Recommendations Requested: Dreamy Movies, Please!

Swoon-inducing material required

Dame Sophie’s Earnest & Enthusiastic Plea

Swoon

I love a dreamy movie. Not much plot? Beautiful people in beautiful places, being beautiful at each other or on their own? Pacing best described as “stately”? Deeply interior character studies? A day in the life stories? Pining / yearning / longing / contemplative / meditative / saudade? Yes, please to all of the above. I need more, and I’m thinking that Dames Nation will have more than a couple to suggest. 

Yes, food prep can be dreamy! 

Some examples of what I’m looking for, based on dreamy films I’ve known and loved in the past: The Scent of Green Papaya, Bright Star, Persuasion, much of Sofia Coppola’s oeuvre (this post brought to you by Priscilla, in fact).

Intentionally or not, she drew the cat eye sharp enough to kill a man

As for what I’m looking for, the brief is pretty broad: films old and new, in English or with subtitles in any language, black-and-white or full color, live action or animated. For ease of access, I prefer movies available as digital rentals or included with various streaming platforms, but DVD-only availability isn’t a dealbreaker. 

If you’ve got strong TV series or miniseries to recommend, too, I’m all ears. Same goes for book suggestions. Please fire away with suggestions in the comments, and merci mille fois in advance for helping me work on meeting a nebulous, but I think achievable 2024 goal of watching more movies. Just think, you may well be helping out another Dames National, to boot!

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Dame Karen’s Links and Recs For You and Yours

Amazing reporting from Garnet Henderson for Rewire News Group on Idaho’s reproductive health crisis: In Idaho, Extremists Have Created a Culture of Fear Around Pregnancy (part one of three)

Did Joel Coen and Frances McDormand fall in love in the best possible way that could ever exist, as far as I’m concerned? Maybe! 

I turned 48 this week and was feeling pretty mellow and a little sad about it, honestly. Getting older makes me feel even farther away from my dead best friend, somehow, and while I was delighted to turn 40, I’m starting to feel a similar anxiety about turning 50 as I did about turning 30. (Once I actually turned 30 I felt fine, so maybe that will be the case again in two years I don’t know!) At any rate, I enjoyed two podcasts recently that touched on the subject of aging. On “Everything Is Fine,” Jennifer Romolini talked to writer Karen Walrond about her new book Radiant Rebellion: Reclaim Aging, Practice Joy, and Raise A Little Hell. The title makes me want to scream and hide, to be honest, but the interview was very cool and made me reconsider a lot of the shitty ways in which we in general and I in particular think, talk about and unnecessarily fear aging. 

Soon enough! Gotta practice my kicks and stretches!

[CW: lots of nudity and explicit discussions of “adult films” when you click these links!] Relatedly, I’ve been enjoying the podcast from The Rialto Report, an archive devoted to “the golden age of adult film in New York, and beyond,” which is a topic in which I’ve been interested since reading the book compilation of the zine Sleazoid Express years ago. The podcast has lots of beyond fascinating and engaging interviews with former adult film stars and many of the women discuss the experience of aging while having perhaps the ultimate career that prizes and prioritizes youth. I particularly enjoyed the interviews with women who went through phases of hiding their pasts and/or being filled with shame over them only to realize there’s more power and relief in sharing their stories—see Lisa Cintrice and Sue Nero—as well as those who’ve had long, fruitful careers that changed and evolved over time—see Bionca and Porsche Lynn. There’s also an absolutely riveting (and often disturbing) four-part special about Dolly Sharp, who co-starred in the infamous Deep Throat in her 40s after years of almost making it as a ballet dancer and “legitimate” actress under her real name, Helen Wood.