apples to oranges
At a recent meeting of my local library’s cinema club, one participant copped to a bad habit that we’ve probably all been guilty of at one time or another. With a look on her face somewhere between sheepish and stubborn, she admitted that though she wouldn’t say that she liked our assigned movie—just wait, I’ll talk about it below—it did keep her entertained enough to stay off her phone for a couple of hours. “I’m usually crushing candy,” she joked, referring to that once hugely popular mobile game.
Though I’m guilty of second-screen inattention myself, I recognize that I’d be much better off if I played a different game, an offline brain teaser I’ve gotten in the habit of playing without even realizing it, so much so that I should just make this a recurring series so that I can stop writing different versions of this same intro. In the past, I’ve described this game as selecting a double feature for my own indie movie theater; this time around, though, my selections were much more multimedia, pairing books with songs or streaming shows with movies.
Will this become a series? Is it already a series, just one with a different name every time? (How long could I possibly keep that up?) In the eternal and enigmatic words of Justin Bobby, “Truth and time tells all.”1
sorry to bother you
The movie that our cinema club discussed in July was Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You (2018), which I’d watched before and figured—rightly, as it turns out—would be a divisive one among our group. If you’re not familiar, it tells the story of Cash Green (played by Lakeith Stanfield), a young guy with a cool artist girlfriend (Tessa Thompson), barely scraping by in a modern metropolitan city. He gets a job at a call center, but he only starts closing sales when he learns to deploy his “white voice.” It’s worth watching for those call center scenes alone, particularly the montages of Cash being virtually dropped into the room with the people he calls to sell encyclopedias.
Personally, I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I wonder if that’s because I could no longer be shocked by it: for one because I’ve seen it before, and for another because, in a way, I’m seeing it now. Truth is, when I first saw this movie, in 2019 or maybe 2020, I wasn’t ready for it, both in terms of its surreal weirdness and its political wokeness.2 Rewatching it in 2026, the parts that struck me on first viewing as garishly over-the-top look like perfect and perfectly depressing parallels to modern life; regardless of where you stand politically, I think the kernels of real-life truth are there in the exaggerated scenarios, from the messianic visual treatment of Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), the voluntary incarceration offered by WorryFree, and the Idiocracy-esque violence and degradation of America’s favorite game show.
Anyways, I’m supposed to be giving you an orange at some point. Peak citrus for Sorry To Bother You is another movie I haven’t watched in years, though it used to be one of my favorites back when I was in my 20s: Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También (2001). Technically, I haven’t rewatched this yet; I was inspired by a recent newsletter by LF to add it to the queue, though, and it should be easy enough to do, since I own a copy on DVD.3 Why this as a comp? I think both movies are very layered, and if you take the time to look past the first layer—scandalous sex (for the time? not so much now) in one, enslaved horse people with giant wieners in the other—you’ll find fascinating stories about art, class, sociopolitical standing, and love, both romantic and platonic.
Listen, these two movies could not be more different. But I think they’re also kind of similar—and I guess that’s the game!
Oh, and I do have it on my list to eventually watch Riley’s latest, I Love Boosters, but I mean, at that point I would be doing apples to apples, no?
on earth we’re briefly gorgeous
All right, for the next apple/orange pairing, I need to get this one off the books, because it’s starting to feel like it was forever ago that I read it.
I was junk journaling some time in June when I came across an old copy of BookPage, the magazines about recent releases that you typically find in public libraries. Inside was an interview with Ocean Vuong about Emperor of Gladness, which I’d just finished reading and enjoyed. Vuong spoke about the throughlines between his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and Gladness; that interview, combined with a hearty recommendation from ET and my own appreciation for Vuong’s writing style, convinced me to pick up Gorgeous straight away.
Though I would describe neither of these books as feel-good ones—I had to skip the whole part about the monkey, even though I’ve heard of that practice before—Gladness definitely had more moments of levity, of characters being goofy and weird the way that real people are goofy and weird. Gorgeous, meanwhile, seems to really come from a place of pain, of regret. Both had an air of resignation to a harsh reality, but while Gladness still had access to the hope of the future, however meager, Gorgeous is rooted in the finality of the past: it’s all etched deep, both the goodness and the bad, and maybe only by running his fingers over those memories can Vuong wear them away.
The orange in this case may be closer to a pear than anything: besides being a different medium, I think this song captures a lot of the melancholy in Gorgeous. It also benefits from the ambiguity of its subject—who did he leave? who is he coming back to?—and the theme of home, a place that both attracts and repels. And yes, I am shoving Josiah and the Bonnevilles under your nose again, but I’m telling you—if this book was a movie, this song would fit on the soundtrack.
If you want to put in a little more than 2 minutes 43 seconds, you could go down a Peter Hujar rabbit hole. I’ve shared in Notes, I think, that I didn’t love the novel A Little Life; there’s no trigger warning big enough for that book if you have abusive trauma in your past—just skip it, babe, trust me on it. But I think Hujar’s Orgasmic Man (1969) is a beautiful, visceral photograph, and if I could, I would live in an alternate timeline where that photo is the cover of this book.4
Or you could do what I’m going to do and watch Peter Hujar’s Day (2025), a movie based on a book based on a conversation between Hujar and the writer Linda Rosenkratz. Its Criterion Collection blurb calls it a “loving snapshot of a vanished New York,” and it’s currently streaming on Kanopy.
off campus
Last one for now, and I’ll make it a fluffy one: I binged the fuck out of Off Campus.5 This is the very hetero counterpart to Heated Rivalry, and following in the grand tradition of 2000s teen rom-coms, it involves a contrivance that throws together two people who would “never date,” except that they obviously make perfect sense as a couple. Honestly, too perfect—this is pure, unadulterated female fantasy, which is not inherently bad, if that’s what you’re after. But ladies, don’t put the penis on a pedestal! This is a TV show, with male characters probably written by women (fact checked it), because they’re way too unproblematic on the whole. I realize I may be sounding a little #yesallmen, but statistically speaking, how many fuckboys have ended up falling in love with you? Me, I don’t need many fingers to count them; in fact, you could say I need no fingers at all. Anywayyyyyys…
I did watch the entire season, and unlike A Little Life, I can’t say that I had a bad time. Did I get way too invested in the scant amount of actual hockey depicted? Oh, no doubt. Did I type out one such gripe, only to cut it when I realized I’d drilled down way too deep? Yes, and you’re welcome.6 Do I have a problem with the character development? Oh, hell yeah. But it’s supposed to be light entertainment, Angela, it’s not the fucking Sopranos. Listen, the more I write about it, the less I like it and the less I like myself for watching it in a moment of weakness, AKA when I was sick with yet another upper respiratory infection. So let me move on to what I’d compare it to.
Well, the main couple, Hannah and Garrett, bond over many an old song, and that reminded me of a young love of my own, and how our good times were soundtracked to equally cheesy but still very good songs by the Beach Boys. Personally, I’d dub this series with “Don’t Worry Baby,” because Hannah is totally typecast into the “good girl girlfriend who fixes her man” trope—and come on, the Beach Boys rock!
I also saw a fitting complement with Richard Linklater’s spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused, 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!! This is the overview Google gave me when I searched it to refresh my memory: “In 1980 Texas, a college freshman meets his new baseball teammates, an unruly group of disco-dancing, skirt-chasing partiers, and they navigate their way through the freedom and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood.” I know this synopsis was probably cobbled together from other reviews using AI, but it’s also a pretty good summary, and perhaps more importantly, it supports my point. Oh, but only watch Everybody Wants Some!! if you’ve got Glen Powell antibodies, lest you come down with something.
But no, there’s a better comp here, and you won’t even be subjected to Glen Powell.7 There’s a scene in Off Campus where Hannah goes on the loudspeaker in the empty arena and sings a song with sentimental value to her love interest. Grand romantic gesture over the PA system? My first thought was, of course, Patrick Verona prancing to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” accompanied by the high school band. But no, my friends, this is The One—all it’s missing is a sex scene and maybe some full frontal by either or both parties, but maybe media was just a little classier back in the 90s—ha!
If you’ve seen, read, or heard any of these things, you simply must tell me if you’re picking up what I’m putting down, because I always believe in all sincerity that I hit these out of the park.
I have no witty conclusion. Dropping buttons on you in 3, 2, 1…
I changed the preview image after the fact, from a still from The Hills to this gif from Sorry to Bother You, from Pinterest. If I could have found an image depicting the line delivered below, I would have, but alas.
Neutral reading here, neither in favor nor against, simply interpreting art. Riley himself is a self-described communist.
Long live physical media! I’m annoyed at my 2020 self, actually, the one that fell prey to the Marie Kondo resurgence during Covid, for getting rid of a bunch of my old DVDs and Blu-Rays. Foolish girl!
Can I offer you, say, a dragon fruit to go with the orange of Peter Hujar’s work? I actually discovered Hujar’s photography by way of a Jerry Saltz feature in the Village Voice about the artist David Wojnarowicz:
He [Wojnarowicz] lived the life of an outsider, but in his work he is something of an
insider. His art brings together the three dominant strains of the ‘80s: neo-expressionism, photo appropriation and graffiti, tempered by the intensely sexual, almost classical, no-nonsense photography of his friend, mentor and onetime lover, Peter Hujar. But first and last he is a witness.[…]
On January 3, 1987, Peter Hujar was diagnosed as suffering from pneumocystis pneumonia and AIDS. By November 26, he was dead. A few months after that, Wojnarowicz himself tested positive for HIV. Untitled (Hujar Dead) (1988-89) is a painting of this crucial moment, and in a way, all his remaining moments.
A Wojnarowicz text is superimposed over a delicate, collaged border of cut-up money, broken words, maps in the shape of spermatozoa and nine black-and-white photographs of Hujar taken just after his death by Wojnarowicz. Anyone who has experienced the enormity, the earth-stopping stillness of the moment when the life force leaves a body will recognize the profound reverence and implacable sadness of these images. Here, Wojnarowicz lingers over Hujar’s face, feet, hands, and body one last time, taking one last look; he caresses him with the camera -- loves him, heals him, weeps for him and says goodbye to him. He seems to say, “Everything is over; everything has just begun.”
Go search out Wojnarowicz’s art and tell me if the dragon fruit is the correct choice here.
Actually, I struggled to keep this one light. Every time I bring up hockey, I feel the need to also call out its problematic parts. I won’t get into it too much (unless you ask—I’m always open to talk about it), but suffice it to say, for now, that the culture of the sport, the “all for one and one for all” of it, results in a sort of tribalism that insulates the bad guys among the good, and that’s very uncool and I hate it deeply.
Ok, here are some of my most minor of gripes:
(1) Garrett Graham does have his own little Ilya Rozanov moment, but everything is Great Value (TM) compared to the original, sorry about it. Also, how can Garrett be “generational talent” and still be playing NCAA hockey at, what, twenty-one? That kind of prospect is in the league at 18, 19 tops.
(2) These guys are way too bulked up—real, professional hockey players are built like 15-year-old boys up top, and they do leg day exclusively (I’m hyperbolizing, probably). These guys look way more like football players or, you know, actors on some steroids. (To be fair, which I feel the need to be, given the Great Value comment above, this critique could also apply to Heated Rivalry.)
(3, 4) Not casting a single aspersion on the character of the real player, but the villainous Aaron Delaney looks like he would grow up to be Colorado Avalanche winger Martin Necas. (Except that Delaney appeared to play center, and I just said Necas is a winger, but it’s not uncommon for a center to get moved off to the wing in the pros… I could do this all day, but that’s a me problem.)
Why’s this man catching so many strays? I guess that’s the power of a bad PR stunt, because I think I can trace my disapproval back to the messy rumors that came out when he was promoing that one terrible movie with Sydney Sweeney.
rever hating ALL and loving ocean vuong - as someone who grew up broke in ct it hits SO good. also THANK you for the reminder to watch peter hujar’s day!!!
You got me googling Sorry To Bother You! It's a movie right up my alley. I love chuckling at dystopian comedies. Have you watched They Cloned Tyrone?