Hello, dear readers! This post has been long in the making, since May of this year, to be precise. That’s when I ran into my friend (and longtime reader) Christian Jungen at the Cannes Film Festival, and he enquired about the status of the newsletter, which had lain dormant since June 2022. His sincere interest in the nonsense I publish on this page was the initial spark that finally convinced me to give this space a new life, after basically putting it to sleep last year.
What happened? Well, I was fairly busy with paid freelancing work, and didn’t really have the time or inclination to update a newsletter that was free of charge (more on that later). Then a few things came to pass: some of my outlets let me go (one of them after only a couple of months, because apparently the editor hadn’t double checked what kind of pieces they were expecting from me; I’m a critic, not a gossip columnist), and in March of this year I almost died. Not a euphemism: my heart was so strained – for reasons that shall remain a mystery, after months of subsequent testing – that I was basically days, if not hours, away from kicking the bucket when I checked myself into the ER (which led to a whole week in the hospital).
I spent the summer recuperating, with work being a prime incentive to do so (by May, I was well enough to attend Cannes, although the wearable defibrillator I had to keep on my person at all times until July was an annoyance when getting past the Salle Debussy checkpoints). This also got me thinking about reviving the newsletter, especially when potential topics started piling up. So, here we are, with this post going up on a Tuesday to announce my return, while subsequent ones will go up on Fridays, with the intention of maintaining a regular schedule from here on out.
And now, the annoying part: I will start implementing a paywall for my posts. That was always part of the plan, and I hope most of you will stick around with this new feature. The current subscription plan is 7$ per month or 70 per year. There’s also a Founding Members option, where you get to choose to pay a yearly amount that is above the aforementioned 70, up to 210$ (for non-US readers, the prices are adjusted to local currency when you access Substack). This comes with additional perks: paid subscriptions give you access to the full archive and allow you to post comments on the Talking Pictures page; Founding Members also get to suggest topics for newsletter entries, should that interest them.
Why am I doing this? Because, as a freelancer, I could use an additional revenue stream, and I trust most of you are willing to stick around for my takes on movies and TV. The plan is to still have the December posts freely accessible, and to implement the paywall in January, at which point only one post per month will be free.
It’s been lovely to catch up, and see you all on Friday.