I am so excited to be here. I won’t pick apart how I got here but I’ll say three words and then you’ll get it: birthday, pandemic, lackadaisical. If you head over the About page for this Substack (which to be honest, I still don’t totally understand how to navigate to) you’ll see a shorter version of what I am about to tell you.
What is The 90-Minute Movie?
Let’s rewind a moment. (I hope you’re ready for a few well-placed Dad jokes.) It’s 2001, I have my first Hotmail address which was one of the following: purpleldybgs@hotmail.com, purplecow745@hotmail.com, or pinkmirage19@hotmail.com. I actually think PinkMirage19 was my AOL SN (can anyone from high school confirm in the comments please?!)
So, I had my new email address and it was the summer between 7th and 8th grade and I was wildly bored. We lived in a rural area and I couldn’t drive… BUT I now had the internet. A whole world out there. And I chose to do a couple of things.
Play Neopets.
And start a movie newsletter that I sent out weekly to all of my friends and family. If I had your email address, you were getting the newsletter. Sort of like now — if you followed my blog Cheap Courage, you’ve been auto-enrolled here. Unlike now—you can just unsubscribe. But in the days of Hotmail, I just pressed send and all my friends would have a piece of my writing.
I spent hours writing up my reviews and formatting the emails. I instituted a star-rating system. And I was honest. I remember in particular two bad reviews I wrote—I remember because writing a bad review felt really gutsy—about Drowning Mona and the Whole Nine Yards. I was not a Matthew Perry fan at 13 which is sort of shocking when you think of it. Anyway…
Let’s get going
With the memory of my movie newsletter locked in my heart and a desire to start a new project buzzing through my head, I started The 90-Minute Movie. A celebration of movies (new and old) that don’t waste our time. They get in, they get out, we all have a great time. You can expect conversations about scripts, casting choices, plot details. I may throw in some box office details and movie history in there too. Just like a quick movie, this is all for fun.
I hope you stick around because my first official post—about Weekend at Bernie’s—is coming soon.
Very happy to hear this is your first choice! Go Bernie!!