Welcome back everyone! And a very special welcome to my new subscribers. I’m sorry it’s been so long since I put pen to paper here (or, whatever, fingers to keyboard). After finishing a short string of brief horror reviews back in October (which, I honestly don’t think people were really into, so I don’t think I’m going to do that type of thing again. Unless people tell me they liked it. Also, unless I just sort of feel like doing it again), I decided to put this newsletter on a bit of a hiatus following a very busy year cranking out reviews and lists and features and festival coverage and my first interview ever and with one of my favorite and most cherished artists (!!!!).
Simply put, by the end of October, I was mentally exhausted from New York Film Festival and, well, everything else, so I put this newsletter on hold in the meantime. In December, I finished up my review of everyone’s favorite Kingsmen installment, The King’s Man, and took a much-needed, end-of-2021 break from writing entirely. But this little break turned into an over one month-long break, during which I got a full time job and began my search for an apartment in Brooklyn — which, as some of you may know, I succeeded in doing! I’m in New York City over here!!!!
I’ve got a few actual, real essays in mind for the coming weeks. But I thought I would reintroduce this newsletter by doing a loose compiling of thoughts on some movies and goings-on of the past few months, during which this humble little newsletter was noticeably absent from the cultural zeitgeist. I also thought it might be nice to quickly introduce myself and That’s Weird to my new subscribers, if they aren’t already people familiar with me from Twitter or Paste Magazine or elsewhere, or haven’t read my About page, or the introductory essay I wrote when I first launched this newsletter almost one year ago. I get it, reading is hard. I’ve been there.
But if you’re still here, I really appreciate you sticking around. And if you’re new here, I really appreciate you joining in despite absolutely fuck all going on for the past three months. We’re gonna get things back on track. Business is booming, sales are looking good, stocks are going up, up, up! Everyone over here at Brianna Zigler HQ is thrilled for what’s in store for 2022.
Who am I?
I’m Brianna Zigler! I’m a small fry film and entertainment writer (though, I would like to be a little more than that someday, and I’m trying to get there. Maybe, like, a small potato eventually). I don’t purport to be anyone important or amazing, but maybe you’ve read my work and think I’m alright!
Maybe you happened to read one of my essays or reviews at Paste Magazine, where I contribute frequently, or in the past over at Film School Rejects, or Girls on Tops, or Little White Lies, Bright Wall/Dark Room, The Film Stage. I’ve also had a few things published at places like Consequence, Thrillist, Polygon, and, most recently, Gawker (I don’t feel like linking to them all here, so just check out my handy dandy new website). Or, maybe you just follow me on Twitter, which is fine. Some of my tweets are ok, like this one. But I always hope my shitposts are a gateway into my professional writing.
What is ‘That’s Weird’?
When I launched this newsletter last February, it sort of started off strictly as a place for writing which makes a case for odd/lowbrow/off-the-beaten-path forms of pop culture and entertainment, in whatever form that may take. Lists, analyses, reviews, deep dives, personal essays which, in one way or another, defend or champion the weird or maligned or just a bit too unloved. It’s something that I became modestly known for in my tiny little corner of the internet — yelling about overlooked movies and things that I’m horny for — and it’s the type of pop culture I love to write about the most. But That’s Weird has kind of evolved into a place for me to write about any sort of weird thing I want to write about that I wouldn’t necessarily be able to, or would want to, find a home for at a legitimate publication.
So, maybe it’s an essay on why the titular Phantom of Brian De Palma’s The Phantom of the Paradise is sexy, or why Steve Buscemi has always been hot (I find a lot of people hot, alright). Or it’s ranking the best perverts and murderers that Nick Cave sings about, or dissecting the pop cultural criticism at the heart of the stupendously undervalued Under the Silver Lake; or it’s uncovering the meaning behind the cumshot scene in The Green Knight.
Stuff like that, ideas near and dear to me about silly, strange little things that I don’t really want to stress about pitching somewhere because it lacks a timely angle, or it’s a little too crass, or it’s something I don’t feel like allowing to get compromised too heavily. I still mostly keep topics in the realm of that original sentiment, things that are “underrated” or “gross,” or “horny” or “distasteful.” but I’ve become looser about what I write about and how I go about writing it, and I want to continue that line of thinking as we bring That’s Weird into 2022.
Ok, so let’s catch up a little:
The past few months have been largely a wash in terms of first watches for me, especially first watches that could potentially tie into this newsletter. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t end up putting out any dispatches here for so long — I just didn’t have any real source of inspiration. I’ve had a few loose ideas that I’ve tossed around in my head since before I took my break, but I haven’t yet had enough of a drive to get around to going long on them.
I prefer to write about the things that really move me to write and, well, nothing has really moved me over the past few months, besides Licorice Pizza (the popularity/subject matter of which doesn’t fit into my newsletter, though I’m sure you could argue a certain discourse around the film does), and The Matrix (again, too popular/beloved/mainstream, and I wasn’t into the sequels enough to warrant writing on them, despite enjoying them).
But I caught a few films that I enjoyed well enough to justify noting on this particular dispatch. One could contend The Matrix Resurrections (which I very nearly loved), could have made a fine newsletter essay. It was a stupendously messy, beautiful, earnest, mixed-bag piece of blockbuster art that generated discussions and essays and reviews running the gamut on takeaway and often in a really thought-provoking manner.
But it’s a lot of material to tackle, not all of which I feel suited to write on. Its subtext is also, well, just text, and it’s text that I have already written at length on in regards to my position on it, especially here on this fine newsletter. IP franchise films are bad, audiences are being force-fed comfort and familiarity yet constantly turn up their noses at sentimentality. We want to remember but we can’t go back. As I wrote briefly in my Letterboxd review of it, The Matrix Resurrections is meta to the point where the film feels tormented by its own existence. It’s all very interesting stuff, but I partly feel like the film quite literally speaks for itself, and some great writers have already dug into it. I don’t feel the need to contribute much else.
Last month, Letterboxd mistakenly removed my review of House of Gucci, a silly, lightly deranged film that I very much enjoyed. After seeing my tweet where I implored them to put the review back up, Letterboxd very promptly and graciously apologized, claimed it was a mistake and reinstated it. But I do wonder if someone reported me for anti-Italian racism (this is impossible for me to do, as I am the same amount of Italian as Robert De Niro).
Speaking of anti-Italian racism, there was a very funny post I saw in a Facebook critics group that I’m a part of, where a member went on a caustic tirade equating the Italian caricatures and accents in Ridley Scott’s film — particularly, Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci — to an actual racist caricature in an older film. I will not indicate the film group nor what film this person compared it to, because it’s hard to say who’s looking at this newsletter, and I don’t want to be too obvious and stir up trouble. I might already stir up trouble by posting this as is and, if that’s the case, I will simply delete this paragraph. But it’s too absurd to not make a note and share with my cherished subscribers. Film critic brains should be studied for science. Mammia mia pizza pasta spaghetti meatballs etc. etc. etc..
For fans of Nick Cave and his various bands, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Grinderman, and his frequent collaborations with platonic lover Warren Ellis, I cannot recommend The Road to God Knows Where highly enough. The documentary (directed by Uli M. Schüppel) chronicles Mr. Cave and his Bad Seeds as they tour America following the release of their 1988 album “Tender Prey.” Cave has recently gotten out of rehab and is lethargic, often irritable (especially when talking to members of the press). But he always seems happiest when performing, either in front of crowds, backstage, or hanging out with the Bad Seeds on their tour bus.
I like Nick Cave a lot (many of you know this), and something minor this documentary puts on display — but one of the many things I find charming about him — is how much of a disconnect there is between who Nick Cave is as a performer and who he actually is as a guy. Nick Cave is an unbridled creative force, one who has cultivated an incredibly distinct, eccentric persona, but he radiates major “just some guy” energy when he’s not indulging in the histrionics that he’s known for as an artist. I don’t know, this is just very cute to me personally.
It’s not the most accessible doc for someone who isn’t familiar with Nick Cave, let alone even a casual fan. But if you’re a zealot like me, and you can find the doc in a very legal corner of the internet, it is a riveting 90 minutes of some guys just hanging out. Two important things to note: 1) There is a scene where Cave (sporting a little trucker hat and vest that he takes to donning in downtime during the tour) dances to “Papa Don’t Preach” by Madonna that I clipped out in Premiere Pro and watched possibly 50 times. 2) A journalist (I believe for LA Weekly?) asks Cave in an interview towards the end of the film why he’s interested in singing about “white trash,” and I wondered to myself if that journalist is still alive and if they feel deep shame for ever having asked him that question.
I had to watch the 2018 film Mortal Engines for work back in November, and I was actually looking forward to finally checking it out. A writer who I admire, and whose taste for strange or underrated things (Karen Han) often mirrors my own, has been a vocal supporter of the Hugo Weaving-led box office bomb that fell by the cultural wayside four years ago. Mortal Engines is a fascinating film, existing as an outlier in the vortex of cynical blockbuster output.
I was quite taken by the cinematic adaptation of Phillip Reeve’s steampunk novel of the same name, about a post-apocalyptic world where people live on motorized cities. Peter Jackson served as a co-writer on the screenplay and a producer with his production company WingNut Films, and a number of his principal creative team (including screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) were on board. It was directed by a frequent collaborator of Jackson’s, Christian Rivers, who has worked on the majority of Jackson’s films in some capacity since 1992’s splatter comedy Braindead. That longtime creative collaboration with Jackson shines through in Mortal Engines — there are a number of shots, camera movements, and creative choices that feel reminiscent even of Braindead.
Ultimately, everything about Mortal Engines made it destined to fail. It has no star power, led by little-known Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar, supported by Misfits and Umbrella Academy star Robert Sheehan, Stephen Lang as an undead cyborg, and, of course, the legendary Hugo Weaving as the film’s principal villain. This is alongside a number of other names not familiar to the general, movie-going public. The main draw of the film is that it was from the team that brought you Lord of the Rings. If the dystopian novel from 2001 that the film is based on has some sort of massive fanbase, I am not aware of it, and clearly they did not show up to support their prized book.
Mortal Engines is also deeply earnest, an especially detrimental feature to a big-budget fantasy blockbuster in 2018 going up against something like the artistically-sterile, quip-a-minute Ant-Man and the Wasp. There are no little jabs and jokes to offset the dark and occasionally disturbing material, especially the parts with Stephen Lang’s tormented cyborg character, Shrike (which made me cry!). There are, however, cannibals, and the moving cities and set-pieces are genuinely dazzling. So, if you have the means, and you’re looking for a weird, flawed, sentimental, upsetting fantasy film that needs a little bit of love, please seek out the criminally underrated Mortal Engines.
Some quick bites (Quibi’s, even): I watched my first Jerry Lewis film, The Ladies Man, and I loved it. Batman Returns transported me to a better time, when blockbuster superhero films were allowed to be horny. I tweeted about this, but it’s very funny to me how Danny DeVito as “The Penguin” is insistent upon convincing people that he is human despite how he looks, yet as he’s (SPOILER) dying, he oozes black goo?? My parents and I watched one of the lesser Noah Baumbach films, Margot at the Wedding, which I actually found to be a hoot and a holler (as did my parents), particularly in regards to Jack Black’s riotously inspired performance of a suicidal, unsuccessful musician. Clean, the new vanity project from Adrien Brody, is an absolute abomination of a film that made me happier to watch than anything I saw at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival (take a gander at my review for Paste Magazine).
The New York Ripper marked my first Fulci. It’s a pervert film; what’s not to enjoy? Speaking of pervert films, I also watched Paul Schrader’s Auto Focus last week, starring America’s sweethearts Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe. Auto Focus is based on the real-life story of wholesome, American actor and family man Bob Crane, who developed a sex addiction after becoming involved with a video expert named John F. Carpenter. There’s a fantastic scene in that movie where Kinnear’s Crane and Dafoe’s Carpenter start masturbating together to one of the many videos they would film of themselves having sex with women. Both films did not particularly enrapture me, but I’m a sucker for art about sick, horny little freaks.
Back in October, I finally completed the entirety of Rob Zombie’s filmography and I now feel confident in claiming that he is one of my favorite directors. Simply put, no one is doing it like Rob Zombie. I love how visceral people feel about Zombie’s work. When someone doesn’t like Rob Zombie’s films, they really do not like his films. They will usually cite something in the realm of that his films make them feel weird, as opposed to not necessarily liking the content of them. But people who love Rob Zombie’s films really, really love his films.
It’s hard for me to understand why someone wouldn’t want a film to make them feel a little off-kilter, a little out of their comfort zone. For me, that’s what so amazing about Zombie. He makes films that feel so out of step with what everyone else is doing, not only in horror, but in film entirely. He portrays nightmare interactions between people — insufferable shrieking matches escalate to where they sound as if those involved could kill one another with just the timbre of their voices. His characters often speak just a little weird, too. Not totally out of the ordinary, but slightly off. Slightly uncanny. The people of Rob Zombie’s films exist in world similar to our own, but just adjacent to it. A world where rich, elderly people dress up like 18th century aristocrats and watch clowns kill carnies for sport, and where three serial killers somehow manage to handily survive their wounds from a barrage of gunfire so that their story may be concluded with a threequel.
But the thing that has always really made Rob Zombie’s films for me is that they are both aggressively mean and profoundly humanist. Here is a great piece by Willow Catelyn Maclay for MUBI Notebook on Zombie’s compassionate filmmaking and how he explores the effects of violence on his characters. We witness immense suffering, but we also have to contend with the aftermath. It’s jarring and unsettling. We would prefer to look away, but Zombie doesn’t let us.
Ok, so what’s next?
To be honest, I’m not completely sure! But what I do know is that you can expect at least one dispatch from this newsletter every month going forward. I tried adhering to one per month when I first started, and then slid into two per month — doing, like, one big, researched essay and then something light and fluffier, and I think there were two months where I even put out three pieces. But I can’t really make commitments to doing stuff like that anymore, since I’ve got a full-time job now on top of having a regular features contributor spot at Paste Magazine, on TOP of other freelancing work, not to mention still getting situated in my new apartment (I’ve been here for almost a month and we just the other day ordered our couch, and our living room is still empty and full of my moving boxes).
So like, things are kind of busy for me right now, and there will most likely not be any sort of regularity in what I post. But I’m not too busy that I have to neglect this newsletter, so you will always hear from me. Maybe one month I’ll only have the bandwidth for one small, fluffy post, maybe another month I’ll have the space for two small posts; maybe another, I’ll have the space for two large, longform essays. Who knows! Anything and everything is game, I just don’t know what form that will take.
In the coming weeks (hopefully by the end of February, at the very latest it will be my March dispatch), I will be writing about Cronenberg’s seminal horny pervert film, Crash. But if there is anything else you would be interested in seeing me write about in the future, please feel free to email me at briannaszigler@gmail.com. I have received suggestions in the past and have acted upon a couple, but I read them all and I add them all to my doc of newsletter ideas and I promise to get to them eventually. Again, thank you to everyone who is still here and to everyone who decided to come on board. I am thankful to anyone who goes out of their way to read my writing, here or anywhere. It means a lot, and there will always be more to come.*
I cannot wait to watch Clean now.
I love your Letterboxd reviews!