My Letterboxd 5-8
I get to keep picking movies I like on substack.com
Letterboxd feels like a glittering diamond nestled amongst the stinking trashheap of our dead internet. It’s a place where humans are coming together to talk about art. I love how shitty the website is. No streamlined algorithm is at work trying to get me to buy skims (pathetic), mail order food prep programs (pathetic) or trick me into overstaying my welcome by showing me one amazing disney bounder after another (too outstanding to look away). I log on to Letterboxd to see what my friend Jo thought of OBAA and then move the f*ck on with my day.
Letterboxd makes you pick your 4 favorite movies and post them all huge on your profile like trophies. It’s brutal to pick only 4 but very helpful because I need to quickly see where someone is coming from to know if I give a damn about their review of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. It’s also a great get to know you exercise at parties.
Your top 4 are not the four movies you wish were your favorites, they’re the four movies you admit, with deep honesty, you love the most. You face yourself in the mirror, like Atreyu at the second gate of the Southern Oracle in The Neverending Story. It’s sobering.
Indiana Jones 3 is in my top 4 because I made my parents call me “Indy” for weeks after seeing it, just one of many tomboy proclivities that led adults around me to have homo panic throughout my adolescence. I was pathetically straight, just envious of the freedom and respect that I saw men enjoying on the screen. There’s a lot of masculine instruction in my favorite movies. Like a little gay boy watching Bette Davis and seeing a hero, I was watching Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford trying to figure something out. Maybe if I acted like those guys, people wouldn’t constantly remark that it was wrong that I preferred pants instead of dresses & tights and reading science fiction books instead of costume jewelry and dolls.
I had so much fun picking my top 4 favorite movies and I want the thrill to last longer. Here are my favorite 5-8 movies:
Number 5: Beyond The Mat & The Wrestler
I’m starting the list by cheating and smushing two movies together but I can do that because it’s my newspaper and I really believe that these two films elevate each other so much when regarded as a set.
Beyond the Mat is a documentary about the professional wrestling world made by Barry Blaustein, a former SNL writer. It was released in 1999 when wrestling was at its biggest era of mainstream breakthrough: The days of The Rock, Mick Foley, Chyna. Barry introduces the doc sheepishly, admitting he’s kept his love of wrestling secret because of its sleazy reputation. He then takes the viewer on a deliciously voyeuristic journey into the heart of darkness, like all good documentaries do.
It follows the career of a few different wrestlers, all supremely watchable but the one who left the most indelible mark on me is Jake “the snake” Roberts. Jake’s charisma is so powerful, even through a grainy YouTube clip you can see his electricity crackle. He has a monologue in the movie that I think about almost everyday.
“The road really screwed up my sex life at home man. You go on the road, you get some type of fame or whatever. All of a sudden you can have it everyday, then all of a sudden you wanna get selective. Then all of a sudden one a day’s not enough so you do two a day, then three a day. Then two at a time, then two at a time with toys, then two at a time but just watch. Then it gets more bizarre and more bizarre and it finally gets to the point that when you go home and try to make love to your wife - Ain’t no way. Ain’t no way because the mental stimulation is not there and that’s bad. That’s bad.”
I think about this monologue almost everyday. I’ve never heard anything that more succinctly explains power and the gradual corruption that it causes. Why watch 9 hours and 18 minutes of the Lord of the Rings when Jake’s monologue says it all in 8 sentences. I thought of this quote a lot as I watched the Epstein story unfold on the news. Unchecked power doth a monster make.
Jake’s family history is so tragic, it makes Shakespere look like the Croods. He is a brilliant guy who found an intellectual playground in the wrestling world when all reality could offer was pain, cruelty and humiliation.
The problem for Jake, and every other wrestler, is that the sport is hell on the body. This career drops you off a cliff at 40, leaving people to navigate the rest of their lives with only “a high specific set of skills” as a wise man once said. The Rock was able to transition into acting, Mick Foley into writing, but there are so many others who fall victim to hopelessness and substance abuse.
Beyond the Mat was a major influence on the Darren Aronofsky film The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke is so incredible in this movie, holy shit. It’s like watching Judy Garland play Dorothy or Gary Oldman play anybody.
Marisa Tomei, looking incredible, plays an aging stripper in the movie whose story dovetails with Mickey’s.
It’s beautiful drama to watch Mickey and Marissa’s stories play out in parallel, men and women who come to realize their disposability, who have built a career and identity off their bodies but 20 years in are roughly shoved out the back door. What happens when a person’s identity becomes inseparable from the thing they do, and then their body starts to betray them? As a 42 year old barback with hamstrings like rotten rubberbands and an upper back that feels like concrete, I empathize with these characters a lot.
There are some insanely funny parts of this movie that will, ever so briefly, toss you into the air like a coked up uncle tosses his giggling and unaware 1 year old niece.
This is my A Star IS Born. A movie about how the sausage is made, exalted, and then drop kicked to the top of the trash heap.
Number 6: Bravehart
In 1995 I was 12 and this movie launched me into puberty. The sex in the movie was all tender lovemaking under the moon and amongst the thistles. I wanted to be a shirtless long-haired warrior undressing a peasant girl by a waterfall. I also wanted to be the peasant girl getting her top pulled down, whose parents hated my new boyfriend. I wanted to be French, put my hair up in braids send my guards away and invite violent men into my tent. I wanted to ride horses, hit people with a sword, talk to funny Irish guys and get off.
Before streaming apps, HBO would air new movies on repeat and I think I saw this oh, 30-60 times in two months on top of god knows how many more once we got the VHS.
The realistic close combat battle scenes were the big talking point of this movie. Mel Gibson wanted to convey the bravery of the Scotsmen by showing EXACTLY what they were walking into on the battlefield (shot in the face with arrows, skulls being crushed by a mace) and I felt it was my honor, at 12 years old, to watch the scenes and pay these warriors respect. If those actors were willing to charge into state-of the-art sfx execution, the least I could do was watch it unfold 200-300 times.
In this movie there are many homophobic scenes condemning gay relationships.That propaganda didn’t work on me, the message I took away was that it’s not nice to marry a beautiful French princess if you’re already in love with a scrumptious curly-haired snack named Phillip.
I know Mel Gibson’s a much less honorable man than William Wallace, but as a film Braveheart is stunning. I made my roommates watch it during early covid and they couldn’t believe how much they loved it. The soundtrack will change you and the 3 hours fly by. Cancel your plans and watch it tonight.
Number 7: Coming To America
I was unaware until I started writing out this list that Barry Blaustein, the director of Beyond The Mat was also one of the screenwriters for this movie. I’m realizing Mr. Blaustein has had a profound effect on me! Thank you sir.
The message of this movie struck a deep chord with me, because Akeem didn’t want to get married out of pressure. He wanted to see the world and meet someone that he liked talking to. I grew up in a big Catholic family where all the married couples fought like crazy, chainsmoked, ruined perfect good soda by adding alcohol to it, and screamed at us kids.
“You’re going to get married and have kids just like us and it will be the happiest days of your life!”
I thought they were completely psycho for pretending that was happiness. I dreamed of finding a man who would play Mario Kart with me and let me wear Cabela’s outdoor gear on our dates. They thought that was gay.
Akeem was on my side. He had fun working at McDonalds, excuse me, McDowell’s, because no one was there to tell him that wasn’t good enough for him. Back in Zamunda he had beautiful women making sure the royal penis was clean but he wanted to fall in love with someone he could laugh with.
This movie depicts New Yorkers and New York in all its glory and warts. Something happened to my young brain where this movie, along with The Muppets Take Manhattan, Arthur and Short Circuit 2 all fused together to create this false memory that I’ve lived in New York in the 1970’s. When you’re a kid and you only get to go to your house, school and your cousin’s house, you’re desperate for information about anywhere else. If you watch a movie enough times, that becomes a place you can go too.
I’m obsessed with the Manet painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère parody in Cleo McDowell’s house. Someone, anyone, please make and sell prints of this painting!
I would love to have this, a ritz painting from Regarding Henry, and a Paul Jenkins painting from An Unmarried woman in my house, excuse me, my one bedroom apartment. I’ll put them on the wall facing the jacuzzi.
Number 8: Return to Oz
As a child, I had a hard time connecting with other kids. I was shy and would get scared if they were mean to me and kids are pretty mean. As a result I fantasized about a world that was more suited to my disposition. I could make friends with others who were strange and we would get along right away. I would watch the Pillsbury doughboy commercials and wish they were longer so I could build intimacy with Poppin Fresh. No one had to explain to me why Jessica Rabbit loved Roger, he was an outstanding man, so kind and funny. I was jealous of the m&m friend group, they were fuckin hilarious and they hung out all the time. When I first saw Return to Oz, it was like watching my childhood fantasy come to life. What kid wouldn’t want to make their couch come alive to fly around on?
Jack Pumpkinhead, Tik Tok and The Gump are practical effects puppets brought to life by a magnificent team of Artists: professional puppeteers and professional voice actors, tea drinking Brits who have as much respect for theater as Americans have for monetized YouTubers. Brian Henson (who for me is Jesus the son of God, Jim Henson) voices Jack.
I will never understand how we got to this moment in art where we have taken craft and expertise and tossed them onto the garbage pile to make room for movie stars, objectively the worst people to walk planet Earth. I’m referring to “Donald Glover as Yoshi” type decision making.
I have to mention Tim Burton straight up stealing Jack Pumpkinhead for Nightmare. I’m not even mad at it, Jack Skellington has become a star in his own right. This is why they say “great artists steal” because the most important thing for an artist is to have good taste. Tim Burton saw Jack Pumpkinhead, said “hold my clove cigarette.” Even in 2026 the pumpkin king is everywhere: car decals, loungeflys, tattoos, Love on the Spectrum.
The designs for all the characters in this movie are wonderfully fantastical. I hate how in Harry Potter they just wear like, sweatshirts and rugby polos. All the outfits in the Lord of the Rings look like boilerplate expensive renaissance fair costumes. I want to see something creative, like Scraps the patchwork girl.
This movie is as much about the chemistry of the characters together as it is about the plot, just how I like it. There’s echoes of JRPG elements here and honestly, I’d love to play an 80 hour game adaptation of this film.
It was quite cathartic to assemble this list. I feel great. This is a nice therapeutic exercise for any of you who are going through a mid life crisis, like me.
It’s extremely painful to be a child because you’re not in charge of your life and the adults caring for you are flawed human beings, clumsily grappling with their own pain. Ultimately, it’s not productive to assign blame but, let’s do it anyway. I blame the Catholic Church! You bastards pressure people into being straight and getting married and having kids asap so that there’s more and more pockets to empty when you pass that collection tray around! Fuck You!
Amazing! It took me a while to choose my top 4 because I think I was worried about being cool. I'm going to start thinking about my 5-8 and not care what people or the Catholic church have to say!