French Toast Sunday is made up of a collection of fantastic podcasters and writers from all across the globe. We are proud of the FTS community and would love for our readers to take a moment to get to know us a little better. Every month, we will highlight a new contributor with a brief questionnaire that will hopefully shine some light into the life of an FTSer. This month, we take a look into the world of Jay Cluitt.

MEET JAY

Name: Jay Cluitt
Age: 28
FTS Member Since: August 2013
Twitter: @LifeVsFilm

Q&A

Are you a morning person or a night owl?
I burn the candle at both ends too often (sometimes I feel I should just burn it in the middle to save time) so I’m kind of both. I always get up early, usually stay up late, and never really got the hang of napping. I’m tired all the time, is what I’m basically saying. It’s a safe bet that I’m yawning as you read this.

Are you a planner? Or are you spontaneous?
I’m an over-planner, in that I write more lists and set more deadlines than I could feasibly stick to. Bear in mind that my USA Road Trip series was supposed to be one movie a week for a year, and it’s now almost 2 years in and I’m barely over halfway through. I have good intentions, but lack follow-through. I’m rarely spontaneous, because I’m a natural worrier and only ever think of what will go wrong if proper plans aren’t put in place. Maybe if I was more spontaneous I’d worry less. I’ll plan some time in my schedule to think about that.

What motivates you?
People yelling at me to get stuff done. I hate disappointing people, so for me to do anything, I need someone else to be depending on it getting done. Hence why I get so behind on stuff on my own site, because the only person that’s for is me.

What’s your favorite:
food? You can’t beat a decent pub cheeseburger.
color? Teal. The old Microsoft standard desktop wallpaper teal.
holiday? Probably Easter, because we get a 4-day weekend here in the UK, but with less implied pressure to spend it with family than you get at Christmas, so this is time where I can actually get stuff done. I don’t even do anything Easter-y over this period (too old for eggs, too young for cards), it’s just a 4-day weekend, and that’s all I need.

It’s 8:00pm on a Friday night, what are you doing?
Probably sat on the sofa with my partner, watching a movie after having eaten dinner on said sofa, with the wreckage of plates around us. She is probably knitting or crafting in some way. I’m thinking about all the posts I need to write, but am watching another film to add to the list of pending reviews instead. Chances are we won’t move for the next three to five hours, other than to possibly change DVDs, grab a drink or make some popcorn. Sometimes I might be writing something. On particularly hectic weeks I’ll still be editing the previous week’s Lambcast episode. It’s not the coolect or most exciting of existences, but it’ll do.

Do you have any cool skills? Any skills you wish you had?
It’s definitely not a “cool” skill, but I did a lot of origami as a kid, and still do when the mood strikes. I lived in London for a year, and found myself making a folded paper pig out of a Tube Map on every train I got (the 2:1 paper ratio is perfect for the pig). If you found one in 2008/09, probably on the Jubilee line, you’re welcome. I can literally make them with my eyes shut (I have done this), I just wish it was useful for something other than fighting boredom. I also bake a fair amount, and occasionally dabble in confectionery, specializing in fudge and chocolates. More recently I’ve tried marshmallows, with mixed results. Skills I’d like to have include juggling, listening, stopping time and exercising for more than 15 minutes without producing enough sweat to swim in.

Do you have a pet? If so, what type of animal is it, and what’s its name?
We have two mini lop bunnies by the names of Goldie and Copper. They are the fluffy, adorable banes of my existence, especially when they make it into the house, where they will eat through my speaker wires and hide behind the washing machine for hours (I didn’t even know there was a route back there). I lost the battle with my partner to name them something movie related (they’re mother and son, so I wanted to call them Marty and Lorraine, especially because she keeps humping him to show dominance) but alas we’re stuck with the names they were given at the rescue place. Oh, and we’ve got a puppy. Murphy is our labradoodle, although his full name is Malakili Urak-hai Rowlf Patroni Hodor Yoda Cluitt-Green. He likes long walks on the beach, licking my toes and terrifying the bunnies. He hates the new opening title song to True Detective.

When and Why did you start blogging?
When you were at school, was there a kid who really enjoyed homework? The answer is probably yes, even if you can’t remember them, because they made so little impact on your existence that you don’t remember them, and you shouldn’t. That kid was me. When I finished university, I suddenly found myself with a job during the week, and nothing to do on most evenings and weekends. I missed the homework, having something specific that needed doing every night. I’d watch movies, sure, but even that gets a little boring after a while when you’d only do it alone. Then I found my partner, and she suggested writing a blog. My first couple of posts are nothing special – a discussion on why Point Break is actually terrible, an unsurprisingly negative review of Sex and the City 2 (in which the biggest problem is that the oh-so-relatable women might have to fly in coach), but then for Christmas I received the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, and everything changed forever. That became the focus of my own site, through which I joined the LAMB, and on a Get To Know Your Lambcasters podcast episode I met Lindsay. We got on well (I was already an avid fan of FTS and the FTS podcast), and a little later on I joined FTS. I should probably thank her for that some time.

What is your favorite genre of film? Least favorite?
Considering I’m a very law-abiding citizen, it’s a little odd how much I love prison escape movies. The Great Escape is in my top 3 movies of all time, and I’ve yet to find a prison escape film I didn’t like. I even stuck with Prison Break until the 4th season, when it started to get too silly. Last year we had at least five prison breaks in films (X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Guardians of the Galaxy and two in Muppets Most Wanted) so that was a particularly bumper year for me. As for least favourite, I’ll go with arthouse movies, specifically ones who seem to think a plot is optional. I despise the work of Luis Buñuel, and have seen far more of his films than I’d have liked.

Is there a particular actor who you would see in a movie regardless of what the film is?
There’s a few actors who I’ll see in pretty much anything, until they really need the money and do some horrific torture porn stuff. These include: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (I call him Joggle), Michael Shannon, Simon Pegg, Bill Nighy and Steve McQueen. For some reason I’ve got a project on my own site where I’m watching all of Kate Winslet’s movies, so I guess I’ll watch anything she is in too. Even Labor Day, once, but never again.

Do you refuse to watch any movie from a certain actor or director because of their behavior in their personal life?
Nope, mainly because I don’t pay a lot of attention to that kind of thing. I’ll happily watch a movie by the likes of Woody Allen or Roman Polanski< and not give a second thought to whatever they may be doing outside of the movie. Who is your favorite director?
Edgar Wright. He is the only director to consistently make me laugh, is endlessly inventive, and always assembles casts full of actors I love. I’ll also see anything by the Coen brothers, David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino or Steven Spielberg. Rian Johnson is an up-and-comer approaching that category too.

Best decade for film?
Tricky one. I’d say the decade containing more of my favourite movies is probably the 90s. Obviously you’ve got Jurassic Park in ’93, so that’s a given, but there’s also two of the greatest years in movies, 1994 and 1999, with the likes of Forrest Gump, Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, American Beauty, Fight Club, The Matrix and Magnolia being split across the two years. It’s also the decade that brought us Pixar, so there’s that. And Con Air.

Any future blogging goals?
Finishing the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list is an obvious one that looks more difficult every day. I’m currently about a third of the way through. My original plan was to finish that list, as well as a few others, within the span of five years, posting on average three reviews every four days, but predictably this hasn’t mapped out very well, seeing as we’ve just entered the fifth year of my project. I know I’ll get there one day, I just hope I’m still blogging when I do, or even that blogging is still a thing, and we’re not just transmitting thought-insults at one another through whatever has replaced whatever will replace Twitter. I’d also love to meet up with the rest of the FTS crew. I’ve made some great friends through this site, and I’d like to test that friendship by seeing if it can survive a face-to-face confrontation, which we’ll see later this year, when a bunch of them will be sleeping in my guest room.