Update for New Subscribers

So what the hell is this website/newsletter anyway? Well, here's your hat-wearing librarian/musician/podcaster/writer here with an update. So, in the midst of a lot going on this year, new movie reviews may go by the wayside outside of a few outliers. I do plan to see Project Hail Mary and that creepy Backrooms horror film for sure, but I am focusing on a lot of other projects - a wedding, my memoir, updating the website for the upcoming Chicago Critics Film Festival and creating a full archive of the podcast here on the website to where this will be the home for everything from now on with no more platform changes of any kind. I’m also trying to read more as inspiration for my own writing - the goal since I was about seven years old was to be a published writer and now that it’s happened, I’d like to keep pursuing that avenue. Not to mention book clubs occupy some time too!

Outside of Bluesky, Letterboxd and Discord, I’ll also be leaving social media for the most part as well. I wish I liked places like Substack and Patreon the way many other creative artists have embraced but I struggled with both. Substack, mainly for reasons that I already wrote about though I understand why it’s the main platform of choice. Really, I just want this personal site to be my homebase so when I put out a new song, video, podcast, or a collection of photos, you can get them all in your email via newsletter or leave comments here and here only.

Keeping up with a lot of different sites and places has become challenging and even detrimental to being able to focus. We live in a time when having multiple tabs open is the norm, but ideally, I’d like to post only on my website, log films on Letterboxd and interact only on BlueSky & Discord. Here’s what you can expect as a subscriber to my website though most of you already know this. Posts will be starting weekly as of April 1st and will be a combination of new content such as:

Cover Songs (either in video or audio form)

Film Screenings (most of them at Rogers Park Library)

New Original Music Recordings (under my name Jim Laczkowski)

Photo Collections (carrying on a family tradition of grandpa and dad taking photos since I'll be leaving Instagram and Facebook soon)

Podcasts (monthly episodes of Director’s Club & B-Side Me)

Videos / Short Films (adding those to the film page here soon)

Writing / Essays (film reviews, thoughts - the blog stuff)

If you feel like contributing some funds (like many did on Substack), go to the front home page, click on subscribe and this image below should pop up. Obviously, I’m happy to do this for free, but if folks would love to support my work, I’d appreciate it (or you can always send a general donation via PayPal too). So that’s it for now. My plan is to have a weekly writing session on a day off from my day job as a habit, like exercise, since the goal is to post at least once a week, along with podcasts twice a month (one for Director’s Club, one for B-Side Me). Full, complete archive of each episode coming soon (thanks Al for the reminder).

Also, as a final sidenote, I was recently a part of one of my very favorite podcasts on the planet, Screen Drafts, and I was pretty nervous doing trivia and reading the rules. Give the first 45 minutes a listen to hear yours truly but stay for the draft itself which gets pretty wild right from the start. It was an honor to be on this show and initiate a draft of one of my favorite actresses Holly Hunter; I really would love if you listened to the episode linked below and supported all-things Screen Drafts. Thank you friends, fans and subscribers for inspiring me to keep going. I know there have been a lot of changes over the years, from the podcast format to where I host all my work, but I am here to stay for a lot of reasons so share the love, subscribe and get excited for what's to come!

Screen Drafts: https://tinyurl.com/hunterdraft

More videos like these to come too!