Hello everyone! To my American friends, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! 🦃🥧🍁🍽️🍗
I had a wonderful traditional turkey meal with all the trimmings courtesy of one of my besties. My hubby & I made beef stew for the first time using our slow cooker, a perfect dish for Winter as we finally got our first snow here in the Twin Cities ❄️
I had planned to post this list on Thanksgiving eve, but I ended up posting my review of HAMNET (which I highly recommend) as Focus Features has released the film in select theaters in the US. Well, why confine feelings of gratitude to just a single day? Since we’re still on Thanksgiving weekend, I thought I’d post another list of cinematic things I’m thankful for this year, similar to this list I did nearly a decade ago.
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1 ) Steven Soderbergh’s sleek, sexy spy caper Black Bag, and Cate Blanchett’s enviable wardrobe
2) Florence Pugh’s Yelena being her entertainingly spunky self in Thunderbolts.
3) The great acting ensemble of A House of Dynamite.
4) Hans Zimmer’s catchy and upbeat score for F1 matches its immersive racing experience. I was constantly tapping my feet as I watched the movie; the music truly enhanced the viewing experience.
5) The Japanese scenery in Hikari’s Rental Family makes me even more eager to visit Japan soon
6) The chance to see Ang Lee in person at an MSPIFF event and learned some tidbits about his experience filming my favorite film of all time, Sense & Sensibility.
7) Witnessing the brilliant artist/activist Ai Weiwei adapt one of Puccini’s most famous operas in Ai Weiwei’s Turandot.
8) Seeing Russell Crowe in top form once again as Hermann Goering and the riveting psychological cat-and-mouse dynamic with Rami Malek in Nuremberg.
9) Learning about Feldman Ecopark in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and the heroic animal rescues in Checkpoint Zoo.
10) Finally got to see a film by the renowned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. It Was Just An Accident is a gripping tale of reckoning with collective trauma, and that final shot is one I won’t soon forget
11) Happy to see Daniel Day-Lewis return to acting again in Anemone. Though the film isn’t perfect, it’s well worth seeing to see his performance
12) Joachim Trier‘s beautifully moving Sentimental Value and the outstanding performances of Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård
13) Love seeing the legendary nonagenarian June Squibb in another leading role in Eleanor The Great, and she hasn’t missed a beat
14) Revisiting one of my favorite classic rom-coms of all time, Roman Holiday, on the big screen, and did a Q&A afterwards in EMAGINE Theatres’ Secret Movie Night event
15) French rom-com Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, with its gorgeous scenery that has more substance beyond a woman finding the right man
16) The sensational dance number in The Life of Chuck showcases Tom Hiddleston’s killer dance move with Annalise Basso
17) Paul Thomas Anderson’s wild and funny rollercoaster ride of One Battle After Another, and the amusing rapport between Leo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro
18) Jessie Buckley’s emotionally raw performance in HAMNET.
19) Glad I braced my nerves to watch 28 Years Later as it’s stupendous! It’s a chilling horror story that brilliantly mixes gory graphic violence and surprisingly tender familial drama
20) Watching the son of Krypton fly again in James Gunn’s highly enjoyable SUPERMAN
21) The amazing one-take musical scene in Sinners that was shot in just one day, combining three distinct takes into one that gives the impression of a seamless shot. Props to director Ryan Coogler and two of his frequent collaborators, editor Michael P. Shawver and composer Ludwig Göransson.
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22) The vibrant visual style and its painterly, gothic aesthetic of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. It’s easily the most beautiful film of the year
23) Jacob Elordi’s incredible portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster, conveying his tragic beauty with a stunning physical and emotional performance.
24) Lucy Liu’s transformative performance in the heartbreaking mother-son drama, Rosemead
25) The wonderful voice cast plus the funny + sharp script of Zootopia 2 – grateful that this sequel is just as great as its predecessor. My review is coming shortly.
FLIXCHATTER FILM BLOG 
Oh, these are things to be thankful for as I am thankful for having a digital library to complement my physical film library though I am going to be unable to watch some of them because the big smart TV in my TV room went dead a few days ago. My mother is really upset about that as she watches a lot of stuff on YouTube with that TV.
Yeah I’m grateful that I have both digital and physical library too! Ah bummer about your TV. I only have one TV in my entertainment room in the basement so if that’s broken I’d have to rely on my husband’s iPad. Hope you can get it fixed soon!
What a tour of spectacular cinema to be grateful for this year!🔥🎥🥂
Thanks for checking out my list, it was fun to do!
I still can’t believe that 2025 is almost done and that this decade is almost over! 2020 still feels like it was yesterday. Lol! Damn Covid!
I’ve seen more movies this year in theaters since the pre-Covid, so I’m thankful Hollywood produced movies that I wanted to see in theaters this year. I’m also thankful that we have streaming services that can afford to make films like Frankenstein and let the director/writer have full control. While it wasn’t perfect, it was still enjoyable. And I’m thankful that streaming services are spending money on great shows like Slow Horses, Stranger Things and my new obsession show, Pluribus. I said it before and I’ll say it again, the Golden Age of TV shows never left and I’m so thankful that I get to watch these shows in the comfort of my own home.
Yeah, 2025 felt like a breeze but hey we’re getting further away from Covid time… it even felt like a lifetime ago.
I love Frankenstein, it has all of Del Toro’s brilliant magic and the cast was great. I hadn’t been fully impressed by Jacob Elordi until I saw him here.
I’m not including TV on this list, as that’d take more than 25, ahah, but yeah, I’m enjoying Pluribus as well. First time watching Vince Gilligan’s show and he’s a shrewd writer!
March of 2020 still feels like yesterday to me! I still remember I was getting ready to travel to Berlin for video shoots, then I was gonna go to Venice, London and Spain for the shoots. Then we would have ended the shoot in Hong Kong. We were planning a James Bond style video for our campaign that year and I was super excited to travel to all those locations and create a James Bond like video. If you remember, No Time To Die was coming out that spring of 2020. But of course everything went to crap once NYC got hit with Covid. So, it’s still on my mind even though it’s been almost 6 years. Lol! I’ve never been to Berlin, Italy and Hong Kong, so I super excited.
I have never seen Jacob Elordi in anything before, I think he was fine as The Creature in Frankenstein. I enjoyed the film but it’s way too long.
I highly recommend Breaking Bad and the prequel Better Call Saul if you enjoy Gilligan’s writing. He’s one of the best in the business.
Wow, Berlin, Venice, London, Spain and Hong Kong! Sounds like it would be a fun gig working on a Bond-style video. Did you already hire the crew/cast? Man, that would’ve been an ordeal to have to cancel. Well, maybe one day you still get to do that, Ted!
Nah, I don’t have time to watch older shows LOL, I just won’t bother if there are more than 2 seasons to catch up on. That’s ok, I’m enjoying Pluribus but I like variety on the shows I watch.
No, me and a few people from our marketing team were crew for the shoots. We don’t have big budget to hire external crews back then, so my plan to shoot everything gorilla style. The company that I work for creates softwares for hotels and our clients are high end hotels from all over the world. So, we got permission to shoot at a lot of fancy hotels in those cities. The last couple of years, I did have to hire external crews for international shoots because of budget cuts, they won’t send me overseas for video shoots anymore. So, I don’t think I’ll get to create that type of video until the market turns and everything is good financially for the company again.
I hear you about older and longer TV shows. The reason I was able to catch up on both Breaking Bad and Games of Throne was because I got laid off and I was able to binge watch all of the seasons while I was sitting home unemployed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have the time to see those shows either.
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Movie related…
You, Ruth and your film reviews are the main movie related things (and person) I’m grateful for!
xoxoxoxoxo
Awwww… what a lovely thing to say, Resa, thank youuuuu from the bottom of my heart for all of your support. I’m grateful to have found your amazing blogs!! I don’t subscribe to many blogs, but I do yours!
XOXOXOXO ♥ ❤ ❥ ❣ ❦ ❧
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