I've Seen Parts #37

Suspiria - Thou Wast Mild and Lovely

Jun 25, 2021

Firstly, if you’re here because this was linked in a Wikipedia entry for the word “luxury,” or if you’ve suddenly come to in line for a Lauv concert and all the Gen Zers in line around you are reading this on their pastel-colored iPhones, let me kindly direct you (to direct them) to the About page.

With videos ranging from “How many ways can circles overlap?” to “Yorkie puppy attack my baby boy.” and “George Lucas in the background of some random documentary,” the YouTube algorithm has been pitching me home run after home run lately (just finding out that “home run” is not a compound word live on air). One of the most promising genres I’ve been exposed to, of course sandwiched between various objects being crushed under hydraulic presses and video essays about things I care about only peripherally if not at all, is one that presents animated bar graphs depicting the changes in prominence of one thing or another over a span of time, some put out by a channel called You Like Data— I’ve watched this type of video about web browsers, highest-grossing movies, mobile phones, TV sitcoms, and the many ways countries outperform each other (nationalism<3). The most satisfying moment always seems to come when, usually in the last decade or two, a field or two completely run away with it and their bars grows exponentially, dwarfing the others. We live in a world of extremes, in case you hadn’t noticed.

I did not start writing this expecting to proselytize data visualization videos, but I did also listen to a New Yorker story about graphing and charts earlier today, so it was maybe written in the stars. I believe all of this is to say that we should be embracing the things that engage us, albeit warily, because you can’t trust everything you see on the Internet. Anyway, welcome (back) to my corner of cyberspace, one of Substack’s Top 10 Publications of the First Half of 2021!

Suspiria & Suspiria

dir. Dario Argento, 1977; dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2018

I was surprised to find that there were men in the original, as this is not the case in the remake, which I saw once in theaters, and then again at a free screening. Dakota Johnson has experienced her Kristen Stewart turn, which consists of being derided for horribly made soulless softcore erotica adaptations despite harboring incredible talent. What Dario does with vivid colors, Luca does with drab monotones, and it somehow works just as garishly.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

dir. Tim Burton, 2017

I watched this with a couple of my friends, my sister, and her friends, and was enraptured by it, swept up in the dingy London cityscape spurting and flowing with bright red blood. I later invited more friends over to watch it again and one of the friends and I annoyingly sang along with most of the songs (we had taken to the soundtrack). This movie has been my sole profound interest in musical theater, and I haven’t even seen it on stage.

The Sweet Hereafter

dir. Atom Egoyan, 1997

I found this film about a lot of children dying in a bus accident to be a snooze fest. At one point I paused it to conduct a goog about what seemed to be incest because I wasn’t paying attention and I was right.

Sylvia Scarlett

dir. George Cukor, 1935

Watched this for a queer theory film course because it is so laden with subtext you could blindly throw a dart and it’d intercept a gay glance. Quite frankly, Katherine Hepburn has no right looking this hot in drag.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

dir. William Greaves, 1968

Watched this as part of an experimental film course because its genre has no boundaries. Documentaries that are only documentaries because they are a document of a fiction are one of my love languages, below words of affirmation and above physical touch.

Synonyms

dir. Nadav Lapid, 2019

Tom Mercier is.

Taboo

dir. Nagisa Ōshima, 1999

Burned my tongue eating a spring roll while watching this after getting a little bit day drunk with an ex-lover. <3

Tabu

dir. Miguel Gomes, 2012

As it turns out, colonialism is not a hospitable environment for love— news to me!

Taken

dir. Pierre Morel, 2008

This movie is metonymic, now, I’d say, for tomfoolery masquerading as elevated crime thriller. It’s even campy? (I haven’t seen it in over a decade.)

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

dir. Tony Scott, 2009

One memory: chainlink fence.

The Tale

dir. Jennifer Fox, 2018

First watched this haunting and tactfully disturbing film on HBO with my sister, and then again at a free screening after which a gracious Jennifer Fox held a Q&A in a cool leather jacket. The vignettes of Elizabeth Debicki being avoidant in imagined quasi-interview settings are filed safely away in my catalogue of best performances.

Tall Girl

dir. Nzingha Stewart, 2019

Watched this heightened disaster with a dear friend who also wanted to be on top of the zeitgeist even if that meant stretching ourselves thin by viewing. This movie was founded on the fallacy that to be a beautiful middle-class straight cis white woman is made nearly unbearable by also being tall. Maybe I am just jealous.

Tangled

dirs. Byron Howard, Nathan Greno, 2010

A fun and fanciful watch that I don’t remember too much of. It seems like having all that hair would make one immobile but it’s magic, after all.

Tarnation

dir. Jonathan Caouette, 2003

A troublesome documentary that centers Caouette’s mother, giving a spotlight to her mental illness and trauma but not quite her dignity. I watched it as thesis research, and also because I was curious (these should be the same for those of you in higher ed!), and was glad to have watched it if only to be able to talk about it.

Tarzan

dirs. Kevin Lima, Chris Buck, 1999

A lot to account for in this one. Of course I liked it quite a lot in my youth, and was jolted by the climactic death at the end. I had a game version of this on PS1, and in first grade, I invited my friend from school over and she basically just watched me play it and I wondered why she was more interested in spending time with my sister.

Taste of Cherry

dir. Abbas Kiarostami, 1997

I had read Nicole Kraus’s short story, “Seeing Ershadi,” before actually seeing this. Even knowing how it all ends did not sap any of the devastation from the gorgeous, achingly absurdist film.

Taxi Driver

dir. Martin Scorsese, 1976

I watched this in college because I knew it was iconic and because I knew that Robert De Niro looked good in it. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily my preferred cinematic style, but then again I wouldn’t say I necessarily have a preferred cinematic style—maybe an algorithm could sweep through all these musings and decide for me what I like.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

dir. James Cameron, 1991

This and Memento are the two films I watched at the home of a college professor over the summer when I would visit my then-bf and hang out with this professor and her family. Once, we helped her move some furniture around, and sometimes she’d talk about her family abroad and growing up Arab in Minnesota. That house felt like one of many homes at the time, and I’m grateful for how welcoming she was, how open-armed, open-hearted, and open-doored. And she loves how badass Linda Hamilton was/is.
I never saw the newest Terminator reboot, even though I’m a fan of Mackenzie Davis, because no one would tell me if there was gay in it.

Testament of Youth

dir. James Kent, 2014

Watched this on Netflix while in London, the night before leaving for my solo trip to the Scottish Highlands for spring break (still one of the best things I’ve done). No gay in this one, from what I recall, which is mostly just letter-writing.

That Awkward Moment

dir. Tom Gormican, 2014

Absolutely no gay in this, just a lot of straights making their relationships more complicated than they need to be. I watched this on TV when I still didn’t really believe/understand that I was queer, and remember thinking to myself, “Ah, yes, there is complexity, and that can take so many forms! Happy to be one of the boys! Cheers!” or something like that.

Thelma

dir. Joachim Trier, 2017

Ok, gay in this one. I’ve already coined queepy and queeper, so now it’s time to suggest a new term, queerio, where someone is an unusual social outcast and then realizes they have supernatural abilities that align with their coming-of-queerness (this is usually women, for reasons we can continue to consider).

Theorem

dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968

Very unsettling but also a delight to watch, and did I mention queer? The son is the live-action Ratatouille chef surrogate.

The Theory of Everything

dir. James Marsh, 2014

Watched this while visiting my sister in D.C. with my neighbor to celebrate my birthday and the new year before venturing to the UK for my Semester Abroad, ever heard of it? Eddie Redmayne is either a chameleon, or just a thin white man with enough morphological ambiguity to pull off a lot (are these different things in Hollywood?).

There Will Be Blood

dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007

Obviously this film slaps, which is making me again question if I have any particular preference when it comes to films, or if I am an equal-opportunity viewer (probably not). Bowling alleys have never been the same.

Things to Come

dir. Mia Hansen-Løve, 2016

Isabelle Huppert in jeans made me decide that I have the same body type as Isabelle Huppert. I find myself thinking about this midlife-reevaluation-of-priorities/purpose film more than a lot of others and I am twenty-six.

Thirst

dir. Park Chan-wook, 2009

Watched this for a global cinema course and found it to be a delightful bloodbath. Can vampirism ever not be a metaphor?

The Thirteenth Year

dir. Duwayne Dunham, 1999

Something about this movie is stirring up memories of early eroticism, probably just because there were a lot of swimming (read: shirtless) scenes. Have any academics pontificated about the queer potential of having a boy turn into a mer-person in this DCOM (Disney Channel Original Movie)? I remember this unconventionality being addressed in the film.

This Is 40

dir. Judd Apatow, 2012

This Is… Not A Film For Me, and I watched it nonetheless. I only remember Ryan Adams singing that song that was also on my iPod at the end of this movie, which hasn’t aged well in light of his being an abuser—or was this already public knowledge? Sometimes things are not born well, either.

This Is Spinal Tap

dir. Rob Reiner, 1984

Would anyone believe I rewatched this recently in part for my MFA thesis? As a grad student and a Capricorn, all my time was billable.

This Is the End

dirs. Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, 2013

Saw this at a free screening in college and I don’t remember much beyond Emma Watson being in it, and also some story about her being upset with a scene, which is still being reported on this year, it seems.

This Is Where I Leave You

dir. Shawn Levy, 2014

I don’t remember a ton about this other than Tina Fey and Jason Bateman sitting on a roof. This movie is how I learned about shiva, and now I can count “Tina Fey jewish,” which should have been an obvious no, among my googs.

Thor, Thor: The Dark World, & Thor: Ragnarok

dir. Kenneth Branagh, 2011; dir. Alan Taylor, 2013; dir. Taika Waititi, 2017

The latter is the only good one, by which I mean it is the only one I paid attention to. I was seeing just the other week that the character Loki is gender fluid (now?), which seems like something that could have come up sooner, Marv.

Thoroughbreds

dir. Cory Finley, 2017

If I’m allowed to identify something as having slipped under the radar, I would say that this film did that. And if I’m allowed to call something an understated powerhouse performance, I’d say both Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy did one of those here. Streaming on Hulu if you care about dark teen-centered dramedies with good sound design.

Thou Wast Mild and Lovely

dir. Josephine Decker, 2014

Watched this while educating myself about Josephine Decker’s filmography, which is part of what I mean when I’ve said in the past that I’m doing the work. I remember learning about dramatic irony in AP Language & Composition and find it to be so fun that we can play god like that. I felt queazy for a lot of this film in a way that was absolutely intended, and I think a lot of that was knowing, even before the characters did, that something was going to sour, which actually might not be the exact definition of dramatic irony as much as it’s the definition of dread.

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.

I've Seen Parts