Watch + Play List | June 2024

Songs that sound like summer, queer cinema and the audacity of ytness.

Hi hello!

I hope you’re staying cool amid this heat dome and, you know, the fall of Western society. I watched some solid narrative films and documentaries this month. This month’s playlist theme is songs that sound like summer. You can skip ahead to the playlist here. Stay hydrated!

A couple of feature films I loved

Monkey Man (2024)

Dev Patel makes an impressive directorial debut in this action-thriller. Monkey Man follows a boxer named “The Kid” (Patel) who works in an underground fight club as a jobber and heel— a profession that reflects the broader themes of this film. The Kid navigates the criminal underworld of an unnamed Indian city in an attempt to seek vengeance against a police chief and spiritual guru (who seems to be inspired by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi) who are responsible for the destruction of his village and his mother’s death. Though the film takes many cues from John Wick and similar films, its hero's journey is complex and culturally specific, giving the story more heart. I’m not typically into bloody action films, but this was entertaining and less formulaic than most films in this genre.

Lover’s Rock (2020)

I finally got around to starting Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series. The first film I chose to watch was Lover’s Rock, a fun romance drama about two lovers meeting at a house party in West London set in the early 1980s. As the title suggests, the film features a lot of lover’s rock music from the era. A scene where a group of women is cooking food while singing “Silly Games” by Janet Kay brought me so much joy that I ended up listening to Janet Kay non-stop for days. Though it’s a pretty short feature (1hr10m), McQueen immerses us into this sweaty house party as people whine up on each other, transported by the music to another place. This is a rare gem in the canon of Black romance films.

Competitive and messy AF queer cinema

Challengers (2024)

By now, you have probably heard of this film, but in the event you have been under a rock the past few months, Challengers follows Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a former tennis star caught in a love triangle between her husband Patrick (Josh O’Connor), and her ex-boyfriend/her husband’s ex-best friend Art (Mike Faist). The game of tennis serves as a metaphor for the entanglement these three characters are caught up in, and according to screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, the homoerotic nature of tennis. After Tashi suffers an injury that ruins her tennis career, she leaves Art for Patrick and coaches Patrick into becoming the tennis star she dreamed of being. When Patrick hits a losing streak, she demands he rebuild his confidence by competing in a tennis match (called a challenger, of course) against the only person he’s never been able to beat, Art.

The film employs a non-linear storyline, frequently going back and forth in time to provide context into how the three of them ended up in this mess. It’s a moderately entertaining film. Zendaya’s performance was fine, (though she wasn’t believable as a 31 year old mother to me), and I understand why she would take this role, it was likely a refreshing challenge for her (no pun intended). However, the characters have no interiority or development outside of their relationship with the game of tennis and one another. I’m sure this is intentional, but adding this to the non-linear narrative leaves little room to sit with the characters, and you get a film that feels like a metaphor more than an actual story, which is fine for entertainment purposes, but I found it a little overhyped.

Bottoms (2023)

Bottoms takes every film trope about hormone-crazed teenage boys and reimagines it as a lesbian fight club teen comedy. PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are two unpopular virgins desperate to win the affection of cheerleaders Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber). Somewhere between injuring the star quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine) and getting threatened with expulsion by the principal, the two came up with a bright idea to start a feminist self-defense fight club. The duo gets their teacher, Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch), to supervise the club, inspiring him to teach feminist theory in class. Though it seems well-intentioned, the fight club was mainly started for PJ and Josie to win over their crushes, which blows up in their faces. I grew up in the era of teen comedies reigning supreme, so it was nice to see that formula reinvigorated for the current era with a ton of laughs.

Because sometimes, you just need a formulaic film to watch while lying under a weighted blanket

Players (2024)

Psychologists have been unpacking why people like to watch comfort movies, for the past couple of years. For people with depression and anxiety, the predictability of comfort movies can help people cope with uncertainty. I feel the same way about comfort movies as I do formulaic romcoms, where I know what will happen, even if I haven’t seen the film, and Players is exactly that kind of film. I know that Gina Rodriguez is a nuisance to the Black community, but I was really here for Damon Wayans Jr. Players follows Mack (Rodriguez) a thirty-something sportswriter who hangs with a crew of college buddies, one of whom she slept with, Adam (Wayans), to pick up dates by running “plays” on them. Running plays consists of creating fake scenarios and using friends to play along to get the attention of people they want to hook up with. When Mack finally finds a man she doesn’t just want to hook up with, her plays catch up with her, and Adam (who is, you guessed it, in love with her) calls her out on her BS. Is it a great film? No. But it will give you a couple of laughs when you’re in the mood for some lighthearted disassociation.

People living in rundown tenements, doing the best they can with what they got

The Women of Brewster Place (1989)

I recently read The Women of Brewster Place and The Men of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor. I have vague memories of seeing this series on TV when I was a child and wanted to go back and re-watch it after reading the books. The cast is stacked: Oprah Winfrey, Lynn Whitfield, Robin Given, Cicely Tyson, Jackeé, and Lonette McKee automatically make it iconic. In terms of adaptations, it’s almost exactly how the story was written in the book, and each actress fit the characters they portrayed perfectly. When I read about Etta, she instantly reminded me of Sandra Clark from 227, so it made perfect sense that Jackeé played her— Etta was basically Sandra in a drama instead of a sitcom. Of course, Oprah, who had just come off the heels of The Color Purple, played Mattie, a southern woman who moves to Brewster Place after her son put her in an extremely f*cked up situation. Robin Givens as a Black girl from an upper middle class background, moving to the hood and changing her name to Kiswana much to the dismay of her bougie mother (Tyson) is too perfect.

The book and series center the experiences of Black women from different walks of life who have faced adversity due to race, gender, sexuality, and class. What bonds these women is how they show up for one another and their community. This film walked so For Colored Girls could run, but I’m sure if this series came out today, it would probably be called trauma p0rn. However, understanding the era in which this was created and how it expanded the depictions of Black women on the screen helps me appreciate the honesty told through the stories of these women. If you’ve never seen this miniseries, temper your expectations because this was the 1980s. Horrible makeup (especially on Oprah and Barbara Montgomery, who they aged up), Oprah’s colored contacts, and Tyler Perry stage production-esque dialogue make parts of this series feel outrageous but in a charming way.

Ó Paí, Ó (2007)

I can’t explain why, but I’m a bit of a Brazilophile. Duolingo is not helping me comprehend Brazilian Portuguese fast enough, so you will see more Brazilian films on this list. Ó Paí, Ó (loosely translated to Look at This!) is a chaotic and vibrant comedy thematically similar to The Women of Brewster Place. Set in Bahia, Ó Paí Ó follows an eclectic group of people living in a tenement run by a pious landlady, Dona Joana, who turns the water off on the first day of carnival because most of the tenants are late on their bill. What’s most interesting about this film is the array of characters and the lives they navigate. Roque (Lázaro Ramos), a singer and painter, has a stand-off with a racist customer, Boca (Wagner Moura), who attempts to stiff him on paying for a parade trolley he painted, Carmem (Auristela Sá), an abortionist who works out of her apartment and has seven children, many of whom she adopted, has exchanges with judgemental Dona Joana, who doesn't even watch her own kids and Reginaldo (Érico Brás), a womanizer who is cheating on his pregnant wife with a trans woman (Lyu Arisson), are just a few of the residents living in this building. It’s fascinating to me how the lives of Black people can vary culturally but not so much systemically.

Documentaries that showcase the devasting consequences of the white savior complex

MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024)

Years ago, I wrote about my frustration with the documentaries covering Theranos and Fyre festival and how they failed to address how white privilege allows people to get away with these kind of scams, MoviePass, MovieCrash makes the power of that privilege undeniable. Until this documentary, I had no idea that MoviePass was founded by two Black men, and that was by design. Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt spent years building the MoviePass brand, only to be pressured by investors to let an unqualified white man take over as CEO (Mitch Lowe) and eventually run it into the ground. This story is as old as time, but the bright side is that Stacy Spike was able to reclaim his power by buying Moviepass back. If you love going to movies, support a Black-owned business and get a Moviepass subscription.

Tell Them You Love Me (2024)

Tell Them You Love Me (2024)

TW: SA, abuse of disabled people

This is one of the most disturbing and ethically mishandled documentaries I’ve seen. Tell Them You Love Me is a story about a white female professor who offered facilitated communication services to a non-verbal Black man with cerebral palsy and eventually enters a romantic relationship with him, going as far as to “make love” to him. What I found so upsetting about this documentary is how the primary question it’s asking is if this woman thought what she was doing was consensual, and that is never the point when we’re talking about SA. Instead of taking the time to discuss the nuances of consent as it relates to non-verbal people, they chose to center the experiences of this delusional and narcissistic white woman (who was married with kids when she did this btw) and her feelings about a man she communicated with using a method that many scientists argue is biased and ineffective. There were also a lot of undertones about white savior complex and fetishizing that were not explored. Only posting this here in case you were thinking about watching. 0/10 would not recommend it.

A documentary that shows the power of challenging white supremacy through artistry

A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks (2021)

A nice departure from the previous documentaries, A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks, was an inspiring watch covering the work and legacy of Gordon Parks. The documentary interweaves Gordon’s artistic journey with the journies of photographers and filmmakers he paved the way for, including Jamel Shabazz, Devin Allen, Ava Duvernay, and Spike Lee. Parks was 1 of 1, and I’m not sure if visual artistry will ever have as much of an impact as his work did since we’re living in a time where images are pushed on us indiscriminately all the time, but it made me think a lot about how my work can serve a greater purpose, something we all should do.

Songs That Sound Like Summer

There are songs about summer, songs that remind you of summer’s past, and then there are songs that have a summer sound. To me, a summer sound is music with a sonic quality that makes you think of sunshine, spontaneity, joy, and desire. The production of these kinds of songs may have strings, synths, soul samples, twinkling keys, or rhythmic drum patterns, but it’s really more about the feeling the songs give me. Songs that feel like the wind blowing through your hair, dancing on rooftops, the balminess you feel when you step out of a party into the night air, or a picnic in the park with friends. This playlist is best played chronologically, but you can experiment with the shuffle button if you’d like. Tell me in the comments or chat what summer sounds like to you.

Catch me on these digital streets.

Watch My Short Film “One Of The Guys” 🎥

Instagram 🤳🏾

TikTok ⏰

Website 👩🏾‍💻

Merch 🛍️

Buy Me a Taco 🌮

💋 ✌🏾

With love,

LaChelle