Killing Our Darlings: A Fandom Expert on Why We Urgently Need to Get to Grips With the Hate Engine
With two of the pop star’s films on the horizon, we appointed a Senior Harry Styles Correspondent. Several exhausting months later, Sacha Judd concludes it’s time for Hollywood to get to grips with online conspiracies—and audiences to find new ways to approach films soaked in manufactured scandal.
Don’t Worry Darling, Letterboxd’s most anticipated film of 2022, finally came to cinemas last week, claiming the US Box office number one slot and topping this platform’s most popular rankings by the end of opening weekend. Anyone buying a ticket for the debut public screenings was inevitably either doing it because or in spite of the drama surrounding the film’s release.
I was definitely in the latter camp, going with two friends I met at Harry Styles’ first solo show in New York in 2017 and have been fandom besties with ever since—because what else do you do when you’re reunited with your fellow Harries after three long pandemic years than park up in recliners at Alamo Drafthouse to watch him in his first starring role?
Styles, famous in fandom for his rambling interview answers, was mocked relentlessly by Film Twitter for saying that Don’t Worry Darling was a movie that “felt like a movie”, and though it’s not at all what he meant, once you’ve seen a film soaked in so much manufactured scandal it’s hard to not reach the conclusion that it’s just a movie.
Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as Alice and Jack Chambers in Don’t Worry Darling.
Visually, it’s absolutely stunning to look at, with an incredible performance by Florence Pugh in the lead. It’s also so refreshing to watch something that isn’t yet another piece of franchise IP, or yet another prequel, reboot or sequel. But ultimately it’s just a film—there’s absolutely nothing about it that warrants the space it’s taken up in the discourse and no way to get back the brain cells wasted on all that spilled tea. How does anyone even watch a film critically (or uncritically) when there’s so much noise surrounding it?
It was a question that loomed large earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival. I was there in my newly-minted role as Letterboxd’s Senior Harry Styles Correspondent—a joke that became decreasingly funny as the hot takes and breathless explainers spilled over from Venice across every conceivable media outlet. There to promote his other new movie, My Policeman, you got the sense that Styles’ appearance was being tightly controlled. Questions for the press conference had to be submitted in advance, before anyone had even seen the film. On the red carpet, the stars didn’t speak to the media at all.
“What was it like??” my friends and fellow fans asked me. He’d sat across from me, after all, mere meters away. But the photos on Tumblr were clearer than the ones I snapped, the video from the Twitter livestream just as good. There really isn’t any insider access granted by a press pass when the fans are having the same or better experience, at the same time—ready to publish their own critiques before you even get out of the theater.
Emma Corrin, David Dawson and Harry Styles at the TIFF premiere of My Policeman.
Asked at Venice about the tabloid speculation surrounding Don’t Worry Darling, director Olivia Wilde said, “the internet feeds itself, I don’t feel the need to contribute, I think it’s sufficiently well-nourished.” There’s certainly been no better recent example of fandom, celebrity gossip, and film discourse combining into an ugly ‘well-nourished’ ouroboros than what’s unfolded over the last few months surrounding this particular movie.
You could look anywhere and find headlines promising the “truth about the drama”, memes, and endless TikTok unpackings. One friend even sent me a Powerpoint presentation someone had shared in her book club. The hot takes eventually simmered down to reflections about how enjoyable it all was, post-pandemic, to engage in “harmless” celebrity gossip again.
Harmless, reputationally, for Styles, who I watched quip about spitting on Chris Pine the following night at his show during a sold-out residency at Madison Square Garden. Harmless for Pugh, certainly—who became the internet’s “queen of quiet quitting”. Harmless for Pine, memed endlessly for his dissociating stare. Beneficial, even, for Shia LaBeouf—now cast in a Coppola film as part of an ongoing redemption tour. But for Wilde—one of a tiny handful of female directors to be greenlit on a second project—none of this seemed very harmless at all.
Director and actress Olivia Wilde on the red carpet at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival.
In watching all of this unfold, all I could think was that we are overdue a reckoning with the way the online environment is allowing misinformation, conspiracy theories, and outright falsehoods to be increasingly weaponized against women in cinema. And the Hollywood engine is beyond overdue in getting to grips with fandoms and the power they wield, even after over a decade of toxic hate and harassment being leveled at artists of color, widespread blowback over casting choices, and the inability of studios to protect their stars.
While a number of commentators rightly identified the misogynistic tilt to this whole affair, the rapid cycle of takes overlooked one crucial point. All of this happened to Olivia Wilde simply because she’s dating Harry Styles.
It helps to go back to the beginning and understand how we found ourselves in this particular mess. The rumors about the Don’t Worry Darling set didn’t start with TMZ or Page Six. They didn’t even start with the earlier gossip blinds shared on anonymous Instagram account DeuxMoi. They started on Tumblr and they started in the One Direction fandom.
To grasp what’s happened to Olivia Wilde online, you have to grapple not just with what may or may not have happened on set. She and Pugh may have fallen out for any number of completely justified reasons and it would never have resulted in the kind of digital hyena-pack that’s waited to consume Wilde at every turn. We would likely never have heard about it at all, if it weren’t for a dedicated subset of Styles’ fans.
Styles meets fans in Toronto ahead of the premiere of My Policeman.
Hating Olivia Wilde is an example of the depressingly common venom leveled at the romantic partner of a star with whom stans have a parasocial relationship. Styles has been notoriously private about his personal life, saying in interviews that regaining his privacy was paramount to him after five years of intense scrutiny as a member of the world’s most famous boyband.
And yet, all of the women with whom he’s been linked over the years have been subject to the same outrageous levels of hateful conduct and harassment. Styles, speaking to Rolling Stone last month alluded to this, saying “Can you imagine going on a second date with someone and being like, ‘OK, there’s this corner of the thing, and they’re going to say this, and it’s going to be really crazy, and they’re going to be really mean, and it’s not real.… But anyway, what do you want to eat?’ ”
These so-called fans are happy to dig through years of social media posts to find ways in which a romantic partner has been “problematic”, dismissing French model Camille Rowe for “supporting serial killers” (she dressed as Sharon Tate for Hallowe’en) and British chef Tess Ward for being fatphobic. In the eighteen months or so that Wilde and Styles have been seen together, Wilde has come under an even more intense array of criticism. The ten-year age gap between her and Styles makes her “predatory”. Her shared custody of her children with former partner Jason Sudeikis has been interpreted to mean she is a bad mother who routinely abandons her kids. She is “unprofessional” for embarking on a relationship with someone she met on set.
For the fans spreading these talking points, finding reasons to justify their toxic behavior is critical—that way they can deny that this is a case of, “if I can’t have him, no one can”. It’s not that they don’t want Harry to find love, it’s just that this woman (and the one before her and the one before that) is obviously completely unsuitable.
“But anyway, what do you want to eat?”
For Styles though, the problem is exacerbated by a core group of conspiracy theorists who have plagued his fandom since One Direction was first formed. Calling themselves Larries (after the portmanteau Larry Stylinson), these fans believe that Styles has been in a closeted gay relationship with former bandmate Louis Tomlinson for over a decade. No amount of denials from either man (or any number of people close to the pair) have dissuaded this group, nor the fact that Tomlinson is in a long-term relationship with a woman, nor that he has a son, nor even that Styles and Tomlinson haven’t been seen in the same room for over six years.
All of this nonsense seems “harmless” on the surface—just another example of toxic behavior in niche corners of the internet providing hilarious fodder for the group chat. And yet film and television stars are increasingly dealing with baseless conspiracy thinking taking on an ugly and outsized importance. Benedict Cumberbatch’s wife, director Sophie Hunter, is regularly accused of faking her pregnancies, being a drug user, and worse. Outlander star Catríona Balfe has spoken out about conspiracists (who think she is secretly dating her co-star) casting doubt on the paternity of her son, and even harassing staff at the church where she wed in an attempt to prove her marriage was a sham.
Harry’s own mother Anne, sharing a proud Instagram post this week praising the film and Olivia’s achievement, was so drowned in hateful comments that she posted a follow-up in her stories. “If you can’t say something nice,” she said, “don’t say anything at all. I’m astounded and saddened by the vitriolic comments… If you don’t like me, don’t follow me”.
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places.”
This behaviour by “tinhats” (as they’re known in fandom—a term first coined to describe fans of The Lord of the Rings who were convinced cast members were in secret gay relationships, unable to declare their forbidden love) has at its core the idea that everything is a stunt constructed for media consumption. Every paparazzi shot is staged; every time we see a star in a public place it’s “for promo”.
If you genuinely believe Harry Styles is gay and not allowed to come out, then every time you see a picture of him with a woman, you can assume it’s fake, that the woman concerned is being paid or getting something out of it for herself and thereby “profiting” off his closet. If it’s a stunt there’s no obligation to like this woman—in fact the opposite. You’re justified in thinking of her as a villain and behaving accordingly, as viciously as possible, something Alice Marwick has dubbed morally motivated networked harassment. Regardless of who gets hurt in the process.
On Tumblr, Larries tag their posts with an increasingly hateful taxonomy: “Don’t Watch DWD”, “Olivia Wilde is a Narcissistic Asshole”, “Fuck You Olivia Wilde”. Meanwhile, these same fans are keen to promote My Policeman at every opportunity because it’s deeply unthreatening to their false narrative. Styles’ co-star is Emma Corrin, with whom he has never been romantically linked. Styles himself is playing a closeted gay man, something they think is true in real life. “Michael Grandage seems like such a professional and competent director,” they say, as if the implications were not obvious.
Olivia Wilde at work with colleague Chris Pine.
Maintaining their ongoing hate campaign against Wilde puts stans in what should be some awkward spots, given the demographics of Styles’ fandom (female, progressive, queer). They side with Wilde’s former partner Sudeikis in their split, revelling in Wilde being served papers relating to custody on stage at CinemaCon, despite it being a cruel and humiliating tactic deployed against a woman in a professional setting. While they won’t come right out and say that LaBeouf is a hero, the glee with which his side of the story was received was a sight to behold. Even aligning yourself with alleged abusers is okay if it’s against a woman who isn’t what you want her to be.
Worse still, Media Matters found that right wing sites exploited the situation, amplifying the hateful content and using terms like “commie whore,” “Hollywood harlot,” and “bimbo” to describe Wilde, “eager for the downfall of women who are outspoken on progressive issues” (and for the income that clicks on these stories generate).
If all of this seems familiar, it should. We are only months from an unrelenting news cycle that painted Amber Heard as an unsuitable victim, reduced her defamation trial to popcorn emoji and endless memes, and cast anyone with a TikTok account in the role of expert commentator.
And none of this might matter, if the pernicious behavior of these conspiracists stayed in the pettiest corners of the internet, but in this case it broke containment, bubbling up through the gossip blogs and tabloids, repeated over and over until lies ossified into “facts” that even the trades were credulously republishing seemingly without any scrutiny at all.
People close to the Don’t Worry Darling project describe it as “famously untroubled”. The cinematographer Matthew Libatique has described it as “one of the most harmonious sets” he’s worked on. Forty members of the crew put their names to a statement saying all the stories were false. But it’s too late. The truth is boring: far better to green screen some cast photos behind you on TikTok and boldly state that Gemma Chan was pressed into service by forces unknown to keep Wilde away from Styles on the Venice red carpet.
Don’t Worry Darling cast members Nick Kroll, Pugh, Pine, Wilde, Sydney Chandler, Styles and Gemma Chan in Venice.
Even in writing this piece, I don’t get the luxury of just writing about the film (which, for the record, I enjoyed)—or about Styles’ performance, or Wilde’s directorial vision. No one does, anymore. Every review is forced to reference the ugliness and give further column inches to the opinions of people who genuinely don’t deserve them. I’ve chosen not to rate the film on my own Letterboxd because I know stans have been trying to identify my account.
I’ve been lucky enough to watch Harry Styles perform over the years at venues all over the world, including the Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the O2 and the Hammersmith Apollo. At every single show he encourages his audience to “feel free to be whoever you want to be in this room tonight.” The crowd always goes wild. It’s an invitation to participate in something so filled with joy and abandon. To dance and sing your lungs out and watch your fave do the same.
His exhortation to “treat people with kindness”, however, seems to fall on deaf ears when some of his stans are back behind their keyboards again, filing half-star reviews on Letterboxd before the film has even come out. It’s depressing to see a film-reviewing community being used in this way. Letterboxd HQ confirmed to me that Don’t Worry Darling has been one of their most heavily moderated films this year: online reviews yet another cudgel deployed against women in cinema, again and again.
It’s easy to enjoy Florence Pugh iconically wielding her Aperol Spritz, Chris Pine drifting drama-free above the fray, and ultimately Olivia Wilde is successful and seems unbothered and doesn’t exactly need our help. But if we let ourselves continue to be led around by conspiracists with axes to grind, we’re allowing a set of tactics to flourish that will continue to have dangerous consequences, something I’ve spent more time than I’d like to digging into over the last few years.
“Do you even know what the Victory Project actually is?”
Already the post-opening reviews of Don’t Worry Darling are making sly—or even overt—reference to the fact that the scandal may have helped the film, giving fans and the media alike fuel for future fires. Indeed, the distribution chief for Warner Bros suggests that “the background noise had a neutral impact” (financially, he means). But conspiracy thinking isn’t fun or neutral or harmless anymore. Believing everything you see to be constructed or manipulated is a dangerous onramp to far more significant political movements—something, ironically, that is explicitly raised in the film.
Celebrity gossip can—and should continue to be—a delightful, empty-calorie snack. But only when we take the time to think about where it’s come from, why it’s so popular, and if there isn’t a toxic amount of poison hidden inside. When the industry is still stacked so heavily against the very small number of women who have risen to the point Wilde has—her film taking in an above-forecast $19.2 million at the US box office opening weekend, and becoming one of the widest openings by a female director ever in the UK and Ireland—we should be interrogating much more closely the motivations of the people who seem ready, willing and eager to tear her down.
‘Don’t Worry Darling’ is in cinemas in the US, UK and Ireland now and opening in other regions over the coming weeks. ‘My Policeman’ opens in US cinemas on October 21 and streams on Prime Video from November 4.
Note: All bold text and pull-quote styling is Brian’s.
Letterboxd
Remember… it’s sad, because you meet the loveliest people who are fans of the show and they’re super supportive and they do the nicest things—and then you have that little thing, which just taints it. — Caitríona Balfe, Vanity Fair, 6 January 2022
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Something may be happening right now
What is written here is nothing but a compilation of uncertainties, something I should be taking to the therapy room from which I constantly find myself running away. I always wanted to have a blog, always thought it was great, and I was always in this field. I was in the golden eras of Tumblr as a reader and every now, and then I dared to write, but insecurity always caught up with me. I wrote, but I was terrified of being read. When someone who knew me discovered my writings, that was it, I would never appear on that website again. And that's why drowned and doomed to probably give up that I'm not going to give any certainty that this will one day become something, in fact, it may just be a journal. It will always be in process and if anyone asks, well, it's something I'm trying to make happen. Who knows, maybe one day it will happen even without me knowing.
I don't know if this format still works, It may seem cringe to younger ones, but I used to like things like this, and now that I'm way closer to my 30s than my 20s I'm in the right to be cringe or old-fashioned anyway… I'm not certain about my username yet, I wanted to be something that represents what people will find here, or what I look like to readers. I think the name will come to me eventually by itself. For now I'm its300am.
There are subjects that I like or deal with in general, and I think I should mention it to be aware of what may appear here.
• Movies, but my letterboxd is pretty empty, I mostly post vaguely there because I'm afraid of my mutuals, I mean, they know me IRL, so…
• Anime and manga, but it's been a while since I got close to any of those, college is being so hard on me. Still, my favorites are Dr. Stone, Bungo Stray Dogs and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
• Literature, but I have such a reading hangover that I spend more time thinking about reading than reading (and the bookshelf is just getting ignored). You can see as my goodreads is left to flies.
• Feminism, okay, in this one I think I'm more active, I'm even part of a women's collective, I may come to comment more on that in the future. I'm a Marxist feminist btw.
• Eco-socialism, this one is new to me, but I've always loved the subject, and now I'm getting closer, maybe one thing or another will appear even from my exploration on the subject.
• Comics, this is the sunken skeleton of that pool meme, you know what it is? I used to love it, but it's really been a long time since I've been close, I want to go back. I really like DC's specially their girls such as Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, Ivy Poison, Punchline, Zatanna, and others. From Marvel, I enjoy X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy and I have interest in the Eternals.
Other than that I get into a little bit of everything, in music I can't even say what my favorite genre is. My favorite artists transit between Mozart, Lily Allen, Sistar, Charlie Brown Jr, Selena Gomez, Ludmila, Green Day and so on, without any apparent pattern. My for you is summarized in compilations of kittens and some cosplayers, occasionally something about decoration or DIY appears.
In terms of games, I'm not committed to any, because I don't have much time to play, but I like Danganronpa, Identity V, Dead by Daylight, Street Fight V and Twisted Wonderland. The last one is the only one I play more often, since it doesn't demand much from me. I was addicted to Genshin Impact once, but I left the world of drugs and entered the world of hard drugs (college). Since then, it was a lost cause, and I'm not even a good student, I just need to work twice as hard to keep myself at least average. Thank you dyslexia, thank you bipolar disorder, without you my life would be very easy, so it wouldn't be any fun. /irony
My current addictions are listening to podcasts while doing daily activities, some of my favorites are Ciência Suja and Modus Operandi, both in my native language (Portuguese). Plus another addiction is organizing my stuff, the problem is that it never stays organized, so I'm constantly organizing a lifelong mess.
Now that you know me intimately, let's get to the formalities, I prefer to be called Kaká and I have no preference or identification with a specific pronoun. My sexuality is pan, but I'm not going to make war with anyone who confuses it with bi, I live in a huge fatigue, I don't have the energy for that, really. I'm studying literature and modern languages, focused on Portuguese, and I should graduate whenever destiny has planned to. I want to be a teacher, but every day I lose confidence that I have what it takes to pursue this career, so my plan b is to find a publisher that will take me on their team. Yo hablo Español & I want to learn Italian, French, Mandarin and Russian one day, not today.
I don't know what I'm doing here! Maybe it becomes a kind of logbook, and in this case I'm on board of my own life, trying to figure out what comes next and very afraid of what will become of me.
That's it. Fin.
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all my favorite stupid funny alternate posters for the mario movie keep getting removed from tmdb and thus letterboxd bcus tmdb has really oddly strict/specific rules about movie posters for a community run/public editing style media information site so whatever team of folks in charge of taking down posters are like. Always taking down posters, even a lot of ones that fit their guidelines but they don't personally like them sometimes, its super weird, ANYWAYS. the point is, i have the sense of humor of a 12 year old so if i go to change a movie's poster on letterboxd and see that one or more people have added purposefully ridiculous ones to the list i will almost always pick the goofy ones cuz it makes me smile and giggle 2 myself whenever i open the app.
i just needed to visually document this journey so far because the first poster i picked made me laugh out loud For Real when i saw it like a week or two ago, as u can see its a badly photoshopped mess with a bunch of real human beings blended into the characters and its just so horrifying and off-putting and i really loved it, that one was removed a few days ago and i saw that the default tmdb poster was back on my homepage for that movie since its been sitting at the #1 slot of like 'most popular films this week'. so i go back to the page and im like ok time to go alternate poster hunting again and man. i think i like this second one even better. i have no idea if its a reference to something or a meme i've never heard of but "GOOD TO BE BLUE" with blue edited mario re-named as 'Bluerio' next to him in big letters is just. incredible. its art.
im sure this one will probably get taken down soon too but i just needed everyone who isnt as obsessed with letterboxd and the alternate poster option to see this unfolding in real time. i genuinely love that people are not giving up on re-uploading new goofy posters whenever one gets taken down. im rooting for u Bluerio
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watched dwd yesterday and i still don’t know what to think like… the plot twist really got me good but i felt like the end was rushed. also idc what the children say but miss wilde kind of slayed the directing! florece absolutely carried the film on her back though, no doubt about that. harrys acting wasn’t all that bad people made it seem with the memes and over all a fun film to watch with friends!!! i’m still searching for the right letterboxd star count tho….
i’m honestly really glad that the movie turned out to be good. i thought it would suck but then again, booksmart wasn’t a bad movie so olivia isn’t bad at directing really even though dwd is only her second movie.
i wish i can talk more about it with you but i haven’t seen it yet because my favorite , comfort cinema is having issues and isn’t screening it yet so i have to wait 😔
but i’m happy you enjoyed it! the letterboxd star rate is so crucial to me so you need to let me know once you rate it pls
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because i have zero self control when it comes to christmas films and, well, cheesy christmas films are #life.
basically, i have developed a collection of favourites over the years, including both classic christmas films that are fun for the whole family and terrible, dripping with all our favourite favourite cliches hallmark christmas films, and yet i am still always on the hunt for more. so, i thought i would try a little thing to share them with everyone else as well (and actually remember them for future reference)!
check out the tag here i will try and remember to use as i live blog some of these movies or head on down below the cut to see all of the christmas films i’ve watched in 2020. thoughts and star ratings included! as expected, i will also be updating this as i watch more and more this holiday season (follow along on twitter too if you want).
note: since i LOVE terrible hallmark films, some that i give a higher rating will not actually be......critically acclaimed. i am just #obsessed and have my reasons as stated, i’m sure.
holidate (2020)
⭐️⭐️| first time watch | someone on letterboxd compared this movie to when you watch a rom com in sims and it’s just a bunch of random scenes that make no sense and they’re absolutely right. its only saviour is an australian dude and the line “so you know me well enough to cum in my mouth, but you don’t know me well enough to get me a christmas present?”
my christmas inn (2018)
⭐️⭐️| first time watch | i’ll be honest, this film was pretty forgetful. i watched it over a month ago and don’t really remember what happened. however, i do remember being impressed that the leading lady wasn’t a stereotypical thin white woman. so i guess at least it has that going for it.
christmas made to order (2018)
⭐️⭐️⭐️| first time watch | i actually thought this was pretty cute. it’s not the best, but also not the worst, so a decent medium if you need to fill up those figurative christmas stockings. the concept of hiring someone to decorate your entire house with no budget sounds pretty cool, but when the guy is aaron samuels and looks far from straight, it becomes a little questionable.
last christmas (2019)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️| rewatch | now this is not a cheesy hallmark film. in fact, i LOVE this film a lot and think i saw it twice at the cinema. last christmas is a top tier christmas song and i remember theorising about it when the trailer first came out, but i will say tissues may be a requirement to watch this. AND henry golding is my husband thank u and goodbye.
operation christmas drop (2020)
⭐️| first time watch | interesting concept in theory, but this is nothing more than US military propaganda and a cgi lizard. bonus: white saviourism.
the knight before christmas (2019)
⭐️⭐️⭐️| rewatch | a medieval knight transported into today’s world and has never seen a car before can drive better than me. that’s it. that’s the movie. also, he literally says the words “modern technology is lit af” at one point. solid christmas film if you ask me.
the princess switch (2018)
⭐️⭐️⭐️| rewatch | i strongly believe in the vhcncu (vanessa hudgens christmas netflix cinematic universe). i also have so many questions, like how did they afford the flights or solid conversation or was it all expenses paid? how did they finish a bulk of the cake without a mixer? why does everyone always speak english with a posh english accent even though it’s a non-english european country?
the princess switch: switched again (2020)
⭐️⭐️| if we learnt anything from a christmas prince, it’s that sequels are generally never better than their predecessor. that being said, this was much less cute body swapping christmas fluff and a little more literal kidnapping and saving the day. either way, blonde vanessa was hot and i appreciated the amber/richard cameo that insinuates a christmas prince is actually a dramatic documentary.
midnight at the magnolia (2020)
⭐️⭐️| now if you’re after an absolute cheesefest that ticks the boxes on best friends meets fake dating over the holidays, then this is the movie for you! albeit it takes place between christmas and new year’s, it’s still filled with their families knowing they were soulmates the whole time and two people who are a literal too comfortable on the radio. also, the dad’s totally should’ve been gay. they had more chemistry.
christmas wonderland (2018)
⭐️⭐️⭐️| tbh, i genuinely enjoyed this one. post breakup/high school sweethearts is a personal favourite trope of mine, so throw christmas & being forced to spend time together when she goes back home into the mix and i’ll have a serotonin explosion. bonus points for the guy telling the girl to go back to nyc to follow her dreams without being a dick. OH and the scene when he points a fuck load of sugar in his hot beverage.
a wish for christmas (2016)
⭐️⭐️| who doesn’t love a good office romance between a boss and an employee at christmastime? especially when you throw in a little christmas magic that makes her more confident that results in her finally getting what she deserves and having to travel and rekindle with his family? also, fuck them rich white dudes, but props to her for the significant job promotion.
christmas with a prince (2018)
⭐️| this was TERRIBLE and not in the good way. it featured: an entitled prince who suddenly had growth even though he did nothing to achieve it, majority of the film set in one hospital room, and the fact that she’s the only one with a tiara at the party filled with people who actually have titles. also, thought there was a decent ending but turns out there was still another 30 mins to go. ugh.
a royal christmas engagement (2020)
⭐️| don’t be fooled by the title. the engagement doesn’t happen til the last two minutes. it’s actually about a prince (bet you didn’t see that one coming) who travels to america, pretending to be his best friend who works for this major marketing firm because he’s tired of being the spare. this gets one star purely for the line “she’s not a commoner, patrick. she’s an american.”
christmas wedding planning (2017)
⭐️⭐️| it looked like it would be half decent, and while it’s definitely better than the last two, it was still pretty eh. i could get on board with her texting her dead mother’s number as a way to talk to her still, and i understand we all experience grief differently, but.....actively paying your mums phone bill 3 years later? girl. also, the end made me SCREAM. WHY DID THEY DO THAT!!!!
santa girl (2019)
⭐️| this was just painful to watch. evil jack frost makes memes in his free time, santa has a fancy car and doesn’t eat sweets, and there’s an odd comparison between the elves, minimum age workers, and racism. however, one star purely for the entertaining (read: bloody awful) tooth fairy cgi that gave me a right laugh.
the christmas chronicles (2018)
⭐️⭐️⭐️| this was really cute and had the makings of what could be a christmas movie staple along with the likes of elf and the santa clause (but will never reach that standard, obvs). tbh, it’s just a nice heartwarming family christmas movie about two siblings who band together to help santa and save christmas. also, santa was a #dilf.
the christmas chronicles: part two (2020)
⭐️⭐️| one of these days i would love to see a sequel that’s better, or at least on par, with its predecessor, but that day is not today. sadly, this film lacked all the heart and magic the first one was filled with and some scenes were pretty redundant. kurt russell and goldie hawn, however... one star for each of them.
forever christmas / mr. 365 (2019)
⭐️⭐️| the title varies depending where you’re from, but that’s probably the most exciting part of this movie. a guy celebrates christmas 365 days a year and a reality show wants to invade his house? ok, sure. one star for the eye candy and one star for, surprisingly enough, their chemistry and all the kissing scenes that don’t usually make the mark in the hallmark world.
noelle (2019)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️| did i renew disney plus just so i could watch this (and a couple of others)? maybe so... this movie is so fun! and family friendly! and is actually funny! it gives me major elf vibes, but if elf was set in a more modern day setting. either way, i had a great time and have been holding out on this one after loving it a lot last year!
the nutcracker and the four realms (2018)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️| anything nutcracker related is an instant win in my book because it’s my favourite ballet of all time (except for graeme murphy’s version, we don’t talk about that). does this movie actually deserve the four stars? maybe not. am i going to give them anyway purely for my love of the nutcracker and the soundtrack? absolutely!
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round up // NOVEMBER 20
Hi, I’m tired. Actually, my friend Celeste created a piece of art that puts the emphasis needed on that sentiment:
I’m very tired. November felt like it was three years and also felt like it went by in a blink and also I’m not sure where October ended and November began—how does time work like that? (I’ve yet to see Tenet, but maybe that will explain it.) But like Michael Scott, somehow I manage, and lately it’s been like this:
Late-night Etsy scrolling. Browsing beautiful, non-big-box-store artwork is very calming just before I go to bed. I’d recommend Etsy stores like Celeste’s chr paperie shop, which I know from experience is full of great Christmas gift ideas.
Taking a day off of work to do laundry. I’m not sure if it’s more #adulting that I did that or that I was excited to do that.
Eating Ghiradelli chocolate chips straight from the bag. I actually don’t recommend this as a healthy option, but this is also not a health blog.
Watching lots and lots of ‘80s movies. One day I’ll ask a therapist why this decade of films is so comforting for me despite its many flaws, but for now I’m just rolling with it.
Reading. Have you heard of this? It’s a form of entertainment but doesn’t require screens—wild!
Memes. All good Pippin “Fool of a” Took jokes are welcome here.
Leaning into the Christmas spirit by ordering that Starbucks peppermint mocha, making plans to watch everything in that TCM Christmas book I haven’t seen, and keeping the lights on my hot pink tinsel tree on all day as I work from home.
This month’s Round Up is full of stuff that made me smile and stuff that sucked me into its world—I think they’ll do the same for you, too.
November Crowd-Pleasers
Sister Act (1992)
If in four years you aren’t in an emotional state to watch election results roll in, I recommend watching Whoopi Goldberg pretend to be a nun for 100 minutes. (Though, incidentally, if you want to watch that clip edited to specifically depict how the results came in this year, you’ll need to watch Sister Act 2.) This musical-comedy is about as feel-good as it gets, meaning there’s no reason you should wait four more years to watch it. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7.5/10
Nevada Memes
Speaking of election results, Nevada memes. That’s it—that’s the tweet. Vulture has a round up of some of the best.
SNL Round Up
Laugh and enjoy!
“Cinema Classics: The Birds” (4605 with John Mulaney)
“Uncle Ben” (4606 with Dave Chappelle)
RoboCop (1987)
I’m not surprised I liked RoboCop, but I am surprised at why I liked RoboCop. Not only is this a boss action blockbuster, it’s an investigation into consumerism and the commodification of the human body. It’s also a critique of institutions that treat crime like statistics instead of actions done by people that impact people. That said, it’s also movie about a guy who’s fused with a robot and melts another guy’s face off with toxic sludge, so there’s a reason I’m not listing this under the Critic section. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10
Double Feature – ‘80s Comedies: National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) + Major League (1989)
The ‘80s-palooza is in full swing! In Vacation (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), Chevy Chase just wants to spend time with his family on a vacation to Wally World, but wouldn’t you know it, Murphy’s Law kicks into gear as soon as the Griswold family shifts from out of Park. The brilliance of the movie is that every one of these terrible things is plausible, but the Griswolds create the biggest problems themselves. In Major League (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10), Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Wesley Snipes are Cleveland’s last hope for a winning baseball team. Like the Griswolds, mishaps and hijinks ensue in their attempt to prevent their greedy owner from moving the Indians to Miami, but the real win is this movie totally gets baseball fans. Like most ‘80s movies, not everything in this pair has aged well, but they brought some laughs when I needed them most.
This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens (2020)
They’re born a minute apart in the same hospital, but they don’t meet until their 30th birthday on New Year’s Day. So, yes, it’s a little bit Serendipity, and it’s a little bit sappy, but those are both marks in this book’s favor. This Time Next Year is a time-hopping rom-com with lots of almost-meet-cutes that will have you laughing, believing in romantic twists of fate, and finding hope for the new year.
Double Feature – ‘80s Angsty Teens: Teen Wolf (1985) + Uncle Buck (1989)
In the ‘80s, Hollywood finally understood the angsty teen, and this pair of comedies isn’t interested in the melodrama earlier movies like Rebel Without a Cause were depicting. (I’d recommend Rebel, but not if you want to look back on your teen years with any sense of humor.) In Teen Wolf (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 5/10), Michael J. Fox discovers he’s a werewolf.one that looks more like the kid in Jumanji than any other portrayal of a werewolf you’ve seen. It’s a plot so ‘80s and so bizarre you won’t believe this movie was greenlit.
In Uncle Buck (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), John Candy is attempting to connect with the nieces and nephew he hasn’t seen in years, including one moody high schooler. (Plus, baby Gaby Hoffman and pre-Home Alone Macauley Culkin!) This is my second pick from one of my all-time fave filmmakers, John Hughes (along with National Lampoon’s Vacation, above), and it’s one more entry that balances heart and humor in a way only he could do. You can see where I rank this movie in Hughes’s pantheon on Letterboxd.
Lord of the Rings memes
This month on SO IT’S A SHOW?, Kyla and I revisited The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy we love almost as much as we love Gilmore Girls. You can listen to our episode about the series on your fave podcast app, and you can laugh through hundreds of memes like I did for “research” on Twitter.
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (2019)
Most adults are afraid of children’s temper tantrums, but can you imagine how terrified you’d be if they caught on fire in their fits of rage? That’s the premise of this novel, which begins when an aimless twentysomething becomes the nanny of a Tennessee politician’s twins who burst into flames when they get emotional. The book is filled with laugh-out-loud moments but never leaves behind the human emotion you need to make a magical realistic story.
An Officer and a Gentlemen (1982)
Speaking of aimless twentysomethings and emotion, feel free to laugh, cry, and swoon through this melodrama in the ‘80s canon. Richard Gere meanders his way into the Navy when he has nowhere else to go, and he tries to survive basic training, work through his family issues, and figure out his future as he also falls in love with Debra Winger. So, yeah, it’s a schamltzier version of Top Gun, but it’s schmaltz at its finest. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7.5/10
November Critic Picks
Double Feature – ‘40s Amensia Romances: Random Harvest (1942) + The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Speaking of schmaltz at its finest, let me share a few more titles fitting that description. In Random Harvest (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Greer Garson falls in love with a veteran who can’t remember his life before he left for war. In The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Gene Tierney discovers a ghost played by a crotchety Rex Harrison in her new home. Mild spoiler: Both feature amnesiac plot developments, and while amnesia has become a cliché in the long history of romance films, Harvest is moving enough and Mr. Muir is charming enough that you won’t roll your eyes. You can see these and more romances complicated by forced forgetfulness in this Letterboxd round up.
The African Queen (1951)
It’s Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn directed by John Huston—I mean, I don’t feel like I need to explain why this is a winner. Bogart (in his Oscar-winning role) and Hepburn star in a two-hander script, dominating the screen time except for a select few scenes with supporting cast. The pair fight for survival while cruising on a small boat called The African Queen during World War I (in Africa, natch), and the two make this small story feel grand and epic. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
A young man’s (Dennis Price) mother is disowned from their wealthy family because she marries for love. After her death, he seeks vengeance by killing all of the family members ahead of him in line to be the Duke D'Ascoyne. The twist? All of his victims are played by Sir Alec Guinness! Almost every character in this black comedy is a terrible person, so you won’t be too sorry to see them go—you can just enjoy the creative “accidents” he stages and stay in suspense on whether our “hero” gets his comeuppance. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10
Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1937)
What would you do if you found out you were to be someone’s eighth wife? Well, it’s probably not what Claudette Colbert does in this screwball comedy that reminds me a bit of Love Crazy. This isn’t the first time I’ve recommended Colbert, Gary Cooper, or Ernst Lubitsch films, so it’s no surprise these stars and this director can make magic together in this hilarious battle of the wills. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8.5/10
The Red Shoes (1948)
I love stories about the competition between your life and your art, and The Red Shoes makes that competition literal. Moira Shearer plays a ballerina who feels life is meaningless without dancing—then she falls in love. That’s an oversimplification of a rich character study and some of the most beautiful ballet on film, but I can’t do it justice in a short paragraph. Just watch (perhaps while you’re putting up your hot pink tinsel tree?) and soak in all the goodness. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 10/10
The Third Man (1949)
Everybody loves to talk about Citizen Kane, and with the release of Mank on Netflix, it’s newsworthy again. But don’t miss this other ‘40s team up of Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. Cotten is a writer digging for the truth of his friend’s (Welles) death in a mysterious car accident. Eyewitness accounts differ on what happened, and who was the third man at the scene only one witness remembers? 71 years later, this movie is still tense, and this actor pairing is still electric. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10
The Untouchables (1987)
At the end of October, we lost Sean Connery. I looked back on his career first by writing a remembrance for ZekeFilm and then by watching The Untouchables. (In a perfect world I would’ve reversed that order, but c’est la vie.) In my last selection from the ‘80s, Connery and Kevin Costner attempt to convict Robert De Niro’s Al Capone of anything that will stick and end his reign of crime in Chicago. Directed by Brian De Palma and set to an Ennio Morricone soundtrack, this film is both an exciting action flick and an artistic achievement that we literally discussed in one of my college film classes. Connery won his Oscar, and K. Cos is giving one of the best of his career, too. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9.5/10
Remember the Night (1940)
Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in my favorite team up yet! Double Indemnity may be the bona fide classic in the canon, but this Christmas story—with MacMurray as a district attorney prosecuting shoplifter Stanwyck— is a charmer. I’ve added it to my list of must-watch Christmas movies—watch for some holiday cheer and rom-com feels. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10
Photo credits: chr paperie. Books my own. All others IMDb.com.
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I decided to get a Letterboxd. I don’t even know why-- it adds zero value to what I already do on here; I’m just supplying information to some data mining outfit, for no reward. I just decided I wanted one. But it means yesterday, I started going slowly back through time on my “movies I watched” tags, to boil down my long, rambling tumblr nonsense into short, pithy bite-sized Letterboxd nothings. That’s been a pretty weird exercise, besides just having to confront years of terrible movie choices. I’m midway through 2018, but just having to read my own writing-- no thank you! Not a fan!
That and the constant experience of asking myself, “Do I want other people to potentially see I have this opinion???” Not fun! I’ll say whatever on tumblr because if you go onto tumblr, any tumblr, you’re already implicitly on some level saying “coherence and sanity are bourgeoise concepts; let’s enjoy some words; tell me about your elevator memes.” Other places don’t have that, I don’t think. If a businessman ever looks at a balance sheet and says “wait, we own what??? why??? how is that a business?” and shuts this place down, I don’t know how I’ll ever feel as safe again...
Also, Letterboxd makes you say what your favorite movies are.�� Wonder Boys is one of my favorite movies but the movie poster for Wonder Boys is one of the all-time worst movie posters ever made, so everytime I see my opinions I feel embarrassed. Embarrassing me isn’t Michael Douglas’s job-- that my shitty opinions’ job!!! He’s stealing work from my opinions! Just like he stole work from every other male actor in the 80′s or 90′s who wanted to make a movie about how much they hated women-- he took all those jobs from them. “I would like to make a movie about how I hate women, but then Michael Douglas shoved me to the ground and by the time I got up, he was starring in Disclosure with Demi Moore instead of me.” -- countless actors in Hollywood, 1984-1997. An American tragedy.
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nct dream on social media!
excluding weibo, messenger apps, and dating apps
note: this is purely my personal opinion. kinda inspired by my irls :)
mark
he loves to share what he does when he can
on instagram he’s the kinda guy who isn’t really... there
busy boy finding out about news a whole week late
when he posts stories it’s usually like... super vague pictures of music or lyrics he’s working on
probably one or two basic shots of food
AND ESPECIALLY
shares what he’s listening to on spotify I Kid You Not
if mark lee posts a story it’s probably going to be what he’s listening to on spotify
he’s more active on twitter because uh
memes
mostly quoted retweets tbh
his replies are always just “HAHAHAHAHA” or “LMAOOOO” and some goofy one-liner
has mutuals on stan twt because he likes to steal the memes
it’s honestly like ????
tweets mostly in english but korean is always there
you would find him laughing his ass off and why? because one of his mutuals tweeted something off of punhub
“can you perform under pressure?”
“no, but i can perform bohemian rhapsody”
or
“doctor, it hurts when i do this”
“then don’t do that”
I SWEAR TO GOD THIS DUDE HAS THE FUNNIEST TL
not only because of punhub trust me
he’s mostly on local twt just on about netflix shows and music because he doesn’t have enough to time rlly branch out into one community other than his own
has tried uploading his works on soundcloud but just feels more comfortable uploading covers and stuff on youtube
he’d accidentally get in everyone’s recommended because hey here’s a talented man on the guitar who’s goofy and cute
BUT ANYWAYS
overall since he’s a very busy person he’s not too active, but social media kind of gives him a little laugh every once in a while so that’s great
renjun
say it with me, instagram
the prettiest golden hour selfies
your resident pretty boy
says he Doesn’t Care About Fashion but then posts a body shot of his fit smh
can’t complain because he’s mad fine let’s be real here
he has an account for every single social media out there but isn’t always active on every account
i swear to god he;s made a linkedin account
the way he’s probably made a mf foursquare account…
he’s just such an all-around sociable guy he just has mutuals everywhere
i mean the entertainment industry is all about connections so
go get it reonjeon!
makes an appearance in everyone’s social media like he’s EVERYWHERE
jaemin’s instagram? check. jisung’s tiktok? check! chenle’s twitter? check. he’s in everyone’s mentions fr
his stories are always reposts of other posts and of the stories he’s tagged in
work socmed! he makes his career look so comfy and homey from his posts and stories
was one of those guys who used to be super active on snapchat but gave up after insta stories became a thing
mans stalks more people than you think… he’s just a sly dude
not in a creepy way ofc he just gets pretty lost within the internet
you could actually play any trending tiktok audio and you’d hear him sing along every word in the background… what has this mf been doin??? uhm???
sends posts he thinks are funny to ig and twt gcs
mostly to jisung because he’s the only one who actually leaves SOME sort of reaction whether it be double tapping the text or going ㅎㅎㅎㅎㅎ
likes to visit pinterest every once in a while because it’s like a nice eye cleanse
it’s also good outfit and food inspiration in the cases that he feels like creating something non career related
in general he just likes looking for new ideas and sometimes pinterest is just a great outlet for a visual layout like that
renjun and jisung, THESE TWO
they scour the internet together
goin wild with the crack videos with jisung
jeno
this dude is nowhere
like. he has thousands of followers on instagram and for WHAT
twitter page: empty
snapchat: gave up after insta stories
insta stories: DOESN’T EVEN POST SO WHAT’S THE POINT
but he’s like almost always actively liking everything on your timeline
like... every post on your feed is “liked by jeno and xx others”
WHERE IS THIS DUDE
texting him becomes a game through all the different dm platforms online
like will he open his twitter dms today or will he only answer if you furiously facetime him
some days it’s katalk and somedays he just chooses to ignore you
PURPOSELY SO YOU HAVE TO CALL HIM
anyways when he does post on instagram it’s usually just his surroundings and daily activities
or his cats
yeah
does a lot of things with his friends so you’ll probably find him tagged in the dreamies’ stories
but not anywhere else for some reason
he’s more active on twitter!
he kind of feels more relaxed on twitter since it isn’t based on images
tweets out of context things
like a random “fml” out of nowhere and you’re like okay i guess
pretty vague too
doesn’t really make an effort to make any mutuals because it’s kind of like a vent place for him
stays on private
friends only so... about 30 followers and that’s it
people who follow his Instagram don’t really know his twt so it relieves him a bit
food videos on youtube
not mukbangs but like
very nice cooking videos
like have y’all heard of Nino’s Kitchen
he loves that shit BET
the greatest mix between dry sarcasm, humorous attacks and beautiful food
mans just likes real life interactions i guess
haechan
youtube addict!
gamer haechan
he could spend DAYS on youtube and just forget about time and space altogether
just finds the best rabbit holes to go into from music to snails to gaming to fancams
also on tiktok but his tiktok is on instagram ya feel
finds it stupid but so, so entertaining
loves watching those makeup and art tiktoks because they’re so well done
humor tiktoks on his explore page
number one edit fanatic
mans loves watching edits on instagram and how they’re so well made like
he’s truly one to appreciate art
his stories are uploaded on the weirdest times of day
want a video of him serenading the camera at two in the morning? sign yourself up
twitter is lowkey his diary
he just tweets whatever is happening all day errday
sometimes he completely forgets about the existence of twitter altogether so there are days where he’s on twitter every second but there are weeks where it’s just CRICKETS
loves to listen to other people’s playlists
open to new vibes (but no hateful vibes!)
still does snapchat streaks... hm
and who might he be talking to?
his snapchat streaks are always the same shot of the window or some scenery from his apartment
the kind of guy who snaps you until goddamn 4am
make room for online boyfriend hyuck
goes on twitch for the fun of it when he’s too busy to play
finds it real satisfying to just see the streamers engage with the audience while being real good at what they do
either way he’s just always on youtube but when he isn’t he’s usually just consuming content instead of uploading content
but when he does post anything it’s like quality!!
jaemin
unlike jeno, this man is EVERYWHERE
and when i mean everywhere i mean he’s also on letterboxd (!!!) and soundcloud
maybe this is just an excuse for me to force the jaemin film and photography student agenda
this man has customised every part of every profile on social media
except for linkedin
folks, his instagram is just pictures of everyone else but him
even on soundcloud his self-written songs are sung by other members in nct
his insta stories are the only place you can actually hear his voice
insta stories are just food and friends
and by friends i mean wtf moments at the dream dorm
memes all over twitter
steals memes pretty regularly
like he’d always like the tweets before stealing and those tweets would always end up in your tl so whenever he uses those memes in your convos it’s just like
aHa i see
posts “mood” tweets
mostly replies to other people rather than making his own tweets
loves to do deep dives on youtube because he always discovers the cutest music
also gets the best inspiration from youtube
has a few favourite youtubers and genuinely appreciates their content
again, inspiration
watches lots of movies but doesn’t really leave any reviews so he just gives a few stars (or none) on letterboxd
the kind of guy who’s glued to his phone
i don’t blame him
his phone is full of content
still on snapchat apparently
but he’s the kind of dude that just sends streaks every day and updates his snapchat story like never
his streaks... lmao
usually goes for a black screen with a plain “s” or just a random shot of his bedsheets
but if he considers you a close friend he might get distracted and send you a bunch of videos of him playing with filters
he really does think they’re quite the fascination
maybe he’s just bored lol social media is pretty expansive
chenle
he’s like jeno but gives less fucks
so... instagram and twitter are equally chaotic
such a mood
just makes you go WHAT IS THIS DUDE UP TO
this dude is usually just Chillin
and he gets bored so he just brain farts into twitter
whenever there’s a basketball game he’s watching he’ll fill your entire timeline with out of context reactions
also kind of a random out of context dude who posts things at the weirdest times of the day/night
doesn’t give enough fucks to go on private
gets a lot of followers on twt solely because so many people find his life so fascinating like hm...
what might zhong chenle be doing at this time of day
on instagram it’s kind of a different story because uh he might have to think twice about whether or not he wants a certain picture on his feed
but then again, no fucks
so he’s like meh okay sure i’ll post it
pics of food and places he’s been to and laid back selfies and #tbt type beat
NOT WAYV’S TURN BACK TIME I MEAN THROWBACK THURSDAY
but he does a lot of promo for nct and wayv
get that bag boy!
chenle on instagram is like hyuck on twitter: he can go weeks being completely inactive but one day he suddenly remembers the existence of instagram and posts five pictures in a day
all with either no caption or like the vaguest “ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ” or “哈哈哈哈”
if y’all have seen his weibo then y’all would know his twt would be filled with “哈哈哈哈哈”
mentions everyone (especially jisung) in each and every single one of his insta stories
replies to random comments
eternal chenle menpa how bout that
goes on wattpad and ao3 for the fun of it
actually kind of enjoys some of the work on wattpad... his fav trope is enemies to lovers
that one mutual that casually likes all your tweets
he would literally spam like all your pictures/tweets as soon as you guys become mutuals and it’s sweet
comments on everything
always dragged in jisung’s tiktok antics
knows all the tiktok dances by heart even though it looks like he’s so unbothered
thinks tiktok is cringey but HIGHKEY gets into it
jisung
now this dude is on tiktok but he doesn’t really fetch for clout
he likes doing short freestyles
the challenges are cool too and he’s had a few mutuals on tiktok so that’s nice
but this dude screams TWITTER and YOUTUBE
watches shit like vox and jubilee because it’s so interesting to him
has been through a vsauce phase but eventually got bored because they didn’t upload a lot
youtube is there for his deep dives and curiosities
also is subscribed to a lot of youtubers so his recommended page is super diverse
comments on videos with the most candid thoughts
youtube has been a big part of him honestly especially as a child who didn’t really get a formal education
he’s just kind of learning from the internet
doesn’t bother with instagram because... he can post pictures on twt too...
eventually gets instagram anyways so
the pictures/videos jisung sends on lysn bubble are literally his insta feed
but on twitter he’s just kind of vibin
says he goes on twt 5 times a day so there we go
likes those generational tweets and tiktoks that go like
“kids born after 2005 will never understand this”
his retweets bruv
he just retweets funny one liner replies from viral tweets
also keeps up with the news (ehem this was the boy on the political section of daily korean news let’s hear it)
rather than just korea he’s pretty interested in international news too so he’s a pretty outspoken guy
doesn’t really do a lot of tweeting himself though since he just kind of goes “헐” or “대박” or “ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ”
him and renjun are youtube buddies just because. yes.
usually spirals into crack compilations
like renjun, he’s also seen pretty often in other members’ mentions
ESPECIALLY CHENLE THIS DUDE WONT SHUT UP ABOUT JISUNG
but he honestly really likes being mentioned and being active online because he’s spent most of his life either practicing or online so
feels like home huh
kinda gen z spirit there lmao
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Obsession.
Ella Kemp dives into Letterboxd’s 100 highest-rated, obsessively rewatched films of 2020 to find out why we love them—and to give Hollywood a heads-up on what we want to rewatch again and again.
Take note, development execs: we want to watch more of everything that makes us feel alive; that makes us feel thankful to be. To bottle that feeling, and drink it up as often, and as obsessively, as we like. We also want: more singing, more dancing, more drugs, more talking animals, more of whatever Director Bong is serving—and make everything gayer.
We know this because, a few years back, the Letterboxd team asked one very simple question: what’s the highest-rated film of all time, when the criteria is that you must have seen it five or more times? Not the ‘guilty’ pleasures, not the ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ gems, but the already-excellent films that are also inherently rewatchable. The resulting top 100 from back then are all extremely, objectively good. What can we say—you have great taste.
Because 2020 is, well, 2020, we revisited this idea to see how four years and an endless quarantine might have changed things. The usual suspects have been rounded up (Christopher, Quentin, Ridley, Damien, David and company), but a lot has shifted in the Highest Rated Obsessively Rewatched Club for 2020.
The top ten in the 100 highest rated, obsessively rewatched films of 2020.
Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is now top of the heap, where Spike Jonze’s Her was number one last time around. In fact, only Jaws and Carol remain from the last top ten. The Letterboxd community favors a wider world view: in 2017, the top 100 had only one film by a female director; in 2020 there are eight. The list has gone from exactly zero films entirely in languages other than English, to two (Portrait and Parasite), with several more containing a portion of non-English dialogue. Not quite leaping the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, but it’s progress. And, there is substantially more LGBTQ+ representation all round.
This year’s top 100 shows that we still like to return to the idea of the auteur, and the challenge of a franchise. In 2017, Christopher Nolan was the filmmaker with the highest number of highly rated, obsessively rewatched films; in 2020 Quentin Tarantino has taken the lead, just ahead of Nolan. Joining them in the multiple-titles group are Edgar Wright, Peter Jackson, Joe and Anthony Russo, epic-scale filmmakers from whom we’ve learned so much, and whose films have more to offer the viewer on every watch. (When ratings are not part of the equation, Avengers: Endgame—still with a respectable 3.9 average—was the Most Obsessively Rewatched title of 2019. “You give me someone flying, turning invisible, super speed… that’s where I live,” explains obsessive rewatcher Max Joseph this Letterboxd interview. “In Endgame, I get a little bit of every genre and mood.”)
Obsessed with obsession
What is “obsessive”? To put some kind of parameters around the search for this year’s top 100, our team looked for the feature films that had five or more rated watches from a minimum of 150 Letterboxd members each, then we sorted that list by the ratings of those members.
But that word—“obsessive”—got me thinking. Just how obsessive are we talking here? It’s reassuring to know that Parasite is, naturally, a film we enjoy returning to, but when we’re talking about rewatches plural, what happens when we sort these 100 highly rated titles by another value: the number of diary entries logged by these obsessive members. And what would that list say about our tendencies as watchers?
Spoiler: we also pulled those numbers, and found an entirely different top ten:
The most obsessively rewatched, highest-rated films of all time, as at 2020.
Look at that image. Compare it with the inarguable cinephilia of the ratings-based top ten, which soars on critical strength. What are we seeing here? That’s not the question. The real question is: what are we feeling? What do these ten films do to us so consistently, that helps them to retain high ratings across many, many, many rewatches?
You see, in the top 100, members typically log their favorites between five and seven times—but there’s a select handful of titles that see an average of up to 24 viewings per obsessive member. You read that right. There is a film on Letterboxd that multiple obsessive members have watched 24 times or more, at the time of writing.
Comedy that never gets old
The film in question is Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s What We Do in the Shadows, a genre-smart mockumentary about three vampire housemates just, well, pure vibing. It’s entirely in a league of its own, no doubt helped by a spin-off series, with the next entry, The Lonely Island’s Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping racking up an average of 17.7 rewatches per obsessive member.
These top two most obsessively rewatched titles make sense. When you’re feeling low, or when there’s some time to kill, what better place to turn than somewhere where the jokes never get old? As James writes on Letterboxd, Shadows “never fails to make me laugh”. Never fails. Taking a chance on a new comedy harbors its risks, so when you find the ones that work, you have to hold onto them like gold dust. It’s the sense of familiarity that comes from the same sharp, self-aware sketches, the endlessly quotable one-liners and screenshots that make memes feel like works of art.
(On that note, I asked the team: what were the highest-rated, obsessively rewatched comedy specials? No surprises: Bo Burnham’s masterful 2016 Netflix special Make Happy, and John Mulaney’s Kid Gorgeous at Radio City. Comedy is good when it catches you off guard—but in a pandemic, it’s even better when you can rely on it to deliver that same rush of endorphins, every time.)
Thank you for the music
Speaking of pick-me-ups, ever notice how much better you feel after karaoke? Or, when you know everyone else has gone out so you can let rip across every inch of the house with ultimate privacy? The cathartic thrill that comes from a sing-along is what keeps our obsessive members returning to musicals, increasingly. There’s comfort in memorized lyrics; the words we yell and hold dear.
You’ve got this in Popstar (‘Finest Girl’, anyone?) and, crucially, in a double-bill of jukebox musicals celebrating ABBA’s greatest hits: Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. With fifteen rewatches on average for the former, and almost seventeen for the latter, the sequel’s slight upper hand proves the film’s triumphant formula—there really is an endless supply of ABBA bangers—but also that the repurposing of the most pivotal tracks (‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Waterloo’) will work even better the second time around, due to the familiarity, both of the songs and now their new-found purpose in this world.
The feeling of singing along with Lily James as Donna, as she dances around Paris with her young Harry, of latching onto Cher’s every breath as she reunites with the eponymous Fernando—these moments become part of our own memory, and the satisfaction that comes from performing them again and again never fades. It’s also why so many musicals are rewatchable staples. Singin’ in the Rain, Rocketman, Bohemian Rhapsody and Pitch Perfect all feature in the top 100.
Out of interest, I asked the team to lift the curtain on non-narrative music films to see which greats we return to. Again, zero surprise (to me, at least): Jonathan Demme’s transcendent Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense is, and has long been, the highest-rated, most obsessively rewatched concert documentary on Letterboxd. And it’s only been a few months, but the Disney+ filmed version of Hamilton is up there, along with Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé. #BEYHIVE, come in.
Maybe we should trust love
At the other end of the spectrum, two titles in the most obsessively rewatched top ten point to our tendencies to find catharsis in our most extreme, most vulnerable expressions of emotion. Our two revealing films here are Love, Simon and Interstellar—one a grounded and sensitive coming-of-age picture of a teenage boy’s coming out, the other an epic space-travel thriller. Still, both films understand that, ultimately, love transcends all.
These films make room for us to revisit these most searing feelings, of love hidden, lost, afraid or universal, they let us cry out what we relate to, and escape into whichever onscreen emotions we prefer to project ourselves into beyond our own lives, time and time again. Because however much changes, you know you’ll always crave and be rewarded by love. (And by the existential exploration that often accompanies these big feelings: Don Hertzfeldt's World of Tomorrow is the highest-rated, most obsessively rewatched short film with Letterboxd members.)
Ink spots and needle drops
The idea of projection—of escape beyond our own lives—comes back often when thinking of the rewatch. But certain titles reveal how we choose to find escape in a quite literal form; observe the love for Tangled, rewatched on average ten times per obsessive member.
And then there’s Shrek 2, revisited on average 7.9 times (more on this bizarre, outstanding oddity on its own soon). The leap of faith into an animated world is one that offers a blank canvas painted over with new colors: the pastel pinks and soft peach oranges of sunset skies in Tangled, the rich purples and blues of the twinkling lights of the afterlife in Coco, the playful blue waters of Moana, with the sun giving everything a new glow. Animation works as relaxation here, clearing the mind and coloring it calmly time and time again. Elsa said it first: you can, and should, let it all go.
It is entirely probable, of course, that no Letterboxd parent is logging the Frozens—or any other animated family film, for that matter—as often as their household is actually watching them, the truth of which would completely upend this data. We know the math underpinning this whole exercise is somewhat arbitrary, but it’s an interesting starting point from which to analyze why certain things just work, again and again.
Take the oddity that is Shrek 2, deserving of its own dissection purely because of how masterfully it combines so many of the previously established elements. This film and its predecessor create so many vivid images that fit into the category of animated escapism, but music plays a major part, also. ‘Accidentally In Love’ by Counting Crows as Shrek and Fiona blissfully enjoy their honeymoon period; ‘Funky Town’ by Lipps Inc. as Shrek, Fiona and Donkey roll into Far Far Away; Jennifer Saunders as Fairy Godmother, with her sublime cover of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out For A Hero’. There are too many perfect needle-drop moments to count, and every time the rewatch comes around, they feel new.
Add to the comforting visuals and euphoric music the countless one-liners, perfectly performed by Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers, but really, here, Rupert Everett as Prince Charming—a squirm-inducing, note-perfect pantomimic performance. Shrek 2 might just be the defining example of what makes a good movie the best movie, and one that only grows greater with every rewatch. Lucky us.
Festive fever
The inclusion of A Christmas Story, the second-last in our most rewatched top ten, makes sense when considering the times in our lives when we turn to movies for comfort (and discomfort: note the Hallowe’en-related rewatchables in the top 100). A Christmas Story might not be your first festive choice, but you will have your own equivalent. The Muppet Christmas Carol also made the top 100, with Elf, Love, Actually and the Home Alone movies bubbling under. We recognize all the beats, and seeing as the holidays return each year, it’s natural that we return to the titles that make us feel most at home within them.
Like Carol. Darling Carol. The last of our top ten most most most rewatched. Flung out of space into our eyeballs by Todd Haynes as some sort of Christmas miracle, its rewatchability as much seasonal as it is about love, representation, vintage glamor and that final scene. Let’s see where Happiest Season sits this time next year, shall we?
And so, what can filmmakers and distributors learn from what we want to see, not just once, but again and again? In just four years the list of titles the Letterboxd community has chosen to revisit and protect has blossomed with an open heart and feverishly enthusiastic mind.
Looking over the top 100 highest-rated, obsessively rewatched films in 2020, we want more queer love: Portrait, Moonlight and Carol but also Booksmart, The Favourite, Call Me by Your Name. We definitely need more singing and dancing: Suspiria, La La Land, Singin’ in the Rain, Mamma Mia and beyond.
We want more adventure, more time travel, more mind-melters, more drinking, exploring, investigating, more talking animals, more drugs, more laughs, more tears, more goosebumps. We want more full-body feelings of falling in love with a movie you know you’ll hold onto with everything you’ve got.
In the end, numbers can only tell us so much, and these numbers are drawn from what we’ve already seen, which is what’s already managed to make it through the system. There’s as much to learn from how these films were made as there is from what they’re about. Because, no matter how many AI tools people dream up to help with the green-lighting process, moviemaking is fundamentally about magic. And when all the right ingredients make it into the cauldron, the spell can be so strong that a film will win our hearts forever.
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The Highest-Rated Obsessively Rewatched Club for 2020
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『COURTNEY EATON ❙ CIS FEMALE』 ⟿ looks like MARLA CRANE is here for HER JUNIOR year as a JOURNALISM student. she is 22 years old & known to be inventive, dogged, heedless & blunt. They’re living in GORHAM, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ mia. 23. pt. she/her.
[without me by eminem plays muffled from the next room as marla wanders thru the door w a mickey of vodka in her left hand and the communist manifesto in her right]
tws for drug use, mental illness
history
she has a happy childhood in a seattle suburb. she’s the youngest of two girls, and even though her mom works all the time, and her dad’s overseas, everything’s fine. until marla gets to second grade, which she hates, gets into a fight with a boy, and nearly bites his finger off. this time she gets off with a warning. then, later that week, said boy and her are working on this paper maché duck together, and the teacher's keeping an eye on them at first but has now dismissed them as totally getting along, and then the teacher glances at them again to find that they have vanished, and so have the art supplies. the two of them are found six hours later hiding in a park. they’ve been hanging out there all day, asking for a quarter from each unsuspecting parent or guardian they’ve seen. they’ve used this to buy as much food from the community centre vending machine as they can carry. their goal: wait until their parents are sleeping, steal the tent from marla’s backyard, and go live in the treehouse in his backyard. upon discovery, they’re both grounded for a month. marla is no longer allowed to read calvin and hobbes –– her mom is pretty sure it’s what inspired the escape attempt.
she and this boy, whose name is jasper, regroup once they’ve been ungrounded. jasper and her are both the sort of kids who bite their nails at the sign of a group project. their fight had been over who got to read the classroom’s only calvin and hobbes anthology. their initial truce had been based entirely around a mutual desire for treehouse living. now, they just want insurance. so they agree to partner up, always.
they’re bad influences on each other. apart, they’re both a little feral, sure, but they understand that certain things are not possible, and they avoid danger if they can help it. when they hang out, though, they egg each other on. jasper breaks his arm because marla dares him to climb the school; marla’s suspended after jasper dares her to pull the fire alarm; jasper and marla accidentally burn down a garden shed; jasper and marla scam five people out of their lunch money so they can go see a movie after school. (they pay them back a week later. they’re not total monsters. also, they were getting scared one of the kids was gonna tell on them).
jasper’s parents are moving. jasper’s moving with them, out to the country. marla hates it, but she steels herself. she can be independent. she’s nearly sixteen now, and it’s about time she started. but she’s going to miss him. he tells her that nothing’s going to change, which she tells him is bullshit. he takes this the wrong way, and they stop speaking to each other. this goes on for five months. marla’s lonely at first –– she doesn’t know how to talk to people who aren’t him. she starts dating this guy, and that opens things up a little bit. he introduces her to his friends, and suddenly she doesn’t feel as wild. she’s no longer a product of the outskirts.
one night she thinks fuck it, that’s enough silence. she sneaks out at one am, texting jasper to meet her halfway. she borrows her sister’s car. marla figures she practically knows how to drive. she’s done it a few times. and, to her credit, she makes it to where she and jasper are meeting. she also wraps the car around a pole. she emerges relatively unharmed, and she panics. jasper doesn’t show up. he texts to tell her he got caught trying to leave. she calls him an idiot. then she waits there, arms crossed, incapable of doing anything but dreading consequences, until it’s nearly morning. that’s when a cop drives by and the process of being in trouble begins. it’s a clusterfuck. this is when her sister stops speaking to her –– marla’s been on thin ice with her for a long time, but now it’s over. it isn’t so much that her sister wants to hold a grudge. it’s just finally too much. and marla gets it. for once, she doesn’t try and change things, or slip out of trouble. that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get into a number of shouting matches with her mom. her phone is taken away, as is all of her money, which goes toward buying her sister a new car. her laptop is sold in the name of the new car too. she can use the family computer if schoolwork absolutely demands internet access.
she hasn’t heard from jasper in a long time. her now ex boyfriend is still sort of a friend, but not the kind she can hang out with. there was one girl she really got along with at their school, but they made out at a party and the next day the girl wouldn’t really look her in the eyes. she turns seventeen, the birthday celebrated more or less alone, and does a little stint in juvie for keying a teacher’s car. she then spends a year at a community college, followed by radcliffe. she picks radcliffe because she’s accepted, and because it’s far from home. being at home fills her with this sick feeling now –– something went bad somewhere along the way, and she’s pretty sure it was her that made the wrong turn at the crossroads. not her mom, not jasper, not anyone else that had power over her life. and she won’t reach out to her friend, or to her sister, because that would mean admitting she cares more than they do.
she sort of wishes she could go back to being a careful person. she wants to understand boundaries. she also wants her life to have a purpose, and she likes writing, and she’s always loved nancy drew, but being a detective would’ve meant being a cop and she'd genuinely rather die, so she’s gone for journalism. she’s not loving the university experience, but it’s better than before, and it’s provided a lot of distractions that she’s grateful for.
headcanons / personality :
she can be a little abrasive.
she smokes weed whenever she can afford it, because if she doesn’t she tends toward feeling depressed and highly uninspired. she carries this apathy with her, and then every once in a while she’ll snap, and either get a lot better or a lot worse. klonopin is her best friend now.
she’s 100% a leftist and the way to her heart at this point is through communism memes. she’s slowly but surely making her way through the works of karl marx. she’d probably be done by now, but she keeps reading romance novels instead. (this is also a secret. she reads them on her phone and deletes them the moment she’s done so that nobody can know).
she lives to pirate movies, but claims that the only movie she’s ever seen is showgirls. this is because she dated a film major during her first year of college and found him so insufferable that she’s decided nobody can ever know she watches movies. she gets that he was just a jackass, and she shouldn’t judge anyone by their major, and yet................ that said, she has a secret letterboxd account (when she made it, she found her ex’s account and blocked him, just in case) and on it there’s a list of films in which richard nixon gets punched in the face.
deep down she’s actually very sentimental and sensitive, which is why she worked so hard to Not Be That growing up. she does her very best to never show that side of herself –– if someone sees her crying she’s just gotta kill them ! those are the rules. and after a while it got more and more difficult to actually access that side of herself. when she cries, it’s an Event.
she’s always broke. she’s also somehow always capable of scraping together exactly enough money to go out.
she knows that if jasper contacted her now, even after the years of radio silence, she’d do anything for him. they’re still friends, even if that friendship only exists in her memories. she realizes she could text him, but that would violate her strict double texting rules. and she’s afraid to.
she definitely makes bad decisions while drunk. like, all the time. speaking of which, she’s up for anything ! wanna attempt to summon a demon at 3 am? she’s ur girl ! wanna break into someone’s house and move all of the furniture over by about an inch before stealing away into the night? she’s already there !
she’s actually a good listener, which is one of the only positive traits she credits herself with. that, and creativity.
she’s a taurus but like . there is almost definitely some pisces / scorpio / sagittarius on her chart
she can play piano. she’s actually pretty good at it. or she was, back when she had access to pianos.
she really really really really really really wants a dog but there is no way in hell she can afford one
she’s bisexual
wanted connections :
(i mean. i will love anything, but....)
exes – whether they dated for a while or just hooked up once or twice tbh
enemies – these are easy because marla often does not consider consequences, so she could easily have done smth :/ to ur muse
friends – pls ! she needs them
unrequited crush – on her part, probably ? maybe they’re friends and she doesn’t wanna fuck that up but she’s starting to care about them in a different way. I Love Repression. what a good trope.
if anyone’s down for spontaneous tattoos............ she loves those (@chase hi, hello, come here)
a good influence would be fantastic
anyone else from seattle / the seattle area who maybe knew her in passing
um i really want this
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Six Things You Can Do Online To Enjoy Life
If there’s any bright spot at all to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that we at least have the internet, unlike previous generations that also faced pandemics.
While a lot of us understand how lucky we are to be COVID-free and working from home, it’s hard not to feel a bit boxed in at times. What used to be a safe and comforting environment now can feel like a prison.
It’s the same thing with the internet. You can probably remember a time when going on the internet was the most exciting thing you could do. Now, you spend so much time online without having fun that you think to yourself, “What do people do on the internet?”
There are more things to do online in Canada than just scrolling endlessly on social media. Guest author Michelle Thomas shares with us six cool things to do on the internet when bored. To find out more about Michelle Thomas, click here.
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Create your memes
If you love sharing memes with your friends, why not start crafting your own memes? It’s easier than you think, with free and easy to use sites like Make a Meme and Meme Generator.
The trick to making memes is ensuring that as specific as possible to your audience. Feel free to use all the inside jokes you share with your friends. You might just be surprised how funny you actually are.
Online Gambling
One of the things to do online is to play online casino games. This is a favourite past time for Canadian players who like spending time at top casinos like cookie casino. If you enjoy tangling with Lady Luck, we suggest you spin the reels on some great slot games and see if you come out with a win.
Online casinos in Canada nowadays often carry the stamp of approval of a gambling regulator, which means that you have little to no risk of being scammed. Of course, you must also do your due diligence, by searching for reviews on that Canadian casino.
Gambling is a fun way to pass the time and forget your troubles for a short while. If you’re lucky, you can walk away with a nice payout. Remember to place strict limits on yourself while gambling online. If and when a casino online in Canada stops being a fun, experience, you should stop immediately.
Take online quizzes
Sites like Buzzfeed rose to prominence on top of self-quizzes with themes like “Which Disney Princess Are You?” It’s easy to Google different kinds of quizzes. Not only are they fun, you might also learn something new about yourself.
If you enjoy frivolous quizzes, check out Buzzfeed’s exhaustive collection of pop-culture “Which X are you” quizzes. If you want a more serious test, check out the Myers-Brigg Personality Test, which can be taken for free.
Learn a new skill
The beauty of the internet is that it democratizes information. Anyone with a working internet connection can access the kinds of knowledge that would’ve been hidden outsiders just a few decades ago.
YouTube video tutorials on every imaginable pursuit are available for free. You can also check out free college courses from Ivy League universities to learn from some of the best teachers in the world on timeless subjects such as math, science, and the humanities.
If you’re looking for more immediately useful skills, sites like Lynda.com can be a useful resource for short primers on topics such as photography or digital marketing.
Try different kinds of food
One surefire way of keeping ourselves healthy – both physically and mentally is to make sure that we eat well.
You can learn how to cook better food by checking out food sites like Serious Eats or Bon Appétit and following the free recipes there.
Or if you’re hopeless in the kitchen, you can take advantage of your downtime at home by having food delivered from the various delivery services available in your area.
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Explore different kinds of pop culture
We all watch Netflix and listen to Spotify. Most times, we already know what we want to watch or hear, so we keep coming back to those things. Both apps also send recommendations our way based on our habits. Over time, we watch and listen to the same kinds of things again and again.
Why not break free from the algorithms and watch a movie based on their poster? Why not listen to a new album from an artist you haven’t heard of before?
Multiple sites are available online to check out recommendations beyond our comfort zone. Ask your friends on Twitter or Facebook to recommend movies or artists. You can also check out pop culture sites such as Letterboxd or Pitchfork for new recommendations.
Conclusion
We would encourage you to experiment and pick one of the six options that you like doing the least and try it out for a couple of weeks. It might just end up giving you an online surprise!
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More Foghorn: The Robert Eggers Q&A.
“I wanted to be able to laugh at misery.” —The Lighthouse director Robert Eggers answers your questions and ours about what he’s wearing on Hallowe’en, being cool with memes, and paying homage to Mary Poppins.
The Lighthouse, out now in select US cinemas and opening nationwide this weekend, is the follow-up to Robert Eggers’ feature debut The Witch, one of our highest-rated films of 2016 and the third highest-rated horror of that year.
Similarly, The Lighthouse is firmly in our top ten narrative features of 2019 and is absolutely tearing up the Letterboxd reviews section with reactions like “Eggers holds nothing back in this film. He takes things far past okay and doesn’t apologize for any of it,” (Logan) and “If a bearded, bulging-eyed Willem Dafoe talking like a pirate for one hundred and ten minutes, shot on high-contrast orthochromatically filtered high-resolution black-and-white celluloid that brings out every follicle and pore doesn’t deserve five stars, I simply don’t know what does” (Jonathan).
The film’s success lies in a combination of obsessively detailed production design, singular technical choices (“a black-and-white movie in a stupid aspect ratio”, as Eggers told Filmmaker magazine), the superb acting partnership of Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as lighthouse keepers on a far-flung rock, a borderline-ridiculous amount of foghorn in the soundtrack, and—in spite of the characters’ miserable circumstances—a hysterically funny script.
When we spoke to Eggers’ brother and co-writer Max at TIFF, he told us that the writing partnership was “a perfect fit; we trust each other, and I think that’s the big thing about writing teams is you gotta trust each other”. Their brotherly relationship naturally enabled the film’s dialogue to head into comedic territory, even as the story itself descends into hallucinatory horror. “Comedy is about that. You’ve gotta be able to be honest and trust yourselves. We didn’t know how it was going to play but, thankfully, I think the fart jokes work.”
Not only do the fart jokes work; the poetically trippy 1890s dialogue became instantly meme-able. It was no surprise, then, that when we invited the Letterboxd community to contribute questions for this interview, many of them dwelled on the script. But first, with Hallowe’en fast-approaching, we needed to know what Eggers had planned.
A24 has put out a helpful guide for those who want to do Hallowe’en as a 19th-century lighthouse keeper. You’re in the middle of The Lighthouse promo tour, but have you managed to plan yours?
Robert Eggers: Hallowe’en was my favorite holiday growing up and I made many elaborate costumes, but now that I’m doing this, I will agree with Marilyn Manson where he says: “Hallowe’en is my day off”. It’s time for everyone else to catch up!
At TIFF, we spoke with your co-writer and brother Max about your collaboration. Letterboxd members Kevin and MrRabbit7 are interested in what the writing process was like with Max. Does that relationship allow more of an ‘anything goes’ approach?
I know my brother, so it’s easy for us to write together. My movie that was leaked in the trades a couple days ago [The Northman] I also wrote with another writer. I’m finding, as much as I like writing scripts on my own, it’s fun to collaborate. It’s actually joyful to pass the drafts back and forth and see how you’re lifting each other’s work up.
We had many questions (including from John, Austin and Tyler) about The Lighthouse’s dialect and vernacular. Can you tell us about the work you did in constructing dialogue in unfamiliar languages, including the sources you consulted?
It’s a lot of research and there is some quoting the sources directly. There’s much more of that in The Witch, where sentences remain intact. There’s very few intact sentences from the research in this film. There’s certainly many turns-of-phrase. When I’m looking at my primary source material from the period, I’m writing down vocabulary words in my own thesaurus that I can turn to.
I tend not to write in modern English and then translate the dialect. I try to write in the dialect even as I’m learning to do it, so the thesaurus is organized more [as] moods and ideas. I’m washing my eyes with words and hoping something turns up that works as I’m moving forward. You’re studying the sentence structure and trying to find the rules.
Thankfully with The Witch, because it was written in early modern English, which was a golden age of English writing, there were plenty of books available to teach me what the rules were. In studying the various Puritans, I could find how different people broke the rules and did things their own way. With this film it was much harder to find that, but eventually my brother came across the work of Sarah Orne Jewett. She was writing in coastal Maine dialect, interviewing working people to get their dialect. My wife found a thesis written by Evelyn Starr Cutler where she provided rules for different dialects—where are ‘r’s omitted and where are ‘r’s added, so on and so forth—so we could create consistent dialects for both characters.
“Why’d ya spill yer beans?” “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” Everyone—even A24’s marketing team—has taken to the film with meme-able gusto (exhibit A: these goofy Lighthouse emoji). How does it feel to have your deeply researched script torn apart in this affectionate, ironic way by internet culture? Does it make you hesitate in your approach to writing and directing these types of lines? (This question brought to you by those who quoted those infamous questions in response to this AMA.)
No, it’s cool with me. The Lighthouse was designed to be a black comedy and not just have moments of black comedy. The Witch takes itself very seriously, but I think that there’s something kind of film student-y about how serious it takes itself. I’m glad that people can make PlayMobil and Lego playsets as jokes. You need to be irreverent, and with The Lighthouse I was exploring misery again but I wanted to be able to laugh at misery. Werner Herzog talked about it like, you’re on the floor laughing, you know?
You and your brother both have deep roots in theater. After listening to your A24 podcast with brother-in-arms and Midsommar director Ari Aster, Solly F wants to know which playwrights you look up to, and who was particularly useful in your approach to The Lighthouse?
I like Shakespeare [laughs]. I don’t know if he was particularly helpful for this, but he’s pretty good! Clearly [Harold] Pinter, Sam Shepard, and evoking the name [Samuel] Beckett is almost worse than evoking the name Shakespeare, but you know, they’re good at what they do, and for this two-hander about identity it was impossible not to think of those playwrights.
Many members are curious about the films that inspire you and, more specifically, your most influential Ingmar Bergman films. So, which Bergman were you looking at for The Lighthouse? Also, Evan McKenzie dares to ask, “Given the chance, which Bergman film should you like to remake?”
Well, I would not remake a Bergman movie because that’s just insanity! Even though I dared to talk about remaking Nosferatu—which also probably does not need to be done—so I guess, yes, I am insane. Fair enough question. Obviously Persona and any of his chamber dramas would be the ones I would be thinking about here.
There’s a shot where Willem is knitting and Rob is smoking in the foreground, which Jarin [Blaschke, The Witch and The Lighthouse’s director of photography] and I referred to fondly as our Hour of the Wolf shot. Of course we’re using a much wider lens than Bergman ever would have done and had a different approach to lighting than he did, so it doesn’t seem all that Bergman-esque in the end, even though it was our homage.
Youssef asks: which foreign-language films are your favorites, or provided you an entry point into the non-English language arthouse?
The arthouse films that I saw in high school were ones that just happened to be in my local video store. Only one of them is foreign language, The City of Lost Children, but that, Eraserhead, and Brazil were three movies that I can think of that made me ask: “Oh you can do that? Wow!” Julie Taymor’s Titus also was another film from high school that made me realize that there was something other than—and not to speak disparagingly—Spielberg and Tim Burton and whatever was more easy to see in rural New Hampshire cinemas.
Robert Pattinson and Robert Eggers on the set of ‘The Lighthouse’. / Photo: Chris Reardon
The Lighthouse has an ambiguity that has led to many of our members questioning its genre. Even Ari Aster wasn’t sure when he mentioned the film in his Q&A, and you’ve referred to it as a black comedy here. But we have to ask, for the sake of our community’s sanity: is The Lighthouse a horror movie?
I don’t see it as a horror movie. But I’ve definitely spoken to people who get my intentions that think it is. So maybe? I don’t care what people call it.
It’ll probably make our top horror lists, if that’s okay.
That’s fine.
Let’s not tease too many hypotheticals, since this question is based only on your two-feature output so far, but there is significant interest in whether you’ll branch out into other genres, specifically sci-fi, and other time periods, specifically the future.
Well again, pointing to the leaked Viking movie, that ain’t a horror movie. And I’ve written other movies that aren’t horror movies. It’s just The Witch and everything that I’ve actually gotten made so far have been horror or horror adjacent. That’s just how it’s been—fine, happy about it.
Never say never because I am interested in sci-fi. I feel like generally when people are trying to ask big questions and challenge current philosophies, to look at things that are bigger than ourselves today, it’s always done with sci-fi. So for me, I’m enjoying doing that kind of stuff in the past just because that’s not how people often use historical movies today.
Writer-director Robert Eggers.
We love asking filmmakers this and Filbert wants to know: what are your go-to comfort films? The movies you’ve seen the most? Anything that could surprise us?
The Big Lebowski I’ve watched a lot. We have a little bit of a nod to it in The Lighthouse when [Pattinson] throws their shit off the cliff and it hits him in the face. It’s pretty damn close to the ashes of Steve Buscemi. I think it’s not going to surprise anyone that I’ve seen The Shining a zillion times. I’ve seen Mary Poppins a lot, and we have a little nod to it with our weather-vane shot.
By the way, when I’m writing it I’m not thinking ‘this is the Big Lebowski scene’ or ‘this is the Mary Poppins scene’. I’m just kind of writing and you say, “well, I know where that came from.”
Finally, the 2010s are drawing to a close and many of us, including Max and John, would like to know: what are your essential films of the decade?
I’d have to think about it more, but recently I thought Trey Edward Shults’ Waves is great, Hereditary is great, Parasite’s great… I’m sorry, I haven’t seen Parasite [laughs]. That’s a microaggression, I meant to say Burning is great. Anything by Ciro Guerra [director of Embrace of the Serpent and co-director of Birds of Passage] is great. Yeah, there’s a few.
‘The Lighthouse’ is in US cinemas now. All images courtesy of A24.
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Fantasia 2020.
We emerge from the depths of Fantasia Festival 2020—the largest genre fest in North America—with the ten best things we saw this year.
Fantasia Festival aced this weird shitstorm of a year with one of the best online film festival experiences of 2020 so far. Sure, we miss that unique, zombie-like, end-of-fest haze brought on by midnight madness and inappropriate mealtimes, but quarantine breeds an adjacent kind of mental fog that made Fantasia’s online offering a weirdly natural place to be this year.
Tuning into Montreal from London and Auckland, our Fantasia team (Kambole Campbell, Aaron Yap and Gemma Gracewood) watched as widely as possible, and we recommend most of what we saw—but these are the ten films that stuck out.
Chasing Dream
Directed by Johnnie To, written by Wai Ka-Fai, Ryder Chan and Mak Tin-Shu
Hong Kong master of genre Johnnie To once again links up with screenwriter Wai Ka Fai, the writer of Drug War and Romancing in Thin Air. Their new feature Chasing Dream finds itself somewhere between those two, telling the story of an MMA fighter with gang ties named Tiger (Jacky Heung, winner of Fantasia’s Best Actor award) who falls in love with an aspiring singer named Cuckoo (Keru Wang).
To and Wai Ka Fai’s incredibly goofy sense of humor is still totally intact, as they make a complete farce out of the singing competition that Cuckoo enters, with her greatest competitor continually performing so hard that she accumulates injuries, until she ends up in a full-body cast. As Michelle writes: “It’s Rocky meets A Star is Born, with a dash of American Idol, a pinch of musical, and a huge dollop of romance.” This is all to say that Chasing Dream really is a hell of a lot of movie at once. (KC)
Labyrinth of Cinema
Directed by Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, written by Kazuya Konaka, Nobu Obayashi and Tadashi Naitō
“It’s time to revisit our history to build a better future.” So begins Labyrinth of Cinema, the final film of Japanese experimental legend Nobuhiko Ōbayashi. Following a trilogy of films contemplating modern Japanese history and war (including the ravishing Hanagatami), Labyrinth is a metatextual and metaphysical trip through the history of Japanese cinema and its intersection with war.
A handful of young characters are quite literally absorbed into the screen of the cinema they’re sitting in at the film’s beginning, jumping through different eras and genres of film, tackling everything from war and propaganda, romance and musical, to chanbara and back again. Jake Cole notes the film’s surprising optimism, writing “even as Ōbayashi grows more sober, the film conveys more and more his strength of belief that cinema is still a force for good, and that if the past cannot be helped, perhaps movies can be rethought and re-crafted to produce a better future”. (KC)
Lapsis
Written and directed by Noah Hutton
Noah Hutton (son of Timothy Hutton and Debra Winger) makes his narrative feature debut with a sci-fi-that’s-barely-sci-fi film, which dives into robotics, capitalism and unionization. Not a million miles away from the activist documentaries the director already has under his belt, Lapsis is a low-key, mordant film that captures gig-economy drudgery and the arcane fog of big tech. “Honestly really fucking cool,” writes David, of Hutton’s world-building on a shoestring. “An intelligent and peculiar concept expertly executed and thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end.” Dean Imperial’s surliness is a treat. (AY)
Bleed with Me
Written and directed by Amelia Moses
Not one of Bleed with Me’s 79 minutes is wasted. If any of the following sound good to you—micro-thrillers, Robert Altman's Images, Rodney Ascher’s The Nightmare, mumblecore Bergman—add Amelia Moses’ debut feature to your watchlist now. It’s an assured start from Moses, who crafts an unsettling, tantalizingly ambiguous atmosphere from the three-hander, cabin-in-the-snow confines, with Scrabble, gaslighting, bloodletting and sleep paralysis thrown in.
“Lee Marshall anchors the film with a deeply moving performance as Rowan,” writes Finhorror. “With every facial expression, movement, and line reading, she sells vulnerability and discomfort while showing a minimal amount of effort.” Would pair well with Mickey Reece’s Climate of the Hunter (florid dinner conversations, immaculate food-porn and psycho-sexual tension) for an ace double feature. (AY)
PVT CHAT
Written and directed by Ben Hozie
New York filmmaker Ben Hozie examines online relationships and modern sexual fantasies with PVT CHAT, starring Uncut Gems breakout star Julia Fox as Scarlet, a cam-girl dominatrix. The film splits its focus between Scarlet and Jack (played by Peter Vack), an internet gambler who mostly remains inside his NYC apartment as he becomes fixated on her. While there’s palpable discomfort in Jack’s increasing obsession with Scarlet, the film doesn’t mock the practitioner nor the customer, and it doesn’t moralize over either of their actions—it simply leaves them plain to witness, as though a normal element of contemporary digital living.
The genuineness of the relationship between Scarlet and Jack is ambiguous—the line between performance and sincere emotion distorted via pixels. As they continue to open up to each other the line blurs further, and PVT CHAT becomes a fascinating observation of how online communication has changed and commodified the ways in which we interact with each other. (KC)
Tezuka’s Barbara
Directed by Makoto Tezuka, screenplay by Hisako Kurasawa
Speaking of obsessions, Japanese filmmaker Makoto Tezuka might have chosen his father’s strangest work to adapt into a live-action film. As it says in the title, Tezuka’s Barbara is an adaptation of ‘godfather of manga’ Osamu Tezuka’s Barbara, his most hallucinatory and sexually explicit work. Opening with a Nietzsche quote about madness and love, Tezuka’s Barbara more or less conflates the two, as the main character Yosuke, an author who specializes in lurid and trashy paperbacks, falls obsessively in love with Barbara, a homeless drifter he meets in the street.
Beautifully lensed by Christopher Doyle, legendary cinematographer of Chungking Express and In The Mood For Love, Tezuka’s Barbara takes on a magical and ethereal quality, particularly in its sex scenes. Yosuke’s increasingly deranged obsession with Barbara and the young Tezuka’s depiction of it is compellingly weird, from its vivid colors and almost antiquated costuming to its Eyes Wide Shut-esque rituals of the wealthy. Deranged, perhaps opaque, but a riveting visual journey, especially with its context in mind. (KC)
Special Actors
Written and directed by Shinichiro Ueda
Special Actors is the new film from Shinichiro Ueda, who turned heads with his bonkers cult film One Cut of the Dead. It may appear a little less surprising to those already familiar with his tactics, but it’s no less entertaining for it. Special Actors starts one way, as the tale of an aspiring actor looking for work, and ends somewhere else entirely. Brought into a company named ‘Special Actors’ by his estranged younger brother, Kazuko embarks on a different kind of performer’s journey, not just restricted to film and commercials, but also playing implanted mourners at funerals, fake boyfriends—whatever the client desires.
This is an Ueda film, so of course it takes a huge swerve, transforming into a bizarre and entertaining caper as the Special Actors are hired to infiltrate a cult. Ueda is more than aware of the classic conflation of film with “fakery” (as Orson Welles would call it)—the structure of a caper and its layers of illusion, truth and everything in between aligning with the requirements of stagecraft—and he has more than a little fun with it. As a result, so do we. (KC)
Feels Good Man
Directed by Arthur Jones / Available on demand now
The internet was a mistake. Even if you try to stay out of the digital trash-fires, you’ll likely have heard of the ‘Pepe the Frog’ meme. Turns out, we need to pay attention to these things, particularly with another US election looming. In Feels Good Man, Arthur Jones introduces us to Matt Furie, the humble cartoonist behind the original Pepe, and then takes several wild and weird side-roads, with the most unexpected-but-entertaining talking heads, as we learn just how 4Chan and the alt-right adopted, weaponized and took the frog all the way to the White House, earning official hate-symbol status. “I came in expecting a solid documentary about a meme, and I ended up getting that and a compelling narrative about today’s troubling world,” writes Zach. (GG)
Sheep Without a Shepherd
Directed by Sam Quah, written by Yang Weiwei
Dare we say “Letterboxd meets Parasite”? Sheep Without a Shepherd, Sam Quah’s debut feature (based on Jeethu Joseph’s highly rated film Drishyam), is a cinephiliac feast about have-nots taking on upper-echelon corruption. Lead character Weijie (Xiao Yang) is a working-class, obsessive cinephile who vomits his movie knowledge any chance he can get. When his family is pulled into a case of police corruption, this same cinephilia may be the only thing that gets them out of it. It’s a sturdily wrought Hitchcockian homage, with a well-calibrated balance of suspense, humor and pathos.
“What a gut punch of a movie in the best way,” writes Amanda. “A little messy at times, especially in the end, and some questionable forensics, but this is something I’ll definitely be revisiting.” The jury is still out on whether the ending—make that the many endings—worked, but for the most part Letterboxd members enjoyed the cat-and-mouseness of it all, along with its moral questionability. (AY)
You Cannot Kill David Arquette
Directed by David Darg and Price James / Available on demand now
You Cannot Kill David Arquette is a rousing, eye-opening and mostly upbeat gawk at the life of the Hollywood star whose fortunes have lately run dry. Although he is out of shape and has very young children (and very cute Basset hounds) to think of, Arquette is desperate to reignite his love of pro wrestling. In a quest to prove to his heroes that he’s serious about the sport, the actor participates in backyard wrestling matches in Virginia, joins street-fighters in Mexico, and goes down a K-hole at the hands of health professionals.
“Arquette is searching for a shred of legitimacy in a world that’s always made him feel like a fraud, and by the end of this loveable, hilarious, and ineffably heartfelt doc it’s almost impossible not to believe in him,” writes David Ehrlich. As compelling a look at mental health as physical, the film benefits from the inclusion of conversations with those closest to Arquette (both of his wives feature), and there’s a heart-skipping scene involving the late Luke Perry. (GG)
Lastly, our team wanted to shout out to Daria Woszek’s Marygoround for the best end credits dedication of the year. Thanks, Fantasia! Roll on 2021.
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Most Picture.
There are many ways to predict how the Oscars will go. How much money is the studio spending on the campaign? How highly rated are the nominated films? How much work have nominees put in during the awards season? Is it simply their time?
For this 2019 horse race, we thought it would be fun to go for a different metric. A fool-proof statistical analysis to find not what is the Best Picture, but what is the Most. And with that, we set about investigating the stats on rewatches of the eight films nominated for Best Picture.
It turns out that plenty in the Letterboxd community have logged the Best Picture nominees more than once, and in some obsessive cases, well into double figures. We had a feeling, based on anecdotal mood and general noise, that A Star Is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody would be right up there in the stanning stakes. And they are (read on for our Q&A with Letterboxd’s most obsessive A Star Is Born fan). But also: The Favourite made the top three, and the film you have rewatched the most left the other seven in the dust.
Without further ado, Letterboxd presents the 2019 “Most” Picture Awards, ranked by the number of members who’ve watched the 2019 Academy Award Best Picture nominees two or more times (total in brackets, as of today).
Each film features a review from its greatest fan, i.e. the Letterboxd member who has logged the film more than any other (at the time of writing).
And the 2019 “Most” Picture Awards go to…
1. Black Panther (13,268)
“Would I see this movie a personal record high of seven times in theaters? For Wakanda? Without question.” —Krys (12 watches, seven in cinemas)
2. A Star Is Born (5,943)
“TIRED: discourse about whether or not the film hates pop music, all think pieces about whether the film thinks Ally is a sell out and what that means for feminism, discourse on whether Why Did You Do That? is a bop or not.
WIRED: discourse about whether or not Jackson Maine even had an ass good enough to inspire such pop perfection.” —Juliette (16 watches)
3. The Favourite (5,378)
“I miss this so much I dreamt it. Instead of riding, Sarah was doing cartwheels.” —CBotty (15 watches)
4. Bohemian Rhapsody (4,928)
“The critics can go fuck themselves. THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE I HAVE SEEN! (for the fifth time).” —Iain (16 watches)
5. Roma (4,270)
“Yes I’ve seen this twice today, yes i cried like a bitch both times, yes this is the only movie.” —Eve (7 watches)
“My feelings regarding Roma are complicated to say the least. It’s like dating the girl of your dreams, only to realize that you are completely incompatible, which ends in desperate clinginess for an ideal that was never true to begin with. It’s been a strange journey of love, disappointment, and eventual acceptance, where I’ve come to terms with my feelings. I still admire the hell out of it, and I hope it wins all the awards in the world.” —Orrin (7 watches, admittedly more times than they have actually seen it)
6. BlacKkKlansman (3,669)
“This movie is so fucking powerful, and I loved every second of it.” —Kota (6 watches)
7. Green Book (1,370)
“OK what a way to start the new year. I love this movie so much. Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali are for sure going to get nominated (and it’s well deserved).” —Anthony (5 watches)
8. Vice (1,164)
“8.4/10” —Harrison (4 watches)
Unpacking the re-watchability of A Star Is Born.
“I just expect it to be exactly what it is and to be there.”
Of the eight Best Picture finalists, Black Panther has been out the longest, had the largest budget, and has done the rounds of the streaming services. It was always gonna take the top spot in a rewatch match. But to figure out the rewatchability of second-place-getter A Star Is Born, we went to the film’s hardest stanner, Juliette, to help us understand why fans keep coming back even though it’s a complicated watch.
While Juliette’s multiple reviews are meme-tastic, quippy, punctuation-free gems of observation, when we asked her to explain herself, she went remarkably deep. Her replies may just make you want to take another look at Ally and Jack. [Note: this interview contains spoilers for the film’s plot.]
How many times do you think you have seen A Star Is Born?
Juliette: I think I have seen the film sixteen times? I know for certain I have seen it fourteen times in theaters, but I’m not sure how many times I’ve watched it in the comfort of my own home since it’s been released on digital. There’s just something about the energy in a theater while this film is being screened. It gives me chills just thinking about it!
What keeps you coming back to it?
It's so hard to pinpoint what exactly it is that draws me back to this film time and time again. I love a good love story when properly executed! I’m kind of obsessed with celebrity culture! I love a great musical! And like many people, the subjects of this film: alcoholism, mental illness, suicide, self-doubt, the cultivation of the self, love, mentorship, and reconciliation of one’s experiences with a flawed parental figure are all things that have permeated my life. Some of these things, I understand and have a firm grasp on, they feel definitive and their impacts are a tangible output. Some of these things, I still grapple with daily. There is little definition, largely just confusion and sporadic outbursts of pain.
When I return to this film, which I often do, the thing I don’t expect it to give me is answers. I don’t expect the film to be able to define for me what I must come to define for myself. I don’t expect it to clarify my confusion. I don’t expect it to eradicate the pain. I just expect it to be exactly what it is and to be there.
There’s a scene towards the end of this film where, while mourning the loss of his brother, Bobby explains how he heard one of Jackson’s songs performed at a bar. At first, it angers him. He feels like no one really knew Jackson. But then, something shifts and just hearing the song begins to soothe him. It reminds him that, in spite of their trauma and their turmoil, it isn’t all for nothing.
That’s what this film is for me. It soothes me. It reminds me that the facilitation of our healing can come through art. It reminds me that for people, who once felt broken and irreparable, it is possible to find love and happiness not just with another person, but within one’s self. It reminds me that our pain and our devastation can be met in equal measure with (and even maybe be overcome by) our brilliance, our triumph, and our devotion to one another.
What have you noticed with each rewatch?
What I notice most with each subsequent rewatch of the film is what a massive undertaking the sound editing and mixing for this film must have been. I have such deep and profound respect and admiration for all the work that went into crafting the audio for this film! The film is such a visceral experience, one that truly engages all of the senses. I remember physically recoiling in the theater the first time I heard the sound of Jackson’s tinnitus. I remember feeling my entire seat shake in time with the music during the concert sequences.
I also have a sincere recommendation! Once you watch the film a few times, I really encourage you to watch the film just through the lens of watching Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real in the background of the pivotal scenes. It adds so much dimension to scenes you thought you already knew!
What is the single greatest scene in this version of A Star Is Born?
As clichéd or “basic” as it may seem to say, there is no denying that the greatest scene in this film is when Ally joins Jackson on stage and the two perform Shallow together. It’s a cataclysmic and mesmerizing moment.
It’s the way Jackson physically steps back and acquiesces his spotlight to new talent. It’s the combination of awe and support in Jackson’s eyes as he watches Ally assume center-stage. It’s the way Ally assumes her place at the mic for the first time. It’s how Ally—all at once terrified, shocked, overwhelmed, empowered, and free—finds a version of herself she had long thought impossible to access under the stage lights. The arc of which is punctuated by Gaga’s impeccable performance in this scene, most noticeably by the shift in her physicality, from her hands covering her eyes, unable to make eye contact, to grabbing the mic and belting her now patented cathartic wail.
It’s the way, two artists—no, two people—are separated physically on the stage singing into their individual microphones, but slowly find their way to meet in the middle and sing as one. In itself, this scene is the film in miniature. If this scene hadn’t worked, it’s very unlikely the rest of the film would have worked.
Not to mention, the scene is just absolutely stunning. Of course, the music is heavenly, that’s a given. In terms of the composition, I love how the camera moves around and captures each protagonist in different ways. And the color palette is gorgeous. The way that blue and red light dance around our protagonists throughout the sequence is just jaw-dropping. It’s the kind of high an artist, and in a turn a viewer, could spend their whole life chasing.
What do you wish haters understood about the film’s greatness?
My first priority would be to tell the haters that Lady Gaga is not playing herself in A Star Is Born! Just because Gaga is a singer playing a singer, doesn’t mean she isn’t acting!
Furthermore, to me, it feels unfair that the power of her performance is sometimes diminished just because she sings in the film. Anyone can sing in a way that is technically proficient with enough training, but to tell a story through song? To act a song? To perform with every iota of your being musically? That’s a whole other skill and it is just as worthy of recognition and respect as any other leading performance this year.
Secondly, I would like to convey that just because something is a remake doesn’t mean that it lacks value or that it lacks something to say. I can’t pinpoint what exactly it is about this story that seems to capture the collective imagination every few decades, but I think it has something to do with how it presents ascension at the expense of descent, art as both artifice and freedom of authentic expression, and love in spite of sacrifice and self-destruction. There’s something about that cocktail that becomes the perfect receptacle for the expression and examination of our cultural anxieties.
Its malleable formula allows for questions to be asked about how we think about celebrity and fame, the self-identification process, and the value of art. In that sense, a remake of A Star Is Born is vital and refreshing, and certainly not tired and uninspired, and most importantly, it doesn’t lack something to say. It’s inherently reflective of the culture it was created in by its very nature. It allows us to ponder not just how Hollywood tells stories about itself, but also how we tell stories about ourselves. And if you ask me, there’s so much value in that.
What do you think should win Best Picture at this year’s Oscars?
Well, I’m clearly biased towards A Star Is Born, but I would not be mad to see Roma or The Favourite walk off with the evening’s top prize!
What do you think will win Best Picture?
My heart says Roma, my head says Green Book.
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