Cinematic Thanksgiving: What We’re Thankful For

In attempt to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that means something to Americans and absolutely nothing to just about everyone else around the world, the writers of Movie Mezzanine would like to share with you all what they’re thankful for this year.

Sam Fragoso

In about a month from now I’ll be waxing hyperbolic about my favorite movies from 2013. Until then I’ll save my appreciation for cinema itself. As for today, I’m thankful for the writers who’ve come on board and have helped create something special here. There’re over 40 authors who now contribute to this publication, and it couldn’t possibly exist without them. Aside from the staffers, I’m grateful for those who have endlessly supported Movie Mezzanine: Matt Zoller Seitz, Hank Sartin, and Chaz Ebert of RogerEbert.com, David Ehrlich of Film.com, Scott Beggs and Rob Hunter of Film School Rejects, the whole staff at The Dissolve, Eric D. Snider, James Ward, and many more writer friends who have always selflessly been there for me through the years. I couldn’t have created this site without the kindness and generosity of my peers.

Tina Hassannia

I’m thankful for friends. Intelligent, funny, likeminded people I never would have met otherwise if it weren’t for the Internet. These people are cinephiles, writers, editors, devil’s advocates, mentors, fiances (well, there’s one of him!), people who have helped me become the person/writer/cinephile that I am today. They challenge me on a daily basis, they inspire me to become a better writer. These people are located all over the world but things like Twitter and Facebook easily bridge thousands of kilometers.

I’m thankful for the Internet. I got my very first email address when I was 10, before the WWW dominated the Internet, in the era of newsgroups, gopher browsers, IRC and ASCII art, and the buzzing, crackling sound of dial-up modems. I never would have guessed that nearly two decades years later the Internet would facilitate so many possibilities for me to pursue my passion as a film critic. It’s connected me to all the friends I mentioned earlier. It’s given me multiple platforms to express my views and grow as a writer. In the late 90s and early 2000s, before sites like Movie Mezzanine could have gained the acceptance and success that they have achieved today, blogging was an incipient force—for breaking news ignored by the mainstream media, for marginalized voices and personal stories. The blogosphere helped young adults like myself figure out who they were and what they wanted to do with their lives.

Perhaps just as importantly, the Internet has given me access to films that I wouldn’t have been able to track down otherwise. As much as I love visiting video stores and buying DVDs and Blurays—activities I will always do—torrent sites and Youtube host movies that have fallen through the distribution cracks and that are now being rediscovered by new generations. This has been especially relevant for me in the realm of Iranian cinema. It’s fantastic that certain New Wave films that I read so much about in academic books, the films that never received any kind of North American home video distribution, are out there, just a download away. Thank you to the film enthusiasts who upload these hidden gems and provide translated subtitles. It’s by no means a perfect or legal system, but it’s nice that I don’t have to settle on simply reading about films once deemed immutably inaccessible. In these respects, film criticism reminds me of archeology, in that there is always something new to be discovered if you walk off the beaten canon path. I’m thankful that this is an encouraged activity, that cinephiles are ever-curious and open-minded people, and that there will always exist an audience, no matter how small, for such films to be introduced into public discourse.

Christopher Runyon

I am thankful for this year’s eclectic variety of films. Most years, there’s that one film that I watch and immediately believe is the one that can’t be topped as the best of the year (2012’s Holy Motors, 2011’s  The Tree of Life, etc.), but this year managed to have both quality and quantity. The fact that Short Term 12, Spring Breakers, The World’s End, Before Midnight, The Act of Killing, 12 Years a Slave, and the criminally underseen Beyond the Hills came out in the same year has made it incredibly difficult to organize a Top 5, let alone a full Top 10. Say what you will about the quality of this year’s blockbusters and mainstream films, but the sheer amount of great independent and foreign works more than made up for that.

Russell Hainline

I’m thankful that after a bad day, I can put Blazing Saddles in the Blu-Ray player and, by the film’s end, all of my bad feelings are gone.

Laya Maheshwari

A big part of being a cinephile is diving into the vast troves of literature on film, and to that end it’s always exciting to discover a writer you hadn’t heard of before. Earlier this year I came across the writings of Wesley Morris, so recently won the Pulitzer Prize. His articles are staggering in their scope and delightful in how they use films merely as a conduit for more wide-ranging discussions on society itself. I now make sure I don’t miss a new Morris piece under any circumstances.

Monica Castillo

As someone who survived high school as the lone film nerd in class, my top item for thanks would have to be the communities many of us have built on our shared passion of film. We can make friends who share our movie tastes in a matter of minutes thanks the Internet. And while that connectivity has also given us unprecedented access to movies from around the world, I don’t think I would have stuck around if it meant lifelong solitary confinement. We share a film language, a quirky film-centric culture, a backlog of history, and the mutual love of movies. It’s all you need for a community, a support group, or a close circle of friends to save you a seat in a sold-out screening. For no longer being the solo film nerd at lunchtime, I give thanks.

Ryan McNeil

They don’t tell you this growing up, but once you get out of school you don’t make all that many new friends. Luckily for me, my love of film has allowed me to meet so many great people who haunt the local filmgoing scene. So not only am I thankful that I – the virtual “old coot” around Mezzanine – have been able to make so many new friends as a result of my moviegoing, but also that they are friends who have great taste in film!

Brogan Morris

I’m thankful for the world of film’s constant ability to surprise me. Just when I smugly think I’ve seen everything, I find something ‘new’ – new to me, at least. I discover a director, or actor, or film movement previously unknown to me; I pull at that thread until the enormity of cinema is made apparent to me again, and I’m thrilled to be made aware that the back catalogue of cinema is even vaster than I imagined.

Only a month ago, I’d heard of a ‘Montgomery Clift’, but had only a vague notion of what a ‘Montgomery Clift’ was. I watched him in Judgement at Nuremberg. Impressed by his rawness, I followed up by watching The Young Lions. Then it was Red River, and I Confess, The Big Lift, A Place in the Sun, Terminal Station, The Search, From Here to Eternity and Wild River – great films I’d never seen before, which I’d still not have seen were it not for this obsession with cinema.

These films of Clift’s in turn sent me off in other directions – I Confess reinvigorated my quest to watch all of Hitchcock’s filmography; The Young Lions made me hunger for more Brando; and Terminal Station got me thinking about Italian Neorealism. I’ll branch out again, and again, each new film piquing my interest in something else. So, today, and every day, I’m thankful that the obsession that’s taken me has so much more to offer than I ever imagined.

Ty Landis

I am thankful for Letterboxd, MUBI, Claire Denis, James Gray, Michael Mann, Terrence Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Carlos Reygadas, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Jonathan Glazer, Harmony Korine, Michael Haneke, Wes Anderson, the Coens, Joaquin Phoenix, Greta Gerwig, and The Cinephiliacs.

Kevin Ketchum

I’m thankful for The Criterion Collection, which is not just a selection of great films from all over the world, but a group of highly skilled and dedicated curators who help not only to preserve and restore films, but also provide all the tools and resources possible to enjoy them to the fullest extent.

Noah Gittell

It’s chocolate, it’s peppermint, it’s delicious! As a child, my favorite movie candy was Junior Mints. I loved the taste, the box, and particularly the sound they made banging around inside of the box.  But when I went vegan in 2008, I had to say goodbye to Junior Mints because they contained gelatin, an animal product. It was a long five years before Tootsie Roll Industries (which produces the candy) changed the recipe to exclude gelatin. Yes, Junior Mints are now vegan, which means my moviegoing experience has dramatically improved this year. For that, I give thanks. Also, they’re kosher.

Nick Usen

I am thankful for the beautiful and strange, mythic beast known as Twitter. While many view it as a waste of time or a personal diary, Twitter has allowed me to navigate the ether and delve head first into the film criticism community. I have met, and subsequently become friends with, mentored by, and collaborated with immensely intelligent, creative, and hysterical individuals all thanks to this little app. The fact that I can open up the 50th issue of Little White Lies and be able to count many of their incredibly talented contributors is mind blowing to me – and it’s all thanks to Twitter. So on this day of giving thanks (& celebrating the systematic eradication of America’s native inhabitants) I just want to say: thank you Twitter for providing me my own little soapbox in the raging sea of the internet. (p.s. follow me @nickusen to partake in my daily ramblings!)

Tom Clift

I’m from a country where we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so I might be doing this wrong. But if there’s one thing in the world of movies that I’m thankful for this year, it would have to be this website. I’m thankful for the smart, talented, dedicated team of writers we’ve assembled, and for each and every reader that stops by. I’m also incredibly thankful to Sam, for letting me keep my name on the site as co-founder, even though I make him do 95% of the work. I’m looking forward to seeing the site continue to grow and keep producing awesome content…and maybe even getting my act together and contributing some of it myself.

Happy Thanksgiving Movie Mezzanine readers.