Entertainment Annually

My downFall


I love Entertainment Weekly. I’ve been a subscriber for eleven years now. Every Friday, I race to my mailbox to see what the geniuses at EW have in store for me. I read it religiously – if not cover to cover (who has time for those pesky book reviews), close to it. While every issue is special in its own way, there are certain annual special issues that I look forward to (it seems there are more and more each year, making them somewhat less special).

There’s the Spring and Holiday Preview issues, the previews of the Year to Come, the obituary issue, the Guilty Pleasures issue, the occasional seasonal Music Preview (usually in the Summer), and the It/Must List. The Power 101 List is a fun novelty every October and the two-time Pop Culture Quiz is a welcome new tradition. The Fall TV Preview can be quite helpful in scheduling my life for the next nine months as well as identifying potential new addictions. As an Oscar junkie, I eat up their quadrilogy of Academy Awards coverage: The nomination prediction issue, the nominee issue (which used to be a newsstand only, truly special edition), the odds on winner issue and the Awards wrap up issue. The Year in Review issue is a favorite – I like to try and predict who their 12 Entertainers of the Year will be, because, I have no life. The Summer Movie Preview is always fun and helps get me hyped about the blockbusters to come. But the one issue I anticipate more than all the rest is the Fall Movie Preview.

It could be that the second issue I ever read was 1993’s Fall Movie Preview (with Michelle Pfeiffer on the cover, for The Age of Innocence). I still remember studying that issue. Back before Internet movie coverage allowed me to hear about every movie in the pipeline, that magazine gave me my first notice of movies like The Good Son, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Schindler’s List and Philadelphia, all of which filled me with excitement (some turned out better than others).

Even with the all-seeing eye of the Internet, the Fall Preview still surprises me every year, as autumn release dates, unlike their summer counterparts, often sneak up on you. It’s an opportunity to get hyped up over the less hyped movies that promise more substance, and to start prognosticating in earnest the year’s Academy Awards contenders.

Anyway, today I received my glorious Fall Movie Preview double issue. I know this shouldn’t be one of the happiest days of the year, but it is, and I make no apologies. Now that I live on the West Coast, this is foliage. I’ll be back with my thoughts on this fall’s lineup as well as preliminary Oscar predictions after I’ve had a chance to bliss out and spend some quality time with my new 134 page best friend. Until then, go pick it up and enjoy.