A woman who’s just in the very first stages of recovery from an awful early life finds a note hidden inside a hurdy-gurdy. The note tells of another woman’s desperate struggle–and about the “faceless ones” who pressured her into signing something which is about to cost her her life. The note cuts off before she can explain her situation, but our heroine, Amelia Jones, feels a strange kinship to her. She knows that by now the woman who wrote the... Read more
I’m saving the best film I saw at the fest for a full review, in case you’re wondering why all of these are so ambivalent. In the order I saw them: The Ranger: ’80s-set (I think) slasher homage about a deranged park ranger (Jeremy Holm) murdering his way through a gang of horrible punks because of his obsession with their least self-absorbed member (Chloe Levine). This is mostly very fun, silly but satisfying. Levine gives depth to our heroine; the... Read more
Three actual young people who know things because they’re (excellent) reporters or they actually work in youth ministry, plus also me, emoting about Adoration. BTW, I was in the middle of Sigrid Undset’s terrific Catherine of Siena and if you are looking for something relevant to read, you may find in it a defense against hopelessness. This is a time of crisis for the Catholic Church. The horrific Pennsylvania grand jury report on clerical sexual abuse and revelations about Cardinal... Read more
C.H.U.D.: In Glorious Trash-O-Vision! This 1984 classic of urban abandonment, about “Cannibalistic Human Underground Dwellers,” is as seamy and strange as its reputation promises. I loved this weird, sad film about a photographer who uncovers a spate of deaths among the homeless people who have formed a secret community in the city’s sewage and subway tunnels. There’s an unexpected subplot about an unplanned pregnancy, which gets startling symbolic weight (I think there’s literally no explanation for the shower blood scene... Read more
and discover a poignant fear inside the shell of what is, imo, a pretty mediocre movie: This is the movie’s true monster—the possibility that self-surrender in the monastery and possession by a demon are basically the same thing. “The Nun” is about fear of submission; fear of betrayal, of being abandoned and destroyed by God and the church who promised to save you; fear of giving yourself, body and soul, in the hope that this plunge into God will strengthen... Read more
Some notes about the Catholic Church. # There’s a bit in an early voiceover from Beasts of the Southern Wild where the little girl Hushpuppy is musing on aurochs, enormous wild pigs who became extinct after an environmental catastrophe. What if the end of the world is coming? she fears. And then realizes that for some people, “the end of the world already happened.” When I became Catholic I assumed I was living in an ordinarily-bad time and place for... Read more
A friend and I were talking about conversations she’d been having lately, and she wondered how or whether she should “defend the Church.” I said, “Don’t defend it!” (I should have said, “Don’t defend Her,” but I would feel badly about that.) This is not a time when we can really “defend” our Church. What we can do, I think, is confess our own faith. And we may be able to speak, to some extent, about what our Church is.... Read more
Ms. 45: Abel “The Addiction” Ferrara’s 1981 rape-revenge film, starring Zoe Lund as the mute seamstress-turned-vigilante Thana. This is an urgent thriller whose ’80s glitz and grime never get in the way of its empathy for its heroine. Even when she’s packing heat in her sexy-nun Halloween costume, Thana is more subject than object. Honestly, this is brilliant, one hour and twenty minutes of the ecstatic rage and vindication of a Kathleen Hanna howl. Some may find that Thana’s muteness–and... Read more
Okay people, it’s time to put this out there. I have completed another novel (my first one is here) and am just starting the process of figuring out if it can find an agent or traditional publisher. It’s a comedy about a woman returning to DC after federal prison, trying to reenter her old social circle of local sadomasochists and get used to her new circle of halfway-house residents; when she learns that someone she knows is being abused, she... Read more
A real variety pack today. Byzantium: Neil Jordan vampire flick about two women, whose relationship you gradually come to understand as the movie progresses, who return to the seaside town where their lives began and unraveled. This did not quite do it for me but those interested in horror tales centered on women might check it out. Born in Flames: Riot Grrrl foreshadowing classic. Punk, choppy, pointillist tale of women in revolt in a near-future New York City where a... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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