The November Watchlist

Bundle up and turn something on...

November is a very special movie time for me. For the detail-oriented readers, you may have noticed my multiple references to my time at school in Scotland. While there, I was taking an experimental cinema class that opened my eyes to what the world of cinema is and can be.

I was also having a difficult time making friends and managing new social circles in an entirely new place, so movies were a big escape for me. I would sit in my seminar on campus and watch films by Jonas Mekas, Michael Snow, Norman MacLaren, Vivienne Dick, and so on, and then after class head downtown to the Glasgow Film Theatre to see whatever the new releases were.

I associate November with this feeling of discovery and comfort. In the spirit of this, included in this month’s watchlist are some movies that changed how I view movies and were major discoveries to me at that time in my life.

Slides (dir. Annabel Nicolson, 1971)

This is probably the most “normie” film school short I could put on here. Most people who have spent any time around the world of film studies have probably seen this or are at the absolute minimum baseline aware of it and it’s influence. If you haven’t, walk with me.

There’s a lot about the history of cinema I didn’t understand before I became encapsulated by it. I really thought it was a sort of linear timeline that more or less just went something like The Horse in Motion to the silent comedies to Singing in the Rain then The Godfather and FINALLY, we’ve arrived in the modern era, and isn’t that all we’ve ever wanted to see?

Seeing all these different types of films, particularly the mid-20th century experimental shorts my class focused on, opened my world up to what film has been and what it can be. Pushing the boundaries of visual language and testing this young art is something that went completely over my head through a lot of my movie-loving escapades. Through seeing stuff like Slides, though, it finally (at least somewhat) clicked in my brain what the history of cinema can show us about where the form is today and how important every step and experiment along the way has been.

Lesser Choices (dir. Courtney Stephens, 2022)

Honestly, this is a tough one to recommend solely because I don’t know where it is available to watch. I saw it for the first time at Viennale in 2022. It is an experimental short documentary of sorts that follows the director’s mother as she recounts a trip to Mexico to get an abortion many years ago.

I initially wanted to recommend this because of the subject matter, hoping that things on that front would look better here in the US. Unfortunately, it seems as if the world has swung off its axis and now we’re on a spiral in any random direction. But maybe, for those of us that these types of issues affect less severely, let this deeply touching short serve as a reminder of what we need to fight for and who we need to stand alongside in the years to come.

The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo (dir. Margaret Tait, 1955)

Margaret Tait was a HUGE focus of my Scottish cinema education, having been taught about her by (probably) the leading Tait scholar. I watched this in class and then saw it again this year during a Tait showcase at the Harvard Film Archive.

Margaret Tait has many wonderful films that are so full of life, but this one just sticks out in my mind the most. For people in search of short film poems, I recommend seeking out everything of Tait’s that you can find. A lot are on YouTube!

Dead Poet’s Society (dir. Peter Wier, 1989)

I mean, of course.

I’m not going to be the only person to recommend this as a fall/November movie. I try to spice these lists up a bit knowing that a lot of recommendations will end up being the same, but I’ve got to throw this one in there for old-time’s sake.

One of my original favorite movies with my (probably) all-time favorite actor, Ethan Hawke. I’ve also always been fascinated by the vibes of an East Coast private boarding school. As a California public school graduate who was surrounded by these types now having lived in DC and Massachusetts, it’s so interesting to see this romanticized version of it on screen. Obviously, I love a story about a group of young men falling in love with the art of the word, bla bla bla… sorry if it’s all so corny and trite, but COME ON! Can you blame me?

When Harry Met Sally (dir. Rob Reiner, 1989)

Just going to get the other obvious 1989 pick out of the way, while we’re on the topic. Honestly, though, you can really watch this whenever during this stretch of October through March. I see it as a Fall movie, but I can just as easily see it as a New Year’s movie or a Valentine’s Day movie.

Rocky (dir. John G. Avildsen, 1976)

Honestly, Rocky is hard to figure out how widely seen it actually is among my age group. I feel that the Creed trilogy has sort of absorbed the cultural space it fits in, and if people are going to go back and watch any of the original franchise, it’s probably going to be Rocky IV.

That being said, this is a wonderful film on its own, but also a wonderful cultural touchstone for what sports as spectacle mean to the American public as well as what independent film means to the American film industry.

Rocky arrives at an inflection point where sports are transitioning from an amateur, more often part-time career into a full-on multibillion-dollar industry that dominates the airwaves and American culture. Of course, sports were lucrative before the late 70s, but at this point, television had become ubiquitous and sports were about to become more of a show than a sport (think the Showtime Lakers of the late 70s). The fight between Rocky and Creed can sort of act as a stand-in for that changing of the guard. Apollo Creed is a highly commercial, wealthy athlete going up against Rocky Balboa, a neighborhood hobby boxer.

Rocky was also a lower-budget independent film that (ironically) beat out All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, Taxi Driver and Network for Best Picture that year, all movies made for at least double Rocky’s budget and having a lot more high-profile people involved. It’s fascinating how much the narrative of the film mirrors its place in American pop cultural history.

The Banshees of Inisherin (dir. Martin McDonagh, 2022)

This one circles back to my time in Scotland, as this was one of my Glasgow Film Theatre viewings that I feel really defined a lot of my time there.

Banshees really is just so charming and such a surprising crowd-pleaser that it’s hard to go wrong. Irish film has hit such a stride internationally in the past few years and a lot of credit has to be given to this reuniting of the McDonagh, Collin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson trio, as we can softly trace their influence back to their initial team-up with In Bruges.

After having visited the Aran Islands, too, I understand the characters a lot more and can see how a place like that would make some people do some of the things they do in this movie.

The Social Network (dir. David Fincher, 2010)

Short recommendation here, since who really needs to be recommended a movie that is (probably) unanimously accepted as one of the best films of the previous decade? But this takes Sorkin and Fincher, two excellent filmmakers both with almost opposite strengths and weaknesses, and mashes them together to make what I would consider one of the modern masterpieces. You can say it’s too talky or it’s not entirely based in truth, but I really don’t care, since this goes so hard from start to finish that I genuinely cannot criticize this movie.

Spartacus (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1960)

Maybe this one is just on my mind this month because of Gladiator 2, but I felt compelled to include it. I’ve only seen it twice, the first time being in middle school. Even then, I loved it. I re-watched it for a class in college and was just absolutely blown away by how amazing this film is.

The scale of what this movie accomplishes is remarkable in any era, let alone something that came out over sixty years ago. The perfect production design is incredible and seemingly a lost art as we’ve moved into an era of more digital filmmaking. If you’ve seen it, re-watch it. If you haven’t, you’re missing out on one of the best films of the twentieth century.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (dir. Bill Melendez and Phil Roman, 1973)

Come on! I had to. These Peanuts holiday specials are such a constant for my family that it’s hard to not cap off this list with this absolute classic. Snoopy sandwiches!