Dear Readers,
After 14 years online, we've reached a milestone at Film Intuition today with this — our 2,500th Review Database post. I say "our" because I might be the sole operator of FilmIntuition.com but I don't do this work alone.
So many people have played a part in this humble site's success, including the outstanding PR reps I've worked with over the years, filmmakers who've sent me their screeners, friends I talk movies with around the clock, a trusty reader/editor I bounce third drafts off of, and wonderful readers who are the reason that Film Intuition continues to exist. I want to thank you for your support and readership, especially those of you who've been with me from the beginning when I was far more productive and posting hundreds of pieces per year.
Already challenged by a chronically bad spine and arthritis, which made traveling to fests and back-to-back screenings damn near impossible, shortly after I turned thirty, I was hit by an all-consuming autoimmune disease, and entered a number of years where writing regularly was just not in the cards. Still obsessed with film as always, I have a bookcase full of missed screeners, an encyclopedia sized pile of notes, plus boxes of reviews on index cards that I try to sort through every once in awhile to pull a piece from, edit, and post. Needless to say, coverage of some of the missed films I watched in the 2010s is coming, I promise, even if, knowing me, a majority of the movies I've written about were released decades before.
While these conditions are for life and I'll never replicate the output I had early on (although as a perfectionist, some of those first pieces make me cringe), my passion needs an outlet, and my love of writing eclipses everything else. Gradually getting back in the swing of things over the past few years, including doing some freelance work and collaborations — which I used to do extensively at the site's start — I've begun to take more creative risks in order to liven things up for you as well as myself. At first, it was slowly, but then, with a slight beat generation inspired take on The Loveless, a lengthy piece on Scarface, and deep dive review essays of films like Bad Influence, I Walk Alone, and The Merry Gentleman that inspired me to explore them in long form, I began to see what it is that you guys responded to the most from me and what I really enjoyed crafting as well.
Although you'll always see new stuff here, since I'm a bit burned out from standard review writing, I've cleared time off in 2020 to work on not only my first book of film essays and a script with a friend but also my very first mini podcast over on Patreon. Encouraged to start a Patreon by readers via e-mail and friends on Twitter who dig my frequent film shout-outs and Watch With Jen tweet-alongs, I knew I didn't want to pay-gate pieces that anyone passionate about film should be able to read, so I started to think of Patreon as my very own lemonade stand.
Serving up five recommendations of movies to stream instead of sugary fruit juice - which, let's face it, would be impossible to e-mail - I've spun off those #WatchWithJen tweets into a new mini-podcast that I just launched. The first episode is available for everyone to listen to here. This is all experimental, of course, as I'm completely new to podcasting and the format is still up in the air. And although some super kind people adjusted their monthly rate on their own (which you so don't need to do at all), I'm happily using lemonade stand pricing as my base with a $1 tier to start things off. Most likely keeping the next few episodes unlocked while I get things going, in the future, I might upload new installments (as well as bonus Patreon-only episodes) to subscribers only for the first week before opening it up to share my passion for film with all who love it as well.
I'm very excited to explore a new way to broadcast my nerdiness to the world. Recorded on my phone — like you're at the other end of the line — I really hope you'll bear with me as I find my way into podcasting, and enjoy Watch With Jen as much as you do my tweets and reviews. As always, if you have any feedback, please jump over to Twitter, leave a comment or message over on my Patreon, or e-mail me to let me know. To answer a question that I get asked a lot, I may have disabled the comment section here a long time ago (after spending less time writing than I did refereeing fights between strangers), but I truly, truly love hearing from you all.
There's no way of knowing how many movies I've actually written about since 2006 because I've covered so many box sets here and talk about film endlessly on Twitter and Letterboxd as well. Still, I want to thank you once again for being here for the first 2,500 posts and look forward to you playing a part in the book, the podcast, the Patreon, and the next 14 years of Film Intuition to come.
Thank you,
Jen
Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.
