NO NONSENSE #33

Hey dolls,

It’s time for another recommendations email from Polyester, and for instalment #33 we’re going hard on films. From recent gems accessible on MUBI to 70s Jane Asher movies, we’ve got a few decent bits for your Letterboxd watchlist, so without further ado, we’ll dive right in:

Charlotte Landrum - Platform Editor

Film: Deep End
Starting off as a horny, inappropriate British 70s romp, Deep End is an incredible film exploring adolescent discovery of sex and desire - and mostly how a young woman (played by the amazingly talented Jane Asher) is just an object for the men in her life to chase after and discard, despite her efforts to reclaim her sexuality and her confidence and independence. There really is no winning! Also despite the film's uncomfortable plot lines it's also genuinely really funny as well as STUNNING with bright colours and early 70s looks.

Film: Fox and His Friends
I haven’t watched a Rainer Werner Fassbinder film in ages and I’m happy I picked this one! Fassbinder stars in his own movie as a queer man in the circus called Fox who lives with his depressive sister. After winning the lottery, he starts hanging out with the poshos, but no matter how hard his new (untrustworthy) boyfriend tries to take away his working class charm, Fox cannot adapt to this fancy life. His new rich mates are of course swindlers. A great lesson in why you should never ever trust the upper class!

Misha MN - Culture Editor

Film: The Pillow Book

Finished off my little Peter Greenaway season from last month with his erotic 90s offering, The Pillow Book. Starring Vivian Wu as Japanese model Nagiko, she develops a fetish for having her body being written on, and is in constant search for the best calligrapher, wherever he may be. She finds a young, long haired Ewan McGregor and starts writing on him, sending cryptic messages to a Japanese publisher who tormented her father. Because this is a Greenaway film, there’s an extreme moment where someone’s corpse actually gets turned into a book and it’s absolutely gorgeously over the top. Quite a weird one, even by Greenaway standards, kind of get the feeling he went on an holiday or had a job in Hong Kong, loved it, and then decided to set his film there. Interesting and bizarre.

Book: The Faggots And Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell

Reread this recently and forgot how beautiful and powerful it was. The very definition of “queer liberation, not assimilation”, this fairy-tale-esque fantasy inspired by (and written in) the queer communes of the 1970s is still so painfully relevant. This world is inhabited by a mythic cosmology of revolutionary protagonists- the faggots, the queens, the women who love women, the queer men, the faeries, the strong women- and, of course, their opponents, the men. Queer Solidarity is as important as it ever was, and it is something we can relearn from this book. It’s short, it’s portable, I cried real tears on the bus when I finished it.

Music - “Cruisin’ The Streets” by Boys Town Gang

I recently finished Jeremy Atherton Lim’s fantastic book Gay Bar: Why We Went Out and I absolutely loved it. Lim describes his voyages in gay bars from the 1980s to the 2010s in loving literary detail and questions the real functions on these spaces. It was invigorating. One of the things I do when I read books like this is keep a list of all the songs they mention played in the bars so I can listen to them later, and this one didn’t disappoint. Amongst all the extended disco cuts Lim mentions, this stands out as it has a musical guide to the art of cruising, plus a spoken word section that depicts a guy cruising, finding a hot guy to make out with, then being watched by a horny hooker, then some gay police turn up and they all have an orgy, ecstatic groans melting back into the disco beat. Ten out of ten, will be playing at my next party.

Gina Tonic - Senior Editor

Film: They Shoot Horses Don’t They

Charlotte put on this 60s film to relax us after a busy work day the other week and it was so deeply affecting I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. A slow and then fast march into the cruelty of capitalism, this film centres around a dance marathon that lasts weeks during the Great Depression and has an unreal performance from Jane Fonda.

Book: Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

I haven’t even finished this book and I want to recommend it!! It’s a fun take on unhinged women lit with a 45 year old lesbian lead who falls in love with one of the patients of the shrink that she transcribes for. Really fun and silly writing!!

Lauren O’Neill - Copy Editor

Film: How to Have Sex

I’m definitely not the first person you’ll have heard recommending this movie, by British filmmaker Molly Manning-Walker, but that’s because it’s really good. It tells the story of a 16-year-old girl called Tara who goes on a big Brits Abroad binge drinking holiday in Malia with her mates after finishing her GCSEs, and while importantly it is a really sensitively-done look at sexual assault, it’s also such a funny, accurate portrayal of those types of trips – all neon and fishbowls and vomit – and it will probably make you never want to see a bottle of booze ever again. It’s on MUBI so if you have it get it watched!

TV: Never Have I Ever

Again, not the first person to recommend this Netflix teen rom-com/coming-of-age hybrid by Mindy Kaling, but it always cheers me up. The other night I felt sad and I remembered there was a whole season I hadn’t watched and it really turned my night around. John McEnroe as the narrator is the absolute MVP. A delight!

See ya next time!

XOXO

The Polyester Team <3