
The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1939)
The Bribe (1949)
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)
Meyer from Berlin (1919)
The Oyster Princess (1919)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Maggie (2015)
Caliber 9 (1972)
Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004)
Rise: Blood Hunter 2007
Doctor Who: Black Orchid 1982
Mr. Wong, Detective (1938)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
The Package (1989)
Bus Stop (1956)
Harakiri (1962)
The Night Runner (1957)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Special Effects (1984)
Step Down to Terror (1958)

I watched 41 movies in April. 34 of those were new to me. 16 of those were made before I was born. 11 were part of my theme for the month – Westerns in March.

My favorite new to me movies watched this month were The Naked Spur (1953), The Little Foxes (1941), The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Django (1966), and Night of the Comet (1984).

Stats for 2023 thus far

Number of Movies Watched: 131
Number that Were New To Me: 108
Top Actors: James Coburn (6 Films), Henry Silva (4 films), Giulio Baraghini (4 films).
Top Directors: Sam Peckinpah (6 Films), Fernando Di Leo (5 films), Howard Hawks (3 films), Quentin Tarantino (3 films), Martin Scorsese (3 films).

Here’s the full March list:

Night of the Comet (1984)
RoboCop (1987)
Death Spa (1989)
Cross of Iron (1977)
Django (1966)
Ponyo (2008)
Boston Strangler (2023)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Every Secret Thing (2014)
Sabotage (1936)
Excalibur (1981)
Barbarian (2022)
Double Indemnity (1973)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Small Town Crime (2017)
The World’s End (2013)
Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
Piranha 3D (2010)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Final Destination (2000)
Little Women (1933)
The Bob’s Burgers Movie (2022)
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
The Retaliators (2021)
Disappearance at Clifton Hill (2019)
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Young Guns (1988)
Night of the Zombies (1980)
Gone in the Night (2022)
Major Dundee (1965)
The Little Foxes (1941)
Stars in My Crown (1950)
The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1939)
The Big Trail (1930)
Dark Phoenix (2019)
Looker (1981)
Sleepless (2001)
The Naked Spur (1953)
The Cariboo Trail (1950)