The Things We Think and Do Not Say: Why I’m Writing a Newsletter
Help me help you.
I have great news. I’m starting a newsletter. [ducks]
Welcome to Projections, my first ever newsletter about movies, Hollywood, filmmaking, the state of the art, physical media, stardom, paranoia, joy, and how we see what we’re seeing.
I’m Sean Fennessey, a podcaster, writer, editor, producer, and cinephile. If you listen to The Big Picture podcast, the twice-weekly show about movies I co-host with Amanda Dobbins, you know who I am. Likewise if you’ve checked out The Rewatchables, the Ringer podcast about the movies we can’t stop watching, where I appear frequently as a panelist. If you were a reader of pop culture essays, reporting, and criticism between the years 2003 and 2019, you may be familiar with my writing. If you spend too much time on Letterboxd, you might have seen my dashed-off thoughts on this movie or that. If you have engaged with all of those things, have I got some great news for you: I am writing again. If you aren’t familiar with any of those things, well, you’re here anyway, so give this a try.
And since you’re here, hopefully you’re interested in what interests me: the dream machine. This will be a place where I pour my anguished feelings, overcooked theories, hard-earned observations, stray bits of reporting, and free associating celebrations about movies, and film culture at large.
I still see movies in our society as the primary engine for creativity, spectacle, and that discrete experience of getting happily lost in the dark. I see hundreds of them a year. I think long and hard about thematic intention, the space they occupy in our imaginations, how and why certain ones are made, and even the ones that are not. I am fascinated by the business of movies, too – when and where they are seen, and, most especially, why. I love and have interviewed hundreds of filmmakers during my career. I am a proud physical media addict. (It’s my only vice.) I’m also a parent having the time of my life experiencing movies through the eyes of my young daughter. You will find reflections on all of those things here, and at length. I’ll recommend what to watch in brief, and stretch out my harebrained hypotheses at length.
You might be thinking to yourself Why in God’s name is Sean writing again? He has a podcast, a viable platform for all of his thoughts and one that is a heckuva lot easier than writing. Well, there are two reasons.
There’s so much happening in the world of movies right now: A new wave of filmmakers raised on YouTube and social media bursting into the frame. Corporate consolidation creating openings for smaller distributors. Streaming reframing how we receive new stories. A new kind of cinephilia is forming. This is a confusing and exciting time for the art form. There is so much opportunity and so many new films, and because I’m consumed by it, I want to share so much of what I’m seeing and trying to understand. I’ll do that here.
This inaugural post is named after the infamous manifesto that Jerry Maguire writes over one feverish night about the state of his work in Cameron Crowe’s midlife crisis masterpiece. As I write these words, listening to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ “Hand Covers Bruise” on repeat, I am thinking about the ways in which Jerry’s neatly organized, collated, and distributed rejection of greed within the sports agency business both destroyed his life and eventually saved it. Writing can do that. It’s so powerful. It’s something I have always loved doing and sharing, and it’s also acted as a kind of exposure therapy for me, an uptight suburban lapsed Irish Catholic who uses culture to better understand himself. So in this space, I will be a little more confessional than usual, but not at the expense of the art form that I hold so dear.
I also love reading newsletters. My favorite in the entire world is called Mets Fix. It’s a daily download on all things New York Mets, my chosen baseball team and the bane of my existence. The team at Mets Fix is as obsessed, infatuated with, and bedeviled by the team as I am. It’s one of the very first things I look at every morning. I want to make a Mets Fix for movies.
You can expect weekly missives from me, every Wednesday morning, with expansions from there. Critical deep dives, news analysis, irrefutable rankings. I love movie history more than anything, and I will plumb its depths here. I will dig into breaking news — trailer reactions, casting and greenlight updates, studio machinations, and more. I will also connect with you, the reader, here on Substack in chats, with Notes, quick movie (and music and TV) recommendations, and more. Let’s make this a friendly place to hang out and chat about movies and things we like.
This is a sacred pact. If we agree to it, you will get weekly writing from me. You will get Q&A sessions. You can send questions and thoughts about my work that I will respond to. And you can see all my writing in one place. Let’s do this. See you at the movies.
Some are saying we are ALL the way back
Thank you Sensei, thank you