My dearest fellas, femmes, & fluids—
Welcome to the bonus and actual final post from esteemed online publication I’ve Seen Parts. To all of you who have read one of these emails or even one sentence from one of these emails, you’ve contributed to the making of a project I initially had very little faith in beyond its being something with which I could idly fill my time. For that engagement, in all it varying and no less gorgeois degrees, my gratitude is unquantifiable. My enduring hope is that I gave something back in return, even simply an “ah yes, I saw that film with my best friend before she moved to Utah,” or “wow, you’re right, that film did radicalize my understanding of what it means to engage with and co-engender a system of mutual resistance and civil justice in the peripheries of post-industrial hegemony.” (For those of you that have already reached out to express appreciation/lament the end, you are my true and everlasting heroes.)
I’ll admit that for many of the weeks, I was tap-click-clacking away at my McAir exuding a lot of this:
Other weeks, I confidently hit Publish like this:
Overall, I like to think the impression was one like this:
Thank you, everyone, and I hope the next movie you watch makes you want to talk about it with someone.
All my love,
Matthew
xx
Now, up first, here’s a special segment I’m calling: Eight Films I Forgot I’d Seen Until It Was Too Late.
Another Cinderella Story
dir. Damon Santostefano, 2008
Was rudely reawakened to this film by the answer to a vexing question all of us will one day ask ourselves if we haven’t already: what is that movie where Jane Lynch is mean and has bacne? “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” by Selena Gomez & The Scene truly rocks out.
Cool Runnings
dir. Jon Turteltaub, 1993
A first-degree human rights violation to have forgotten about this movie chronicling the first Jamaican bobseligh team’s trip to the Winter Olympics (am I right to capitalize “winter” here? I never know). What would you/we do if I told you/us that this is scored by Hans Zimmer?
Country Strong
dir. Shana Feste, 2010
How could I forget this movie starring Garrett Hedlund, who is not Josh Hartnett, and Leighton Meester, who is not Minka Kelly nor Rachel Bilson? Will never forget when Tim McGraw got fit in a way that seemed unhealthy—talk about living like you were dying, am I right ladies (bad?)?
Eragon
dir. Stefen Fangmeier, 2006
I am most surprised by this omission because the books upon which this movie is based were huge to my early-adolescent canon. I was so exasperating as to pop into the middle school library once a week in 2005 to inquire if they’d yet received a copy of Eldest, the follow-up to Eragon, and each week they kindly informed me that they had not. I devoured these books, sometimes putting away their 800+ pages in a matter of days—I remain easily seduced by the beckon of a hefty tome (*directs a lingering gaze at the Susan S. biography on my bookshelf*).
I saw this movie for my birthday with my friend and our dads, after I looked forward to it for months. I wasn’t disappointed, but I was definitely more enamored with the books. Jeremy Irons has never been hotter—don’t repeat that. Will go to my grave waiting for the sequel.
Gone
dir. Heitor Dhalia, 2012
Shocked to discover that a film was released in the year 2012. I DVR’d this because of my confused crush on Amanda Seyfried.
March of the Penguins
dir. Luc Jacquet, 2005
I watched this with my neighbors at their house while our parents sat around the table in another room, and much like the penguins in this, all the kids marched out of the living room one by one because we got bored.
My Joy
dir. Sergei Loznitsa, 2010
A vague recollection of having watched this on my bed at my family home (my joy); truly nothing else.
Selena
dir. Gregory Nava, 1997
Watched this in one of my high school Spanish classes. I was shocked by the assassination scene! Has anyone dared to pull off white pants since?
And now, all of the films I’ve watched since October 2020 that I only saw after I’d passed their alphabetical spot on the list.
But first, please enjoy these GIFs that were beat out for featured animated image of the week:
35 Shots of Rum
dir. Claire Denis, 2008
This unfolded like a riddle— something about always going but never going anywhere. Un film de Claire Denis for sure. Sometimes I lose images from her films, but never the sensuality dripping, shining, pulsing from those images.
After Hours
dir. Martin Scorsese, 1985
I watched this film about an exceedingly long night while in bed at 9:30pm—identification is a spectrum.
Afternoon Delight
dir. Joey Soloway, 2013
Not convinced that this film I watched with my family comes down on the right side of sex work, but Kathryn Hahn could read me the phonebook.
Amour
dir. Michael Haneke, 2012
Went to bed after closing my McAir feeling so secure in this body that will eventually betray me. <3
Another Round
dir. Thomas Vinterberg, 2020
They could have at least tried Diet Coke first like every other teacher.
Ammonite
dir. Francis Lee, 2020
Don’t get me wrong, I love “dowdy,” misanthropic Kate Winslet, I love forlorn Saoirse Ronan, who actually pulls off a Mona Lisa smile or two in this, I love The Sea and searing gazes through glass panes, shoulder touches and what-has-come-over-me first kisses, and for the love of all that is good I of course love women in STEM, but I have reached a limit on lesbian films written/directed by men, albeit queer ones (limit does not apply to rewatching Carol).
Arianna
dir. Carlo Lavagna, 2015
A rare instance of depicting a marginalized queer identity that doesn’t demand tragedy as the avenue for actualization and doesn’t purport actualization to be immediately at the other end of acceptance. Intersex was added to the pride flag a day or two before I watched this and that is, I suppose, a net good.
My dear friend who never watches movies but watched this with me referred to it weeks later as “that one film you made me watch that ripped through my sexed and gendered consciousness.”
Bad Education
dir. Pedro Almodóvar, 2004
Scathing and twisty and of course hot. Nothing is sacred when passion gets involved? Something to consider. (Obviously there are issues to be had with this one.)
Badlands
dir. Terrence Malick, 1973
I have a friend that once produced an “ok” gesture (👌 ) that was so casually aggressive and mundanely affronting that I’ll never be able to recreate it— this is the energy with which Martin Sheen puts on his jacket in this.
Bande à Parte
dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1964
Watched this almost exclusively for the iconic Louvre run while in bed the morning after my Covid Dose 2. It might have been the vaccine talking, but I decided then that I just need a straight white man to corner me somewhere and explain Godard to me.
Blue
dir. Derek Jarman, 1993
Cleaned the screen of my McAir (finally), covered my keyboard with a black t-shirt, and put on my mostly-noise-cancelling headphones to watch this in the dark as if I were just sitting in the way, way back. Will see this again someday and then again.
La Cérémonie
dir. Claude Chabrol, 1995
Terribly captivating if you let yourself be taken by the hand by Isabelle Huppert, who can do unhinged in the quietest way as well as the most cacophonous, and Sandrine Bonnaire, whose eyebrows make up for her bangs in this.
Care.com shows this film to their background check new-hires during orientation.
Claire’s Camera
dir. Hong Sangsoo, 2017
Drank a lot of coffee while watching this, a viewing strategy that for better or worse makes the extremely long takes vibrate with urgency. I love that it was shot in a matter of days while everyone was in town for Cannes—but why do I love that?
The Conformist
dir. Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970
Internalized homophobia really does kill. I suspect I’m meant to read the bountiful queerness—its threat and subsequent repression—as symptomatic of a greater political aberrance, but I couldn’t possibly consider myself a respectable nonconformist and not (re)direct the flow of that critical assumption back on itself. I’m shocked by the dearth of queer scholarship about this film, one ripe for analysis on everything from childhood trauma to politics vs. aesthetics. Someone get B. Ruby Rich on the line.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
dir. Peter Greenaway, 1989
A Brechtian bloodbath and a bacchanal of color, style, and eros. I made an account on “Peacock” to watch this.
Desert Hearts
dir. Donna Deitch, 1985
“Black Mirror: San Junipero” wishes! I thought this was ok, and so do critics, who regard it with cautious reverence like we do our queer elders who still refute the word “queer”!
Dick Johnson is Dead
dir. Kirsten Johnson, 2020
Poll: should I have kids?
Doña Herlinda y Su Hijo
dir. Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, 1985
Didn’t really love this when I watched it for a class, but the more I read and talked about it, the richer it became. That really comes for the throat of the fact that I have watched so many films alone and never talked about them with anyone!
The Draughtsman’s Contract
dir. Peter Greenaway, 1982
Couldn’t tell one person from another at times, but nonetheless a delightfully shady plot within perfectly sketched intent.
An Education
dir. Lone Scherfig, 2009
Famously not-attractive-enough Carey Mulligan (remember that?) gives a compelling performance of being sixteen which means having bangs.
The Falls
dir. Peter Greenaway, 1980
Too long and in some ways a mid-career retrospective, but nonetheless tickled my mockumentary affinity and my ornithophilia (not to be confused with strict ornithology, which requires less vacillating dilettantism). I love when Peter Greenaway tells me lies.
Flames
dirs. Josephine Decker, Zefrey Throwell, 2017
Starts off so strong but doesn’t quite come together, which I guess ought to be the whole point. I am so easily won over by this anti-genre, bare-it-all approach, and this film finds every line.
The Garden
dir. Derek Jarman
At the time I watched this, I was reading Jarman’s memoir Modern Nature, which was written while this film was made. To know how disillusioned he was with just about everything, how confident he was in his uncertainty, how passionate he remained about his reveries, how mindfully he tended to his garden, informed most of this viewing.
Gattaca
dir. Andrew Niccol, 1997
When you realize “Gattaca” is spelled with only the letters of DNA nucleotides… that’s an easter egg for the STEM girls. Something about sci-fi is that creators love to imagine punitive worlds where straight white men can find themselves the objects of discrimination. Anyway, I think Michael Nyman was holding back with this score.
Glitterbug
dir. Derek Jarman, 1994
Somber and celebratory in all the right ways. Tilda frolicking in a very Scottish garden. I want to hug and **** *** Derek Jarman in equal measure, which is probably a dualism he would respect very much.
Go Fish
dir. Rose Troche, 1994
Low-budget, low-fi, and low-key refreshing to watch a lesbian film that isn’t a prestige period piece.
I Care a Lot
dir. J Blakeson, 2020
Points for gay sociopathy (representation) and for Dianne Wiest sleeper-holding Rosamund Pike on an assisted living facility patio. This movie is not about what it’s about.
I’m Not There
dir. Todd Haynes, 2007
I’ll admit that Bob Dylan remains a bit of a (counter)cultural blindspot for me outside a couple-month window during freshman year of college when I thought maybe I would endeavor to become a fan, and then in early pandemic when “Standing in the Doorway” was the only song I cared about. So I felt just a half-step behind while parsing out what was lore, what was canon, and what was just Charlotte Gainsbourg reading Rimbaud, who is played in this (sort of) by a beatnik Ben Wishaw (the cast!!!)
Marie Antionette
dir. Sofia Coppola, 2006
Saccharine and actually so sad. I watched this while pet-sitting for my dear friend whose cat is named after Sofia Coppola.
Mauvais Sang
dir. Leos Carax, 1986
Only the well composed shots, languid pace, and lack of explosions separate this from a 2010 sci-fi action film. For transparency I should admit I dozed off during the actual heist scene. Denis Lavant is dynamic, erratic, kinetic; Juliette Binoche is older than both of my parents, but just barely.
Minari
dir. Lee Isaac Chung, 2020
Not everything gets ironed out by the end, which is an approach I fervently believe in, but in this case seemed a bit lacking. The characters I felt closest with were the ones the film seemed the least interested in (although it made a point to spend time with all of them). Nevertheless, a committed and moving portrait (ok Adjectives 101) of putting down roots, building up, and maintaining (ok Intro to Cover Letters).
Imagine if I started reviewing buzzy films one year after everyone else has seen them as if I too am cresting the wave of culture.
The Nest
dir. Sean Durkin, 2020
The house is haunted and the ghost is the shell of Reaganomics masculinity. I know I say this about every woman in cinema, but Carrie Coon is cantering effortlessly through every emotion known to man or beast. Why did this film bother with the scenes she wasn’t in?
Pariah
dir. Dee Rees, 2011
On the “dismal slog of unacceptability” and “radical light of queer joy” sliding scale, this locked itself into place in at 90:10. Adepero Oduye does wonderful things here and I wish I could have seen her face when she told her stupid-ass mom “I’m not your husband.”
Pink Narcissus
dir. James Bidgood, 1971
You ever been alone in a room?
A Rosa Azul de Novalis
dirs. Rodrigo Carneiro, Gustavo Vinagre, 2018
Watched this on the MUBI app on my phone. This has and bares it all more than anything I’ve ever seen. I usually scoff at “NSFW” but this is NSFAOTTQSOYOH (not safe for anywhere other than the quiet sanctuary of your own home).
Sex, Lies, and Videotape
dir. Steven Soderbergh, 1989
1989 was a great year for films that are titled with lists. Everyone except for Laura San Giacomo looks like a campus Republican in this, but it was the 80s after all and in case it wasn’t clear, these characters are straight. I was recently exposed to writer/radio producer Starlee Kline’s idea of “the rundown,” which is when you have the conversation you want to be having rather than the conversation you should be having as a method of foregoing small talk—this film is a case study in that.
The word “videotape” rouses something atavistic in me.
Shiva Baby
dir. Emma Seligman, 2020
Was triggered by the waist grabbing. This was done to me (by many people, but once) by a friend of my mom’s named Lynn whom I had never met before. Later that night, my dear friends and I returned from the one (1) gay club in Syracuse, NY and devoured a whole tray of taco dip in the fridge, which was later revealed to have been made by Lynn, so I guess she (perilously going to go ahead and assume her pronouns here) got her wish. We still refer to Lynn’s Taco Dip, and frequently prepare it, and at the end of the day that is queer praxis.
This is actually it. :’}
just stopping by to offer a thanks and a well done!
I watched Marie Antoinette back around when it came out, and it inspired me to do a little biography project on Marie Antoinette for school in which I took a very sympathetic point of view. I don’t remember at all what happens in the film but the feeling of it remains.
Anyway, congrats on finishing this project! And thanks for sparking so many tiny memories—it’s been fun!