I wanted a pony and a princess and a big scary alien dude
In the bleak midwinter of the 22-months-and-counting covid blizzard, a fairly silly movie about a kid and her pet alien became my driving obsession for, oh, many months. There was a good stretch of time where I was pretty sure Psycho Goreman would just stay my favourite movie of 2021; then I decided not to do a ranked list (and besides, I think Bergman Island kinda edged it out, anyway). But as I sit here sipping from my collectible PG glassware listening to my blue-splatter PG vinyl record with my ”Early Bird” PG action figure set on the way, one can hand yet another gruesome, viscera-stained victory to the Archduke of Nightmares. 2021 was Psycho Goreman’s year — which means it was probably actually Mimi’s, the cinema’s defining 11-year-old asshole.
Another movie that ended up on my year-end list was Zoe Lister-Jones’ How It Ends, which — I note — most of my connnections on Letterboxd absolutely loathed. I didn’t. Partly that was due to the mad-candy rush of attending Sundance (if virtually) for the first time; part of it was, frankly, how much tactile fun it was to walk around a deserted Hollywood Hills during the pandemic / on the last day of life on the planet (How It Ends takes place as a comet is about to come crashing down on us, and everyone on the Earth is aware of this, has accepted this, and is coolly trying to work out how to spend their last day). I like how much the whole thing feels like a goof, a bunch of actors killing time when they couldn’t get on a set (which is likely true).
Most of it, though, was how deeply and quickly I connected to Cailee Spaeny’s character. She is playing the younger self (as mentioned last time, I’m realizing that I am in a lifelong “thing” with younger selves) of Lister-Jones’ main character, an adult woman reckoning with her adulthood on this, the last day of our lives. Young Liza is her teen self, not too far removed from the adult self; just enough to be on the early side of a bunch of hurt and disappointment and so, a bit less of an asshole about everything.
Spaeny looks like one of my closest friends in grades 10 and 11, one of those white-hot friendships that’s unnervingly close for a minute or two and then disappears forever; I called her “my twin” and thought (privately) that she was the answer to a lifelong search for a perfectly animate female incarnation of myself, a missing half. I suppose How It Ends works most of all because it arrived at a moment of need, as did all the films that I singled out as “my 2021 films.” 2021 was a weird year, a middle-child year. It didn’t have “a thing” but for the nuances and identities it claimed for itself. Did anyone else guess that the apocalypse would feel like someone hitting the pause button on the big VCR in the sky? No, me neither.
Time passes
By the time the 30 Days of Yoga were done my heels hit the floor every time I did a downward dog and the only thing I am certain of now, a week into February, is that such flexibility does not last. I mean, I’m sure it does, if you keep doing yoga every day forever. But who wants that?? Why do I not want that?? I dunno. I will say it is weird that this is the first year that I’ve done that path where the days following (I am now doing yoga every other day) really feel like I’ve lost half of something.
“Not to worry: we are still flying half a ship.”
Useful right now
- There’s more than enough reason to be frustrated, angry, and fearful for the futures of trans children in America right now, but pieces like this one make me feel like these Republican shitheads have already lost the war, no matter how many bills they pass. I know that isn’t true, but… way to go Kris. Rooting for you.
- Started Arcane… that show is gooooooooooooood
- I do not understand why every single person in Toronto who drinks coffee has not subscribed to Subtext. I would also like them to investigate a referral program, given how many times I have repeated this advice.