I’m far from the first person to point out that even though we all know we’re going to die, each of us secretly believes we’ll be the one who doesn’t. It’s a fiction we have to tell ourselves to function day-to-day. Constant acknowledgment of our impending plunge into the unknown would paralyze us.

Whether it’s because people like to be contrary or because time really does heal all wounds, there have been a number of attempts in recent years to rehabilitate the reputations of some of movie history’s biggest debacles.

For better or worse, since all the theaters closed, watching new movies has sort of been like a protracted film festival. Unless you’re really plugged in, you don’t even know what’s going to be available to stream week-to-week or really what any particular movie is about, and so you just go by what major review sites might mention, or, maybe, word-of-mouth.

Kelly Reichardt is one of the few special filmmakers who can really express the wonder of our physical world. She’s become a sort of poet of the Pacific Northwest, understanding exactly how the land vibrates at a particular frequency, with its own rhythms and personality.

When you watch a lot of movies, you really start to value genuine surprise. I’m not talking about crazy twist endings, although those can be fun. I mean when you can truly say you have no idea what a movie is going to do next. It’s a rare thrill, when you can usually predict something in a movie, even if it’s just what the next shot will look like.

You may or may not realize this, but up the road just a couple of hours is an Oscar-winner: KU film professor Kevin Willmott. He won the award for co-writing BlacKkKlansman , and is almost certain to be at least nominated again this year for Da 5 Bloods .

I don’t know if it’s been this way for any of you, but sometimes it feels like I’m living the same day over and over right now. I’M JUST KIDDING, I know it’s exactly the same way for you.

Last Friday, Netflix debuted a superhero movie called The Old Guard , and I was listening to an interview with the director, Gina Prince-Bythewood, that mentioned her debut feature from the year 2000, Love & Basketball , is seen by some as sort of a watershed moment for black films and filmmakers, basically because of how it presents its characters as just people living their lives after years of movies about gangs and drugs.

Right now, HBO is in the middle of a six-part series from documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus called "I’ll Be Gone In The Dark," based on the late Michelle McNamara’s attempts to identify the Golden State Killer. I can’t review that for you, because, wouldn’t you know it, HBO forgot to send me a screener. But over the weekend I was surprised to learn that back in March a movie from Garbus debuted on Netflix that totally slipped by me, and would have served as sort of a warm-up for this new series.

There are a number of different ways to do a biopic. You’ll often see the one where the filmmakers try to encompass most of a life or career, which usually leads to hitting the same beats over and over, and generally makes for a pretty middling movie. I prefer it when they take one short period in a person’s life and use that as a sort of window into who that person was. Or—and this is my favorite—you could just totally make stuff up.