1. “Party Girl” dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer
Release Date: June 9, 1995
Why I Picked It: Ragtag Cinema selected “Party Girl” for their annual birthday screening in June, and I couldn’t miss out on this story of a hedonistic diva finding happiness behind the circulation desk. Watching it at Ragtag was a treat, but if you didn’t make it, try Kanopy. 5/5 falafels.
Recommended For: Divas, brats, existentialists, library lovers. Anyone who knows or craves the euphoria of finding purpose.
Lingering Lines: Mary: “Do you know the story of Sisyphus?” Leo: “Who?”
In Three Words: Wild, earnest, fabulous
2. “Computer Chess” dir. Andrew Bujalski
Release Date: July 17, 2013
Why I Picked It: I chose it for the chess (having misread the film as a historical documentary) but stayed for the deadpan performances, the dialogue (so unbearably awkward as to be almost poetic), and the startling brushes with truth in the midst of comedy (especially about knowledge as an embodied sense vs. as formal, determinable systems). Shown at the 2013 True/False Film Fest, and now streaming on Kanopy. 5/5 blunders.
Recommended For: Anyone who has felt like a pawn on a board, making incremental, grueling moves under the influence of greater systems. Anyone who thinks we could stand to have more conversations about how artificial intelligence is transforming (destroying?) our ideas about what knowledge is. And anyone who loves a good non-sequitur.
Lingering Lines: “Is there any possibility that this is uh…some kind of uh…very advanced…I mean, we just gave up a queen to get his queen and now we’re basically just…um…”
In Three Words: Absurd, obsessive, mumblecore
3. “Frankie & Johnny” dir. Garry Marshall
Release Date: October 11, 1991
Why I Picked It: I had just been at Ragtag for “Materialists,” a modern, quiet and spacious rendering of the romantic comedy. I left feeling nostalgic for an earlier era of rom-com — noisier, sillier, bursting with dialogue (à la “When Harry Met Sally”). Frankie and Johnny meet working in a New York City café, a setting I took as a promise of a lively, chatty romance (a promise half-delivered, ultimately — there is chatting aplenty, but there is also much monological pontificating and pleading from the occasionally charming, often off-putting Johnny). Available on DVD and Kanopy. 3.5/5 broken VCRs.
Recommended For: Anyone who wonders about the little lives behind darkened apartment windows; if everyone feels this lonely. Anyone who loves that Ocean Vuong line about how “loneliness is still time spent / with the world” (and anyone who can tolerate the opposite argument for an hour or so).
Lingering Lines: “I want to…I want to be alone. I just…I want to watch my VCR, I want to eat ice cream, I want to go to sleep.”
In Three Words: Messy, tender, doubtful
4. “The Queen’s Gambit” by Walter Tevis
Publication Date: 1983
Why I Picked It: Chess and fiction are friends; the game is a rich and revealing subject. Ivan wouldn’t be my favorite character in Sally Rooney’s “Intermezzo” if not for the qualities illuminated by chess — his depth of patience and attention; the inclination towards an abstract, mathematical kind of beauty. Ivan would understand Beth, I think, and her delight in feeling the mind glow with patterns and solutions to become “lucid as a perfect, stunning diamond.” 4.5/5 checkmates.
Recommended For: Readers drawn to characters who must fight their way out of impossible positions, with strong stomachs for stories of childhood trauma, sexual abuse, and drug addiction. Anyone fascinated by masters and geniuses, and the voids brilliance cannot fill.
Lingering Lines: “She was alone, and she liked it. It was the way she had learned everything important in her life.”
In Three Words: Relentless, risk, rebirth
5. “Winter in Sokcho” by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Publication Date: August 18, 2016 (English Translation: February 20, 2020)
Why I Picked It: A friend recommended this book based on its style, but I was sold on the setting alone: a beachside resort town in winter. I spent a strange part of my life in such a setting; the memories are dream-like. Sometimes I miss the feeling of living somewhere out of season; the sight of a lonely lifeguard chair silhouetted against freezing waters that held so many gleeful, rollicking bodies just months before. “Sokcho” scratched the itch. 5/5 fresh fish.
Recommended For: Anyone who experiences desire as a curse, or as the slightly excruciating domination of one’s own attention. Adventurers of liminal space.
Lingering Lines: “That was Sokcho, always waiting, for tourists, boats, men, spring.”
In Three Words: Visceral, perceptive, hushed
6. “Blonde” by Frank Ocean
Release Date: August 20, 2016
Why I Picked It: ”Blonde” is like a place I visit every summer; late last month as the days stretched and warmed it felt like time to return. Zane Lowe described the album as music on a canvas, revealing different strokes of color over the course of a day. Having played “Blonde” several summer mornings while watering the plants, a different metaphor arises for me about the album and the garden — something about the pouring and the tending, how slow to grow, how sudden to bloom; love as seasonal, and bound to mysterious rhythms. Available on Freegal. 6/5 swimming pools.
Recommended For: Anyone who lives in a constant state of remembering, but for whom that Ocean Vuong line also rings softly true: “I miss you more than I remember you.” Anyone who experiences desire as a gift; a humbling. Fans of André 3000.
Lingering Lines: “I care for you still / and I will / forever” (“White Ferrari”)
In Three Words: Hindsight, searching, confession
-Karena
