HERE'S WHAT YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS MONTH

And I'll tell you why.

I’ve been meaning to do this forever. 

For years now I’ve wanted to start some kind of page where once a month I offer some kind of movie recommendations and why. I get asked all the time on TikTok to release a movie list, so here it is.

Before we get into this month’s list:

I know I’ve said this a million and a half times but The Fifth Element is my favorite movie of all time.

I don’t think The Fifth Element swept the Oscars or anything like that. I saw it when I was a kid and I remember seeing Leeloo as a hero that cried over war and loss and humanity, even when it confused her. Even when her own humanity betrayed her. I think that was devastatingly relatable to a people pleasing Catholic 8 year old. If people pleasing was a physical illness, I would’ve been green with sepsis the majority of my life. It was also my first time seeing a pious character, the priest played by Ian Holm, be manipulative. He lies. For the good of humanity!!! A man of God kidnaps a woman that is scared of the world around her although she is destined to save it. There’s a complexity in that for a kid that feels justified.

When you’re little you’re tortured by being what it means to be good and being bad. I think I still struggle with this. What makes a person good? How many times have I done my best, done what’s best, and broken my own heart? Or hurt someone else? How many times have I betrayed myself and convinced myself I am only human, that everyone fucks up? Forgiven myself before asking for forgiveness. Resentment, vindication, compartmentalization for the good of myself, for the good of the little structured branches of goodness I’ve built up in my mind like delicate little dollhouses. This is what makes me good, this is what makes me bad. Movies introduce me to new houses of self. We watched Bruce Willis soften in an hour and 53 minutes. The costumes were designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, and Chris Tucker ate out a flight attendant on a plane. Like, what the fuck else do you need????  Sci Fi and Fantasy is really my shit, though. From The Shire to the Mos Eisley Cantina, I have grown attached to stories about friendship in the face of good and evil and the stories we tell ourselves as to why we do what we do, why we like what we like. 

Usually when we ask each other “hey, what’s your favorite movie?” people usually feel this pressure to say something really impressive. I admit I get a little frustrated. We all use different tactics to know each other. I think I use movies. What comforts you? What thrills you? What do you consider bad? Good? Maybe I get frustrated because I am trying to skip the part of impressing one another and just knowing you. I had a friend once tell me it was Finding Nemo because she would always watch it when she was sick. I just get that. I viscerally understand that. It has nothing to do with cinematography or editing, it just feels good. 

Movies don’t always have to feel good. But if you watched Se7en with your Dad growing up, that feels good. I get that. 

It’s also true that sometimes when you’re angry, you wanna see some fucked up shit. Sometimes when you’re sad, you wanna see sadder shit. You dress the setting for what you need. And stories fill us up with longing and release time and time again.

There are many of my own fundamental moments and memories where I have brought movies with me. When I’m lonely. When I’m scared. When someone has said something passively aggressive to me at a party. When I am terrified to be falling in love. When I’m embarrassed. Like, yes I’ve been embarrassed but I’ve never been Ben Stiller in Jennifer Aniston’s apartment in Along Came Polly.

How many times in my life have I wondered “is this just the part before things get really good?” and I imagine the montage of my life. Maybe other people’s stories give me a sense of control over a life that I felt I had no control over. I never needed a hero’s journey of my own, all I know is I like stories. There are stories that I think everyone should see. Whenever I reference a movie to someone and they say “oh damn i’ve never seen it” I feel a little jealous. I’m jealous you get to see it for the first time. But at the end of the day, I don’t give a fuck about taste. One of my favorite movies is Waterwold. Every critic that says Waterworld is hot shit on a sidewalk DOESN’T GET IT!!!

So what’s this month’s list dedicated to? 

If you are anything like me, you find yourself to be lonely in a way you never really expected, and I think my own loneliness is my fault. I don’t know what I want. I imagine the version of me that does. Powerful and good postured, full of direction. I envy people who commit themselves to distraction like I have but aren’t riddled with guilt from it. I have stood in front of people who don’t know who they are and asked them who I am to them. Beyond my social titles- daughter, sister, cousin, friend, niece, peer, etc. I have no idea who I am or what exactly I yearn for. But it’s there. I yearn for people I’ve never met, people I’ve met and the timing wasn’t right, and the titles I have yet to know. 

Mom, wife, love, boss, leader.

There are nights I stare into my own reflection trying to find the words. How to describe yearning. If you ever find yourself terrified that your life is your fault but you’re too scared to ask, if you’ve ever formulated a text over and over trying to figure out how to say “how do you feel about me” but trying to find a way to ask without asking, if you find yourself wondering about all the realities that have split and where those versions of you are now, and with who, if you find yourself attached to titles… finding safety in your titles because they shelter you from your very own storm of possible faults, then you know the yearning to be loved for who you are and not who you could be and what you have to offer. If you’ve ever wanted more.

The movies below have taught me that yearning is impatience frying in a pan. Chemistry, alignment, and the ache of desire for a life with someone who sees you beyond titles. 

I hope you enjoy. And if you don’t….. YOU DON’T GET IT. Just kidding. Kind of. 

TO BE REAL, I YEARN THAT YOU READ THIS SHIT 

The Virgin Suicides

If you’ve ever seen Cold Mountain, you know the blind guy Jude Law talks to before he becomes a deserter. This blind guy is selling hot nuts outside the veteran hospital and Jude Law’s character Inman asks him if he would want to see the world for 10 minutes, and the blind man tells him he’s been blind his whole life. It would be more painful to get what you’ve always wanted and have it taken away from you. 

I think about this a lot when I watch The Virgin Suicides. The 5 Lisbon Sisters, Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia, are all raised in isolation and restriction because their parents feel this is the best way to avoid promiscuity. But that doesn’t really ever work, does it? I’ve known girls like that in real life, and the moment they feel a little freedom they’re like a dog off a leash. What happens when innocence becomes a jail and a mother’s expectation is your warden? Their parents created an emotional bunker without ever thinking about the day their girls would be faced with the inevitable glare of adulthood.

I remember there was one girl in high school that was raised by these really really strict Christian parents but after school or at parties she would fuck different boys in cars. Everyone called her a slut and I don’t think that was fair. I think being desired was the only time she felt like she mattered. Like she was real.

We have all wanted to be the mysterious enigma, the cool girl, the mysterious person, the uncatchable rabbit. I used to tell my mom that when she was so strict with me, it felt like maybe I was born bad, and I was bound to disappoint her. The dog off the leash starts to feel like it’s on a noose at some point. The enigma must know they are only desired for never being known, even to themselves. 

The truth is they’re probably scared. 

Kristen Dunst is fantastic. 

Directed by Sofia Coppola

TW: Self harm, suicide

Sliding Doors

First let’s just acknowledge Gwyneth Paltrow’s English accent. 

Ok moving on. 

The moment you miss your train door on your way to work, imagine your life path splits. Every decision you make creates another split, and another split and another split. And then there’s the version of you that made the train, and your day went along as planned. Your life will still split into other decisions, of course. What if you went to the burger place for lunch instead of the wrap spot? And what if you ate inside the restaurant? What if you took your lunch to your desk? These are all little splits leading us to more splits. And some of them are mundane and some of them lead you to catching your boyfriend fucking someone else.

But there are things in life that just have to happen. There are endings to chapters that you cannot avoid, no matter the paths or train doors you take. There are many universal truths and one of them is that you cannot change people. Sometimes I tell people we are all just mirrors clanking into one another, over and over. But maybe we are just different people going through different sliding doors. It’s a rom com! It’s a time warp! It’s existential! I love Gwyn’s haircut! 

At the end of the day, what will find us will find us. And if it hasn’t yet, it’s just a matter of a door and a day.

TW: English accent and obsessing over “WHAT IFS” FOR DAYS

The Devil’s Advocate 

First and foremost, my ADHD is entirely too severe for group sex but… Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron I would pop a large Adderall for. I would pop an Adderall the size of an Auntie Anne’s cookie cake.

Describe a powerful man. An influential man that can control the people around him and certain outcomes. Describe him to me.

What is he wearing? Where does he live? But most importantly: What does he want?

Keanu Reeves is a lawyer and his wife is a very very fine Charlize Theron. He gets an offer to join a law firm and has no real idea who he’s really working for. But Keanu is a great lawyer, handsome and quick on his feet. He’s cocky. He’s proud. He’s also handsome and very handsome. And pretty and gorgeous.

In all seriousness, greed will always be interesting because it is innate in us. Anyone that tells you they are wanting for nothing is a liar. They are probably pining for some kind of adoration, some form of jealousy even. Even in their lack of wanting, they are wanting. It’s a superiority play. It is a seed we water constantly through everything we are shown in this lifetime. From what we wear and what we dream of. The majority of what feels natural to us at this point is guiding by society and it’s marketing to us. In any story about men, there is usually theater about their lack of power and then how they gain said power.

I watched The Devil’s Advocate when I was in my early twenties, during a time I was severely broke and the 7/11 clerk over by Union Square pitied me and let me get apples for free. Keanu gets whatever the fuck he wants from one day to the next. In Catholicism we are taught that the devil is a convincing salesman, offering our deepest temptations that distances us from Christ’s light. Sometimes when I want something so bad- power, the recognition, to be the BEST, the validation- I think about the cost of it. How much would I be willing to sacrifice or even ignore to feel like I mattered? And matter to WHO? 

Whenever I post an opinionated video, I always check who is agreeing with me. Who am I speaking to? Who am I speaking for? 

How much power would it take for me to ignore the people who love me the most telling me something was wrong? How much pride is blinding? 

More questions: Who do I want you to see me as? And would I be willing to live with knowing that the devils around me see me as one of them?

Al Pacino’s character is named John Milton. Google John Milton Paradise Lost. 

Life is a power play, and who is judge and jury is up to you. 

I asked you to describe a powerful man. Now ask a man to describe a powerful man.

TW: you cannot kiss Keanu through the screen 

and self harm

City Slickers

Billy Crystal, Bruno Kirby, Daniel Stern are 3 white dudes on a ranch. It’s funny as shit. It’s one of the movies I watched as a kid before going to bed. It’s comforting!

However. I see it a little differently now.

I didn’t have a Dad in the traditional sense, but I had a lot of paternal figures in my lifetime. I think that’s why I don’t really know how to connect with men like I should, or why I see them as some kind of savior. I have a hard time connecting with men but as I get older I realize they don’t really know how to connect with each other either. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to witness my guy friends embrace. I don’t think a lot of Dad’s knew how to ask about their feelings, it was only through activities that they were able to protect each other. Teaching your kid to ride a bike, how to swim, how to drive a car. Not a feeler but the teacher. I meet men like that often. They want to teach me something, they want to give me advice but I hardly know anything about them.

Thank you for helping me with my computer but are you ok? In my dating experiences, I have only known about a man’s real home life and their burdens when I’m going to leave. When I have had enough. Maybe men see intimacy as a bargaining chip at some point. An offering. Whereas women see it as part of connection, men see it as consequence.

It’s true that I grew up in a house where no one negotiated with the women in my family. Their word was final and I was really concerned with women’s stories around me rather than think about what a mid life crisis is for a man. I kind of grasped that it meant men realize they aren’t going to rockstars and they end up fucking someone they shouldn’t.

Watching City Slickers now as an adult is kind of…… sad.

The way men perceive friendship is foreign to me. The way men connect with each other is foreign to me. They have families and wives willing and able to be there for them but they have lost themselves in the everyday mundane. Don’t get me wrong. I understand that sometimes it can feel as though life is happening to us, that we are passengers of time just fulfilling the expectations of others. We can all fall vicitm to the biggest thief of joy: comparison. The comparison game is insidious. Comparison will have you hating your neighbor for the size of their house without considering they sleep alone.

The movie is still funny, it’s a slapstick comedy and I love Billy Crystal. Why the Academy Awards lets anyone else host is beyond me.

I wonder how many men in the world only feel real if other men THEY THINK are more masculine than they are- like…. cowboys… see them.

I would like women to stop emotionally paying for men that want men emotionally. THAT’S ALL IM SAYING. Other than that though I love this movie and it always gives me a giggle.

TW: Men

Meet Joe Black

Before we begin, Angelina Jolie I love you.

Ok so, this movie is one of my favorites. The idea that supernatural forces around us want to be near humans is usually an evil theme- demonic. There are energies roaming the Earth looking to wreck havoc because they feed off fear and life force. These movies tell us that these entities envy the human soul. Usually these are horror films, but Meet Joe Black is heart wrenching for something else entirely.

People write books about love. Songs, poems, plays, they create dances and start wars over love. I think everything we’ve ever felt comes down to two primary emotions: Love and fear. And everything we do, react to and feel are because of those two feelings.

But in Meet Joe Black, Brad Pitt plays Death and Death wants to know what it’s like to be human.

And he meets a woman.

Whenever I’m on a plane, I start thinking up eulogies for people I love and I end up sobbing. I don’t know why I do this but I know I’m not alone in it. Maybe it’s because I’m suspended in the air traveling thousands of miles a minute and I am met with my own mortality on planes, but I think about my grandparents a lot. I think about what I would say if my grandmother had a real service, if I could speak to my grandfather one more time. But i’ve never thought about what I would say to Death himself. How I would bargain, how I would beg. I would try to explain what they meant to me, if I could just have them for three more days. But what would Death want in return? And would he even be able to relate to how I felt? How? He’s seen mourning, he’s seen grief, he’s seen begging and pleading before…. but does he know why?

Would he want to know why? After seeing all that suffering, why subject himself to any kind of attachment?

This comes to mind whenever I start to develop feelings for someone. The gamble of attachment. But if God asked me if I wanted to remove my ability to attach, to want WARMTH and SOME GOOD OL’ FASHIONED CO DEPENDENCE

I would decline.

I am lucky enough to hear love songs and know what they’re talking about. I know what it’s like to want to fucking die over heartbreak. I rather cry for years over a love I barely had than never know it at all. I don’t know if that’s courage or whatever but anyway-

The life cycle is inevitable, but Meet Joe Black shows us the love language in loss.

On my worst days, when I want to cut my heart out of my chest and never feel anything ever again- I imagine Death watching me with envy. And that’s enough to get me back out there again, attaching myself all over this city, over and over and over and over and over. Hopefully when my day comes, he’ll ask me all about it.

TW: Brad Pitt tries Patois.

I’ll see you next month.

All my love,

Tefi

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