I've Seen Parts #39

Troy - Vanishing on 7th Street

Jul 09, 2021

Firstly, if you’re here in the hopes of brushing virtual shoulders with your soulmate in the comments section, or if you’ve suddenly come to brushing Sophia Loren’s hair (wig?) and she’s reading this to you aloud from her tablet as the galloping sounds of the Rhône flow in through the open window with the breeze and the abrasive chortles of Swiss willow tits, let me kindly direct you both to the About page.

This past week has seemed to last a small lifetime, and between vaulting temperatures and garrulous storms, momentous decisions have been taken up. Perhaps it’s not as earth-shattering as I’ve made it out to be, but an anticipated change in residence seems particularly notable, especially since I have had the great pleasure of not having to take part in what scholars of corporal punishment have called “moving” since I first relocated to the Boston metropolitan area. I of course joke about moving as some sort of mandated physical punishment, although what lingers amid that stab at humor is hardly hyperbole. While the process of a move can be grueling in all applications of the word, there is also a distinct, possibly Maslowian, concern for bodily ease that surfaces well before the residency change and quite possibly long after. (I have to say here that this presupposes a privilege that is by no means equitably distributed, and I do not want to ignore the endemic homelessness facing more than 500,000 people in the U.S., and more than 4,600 in Boston alone.)

I’ve just finished reading Olivia Laing’s new book, Everybody, and if you’re not already familiar with her work, this is your chance to take action in your sorry life and change that. Laing is a maestro of cultural criticism, weaving her own personal narratives into the history of art, queerness, loneliness, the environment, and the legion of things that snap together, by force or by fiction, to structure contemporary life. In Everybody, she writes mostly about the body and the freedom it mediates, yearns for, and is denied. This discourse is informing much of the lens through which I’m viewing an upcoming move: our bodies are the things that so often determine our range of motion, our flexibility in how we situate ourselves—or are situated—in the world, and these vertiginous, fragile, often tempestuous forms require, basically, something to hold them, too. We rely on our multiplicity of carapaces, our ever increasing collection of presentation and habitation, in order to make life livable. Freedom requires containment, a paradox Laing addresses; the urge to dictate the limits and the expanse of this containment is often our greatest source of agency. A home is not just a place to rest one’s head, but an extension of the borders of self that allows us to grow, to claim space, to filter the cruelties of a manmade environment so that we can move that much closer to dictating the terms of our own freedom. All of this, and I’m planning to relocate less than four miles.

Troy

dir. Wolfgang Petersen, 2004

I wasn’t allowed to watch this when I first wanted to, probably because there was a butt in it. There was a period of time when I was very emotionally involved with Greek mythology and thought this movie would have some relevance to that and be more than just another epic war drama, but of course it wasn’t when I finally watched it on TV and was bored by it. Was there even gay in it like in History?
Did you know?: Brad Pitt was (is?) a hunky A-Lister and now he produces every film that is made.

True Grit

dirs. Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, 2010

Watched this on TV and didn’t like the snake part. I only recently found out Hailee Steinfeld is in this, probably because she is a blind spot for me, culturally. Child stars should just be CGI (imagine if I said this).

The Truman Show

dir. Peter Weir, 1998

Watched this with my ex-bf because I had never seen it. I remember it was good, and people love to reference it, but I don’t remember much other than the final shot of the stairs to the door in the sky—is that a spoiler? Jim Carey is someone whom I have never found to be compelling but I also never saw Ace Ventura in my early teens.

Trumbo

dir. Jay Roach, 2015

Saw this Bryan Cranston vehicle at the Hamilton Theater with friends. I liked Breaking Bad, even though it took me a long time to be convinced to watch it, and I didn’t really like this even though I thought I might someday become a screenwriter.

Tully

dir. Jason Reitman, 2018

Watched this with my family and thought it was fine, maybe even good, but rough around the edges. Ultimately, a moving portrait of responsibility, motherhood, and Mackenzie Davis.

Twelve Angry Men

dir. Franklin J. Schaffner, 1954

I haven’t seen the 1957 film, only the CBS live production. I screened this for some undergrads while I was a TA— I had not seen it previously, but had seen the Inside Amy Schumer parody that won her a Peabody, I think.

Two Brothers

dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud, 2004

My grandma took me, maybe my sister, and maybe my cousin to see this in theaters. In my memory, it was a movie theater I had never been to before, and have never been to since, but this could be untrue because memory can sometimes be our weakest asset. Is Hollywood still making motion pictures with real animals in them?

Two Drifters

dir. João Pedro Rodrigues, 2005

I struggled to get through this. Just watch I May Destroy You 1.12: “Ego Death”—it’s better all around.

The Two Popes

dir. Fernando Meirelles, 2019

This? From the director of City of God? Now I’ve seen everything.*
One weekend morning I was deeply sad (“one morning”), and watched this at my desk. Anything that takes place in the Papal Palace (fun alliteration) is of intrigue to me, made better by a fun dynamic between two old white men.
*The joke here is that I have not seen everything and never will. <3

Una

dir. Benedict Andrews, 2016

Note: This director is neither Benedict Anderson nor Benedict Arnold.
I don’t remember how I’d heard about this movie (was probably doing my bi-monthly scroll through Rooney Mara’s IMDb page), but decided I needed to watch it, and then streamed it illegally one night in my childhood bedroom. It felt soooo much like a play, which made sense because it was a play.

Unbreakable

dir. M. Night Shyamalan, 2000

My dad showed this to a friend and me at a sleepover, and then later, my friend expressed unease about the falling into a pool part. Watching this, I had a realization that many adults seemed hung up on superheroism, and this film explores that, in a way. I had moved past my own penchant for these kinds of stories and the accompanying lore unbound by possibility and corporeal limits, but I began to wonder why some never do.

Uncut Gems

dir. Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, 2019

Maybe this film was just not for me. My dear friend has a brilliant tale about how she spent half of this film thinking it was a comedy, and wondering why it was such a bad comedy.

Under African Skies

dir. Joe Berlinger, 2012

This was a screening for a music in film course I was taking, and I had to trek down to the Hamilton Theater on the Friday night of homecoming (no one cared about football, but people did care about drinking alcohol), which meant missing the We The Kings concert. I had a flask of sangria.

Under Snow

dir. Ulrike Ottinger, 2011

Saw this at the Flaherty and thought it was very visually striking. Few things persist.

Under the Skin

dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2013

I’ve been meaning to rewatch this for so long that now I think that maybe I never will, on purpose.
One of my favorite corners of this stupid thing we call the internet—and the oldest bookmark on my phone—is a compilation of Scarlett Johansson Falling Down memes that were made in the wake of her falling down on the set of this film.

Underworld(s)

dir. Len Wiseman, 2003; 2006; dir. Patrick Tatopoulos, 2009; dir. Måns Mårlind, 2012

The ones I have seen, which might or might not actually be all of these, I watched on TV. For a period of time in the early 2010s, there was a marathon on FX or TNT or one of those channels near constantly. To quote Big Thief, a band I love so ardently and somehow might not have mentioned yet in this newsletter, but am now introducing, unfortunately, in this musing: “kissing on a vampire, kissing on a werewolf / we have no enemies.” A beautiful complement to these movies where vampires shoot at werewolves with big and small guns.

Unknown

dir. Jaume Collet-Serra, 2011

Don’t remember exactly when or where I watched this, but I distinctly remember Liam Neeson, a white man, being confused about his identity. Even before Big Streaming began to control cinematic output, the same intentions were present.

Untraceable

dir. Gregory Hoblit, 2008

It took me some time and a couple of googs to find this movie, which I only remembered I’d seen after hearing about that Netflix documentary a year or two ago about someone killing cats. This sparked in me the memory of the killer in this movie posting a livestream(?) of a kitten stuck on fly paper and Diane Lane on a hunt to find the deranged person responsible. One day someone will teach a whole class about early technology/internet thrillers, and maybe that person will be me.

Up

dir. Pete Docter, 2009

This swelled like a helium balloon while I watched it, and remained inflated, buoyed by the charming intergenerational camaraderie dipping its head above the clouds of my consciousness now and then. Today, I would say it’s all but deflated, and wouldn’t even make my top five Pixars.

Upstream Color

dir. Shane Carruth, 2013

I finally decided to be the kind of person with a “favorite film” a couple years ago and chose this one, and then it turns out Carruth is repulsive and an abuser. It’s now difficult to call this my favorite anything, knowing that expressing my interest in this, regardless of the impact (which we all know is minimal to none), contributes to bolstering the reputation of a filmmaker who needs to be sidelined. So what to do with the fact that few films have burrowed into my body as deeply as this one has, or the reality that watching this inspired me to make a lot of the work that I did, or the very real implication of this film’s exposing me to alternative methods of storytelling that radicalized by treatment of narrative and exposition?
This was on Netflix at some point in the summer after I graduated high school (a quietly turbulent time devoted readers might recognize from last week’s essayistic intro). I watched it one night in my bed and thought, “hold on…” and then afterward, wandered downstairs in a haze to gather my computer charger. The way this film is edited is like an obsessive mind externalized, and the suggestions this makes about how we relate to each other and everything else are still being unraveled for me. I will inevitably watch this again, for the fourth, fifth, tenth time, but I don’t think I can explicitly recommend it, ethically.

Us

dir. Jordan Peele, 2019

Watched this with my family and thought it was not as engaging as Get Out. I hate when a filmmaker’s work is constantly held up against the rest of their oeuvre as if there are not one thousand other conversations to which it might fit in better than one that exists in the vacuum of inflated auteurship. And yet here I am doing that.

The Usual Suspects

dir. Bryan Singer, 1995

I’m glad the twisty end of this is so important to the integrity of the rest of the film because now there would be little point in ever watching it again. The joining forces of two sexual assailants who attempted to weaponize their queerness as means of vindication is enough for me to culturally cancel this film, sorry to everyone else involved, I guess.

Vagabond

dir. Agnès Varda, 1985

[Tune in next week for a fun surprise, which will just be a little change of ISP format.]

Valentine’s Day

dir. Garry Marshall, 2010

Watched this on TV. Hinges on a twist, and is therefore the same film as The Usual Suspects.

Valhalla Rising

dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009

My NWR kick in 2015, which was just watching this, Drive, and Bronson in my lofted dorm bed, was not enough to incite me to watch his Prime original show in 2019. I would entrust Mads Mikkelsen with my children.

Valkyrie

dir. Bryan Singer, 2008

I decided to ask my family to take me to see this for my birthday in 2008. I would love to know why I was set on seeing this film where Tom Cruise tries to take down Hitler and not Doubt, or at the very least The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, like all the other closeted teens.

Van Helsing

dir. Stephen Sommers, 2004

I only ever saw this on TV, but I saw it several times there. I would not have admitted that this movie is bad when I was watching it then, and I won’t now, either. More vampires and more werewolves and even more Kate Beckinsale.

Vanishing on 7th Street

dir. Brad Anderson, 2010

Although this film has performed a considerable vanishing act of its own from my memory, I remember that shadows can kill in this. Or something about light as a protective source against some metaphysical danger. Predictably, I couldn’t remember the name of this film, and could only conjure those vague recollections of the plot, so tracking down this film ended up being an endeavor.
Is Hayden Christiansen the biggest flop of the Star Wars franchise? He had is moment in the limelight, it seems (this is supposed to cheekily reference this movie but I am tired!), but overall I would have thought he had a built-in career path from his Anakin Skywalker days. This is of course not to mention whoever played the role as a child (should have been CGI)— they definitely disappeared into the ether. I’m glad Natalie Portman was able to keep her role, at least, most likely because a woman in her early twenties could be cast as a high-schooler or a mother of three, depending on the day. As an exception to prove the rule, a phrase I have yet to fully grasp, Natalie Portman is a child actor who needn’t have ever been CGI.

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