The 25 films selected for the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress in 2023 based on their cultural, historic, and/or aesthetic importance contain some classics including Home Alone and Apollo 13. The 25 also include films in which women profiled in Hollywood: Her Story, An Illustrated History of Women and the Movies played a key part. Let’s learn about those. Read More

The 2023 Kennedy Center Honors were bestowed earlier this month, recognizing artists who have made profound contributions to the cultural life of our nation over a lifetime of artistic achievements. In 2021, Bette Midler was one of the honorees. Queen Latifah was one of the recipients in this, the 46th year. Let’s learn more about both of these amazing women. Read More

The Lord of the Rings trilogy changed the face of tourism in New Zealand. Today, sixty percent of the tourists that come to this beautiful country have been inspired to visit New Zealand from knowing about and wanting to see the country where the movies were filmed. A thriving movie industry exists. The focus of this newsletter is on movies with New Zealand ties.Read More

One of the earliest movies ever made was titled The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was eighteen seconds long; produced in 1895 by the Edison Company, which was based in West Orange, New Jersey (the early hub of movie making in the U.S.); and Mary was played by a man. Since then, many movies have been made with ties to Scotland. We’ll learn about a few of them in this newsletter. Read More

It happened again in 2023 – a U.S. feature film directed by a woman reached one billion dollars in box office sales. That film was Barbie and its director was Greta Gerwig. Read More

Both Jill and Barbara have undertaken international travel during 2023. One of those countries was Italy. This month’s newsletter features movies set in Italy or where Italy plays an important role.

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Honorary Oscars are customarily given during the fall before the Academy Awards ceremony. The awardees for 2024 have been announced. They are actress Angela Bassett, editor Carol Littleton, and director Mel Brooks. Michelle Satter will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

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It is June. The kids are out of school and summer is upon us. For this month’s newsletter, we focus on some movies where summer is used as a plot device.Read More

Each year in May, the U.S. celebrates Mother’s Day. Thus, we decided in this month’s newsletter to feature some iconic movies where motherhood was fundamental to the story.Read More

EGOT, an acronym for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards, is the designation given to people who have won all four of the major American art awards. To date, only eighteen people have achieved EGOT status.Read More