111. The Week in Me
What I’ve watched.
I abandoned my plans to make this week’s issue another MySpace survey, with new questions, because the questions did not spark funny asides or deep inventory of my heart. But I did like this one, so I’m leaving it here.
167. Did you ever find something valuable on the ground?
My dignity. I left it there. My purse was full.
Onto the movies I’ve watched recently:
Woman of the Hour, (dir. Anna Kendrick, 2024)
Netflix
As someone who had a longtime crush on him possibly because when he once hugged me he was able to BEND IN HALF OVER MY HEAD, the PETE HOLMES JUMPSCARE in this movie set me up to be unsettled from minute…three?
Reading this Guardian interview about her directorial vision for the film and ongoing abuse trauma (thanks to
for sharing), Anna Kendrick and I are to be best friends. I have decided it.Dishonored Lady, (dir. Robert Stevenson, 1947)
Tubi
I am ashamed to admit that despite my singer-songwriter name being SWEATY LAMARR, I had never seen a Hedy Lamarr movie. I watched this and Algiers (snoozefest) and Hedy was radiant. The woman was made for fashion. A chintzy glitter-threaded turtleneck with a medallion Flavor Flav wouldn’t turn down, a dramatic hat or twelve. Her character possesses depth and the ability, aided by therapy, to look at it in its face, far less beautiful than her's.
Gone in the Night (dir. Eli Horowitz, 2022)
Hulu
This movie came across as Winona doing a favor for a relative trying to become a screenwriter (I thought maybe it was her brother or cousin, given that her real last name is Horowitz but no - no relation) based purely off of the Lifetime movie-quality cinematography and the exact starritude of Dermot Mulroney and John Gallagher Jr. coupled with…the kid Kathryn Hahn fucks in Mrs. Fletcher. What I had expect to write off as low-budget, easy-to-produce horror schlock turned out to be an unexpected, only gently sci-fi thriller where the science, or promise of, spun curiosity into actionable evil. Perfect for an October day spent working remotely. Dermot Mulroney is still hot.
Clock, (dir. Alexis Jacknow, 2023)
Hulu
Speaking of the promise of science spinning curiosity into actionable evil!! Holy shit. A Twilight Zone episode, minus Daddy Rod Serling and plus Mommi Melora Hardin, about the pressures upon women to submit to the physical toll of pregnancy and society’s forced ideal of contentedness for women. An allegory of the pains of postpartum depression and the agonies of infertility, if you want to read it that way. A shockingly personal excavation of generational trauma - not since Transparent season 2 have I seen Jewish inherited Holocaust trauma so unapologetically soldered to a protagonist’s story. This legacy not only informs our main character and her family relationships, but breathes as its own meditation within the movie and is used to further the plot in two separate moments, in ways that are shocking but did not feel offensive given that Dianna Agron, the love of my gay life oh my god she is so beautiful and that voice I could have a full princess shower in it, is Jewish as well as director Alexis Jacknow and Saul Rubinek (Donny from Frasier), who plays Ella’s father and “was born in Föhrenwald, a displaced-persons camp in Allied-occupied Germany, in 1948. His parents, Frania and Israel Rubinek, were both Yiddish-speaking Polish Jews who were hidden by Polish farmers for over two years during World War II.” The personal is political in this movie, as Ella’s upbringing being educated about the persecution of her family suckles at her understanding of why anyone would wish to bring children into this cruel world. A riveting, relatable, and existentially scary film with a modern message.
Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara (dir. Erin Lee Carr, 2024)
Hulu
I don’t love that the name they picked to conceal the identity of the person they suspect has been conducting an elaborate identity hoax is the same as mine!!! #NotAllTaras!!! This documentary details one (or…more?) fan of the queer sister group Tegan and Sara, who hacks into the emails and file drives of Tegan Quin and pretends to be her to unwitting fans online, luring them into emotional, sexual, and parasocial relationships that cause humiliation, rage, and isolation from the fandom that caused them to be targeted. A relevant October stream since the catfisher is still at large.
What’s Love Got to Do with It (dir. Brian Gibson, 1993)
Hulu
Angela Bassett DID THE THING. I don’t know how she didn’t win the Oscar1 for the “36 cents” scene alone, because that is the kind of moment the voters will gobble up, but her physicality is what’s most worthy. Her sculpted arms, her otherwordly channeling of Laurence Fishburne’s Ike, her palette expansion to mimic Tina’s potent wails and big belts, her evolution from a gentle shoulder shimmy to the iconic staccato spins we’ve been waiting for before they finally arrive as Tina, no longer Anna Mae in name but sadly in shattered spirit, hits her singing stride. High trigger warning for the physical abuse and the suicide attempt and the fish tank rape. This movie is not for the traumatized. It is shocking and violent.
I thought Wikipedia’s “historical accuracy” tab for the film was worth a view.
The Disappearance of Shere Hite (dir. Nicole Newnham, 2023)
This woman was a SCANDAL and I had never heard of her - more surprisingly, my parents didn’t recall her despite her being this media sensation. Shere Hite was a sexologist in the vein of Masters and Johnson, but her women-lenses approach led to this ravenous outcry from men who wanted to evade accountability and challenge her research. A really complex woman who did important work, and we should take the time to learn her story and be grateful. I ordered her book The Hite Report and look forward to reading it.
I watched Gone in 60 Seconds and have nothing to say about it except that I screamed out loud as in a Super Bowl situation when I saw this title card.
Before we move to the recs, I’d like to promote my friend Charlie’s photography work. Hire them!
To read:
Bowties and Betrayals: The Love is Blind Finale
I feel that Netflix’s Love is Blind is a thesis on how some people are simply not compatible, and gives us the opportunity to understand why they (and we) power through icks, lies of omission, clear fundamental misalignments on texting etiquette, and outright dastardly deeds to preserve what physical chemistry, shared religious values, abundant laughter…
“This is the hill House (?) Speaker (??) Mike Johnson is dying on, in exchange for keeping the government open, and Thom Hartmann’s been banging the drum about it. They are trying to disenfranchise basically every married woman who ever changed her name and doesn’t have the original of every document for every name change she’s ever had. My mom — you know her! — would absolutely be disenfranchised. So would an estimated 21 million people. (The New Republic) The National Organization for Women estimated a decade ago, when Republicans were trying to do the same thing, it would affect a full one-third of all American women. (NOW)
AND:
And hey nanny ding dong, there are now more people in Texas working in renewable energy than in oil and gas! (
via the Fucking News)” - two recent shares from“Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI”
As I described when I sent this to Kelsey, a very “chewy” essay on internet aestheticism by
:
Speaking of Kelsey, this is my FRIEND and she loves JEANS. Kelsey Legg’s denim roundup for Good Morning America.
An older piece I wrote for Julie’s excellent blog
. Submit your own anonymous breakup story to her! It’s a great project and has personally extended me some healing.
And
:
And Heather Akumiah for
:
To watch:
I laughed real hard and missed my ex-husband real bad.
This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi:
He’s such a special little boy.
Actually my babies:
Various and sundry:
My dumb bitch bestie. Also because I promised him I’d do this in return for getting to share this video, go listen to his music.
I remember sending this to my ex Ed while we were dating, and that was EIGHT YEARS AGO. This queen is being given the legacied internet glory she deserves!!
My mother is the Detrol LA “gotta go gotta go gotta go right now” jingle in a person, so I had to warn her that this would make her pee. It did.
I hope your dream comes true.
Love you bitches,
TG
If you’re going to give Holly Hunter an Oscar, do it for Little Black Book, damn.
<3 you!!
100% convinced me to watch Clock and the Tegan and Sara doc. Becoming pregnant is one of my top fears so this is an apt horror movie. It's also fucking wild to me that all these years while I was listening to Tegan and Sara's music this shit was going on.