Firstly, if you’re here on your high school Online Society immersion trip, or if you’ve suddenly come to in a baggy pinstripe suit, walking through the Financial District of NYC with your black leather briefcase, dragging your stylus across this post on your PDA, and you look up and see…? the Twin Towers? uh oh… let me kindly direct you to the About page…
Last weekend was an opening reception for the show I’m currently in with an array of fabulous, brilliant, talented queer artists (called “some assembly required”—check it out if you’re in Boston or nearby!), and it was the first capital-e Event I’ve been to in almost a year and a half. All of us, in our mingling, had similar comments to make about social fatigue and conversational unease, but nonetheless managed to praise each other’s work and get to know the other members of our community—which, we lamented, in this town seems so fragmented and provincial, in part perhaps due to there being arguably one central queer (loosely-used) hub. And this node at which queerness ought to feed itself with differentness is instead mostly cannibalized by a certain homogenized brand of self-presentation, or at least an aspirational aesthetic bolstered by lifestyle choices, innate privilege, and materiality. In any case, in the re-opening phase, don’t expect to see me returning there with any urgency.
I wonder, in the wake of (re)connecting after so long in isolation of different scales, and in the process of seeing kinesis reappear in our atrophied socialization, if communities might coalesce at new nexuses, or at least different ones. Will we return to one another with newfound intent, haste, or urgency, or have we found that we can manage just as well with only periodic extensions beyond our bubbles? Surely sociologists have a demanding few decades lined up for them. Still, best of luck to all hopeful collegians who intend to tell their parent’s they want to major in sociology.
Stardust
dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2007
This might be the motion picture I’ve seen the most times, ever since I bought it from a discount DVD bin in maybe 2008, and that should be celebrated. Sometimes objects become vessels of comfort independent of their form or content, and this fantasy adventure film is one of those for me.
A famously straight actor is allowed to gay it up (“très you”) here and only here in a supporting-character demi-arc that makes the cripplingly hetero emotional intelligence imbalance of the leads somehow more bearable. This is my generation’s The Princess Bride.
A Star is Born
dir. Bradley Cooper, 2018
I was overdoing my running in the fall of 2018 so my foot was hurting when I went alone to see this on a Sunday evening at an AMC—I got there early enough to get myself an end seat in what then became the fullest showroom I’ve ever been in.
Did this film rewrite or even alter any of my perceptions about anything? No, silly. Everyone who was impressed by Lady Gaga’s star-power/acting chops has never seen one of her music videos. You think Ryan Murphy, otherwise the king of gay vapidity, brought her on to AHS in without doing his research? Please.
Star Trek & Star Trek Into Darkness
dir. J.J. Abrams, 2009; 2013
I love J.J. Abrams in a way that was once admiring and is now nostalgic. I didn’t know or care about Star Trek before the remake, and then still didn’t really have much to say one way or another until I made a video piece during my sophomore year about empathy, apathy, and hierarchy filtered through footage from the original series and also the Milgram experiment. I now, from the vantage of my ripened life, see how Star Trek can rival Star Wars, and would maybe surpass it if it weren’t so imperialist and/or committed to the military-industrial complex (Trekkies, please educate me if you feel I need to be educated).
Star Wars
dir. George Lucas, 1977; 1980; 1983; 1999; 2002; 2005; dir. J.J. Abrams, 2015; dir. Rian Johnson, 2017
I have a memory of my dad explaining to me the chronology of the Star Wars films in what I believe to have been a hospital waiting room while someone (perhaps my great grandmother) was ill. To still be new to Roman numerals and then be told that VI precedes I is not something you swallow without any resistance. I had, at that point, perhaps only seen Episode I, and I was swept up, even enamored, and would draw pictures of the characters with chunky, odorous markers in school for others and myself to enjoy. I never quite became obsessed with the franchise, but I did fervently consume much of the outpourings as if I might otherwise miss out on a world that turns without me, which allows me to at least keep up with those who have a lot more to say about it than I ever have or will.
Staying Vertical
dir. Alain Guiraudie, 2016
If there is an allegorical wolf, I will cry! (see Happy as Lazzaro.) Even if there is an agonizingly long sex/death scene that makes you question the moral center of the piece as a whole, I will cry at the wolf part.
Step Brothers
dir. Adam McKay, 2008
I’m willing to agree that this is funny but not in any way that has sustained me as a person. It remains a cultural touchstone for a culture that permeates a lot of demographic groups to which I don’t necessarily feel I belong, but nonetheless this movie is a force of union for us (not me, but others).
Step Up
dir. Anne Fletcher, 2006
Watched this with my family while vacationing in Cape Cod, and I was viscerally impacted by the shooting scene. I remember the dances being good, but is this not D.C. Comics High School Musical?
Steve Jobs
dir. Danny Boyle, 2015
Not even sure I watched all of this, but definitely started a poor 720p rip online when I was intent on viewing as many Oscar-nominated films as possible.
Stick It
dir. Jessica Bendinger, 2006
One of my dear friend’s favorites, and because I had never seen it, we watched it while eating Dominos after a night out. This movie is gay.
Still Alice
dirs. Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland, 2014
Every time I forget a word I think it might be time to go stare at the ocean.
Stoker
dir. Park Chan-wook, 2013
Watched this alone in my house in 2013/14 and decided it was the best film I’d ever seen. I then received an invitation to watch The Wolverine at my relatives’ house, so I drove there still icily fired up by this psychological drama. Among other concerns like if there will be a world left to inhabit in one hundred years, I worry that this film is not good.
The Stories We Tell
dir. Sarah Polley, 2012
Thinking about how I say “huge if true,” and if it’s part of why I liked this film. Watching this informed a few choices for my thesis and made me have this brilliant new idea that sometimes the medium can be the message.
Stormbreaker
dir. Geoffrey Sax, 2006
My family and I were visiting cousins in London and I was told we could rent this movie (not yet released in the US?) for later while we were presently wandering through the Holocaust Exhibition in the Imperial War Museum—no questions, please. I started reading the books the year before and was naturally into the idea of teen spydom. Even with my adolescent fan gaze, I didn’t think the movie adaptation was anything we should do again.
Straight Outta Compton
dir. F. Gary Gray, 2015
Saw this in theaters with my friends who liked the music of N.W.A. When did it become prevalent among straight middle-class white men to identify with rap music, I wonder, a genre that very much pushes back against the hegemonies that those listeners uphold. Something about it feels compulsory, but I can’t say what motivates it. I’m sure there are essays.
The Strange Little Cat
dir. Ramon Zürcher, 2013
This was part of the program at the Flaherty when I attended and it, with all its bright European interiors and family dynamics, was one of my favorite things I saw there. I remember next to nothing about it now, while others have proven to be more embedded, but such is life.
Stranger by the Lake
dir. Alain Guiraudie, 2013
No allegorical wolves in this one, but sex is still starring opposite death—my nomination for the MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss. There was something so sinisterly mundane about this film with all its eroticism, like sex while depressed. Pierre Deladonchamps might be edging out Félix Maritaud (stop.) with this one.
Stranger Than Fiction
dir. Marc Forster, 2006
Was roped into watching this with my family by Maggie Gyllenhaal with a half-sleeve in assorted shoulder-bearing tops.
Stronger
dir. David Gordon Green, 2017
My mom wanted to watch this, and I consented because of casting reasons. I have lived in Boston for three years now and am still waiting to be strong.
Stuart Little & Stuart Little 2
dir. Rob Minkoff, 1999; 2002
What is there to say about this that hasn’t already been written in film theory textbook after film theory textbook? I remember finding out this was an adaptation, and that is how I lost faith in originality, innovation, and creativity. I only know I’ve seen the sequel because I remember the (hot?) bird. I wonder if it worked out between her and Stew.
Stuber
dir. Michael Dowse, 2019
Was writing something for school while my family started this, and joined them about thirty minutes in. Laughed.
Stuck in the Suburbs
dir. Savage Steve Holland, 2004
The only reason Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You” means anything to me. Might have owned the soundtrack?
Sucker Punch
dir. Zack Snyder, 2011
Every part of me wants to hate this and yet I remember it with such fondness from when I watched it on TV one night. Is it mostly visual nonsense with a gelatinous spine written and directed by men who wanted to unpack trauma through the body of a woman? Yeah, dude, and explosions!
Suicide Squad
dir. David Ayer, 2016
I saw this in theaters with my dad (why?) and we left wondering: why?
Summer Hours
dir. Olivier Assayas, 2008
My mom and I troubleshooted (troubleshot?) an HDMI issue in order to watch this. It’s funny to think someone could look at Juliette Binoche and just see a woman.
Sun Don’t Shine
dir. Amy Seimetz, 2012
A masterpiece of understating and a character study that makes you almost ashamed to be conspiring in the observation. I first watched this while on duty at my undergrad job, and then watched it again a few months ago—or maybe it was almost a year ago. This film bites and lingers and is sticky hot.
Sunrise
dir. F. W. Murnau, 1927
I wrote my first film criticism paper on this, and got a B+, which was not a grade I was used to getting. In hindsight, it was not a great paper with not great arguments. I remember very little about this film other than a trolley and a fountain.
Super 8
dir. J.J. Abrams, 2011
Difficult to say if I knew who J.J. Abrams was when I watched this with my family, but since I was a fan of Fringe and had seen a few episodes of Lost, I probably I did. Has the power gone to his head? He wrote a book and I never read it.
Superbad
dir. Greg Mottola, 2007
It felt, at one point in my life, as if I were incapable of leveling up into some fuller form until I saw this. To be honest, it did nothing for me, and I don’t remember any of it, although I won’t devalue its generational import here. I’m happy we have these things to unite us, kind of like Shakespeare for sixteenth century Anglos and fire for the Homo erectus population.
Superman Returns
dir. Bryan Singer, 2006
Superman is an immigrant!
Supernova
dir. Harry Macqueen, 2020
Stanley Tucci looking good as ever in this, I will say, right and tight. I knew what every scene and every line would be before actually hitting play but still, I enjoyed it, even though I wanted it to speak at least one new thing. I might have forgotten about this film after 5-7 business days, but I haven’t forgotten about how love is always going to be like a game of Battleship that you’re trying to lose.
Super Size Me
dir. Morgan Spurlock, 2004
I watched this in high school, but I don’t remember which class. Tempted to go out on a limb and call this performance art.
Surf’s Up
dirs. Chris Buck, Ash Brannon, 2007
Not quite Happy Feet and not quite Lilo & Stitch, although what else can I say about it when I can’t recall a single scene?
Surrogates
dir. Jonathan Mostow, 2009
The plot of this has been interred somewhere within the copious amounts of sci-fi/action-thriller data that my brain has sorted into a junk folder and buried in the hard drive of my existence. What I do remember is the fascinating (terrifying? sad?) prospect that someday soon, many of us might elect, given discrepancies in privilege, to outsource our corporeality to a smart automaton that we can control from the proprioceptive comfort of our own bedrooms.
In a pre-post-pandemic world where many of us are emerging having had to, by necessity and troublesome variations in degrees of social accountability, find normalcy in living solely through technological interfaces, the idea that anyone would continue to shirk the microcosms of risk that constitute spending a moment outdoors (“she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day,” etc.) feels far-fetched to me. If I might be so bold as to offer an inchoate argument on this platform that has otherwise consisted of nothing but consideration and tact, I would say that one of joys of life is always being just a little, tiny bit in danger.
PLEASE share your own experiences with any of this week’s films in a comment—I’ll include my favorite in next week’s email for my millions of beautiful fans* to enjoy.
*Data pending
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