Dear Diary: Highlight Reels, Spreadsheets, & Letterboxd

On Cleveland and the community of movie-lovers.

Before we get Cinemantics too far off the ground, I thought it would be good to introduce ourselves. I’m Daniel Mitchell, one of the main contributors and voices of our little corner of the movie discussion. Thank you for subscribing and reading about our love for movies. 

That’s the whole reason we started this. 

Fellow cinephiles, welcome to the conversation. 

A little more about me and my love for movies. Memories are etched in our heart as we grow and look back on the things that made us. Growing up, my first love was baseball. 

I grew up in Cleveland and read the Plain Dealer sports page every day and watched as much Sportscenter as I could. The suspense of the Top 10 Plays was a must watch, and each play felt more exciting than the last. 

This was a similar feeling as I watched AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies television special in 1998. Except on this night, instead of 10 plays there were 100 movies. 

I was transported to lands far, far away. Arabia. Austria. Hollywood. Oz. While I had seen some of these movies already, there were far more that I had not heard of, let alone seen. I was hooked. Hooked at the countdown, at the list and the quantity, but most importantly, hooked on movies. 

To be fair, I always liked movies. Family movie night was a tradition, as was going to the movie theatre for a special occasion. But this felt different, like a whole new world was opened to me.  

I started writing lists of movies I wanted to see on notepads. That turned into notes on my phone. And now I track my watchlist (and many other lists) on Letterboxd. While we are not sponsored by Letterboxd, I endorse it wholeheartedly. If you don’t have that app, you really should get it.) I wish I could have shared Letterboxd with my grandfather while he was alive. 

My mom’s dad, Clifford, kept a diary for most of his life. In his teenage years of the late 1920s and early 1930s, there are many entries of seeing a double feature on the same day. 

I particularly like the notes with terse one-line comments about a movie being funny or “I enjoyed this one.” Man, he would have loved Letterboxd. 

In some introspective moments, I think of the movies he might have enjoyed throughout his life. I still have decades worth of diaries to find out. I didn’t have long with my grandfather, but in a way, now I have an opportunity to reconnect with him and get to know him better. 

I think of him when I go to the movies, what kinds of movies he liked as a kid, or what actresses he fancied. His father worked on the railroad traveling several nights a week, so Cliff went to movies by himself often. 

While I love going to a movie by myself, seeing a movie in a full theatre can be as exhilarating as going to a sporting event. Opening night of a blockbuster with a buzzing, alive audience - nothing beats that. 

It’s community, it’s intentional, it’s entertainment. It’s something that parents pass on to their children, and it’s something that I get to pass on to my sons. 

One last thing about me - I’m a list completionist. That no doubt stems from that first AFI special. My favorite thing about being a list completionist is the doors I’ve opened for myself that I otherwise might have ignored. A little judging of a book by its cover, so to speak. 

I also have a movie spreadsheet full of movies to watch, cross referenced across other lists, critics’ favorite movies, and award winning films. Those top movies still on my watchlist feel more special, because I know the legacy and history many of them carry. 

Stay tuned for next week when we discuss the movies that formed us. Thanks again for reading.

“I think this is a beginning of a beautiful friendship.”