Tag: film

Movie Review: Red Rocket

A few weeks ago, I watched a movie called Red Rocket. I watched the trailer, and it looked interesting, especially because it played one of my favorite songs, “Bye, Bye, Bye” by NSYNC. I really love Sean Baker’s movies. I loved The Florida Project and Tangerine, so I was looking forward to seeing this one. It’s a black or dark comedy, so it will make you pretty uncomfortable watching it, but I tend to gravitate towards dark comedies a lot of the time. I don’t consider myself a cynic or anything, but somehow, I gravitate towards dark comedy probably because it gives insight into human nature and the less favorable aspects of human nature. Not everyone is a nice person and not everyone is going to change for the better. I really love Sean Baker’s films, too, because they shed light on marginalized communities that don’t get a lot of great representation, such as trans sex workers in Tangerine and low-income communities that live near Walt Disney World in The Florida Project. I haven’t seen a lot of movies that have empowering representations of female sex workers other than Zola (directed by Janizca Bravo), and I didn’t grow up watching a lot of movies that presented an empowering portrayal of trans people, or even a lot of movies that had trans actresses playing the main characters. The only other movie I saw that shows any empathy or compassion for trans characters is A Fantastic Woman, which came out in 2017 and stars Daniela Vega, a trans actress and singer from Chile.

I also haven’t seen many films that shed light on the lives of sex workers in general, or ones that feature them as the protagonists, other than Zola and Tangerine. Red Rocket was really intriguing to watch, because the main character is a retired adult film actor whose wife also worked in the adult film industry. Mikey Saber, who worked in the adult film industry for two decades, comes back to his hometown of Texas City, Texas to try and make a comeback in his career. I don’t know why he left Los Angeles, which is where he worked in the adult film industry, but it was apparently something really not great that motivated him to leave the city and go back home. When he comes back home, he expects everyone to celebrate him coming back, saying “I’ve missed you!” He wants people to think he is still a glamorous actor, but instead he gets the total opposite. His neighbors and friends ask him, “What are you doing back in Texas?” and aren’t glad to see him, and his estranged wife, Lexi, and his mother-in-law, Lil, are especially not happy to see him come back. Mikey asks if he can move back in with them, but Lil and Lexi don’t want to put up with him anymore. He continues to beg Lexi to let him move back in with them, and finally she gives in, under the condition that he contribute to the rent and help around the house. For some reason, I resonated with Mikey’s story a bit, mainly the fact that he came back to his hometown expecting everyone to treat him like he was famous, but instead it was the opposite. I’ve never worked as a sex worker or in the adult entertainment industry, so I don’t know what it’s like, but I could kind of relate to him coming back with this huge ego. After graduating from this elite liberal arts college on the East Coast, I thought I was entitled to have any job I wanted because of my degree. But honestly, it was so hard to find a job, and it was a total blow to my ego. I wanted a job where I could directly use my philosophy degree, but the only other option was to go to graduate school and as much as I wanted to go, I was super burned out after undergrad and needed time to recuperate, especially because I had some really bad mental health issues. That, too, was really hard because I couldn’t deal with having depression. Every day I struggled to get out of bed and feel motivated to do anything. I auditioned for an orchestra in my hometown and when I got called for the substitute cellist list, I was pretty elated and thought that I should be treated like royalty because I got on the substitute list. But then my dad asked me to vacuum the living room, and I threw a huge bratty tantrum because I thought, They should be celebrating me right now! Why the hell are they asking me, of all people, to do chores? Looking back, I didn’t have a very healthy sense of self, and so much of my self-worth was wrapped up in these past achievements and this music career. I thought about my past experiences with overcoming my ego when I saw how Mikey would go up to people in his hometown and expect them to recognize him and his work, but only a few people liked what he did. Most of the people he runs into don’t know about his work, and so he has to keep shoving it in their faces that he was an adult film star for several years and that he has a very famous account with all the videos and movies he starred in. I wanted to be a successful cellist, but looking back I placed so much of my self-esteem on whether or not I won auditions or whether or not people liked me. At some point, though, I realized that doing that wasn’t healthy and that I needed to develop more self-worth so that I wouldn’t think that I was a loser just because I didn’t play with a famous orchestra.

I think that’s why he falls in love with this 17-year-old girl named Strawberry. Honestly, I really didn’t know how to feel about her and Mikey’s relationship. I know that technically she was of consenting age according to Texas law, but I feel like he was partly using his relationship with Strawberry as an escape from his problems with the people around him. Mikey constantly disrespects the people around him, and he talks down to Lexi and Lil, even walking around naked and grossing Lil out. Strawberry and Lonnie (who knows about Mikey’s work) are the only two people who put up with Mikey’s bullshit throughout the movie. Mikey has Lonnie take an exit at the last minute while driving, and Lonnie swerves and causes a serious pileup accident. Even though Mikey and Lonnie escape, Mikey has Lonnie accept the blame even though Mikey was responsible for telling him to take the exit. Lonnie accepts it, but Mikey doesn’t tell anyone that he was also responsible for causing the accident. Mikey is only focused on running away with Strawberry and having her become an adult film star like him. The ending of the film creeped me out a lot. Overall, it was a really interesting film.

Red Rocket. 2021. Rated R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and pervasive language.

Movie Review: Causeway (in honor of Memorial Day)

I’m pretty late in writing this post since Memorial Day happened last week, but I wanted to squeeze in a movie about veterans to commemorate the day. I was figuring out what movies to watch for Memorial Day, but I have a weak stomach and probably couldn’t sit through Apocalypse Now or Saving Private Ryan, even if these are critically acclaimed movies. However, I remember trying to catch up on my Oscar-nominated movies last year, and I missed one of the nominees. It’s a movie called Causeway, and it stars Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry (I was almost going to type “Brian Austin Green” because I watched an episode of Abbott Elementary and Barbara Howard keeps mixing up Black celebrities’ names and White celebrities’ names. She says she loves Brian Austin Green, but she meant another actor, Brian Tyree Henry.) I saw the trailer, and I love A24 movies, so I was pretty excited from the beginning to see this movie. I am forever thankful I have access to Apple TV, because Causeway is an Apple TV movie.

Causeway is about a young woman named Lynsey, who returns from fighting in Afghanistan to her hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana, after suffering a traumatic brain injury. The beginning of the film shows how she goes through rehabilitation and has to learn how to speak and walk again after the injury. She also has to take several medications and suffers severe PTSD. She leaves the rehabilitation center even though the person taking care of her doesn’t think she is ready to leave, and she moves back home to her mother’s house. She gets a job cleaning pools, but while she is driving the truck, she has a panic attack and cannot steer the truck and ends up crashing it while driving through a busy intersection. She takes the damaged truck to a mechanic named James (Brian Tyree Henry) and has him get it fixed. He tells her that he will call her when it is fixed, and she says she doesn’t know her phone number. At first, he thinks she is kidding, but she tells him she is actually serious that she doesn’t remember her number. He develops a deep understanding towards her, and they develop an incredible friendship.

This movie reminded me of another film I watched called Mudbound. In the film, a white couple named Henry and Laura McAllen move near a Black family named the Jacksons in 1940s Mississippi, and they have to navigate racial tension. Ronsel Jackson and Jamie McAllen both serve in the war. Even though they fought in different units, they come back feeling disillusioned and lost after the war. The rest of the family can’t see eye-to-eye, but Ronsel and Jamie develop a meaningful friendship and share with each other their experiences fighting in the war. Jamie experiences PTSD and has serious flashbacks to when his fellow pilot got killed in battle. Ronsel comes back to a world of Jim Crow racism where he can’t go through the front door of a shop like white people do just because he is Black, and where he gets called “boy” and the N-word. Both Jamie and Ronsel struggle to readjust to life back at home, and even though they live in a segregated community, they treat each other like brothers and friends. In Causeway, James empathizes with Lynsey because he was in a traumatic car accident and he lost his leg and his nephew, Antoine, who died in the accident. Both James and Lynsey dealt with the worst kind of suffering imaginable, and due to their shared experiences, they develop a very deep connection of trust and respect. There is one scene where James takes Lynsey out to eat and a guy hits on Lynsey when she is trying to enjoy her time with James in peace. Lynsey lies and tells the guy she has a boyfriend, and James tells the guy to back off. After the guy leaves, Lynsey tells James that she doesn’t have a boyfriend and while they are leaving the diner she tells him that she is actually a lesbian. But James is respectful of that, and they end up smoking weed and drinking beer on a bench in a basketball court. Lynsey opens up about her brain injury, her brother’s drug addiction and how her mom was the only one left in their house, and James tells her about the car accident he was in. I think what their interactions showed me is that vulnerability takes courage and it’s not easy to open up to people we don’t know, but once we do it can open the doors to a beautiful connection.

Even though I don’t have PTSD, I felt I could kind of relate to Lynsey’s struggle with mental health. She goes to the doctor, and he goes over her medications, and she tells him that she wants to stop taking the medications. He tells her that getting off the medications could cause depression, seizures and other side effects, and that she is probably functioning precisely because she is taking the medication. He then has her tell him in more detail about the brain injury she suffered, and she discusses it in more detail, reliving the nightmare that she lived through. She later tells the doctor she wants to redeploy, but he tells her she might not want to do that because she suffered a traumatic injury, so she needs significant time to recover from the injury, especially since the injury impacted her mental health. But she tells him that she wants to redeploy because serving in the war made her feel like she had a purpose, while back home in New Orleans she doesn’t feel like she has a purpose. She tells her mom that she wants to redeploy, and her mother tells her to not go back. Her mom tells her that a friend of hers is hiring in an office she works at and encourages Lynsey to take the job, but Lynsey says that she is already employed cleaning pools. Her mother is disappointed that she is cleaning pools instead of working a comfortable office job, but Lynsey tells her that she can’t work in an office at the moment while she is trying to recover from the injury, especially since she is still just getting back to life at home. I remember when I was in my junior year of college and I suffered a serious depressive episode, and I came home for winter break and my parents found out I was depressed and they sent me to a therapist, who referred me to a psychiatrist. However, I didn’t think I needed to get on antidepressants, so I decided not to go. I also begged my parents to let me go back to school and my parents asked, “Are you sure?” because they were (reasonably) worried after what happened, but I told them I would be fine, and that I just wanted to graduate. However, I came back for the second semester, and it was even harder, especially because I still wasn’t seeking professional treatment for the depression and kept it hidden from so many people. I felt deeply alone, and I had no friends in the new dormitory I was in, so I couldn’t really talk to anyone about what I was going through because I didn’t think anyone would understand.

However, I remember there was a young woman who lived two doors down from me and somehow, she saw deep down that I was depressed, and so she showed me one day that she made a WordPress blog page for me with a message saying, “It’s important to SHARE.” I can’t remember what each letter stood for, unfortunately, but she made it for me because she saw I was really going through a lot of sadness, and she wanted to be there for me. The first week of college, she asked me for directions to a building on campus and we ended up having a really great conversation as we walked. I didn’t know that even just an interaction with someone could save my life, but looking back I have so much appreciation for this person because I really was suffering and felt I had no one to talk to, and she was the only one who could see I was going through something even though I hadn’t opened up to her about my depression. I think watching Causeway showed me that it’s important to ask for help, especially when it comes to struggling with mental illness. The film shows that asking for help isn’t easy, and it often comes with feelings of shame. Lynsey wants to live her life normally again after the brain injury, but she needs to spend a lot of time in recovery. She cannot do a lot of stuff on her own and has to have someone help her. She ends up moving back home, which she doesn’t want to do because she doesn’t feel like she has a purpose living at home anymore. There is one scene where James opens up about the car accident that he was in that killed his nephew. James’s fiancée was in the car accident, and after her son died, she left James, so now James lives by himself. He offers to let Lynsey stay with him because he is lonely and wants to have companionship, but she politely declines and decides to continue living with her mother. However, Lynsey realizes that her mother isn’t looking out for her daughter’s best interest. In one scene, they are in a pool in their backyard just spending time with each other, but then Lynsey’s mother gets a call from someone and leaves Lynsey sitting by herself. Lynsey decides that her mother doesn’t actually care about her life, and she decides to eventually go live with James. I kind of related to Lynsey’s struggle because at first when I moved home, I just needed a place to crash, but I was also incredibly depressed. I hadn’t finished addressing the mental health issues I dealt with in college, so I needed time to address them after college. I remember spending days lying in bed as I searched for jobs, getting rejection after rejection. Most of my friends lived in other parts of the country, and I didn’t see them as much, so I got really lonely. I think having my Buddhist community around was so important during that time because the people in the community supported me and encouraged me not to give up. Even though I didn’t get the symphony job I wanted, I got a job at Starbucks and looking back, that was the job I needed because I needed to gain some basic work experience. In retrospect, I think at the time, I needed to take care of my mental health and focus on paying off my student loans rather than trying to get the job at the symphony. In Causeway, even though Lynsey’s mom tells her she needs a better job than cleaning pools, Lynsey likes the work she does with the pools and it’s where she and James hang out a lot.

Honestly, even within the first ten minutes of Causeway I was crying a lot. Even though I don’t have PTSD, just seeing how Lynsey really struggles through recovery and with her mental health made me think about my own recovery from my depressive episodes. I wanted to just go back to being busy all the time and running around on high energy 24/7, but my depression was a wake-up call for me to slow down and take care of my health. Having depression made it hard for me to do a lot of things I took for granted, and there have been many times it sapped my will to live, but now that I am recovering, I am taking everything a day at a time. I also began to appreciate the little things that I take for granted, such as waking up and brushing my teeth, eating food, and getting sleep. I think also the film score in Causeway was really beautiful and so I think that is why I cried. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing this movie again. It was a really powerful and heartfelt film. Also, the acting was incredible! I remember seeing Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, and she was a really good actress in that movie. And Brian Tyree Henry was in another movie I saw called Widows, which was also really good (I saw it three times because it was THAT good.)

Causeway. 2022. Directed by Lila Neugebauer. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Brian Tyree Henry and Linda Emond. Rated R for some language, sexual references ad drug use.

Movie Review: Cat Person

After watching Succession, I developed a slight obsession with Nicholas Braun, who plays Cousin Greg in the show, so I looked up other movies he had done, and one of them was called Cat Person. The poster featured him and a young woman kissing, so I assumed it was going to be this sweet romantic drama about a young woman and a young man finding love.

That is, until I watched the trailer. (Spoiler: the movie is a psychological thriller)

To be honest, I am quite ignorant and before watching the movie, I had not read The New Yorker story “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian, but the trailer looked interesting, so I wanted to learn more. Honestly, as a young woman who has struggled with a similar situation as the main character, Margot, it was pretty tough to watch and to be honest, I wasn’t sure which elements were supposed to be serious and which elements were supposed to be comedic. It was categorized as a horror/thriller and I’m not a big fan of jump scenes, so I ended up reading the parents’ guide for information about potentially violent content, which isn’t a great idea because then you can predict the plot, but I’m a scaredy cat when it comes to horror movies and thrillers, so I decided to do my research before coming in cold.

The movie deals with the grey area of consent in romantic relationships. Margot is working at a movie theater concession stand and a tall man named Robert approaches her and buys some treats before going to see the movie. She finds herself attracted to him, and then he approaches her another time and asks for her number. Pretty soon, they are hitting it off, but Margot’s friend, Taylor, isn’t sure that Robert is the cute 20-something-year old guy he is posing as (it turns out that he is actually 34) and Taylor tells Margot she needs to set texting boundaries with Robert. Margot, however, doesn’t think Robert is going to listen to her if she sets those boundaries and so she continues the texting conversations. When he texts back, she feels thrilled, but when he doesn’t text back, she sends a lot of double and triple texts (to be fair, he double and triple texts her a lot, too.) They finally see a movie together, but Robert keeps sending all these ambivalent signs that he’s not really sure about their relationship, and so throughout the film Margot is wondering where to draw the line between all these fantasies she has about Robert and the reality of who Robert is. She imagines him sitting on a therapist’s couch and telling him that Margot is this beautiful girl, and it was love at first sight, but there are also the incredibly dark and terrifying moments where she imagines him beating her, yelling at her, and holding her hostage. Taylor finally gets tired of Margot not setting her boundaries and grabs her phone, and texts Robert (she makes it look like Margot was texting instead of her) that she isn’t interested in texting him anymore. At first, Robert seems to be respectful, but then his insecurities come out and there is a scene where the room goes dark except for the blue light on Margot’s phone, and Margot and Taylor huddle together in their dorm room while reading Robert’s incessant texts, with him finally calling her a “whore” in his final text. Margot realizes that Taylor was right, that there were a lot of red flags about Robert. The story by Kristen Roupenian ends with Robert calling Margot a “whore” over text, but the movie doesn’t stop with the text, but culminates into Margot sneaking into Robert’s house and Robert beating her violently while she tries to call 911 and escape, and then accidentally starting a huge fire in Robert’s house.

Even though I don’t have much dating experience, I have been in similar situations like Margot. And after reading the short story “Cat Person,” I got chills because I have been in similar situations as Margot has. I hadn’t gone on dates with any of these older men who were trying to flirt with me, but the encounters made me wonder whether it was okay for me to text them or engage with them in any way. There was one time I was working as a barista, and a really nice older gentleman came up during the six o’ clock in the morning shift. I was the only barista behind the counter. Our interactions were fine at the beginning, and he was really nice because he tipped me $20 every time that I made his tuxedo mocha latte drink for him. He kept coming, and to be honest, at a time when I was strapped for cash and fresh out of college, I needed the extra tip money to go towards paying off my student loans, so I was quite grateful for the generous tips this man gave. However, when I told my therapist, she encouraged me to be careful because I don’t always know people’s intentions. I broke down and cried because this older gentleman and I had a lot of great conversations, but as a people-pleaser and someone who, while growing up, was told that I was always “so polite,” maybe even “too polite,” I didn’t want to say no. I ended up writing a fictional story in my private time to get all this anxiety about encountering this man off my chest, and I also chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo (it’s a Buddhist mantra I chant) to gain clarity and wisdom to know what to do, since this was also during a time when I didn’t know how to set clear boundaries with people. One day, I was setting up the counter and the Tuxedo Mocha man walked in. He came in with his traditional smile and his $20 bill, and I tried to be super polite and was a little flustered and my heart kept beating at about 100 beats per minute. He laughed and said, “You don’t have to be all polite for me, just because I’m a customer. No, girl, I came to see you.” And honestly, I wasn’t sure how to react. My parents were suspicious of the guy, my therapist was, my coworker had told me that he might be one of those “sugar daddy” type of people. I was wondering if I was misinterpreting this man’s greeting as a flirtation or just a regular non-romantic or sexual greeting. I wondered if I was giving off mixed signals that I was coming onto him, if I was being too friendly. When he came in next time, I was with other coworkers, and the minute he came up to the counter and said hi to me, I panicked and politely asked one of the other baristas to make his drink while I hurried to the bathroom and broke down in tears. I felt so stupid and confused at that moment. I didn’t love him, I just love being a friendly person to people, so why was I freaking out over my interaction with this man? To this day, I’m still not sure what was going on between me and this older gentleman, but after that, he never came back. I was worried that all the nice tip money he gave me was gone forever when he left, but somehow, after a lot of perseverance and tears, I still managed to pay off my student loans even though he no longer came to the Starbucks.

Throughout the movie, I was so stressed. It brought back a lot of personal experiences for me. There was a time where I had met someone older than me, and he was a nice guy, but then when we started texting each other, I wasn’t clear about what my boundaries were, and so I wasn’t able to communicate clear texting boundaries to him. We would text each other constantly, and at first it was nice because it was just a casual friendship, but then at some point I felt a deep anxiety gnawing at me, wondering if this was appropriate to continue texting him. Then he asked me to dinner and called me and left voicemail messages, and I would avoid his texts and voicemails, and then I would apologize, feeling bad for missing his messages. After a while, we stopped texting each other and we still managed to be on good terms, and he found someone else, so it all worked out. I was sad at first that it didn’t work out and that I ended up ignoring his texts and calls, but I realized that I wanted to only say “yes” to us going on a date because I was worried about hurting his feelings. I didn’t know if he wanted to just be friends or something more, so instead of asking him directly, I decided to avoid his messages. I didn’t know how to set clear boundaries when we were interacting over text, and so I just tried to not address it at all. Margot goes along with her sexual encounter with Robert because she doesn’t feel comfortable saying “no” or “stop,” and there is a version of her that is telling her that it’s okay to tell Robert she doesn’t want to have sex anymore, but she keeps arguing with that version of her, thinking that it’s going to be romantic and that she is going to like it. But she ends up not enjoying the sex, and after a while their text conversations get less and less fun as Margot starts to see how insecure and controlling Robert is. Finally, she stops responding to his messages as he continues to berate her. I was stressed watching the final scene where they fight because Robert doesn’t bother giving her saline solution for the pepper spray that she accidentally sprayed in her eye.

There are some pretty intense scenes during the film. I had to close my eyes at the beginning because there is a scene where Margot goes into her dorm and a dog follows her into her dorm, and her RA, Laura, tells her to take the dog outside since no pets are allowed in the dorms. Margot has a nightmare where she wakes up in the middle of the night and finds that the dog has mauled Laura. I read that this part was super bloody, so I decided to close my eyes. The end of the film is pretty intense, too. Throughout the film, I was just really stressed and uncomfortable, but that is how the movie is supposed to make you feel because in real life, young women have to deal with these kinds of uncomfortable interactions in relationships and a lot of times it is easier said than done to set clear boundaries and say “no.” Even when Taylor told Margot to say no and be firm about her boundaries, Margot wasn’t sure about what she wanted in her relationship with Robert, and also Robert made her feel bad about wanting to assert her boundaries and also intimidated her, so it wasn’t easy for her to say “no.” (To be fair, there have been times when I haven’t respected other people’s boundaries, and I had to reflect on that and chant about it.) I thought about this scary ad from the Ad Council that I listened to in which Jamie Lee Curtis narrates this chilling story about a teenage woman who meets a guy online who says he is in junior high like her, and they strike up a conversation and he says they should meet up. The young woman meets him in real life, and it turns out that he “wasn’t nice, wasn’t in junior high and wasn’t a 14-year-old boy.” It reminded me of how Margot and Robert find out each other’s actual ages. There is a scene in the movie where Robert takes Margot out to a bar, and Margot can’t get in even after the guy checks her ID, and Robert is upset with Margot that he didn’t tell her she was 20 and under the legal limit to drink alcohol. Then after the unpleasant sexual encounter, Margot finds out that Robert is 34 years old, and she doesn’t get to see any of his cats and wonders if he made up a lot of the details that he told her about himself.

I wasn’t sure about watching this movie at first since it didn’t get a super high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I was so curious about the movie that I decided to watch it anyway. I’m not used to watching a lot of intense thrillers, but this was a pretty interesting film. I am pretty creeped out after watching it, but like I said, it was supposed to be an uncomfortable film to watch. Although one part I did appreciate was that they gave a shout-out to asexuals during the film. The guy who Margot was dating confesses to her at her stepdad’s birthday party that he realized he is asexual. It of course was difficult for Margot to swallow the news, and I understand it was, but I also don’t see a lot of asexual characters in film and TV (I haven’t seen BoJack Horseman or Sex Education yet, but I heard they also have asexual representation) so even just having a minor character identify as “ace” made me light up a little, speaking as someone who is coming to terms with my own asexuality. I also looked up who Susanna Fogel, the director, was, and it turns out that she co-wrote one of my favorite movies, Booksmart!

Cat Person. 2023. Directed by Susanna Fogel. Runtime: 2 hours. Rated R.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards 2024

On Saturday, I watched the Screen Actors Guild Awards. I saw it a couple of years ago, and I really loved it, and I didn’t want to miss out this time, especially because I was bummed about missing the Emmys. Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t miss it, because after a historic writers strike last year that lasted from July to November, it was time for me to pay my respects to all the writers, producers and actors that work hard every day to produce the shows I love. Of course, I also watched it because I love seeing the people getting dressed up. And because I love movies and TV. Honestly, it made me wonder what it was like actually being at the awards ceremony. It seems so glamorous to me as an outsider, but I guess this reminds me of when I went to Los Angeles and had this glamorous idea of how it was going to be. I thought I was going to see celebrities just walking around, but I didn’t end up seeing celebrities and that was probably the best thing, because I would have tried to disrupt their day to get an autograph and they probably wouldn’t be too thrilled about that. I remember talking to the Uber driver while we were going through Sunset Boulevard to get to the place I was staying, and I was feeling so intimidated that we were going past all of these famous people’s homes, and he told me that at the end of the day, celebrities are just human beings. And I’m glad he said that, because I didn’t want to keep walking around thinking that Hollywood was this glamorous thing and that actors just came out of the womb reciting lines from memory. I think watching interviews and Variety series like Actors on Actors helped me see that the people who recite these brilliant lines of dialogue and get inside the minds and bodies of these characters are people with families and bills to pay. Of course, I love entertaining my little fantasies about being at these glamorous awards ceremonies now and then, because I enjoy daydreaming.

There were some really powerful moments during the ceremony. Barbra Streisand received the Lifetime Achievement Award and delivered a speech about her love of movies and acting and how important the work of actors is. I haven’t seen many of Barbra Streisand’s movies, and I have only heard a few of her songs, so I have a lot of catching up to do, but hearing her speech reminded me why film is such an important medium. I’ve learned from watching these movies and television shows that film is a really powerful way not just to entertain, but also to gain more insight into the human experience. The human experience is complex and full of emotions: joy, sadness, grief, anger, fear, love, gratitude, the list goes on. I really admire that there are people out there who can convey various human emotions, play different characters, and share stories that resonate with people from all walks of life. I remember doing theater briefly in middle school, but I ended up sticking with orchestra. I wasn’t all that great at it, but I still loved going to plays, musicals, and the cinema and watching other people do it. I think that is why I loved The Fabelmans, because it gets into the mind of a young filmmaker who is trying to chart his own unique path in life amid societal pressures and the pressures of growing up. I was curious about how these people got into filmmaking and how they became so good at what they did, and I feel like the secret to Sammy charting his own path in the movie was that he just kept making and directing films. He didn’t start with a big budget; he was making movies with his high school classmates. He spent hours making the movies and editing the movies, even when things got tough in his life. He managed to create something profound out of his painful experiences.

There were other great parts about the SAG awards. I was really excited when Da’Vine Joy Randolph won for her role in The Holdovers. I haven’t seen it yet, but I really liked the trailer and I love Paul Giamatti’s acting. I was also really happy when Ayo Edebiri, Lily Gladstone and Elizabeth Debicki won awards. Elizabeth Debicki is an incredible actress; she played Princess Diana in a series called The Crown. I also really loved her in the film Widows, where she plays one of the women who has to go on a heist mission after her husband gets killed. I thought Pedro Pascal’s speech was really heartfelt; I don’t think I have the stomach to watch The Last of Us (I’m squeamish about zombies and blood, unfortunately) but it was nice seeing him have a heartfelt conversation with Tan France, who interviewed the winners backstage. I was really happy when Succession won because I just finished watching the show, and it was really good. I didn’t really get into the buzz about Succession until after the show had wrapped up. The only reason I started watching it was because it won several awards and received lots of nominations at the Golden Globes, so I was like, Dang, this show must be really good. For some reason, I got emotional after Succession was over. Maybe it has to do with it being close to my period, or I’m just an emotional mess, but I just got teary-eyed. I keep forgetting that even though it’s a comedy-drama, a satire, a black comedy, it was still in the drama category for a reason. I think because I had my own personal experiences with grief this year that season 4 really knocked me out of the emotional ballpark. I haven’t seen Oppenheimer yet, but it won quite a few awards, and Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey, Jr. won for Best Actor and Best Supporting Male Actor in the Motion Picture categories. I’m curious about Beef. I don’t know much about it, but Ali Wong and Steven Yeun both got awards last night for the series and it got good reviews.

Honestly, this was a really good ceremony. I loved the conversations between Tan France and the winners of the awards. They were just so delightful and sweet. And the best part is, the actors got to make their speeches without the swear words being bleeped out because it was technically on Netflix and not live TV. If they swore on NBC or ABC, they would be bleeped out. Also, I really love the part where Billie Eilish signed Melissa McCarthy’s face. And Idris Elba. 🙂