What I'm Watching: Love Lies Bleeding, Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender, All of Us Strangers, and More

Lin Lin, Maria Zhang, Ian Ousley, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Here’s a not-so-quick rundown of everything I watched, read, and wrote about in the past two weeks:

The shows:

Given how much I’ve covered Avatar: The Last Airbender over the years (and the fact that I have an A:TLA tattoo), I’ve been asked a lot about my opinions on the new live-action Netflix series. The truth is, I haven’t been emotionally invested in the idea of this series for a few reasons, including the original creators’ departure and the fact that the animated series finally went from major cult status to full canonization a few years ago when it hit Netflix (it had tons of fans upon release, but we were too young to shape the zeitgeist!). Once upon a time, a live-action A:TLA would’ve been the best way to get people who don’t take animation seriously to check out this unique, warm, wisdom-filled fictional world — or to at least watch the original, which I think is a masterpiece aside from its unfortunate whitewashing. But these days people have already watched, loved, and discoursed about the original, so in my opinion, anything the new series may add to the world of Avatar is just gravy. More importantly, nothing it does can “ruin” what fans already been given.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the live action adaptation adds enough to stand on its own. Its problems include wooden acting (though there’s some great casting, too), narrative reshuffling that repeatedly undercuts the story’s emotional resonance — pulling focus away from what should’ve been the most impactful parts of the story — and an upsetting lack of any sense of the authentic, curiosity and compassion-driven spirituality and philosophy that made the Nickelodeon show special. For all its faults, the new Avatar has great visuals and design elements (its CGI looks better than 90% of sludgey-looking blockbusters these days), and it makes enough creative streamlining choices that do work that I’ll probably keep watching if it continues. Overall, though, I think it’s a pale imitation of the excellent original — and I think that’s fine, because I can just turn it off and watch that version.

• Speaking of wonky adaptations, the Starz and BBC adaptation of Tana French’s popular crime novels, aptly titled Dublin Murders, is a captivating mess. The show starts strong – there’s a dark allure to its weirdo detective duo, bolstered by Killian Scott and Sarah Greene’s brooding, complimentary performances – but goes off the rails by the end of its eight-episode first season. The mistake it makes is rather obvious, as Dublin Murders bizarrely tries to shoehorn a second book’s plot into the already-barely-believable initial mystery. A folk horror-tinged story about kids lost in the woods does plenty to hold our attention, so why make things feel ridiculous with a totally unrelated dead doppelgänger plot? I dug the show’s strong atmosphere, cinematography, and casting, but all of that wasn’t enough to make it make sense in the end. Dublin Murder Squad fans deserve better!

The movies:

• Early in award season, folks talked about Monica as a possible dark horse that deserved more praise than it got, and now that I’ve seen it, I totally understand why. I was completely riveted by this quiet, tender drama about a trans woman (Trace Lysette) who begins helping take care of her estranged mother – who doesn’t recognize her – while the latter is on her deathbed. As grim as the plot sounds, the film handles topics of grief, identity, and family rejection and reconnection with a light hand and a finely-tuned emotional touch. Andrea Pallaoro’s movie is one of 2023’s best, hands down.
• If you have the stomach for an intense story involving horrific life-or-death decisions (including, infamously, cannibalism), make sure to check out J.A. Bayona’s survival epic Society of the Snow on Netflix before it’s up for an Oscar next week. The movie recreates the 72 days a team of young Uruguayan rugby players spent in the Andes mountains after a plane crash in 1972, capturing not just the harrowing circumstances, but also the tremendous resilience and strength of spirit shown by every person on board. I recommended Blair Braverman’s incredible retelling of the story on the podcast You’re Wrong About back in 2022, and I think this movie complements that version (which, you may recall, left me weeping in a Homegoods) well.
• I finally remedied my most egregious Sight & Sound blind spot this week, watching Chantal Akerman’s slow cinema monument Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Topping out at 3 hours and 22 minutes long, Jeanne Dielman is an exercise in patience that makes strong but subtle statements about domesticity, gender, routine, control, intimacy, and more – largely through repeated yet shifting scenes of cooking, cleaning, and other daily habits. I both understand why Jeanne Dielman is revered and appreciate it much more as a piece of film history than I do as an actual viewing experience. Now that I’ve seen Akerman’s opus, I feel less guilty for missing it before the Sight & Sound deadline, as (respectfully!) it wouldn’t have made my ballot regardless.
• Andrew Haigh’s mournful drama All Of Us Strangers, about a man who speaks with the ghosts of the parents he never came out to, took top prize last month at the Dorian Awards (as voted on by the LGBTQ+ critics’ circle GALECA, which I’m a part of!). While I wasn’t especially moved by the movie’s eleventh-hour twist, I really liked the film as an exploration of the specificity of queer loneliness. There’s the loneliness of living alone, and then there’s the loneliness of living alone in a world that won’t always accept you and has actively tried to kill you, and Andrew Scott effortlessly embodies the latter in a beautifully tentative performance. Side note: the whole Dorian Awards winners list is worth a read, from Lily Gladstone beating out 9 competitors in an all-genders acting category to May December finally getting some credit where it’s due.
• I got my first taste of the lively Glasgow film scene last week at a fantastic screening of Love Lies Bleeding, Rose Glass’ wild, messy, impressionistic story about a gym worker (Kristen Stewart) and an amateur bodybuilder (Katy O’Brien) whose burgeoning relationship is tested by a shocking act of violence. I think I prefer Glass’ debut feature, Saint Maud, over Love Lies Bleeding (the new movie walks a fine line between messy and sloppy), but I also think this is a fun, pulpy entry into the modern film landscape of sexy-weird queer body horror. It takes a special kind of movie to remind me of Thelma & Louise, Titane, and Sorry To Bother You all at once.
• On a filmmaking level, the Netflix biopic Rustin is nothing special – it falls into the same boring traps as so many biographical films before it – but I still enjoyed it thanks to Colman Domingo’s charismatic screen presence and its focus on a lesser-known chapter of the history of the American Civil Rights movement.
• Apologies for beating a horse that died a decade ago here, but Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables adaptation is so bad in a way that I cannot stop talking about. The movie has a few highlights – Anne Hathaway, obviously, but I also actually liked Russell Crowe’s repressed weirdo take on Javert – but it’s astonishing how garbled it is moment to moment. Every time a glimmer of Victor Hugo’s genius shines through (or the musical genius of composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyricist Herbert Kretzmer, for that matter), it’s bludgeoned by Hooper’s utterly nonsensical directing choices (I’ve never seen so many missing establishing shots!) and a shockingly weak voice cast. I know the stage play is perfect on its own, but I’m still begging for a better musical adaptation.

The reads:

• I zoomed through Angie Kim’s Happiness Falls last week thanks to the mystery novel’s clever, thoughtful prose and ability to introduce and juggle a dozen different clues and ideas at once. The story follows a college student with a penchant for overthinking as she and her remaining family members attempt to figure out what happened to her dad after he didn’t come home after a walk with her autistic brother. It’s whip-smart, shaded with deep empathy, and nearly impossible to put down.
• In my quest to get into zines, I read two excellent ones made by friends last week, and I wholeheartedly recommend both. The first was Marriage, Slender Man, and Other Spooky Things by my former classmate Madison Chastain. Madison is a fantastic essayist who writes with clarity and compassion – often about intersections of faith, ethics, and bodily realities. The second zine came courtesy of Taffeta V, my stylish and multi-talented pal who is, among so many other things, a great storyteller. Her zine about the cool and sometimes gloriously trashy ‘80s movies she loved in her youth, Girls on Film, is free on Medium.
• David C. Tucker’s book Lost Laughs of '50s and '60s Television is a worthwhile resource for any would-be TV historian to keep handy. It’s a somewhat dry read – Tucker doesn’t editorialize much on the 30 mostly-forgotten American sitcoms he’s spotlighting here – but also a wildly informative one. For example, it taught me about a dramedy (Hennesey) that preceded M*A*S*H by over a decade, a semi-autobiographical sitcom starring pioneering filmmaker Ida Lupino (Mr. Adams and Eve), and some genuinely great-sounding shows that seemed to be ahead of their time, like Love on a Rooftop. If you consider yourself a lost media aficionado, consider branching out beyond film by checking out this book’s list and finding some new (old) shows to champion.
• Silver Sprocket Comics does it again with Catboy, an adorable, funny comic collection from Benji Nate about a twentysomething artist who wishes her cat could become a person. I say “does it again” because I’m having a blast working my way through the indie comic publisher’s back catalog, but Catboy was actually released back in 2017, before Nate’s equally great spooky-cute book Hell Phone.

Odds and ends:

• Season 2 of KQED’s hard-hitting podcast On Our Watch just started, and this time around it’s trying to figure out what is going on at New Folsom, an especially violent California prison with a horrifying work environment that has led to at least one employee-turned-whistleblower showing up dead. This is a serious true story that’s tough to stomach – it reminds me of the Rampart scandal that inspired The Shield – but it’s also investigative journalism at its most essential.
• I find the majority of the podcasts I like through Vulture’s 1.5 Speed newsletter from Nicholas Quah, and a recent-ish edition included a list of some of the best episodes of the long-running pod Criminal. Criminal is ostensibly a true crime podcast, but it also features a lot of quirky stories and cultivates a sort of This American Life-style feeling. At 1.5 Speed’s suggestion, I got into the pod by listening to some of its more eclectic episodes: about a children’s book author who hid buried treasure, the wood cops policing a petrified forest, and a 911 operator who ended up fielding a call from her own daughter. I’m definitely intrigued now, so if any longtime listeners are reading, feel free to drop suggestions for other episodes that are worth the download.
• The visa gods have (mostly) freed me and I’m officially back at work next week! Until then, all I’ve got to offer on the writing front is this piece I queued up over at Slashfilm about how The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live made a thrilling bold movie within the first five minutes of its premiere.

Alas, one month off did not turn out to be enough time to write (or even read) the next great American novel, but I feel well-rested and I’m probably as ready as I’ll ever be to dive back into the ever-more-precarious world of entertainment media.

Over the coming months, expect a zine release of my own, some special one-off posts, links to lots of new writing, and a return to the weekly newsletter posting schedule. I’ll also figure out where I’d like to host this publication moving forward and turn the paid posts option back on wherever I land. In the meantime, your homework is to let me know what you’ve been watching, reading, listening to, loving, hating, and so on. Drop a line in the comments — I’d love to hear about what you’re into lately!