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

The 95th Academy Awards ceremony was held on Sunday, March 12 in a largely controversy-free event.

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