movie diary october 2026!

October 2nd: Crime + Punishment in Suburbia (2000) dir. Rob Schmidt

schmaltzy mopefest with a limp romance, mostly propelled by vincent kartheiser's serial killer heartthrob vibe. monica keena is good but it's just not a very good movie! for #girlbloggers and coquettes. 2.5/5 

October 3rd: Tragedy Girls (2017) dir. Tyler MacIntyre

aw man...i had kind of been looking forward to this one. it was not good. too #hashtag, too 'this is what girls are like, right?'. tried very hard to be the new heathers and just fell flat on its face. i do appreciate how truly evil the girls are, though, they're just surrounded by a very boring movie and so-bad-it's-literally-just-bad dialogue. consider alexandra shipp acquitted, i enjoyed her. DNF/everything 

October 4th: Strike! aka The Hairy Bird aka All I Wanna Do (1998) dir. Sarah Kernochan

yay! yay yay yay!! this had been on my watchlist foreverrrr, everything about a late 90s teen comedy with almost all-girl cast set in the 1960s is up my alley. AND it's a boarding school comedy. mwah. i knew i would enjoy it but i wound up getting truly misty about feminism and the power of girls. wahhhh. also monica keena and vincent kartheiser play lovers again (or really for the first time) and i like it better here. feral beatnik/ne'er-do-will teeny-bopper is a really good pairing. i choose to interpret snake as a transfeminine lesbian, i just think it's a nice idea. also MERRITT WEAVER??? OMG HI! largely emotional 5/5, but i stand by it anyway. instant new slumber-party fave. 

 ik this bit is kind of tired but they really do feel like lesbians to me...what straight guy is saying things like this?? that is a dykey compliment. they u-haul it too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

October 10th: Soul Survivors (2001) dir. Stephen Carpenter 

Not Good. watched for eliza dushku. there's an androgynous transmascy lesbian in it which is fun. not much special. 1/5

October 11th: I Want Your Sex (2026) dir. Gregg Araki 

oyyyyyy i had such mixed feelings! i enjoyed it but i thought it was kind of nuts that araki intended it to be this galvanizer for gen z to get out and have sex because for me it was such a horror movie. which i enjoyed! it just didn't really make me want to get out there and get exploited by my boss. you know, like secretary. but really, there is a dark fairytale vibe to secretary that lets me lean into the fantasy, i want your sex was clearly trying to do the same with cartoons, but it felt totally bleak to me. which i was fine with, but it made the marketing confusing and a little cringe. not that it's the first gregg araki disappointment, he worked on that shitty ryan murphy project, but i'll always follow his work. i think it would be fun if he directed a bridgerton episode, cheryl dunye did (and it was v pretty)! 3/5 appreciative awoogas towards cooper hoffman, a secondary 5/5 for olivia wilde's evil femme hime cut. she's despicable in this. a little bit to die for. 

October 14th: Bring It On (2000) dir. Peyton Reed

watch #3 or 4? i think? another slumber party classic. i always wish the clovers were in it more, i always forget entirely about the guy. KIRSTEN DUNST. GABRIELLE UNION. ELIZA DUSHKU. KIRSTEN DUNST. GABRIELLE UNION. ELIZA DUSHKU. KIRSTEN DUNST. GABRIELLE UNION. ELIZA DUSHKU. 4/5

October 21st: Everything, Everything (2017) dir Stella Meghie

it was a movie! 

October 22nd: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) dir. H.C. Potter

cute, sardonic cary grant + myrna loy vehicle. the kind of thing that only feels basic because it's the originator of all the basic shit it does. 3/5

October 23rd: Splendor (1999) dir. Gregg Araki

gregg araki being a sweetie is fun, kelly macdonald as an arty club lez is fun, kathleen robertson doing this very old-hollywood yet chick-flicky-y thing is fun, two guys and one girl is fun. and they're in LOVE. it's so screwball! and in case you're forgetting it's an araki movie there's a guy who wears disturbing blue contacts for no reason. love. 3.5/5

October 24th: Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) dir. Pedro Almodóvar 

my first almodóvarz! i probably should have started somewhere else. his heteropessimistic satire of rom-coms is a good idea, but doesn't really land. feels like it's holding hands with i want your sex a little bit. rossy de palma as a (brief) motor-biking bad girl is so hot. 2/5

October 27th: The Rules of Attraction (2002) dir. Roger Avary

kind of a key-jingle but i am kind of a baby. i was expecting more of sex-comedy romp with tinges of cruel intentions, not an adaptation of a brett easton ellis book telling of the younger brother of patrick bateman! how did i not know that! it is grim and feel-bad but camp enough to be fun. i have Opinions on the rape scene that opens the film, and i can't decide if i'm being too generous with projecting my feminism or if the people who hate it are just being reactive. probably a bit of both. stupid ending. ian somerhalder plays an fallen-angelic twunk who enjoys an erotic gay guy music video hour, shannyn sossamon is in it and she's shannyn sossamon. questionable 3.5/5

October 29th: Bad Influence (1990) dir. Curtis Hanson

first movie of my unplanned #spaderween! good-girl-gone-bad teensploitation but with adult yuppie men, james spader & rob lowe. campy but actually quite boring. i choose to believe there is a deleted scene where spader gets pressured into getting a belly button ring. 1.5/5 

October 30th: Sensation (1994) dir. Brian Grant 

extremely stupid, quite fun erotothriller. an painterly 'coed' (do people still say 'coed'??) is seduced by her paranormal theorist professor and dragged into solving a murder via sniffing the dead girl's hosiery and listening to diagetic 90s sax music. random vaguely 'tribal' stuff that is definitely not okay, extremely 'scary is when culture' stuff, but it's not at the heart of the movie. it has its downtime but i actually kind of really enjoyed this! 2/5 

October 30th: Dream Lover (1994) dir. Nicholas Kazan 

spaderween #2! vile misogynist schlock that i really wouldn't have bothered finishing if not for mädchen amick and yeah sure james spader! but mostly mädchen amick, as a brunette proto-amy dunne. so icy, so normie, so freaky. makes me crave a red-brown lip real bad. 2/5

October 31st: Knife+Heart (2018) dir. Yann Gonzalez

violent heart opener that did for me what i'd wished camp miasma had...so tender and so icy and so circular and violent and good. not to mention just stylish, vanessa paradis is so debbie harry cool as a lesbian (herself) gay (the porn) porn producer. hands can be but aren't necessarily dicks which can be but aren't necessarily knives which penetrate hearts which can be but aren't necessarily holes like our bodies which can be but aren't necessarily graveyards which can be and usually necessarily are forests. left me naked in a puddle of blood and tears. not to sound pretentious but whateverrrr everything is holes and if it's not it's probably just a hole inside-out 👍 i love gay people and i feel open and vulnerable in my body #openupyourheart #likethegatesofheeeeeelllllll 4/5

October 31st: Jack's Back (1988) dir. Rowdy Herrington

spaderween #3! v boring, v bad jack-the-ripper-based thriller where james spader plays twin brothers embroiled in a copycat scheme. he doesn't even get that weird in this. just not good. 1/5

November 1st: Crash (1996) dir. David Cronenberg

spaderween #4! okay, ik it was november, but i was still awake from halloween so it COUNTS! crash was a lot icier than i expected, which i get, because these characters are voyeuristic predators, but i had thought i would feel a lot more of a heartbeat. sadly i also got super triggered because of a tragedy in my community, so...i don't feel i can rate it! sorry to end on a bummer. probably should not have watched this, lol, but i didn't want to miss out. gorgeous leather, really great leather. 

faves: strike! & knife+heart

see you next month :) <3