Emily St. James

@emilystjams.bsky.social

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Writer! TV: Yellowjackets. Novel: Woodworking (out March 2025). Podcasts: Arden. Journalism: Vox, A.V. Club, NYT, etc. Poorly plotted picture books: Most of my childhood.

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The MAD GASSER awaits!!!! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Gas...

Mattoon, Illinois Population: 18,016 Photos from Google Places API Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattoon,_Illinois

Mad Gasser of Mattoon - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Reply to

Cynthia Gómez

I think there is a big difference between spoiling something after someone says, "I haven't seen that; don't spoil me!" and, like, the big twist in Psycho coming up in casual conversation.

Reply to

MissyLissa.bsky.social

The one may not preclude the other (which I know you know).

Reply to

MissyLissa.bsky.social

I do think that would sort of leave the film centerless. For better or worse, it's the story of Lee figuring out a whole story that has been going on around her for most of her life. Shifting that to a different pov would fundamentally result in an entirely different movie.

Like my screenwriter brain thinks there's a way you could do a similar story with Carter, but it fundamentally couldn't be about Lee and what she's been through.

Reposted by

Emily St. James

This is like how all those Ten Commandments monuments in front of court houses were originally placed there to promote the DeMille movie and now they are like religious totems. although I think at this point there are more people who act like lunatics about spoilers than the Commandments

The idea of “spoilers” was popularized by studios to combat the rise of sites like Ain’t It Cool News, and prior to the late 1990s, the idea of “spoiling” a movie largely didn’t exist outside of obvious twists (“I am your father”; the identity of Mother, etc.).

Reply to

Alison Coffey

I find her work really similar to Justice Smith's in I Saw the TV Glow! They're both playing a flavor of dissociation that is _really_ hard to convey onscreen, and they're both doing so incredibly well. (Come to think of it, Kirsten Dunst is also doing similar in Civil War.)

Went to see Longlegs again. I'm still not sure how I feel about it as a whole, but it's really gotten under my skin in a way that usually bodes well for my eventual appreciation of a horror movie. I very much vibe with Maika Monroe's performance, which helps.

I realize we are now discoursing about whether Longlegs (character) is yet another transphobic depiction of a serial killer. I would suggest this particular subgenre is SO steeped in those images that it's hard for any given movie in it to avoid transphobia entirely. But also: I'm not sure I care?

It would be one thing if the movie were arguing that Longlegs is killing because he's a metaphor for transness or queerness, but the film takes great pains to make him a metaphor for cycles of familial abuse. Is he is a little femme? Sure! I don't find that what's scary or even interesting about him

Also: AND BIG SPOILERS NOW SERIOUSLY BIG SPOILERS AVOID STOP READING NOW I WARNED YOU He's really not the ultimate villain of the movie and more of a flavor around its edges. SPOILER BUFFER DOWN HERE TOO BECAUSE I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH TO SPOIL LONGLEGS FOR YOU

You ask, "Why are there so many trans and trans-coded psychopaths in horror movies?" and I ask, "Why aren't there MORE?" (I don't actually ask that, but I am much less bothered by this trope than most people. Who can say why! I am a special diamond!)

Reply to

James Callan

Most people don't realize the reveal in the Crying Game comes halfway through the film!

Reply to

Bogdo Oggdo

I mean, the internet made it possible for spoilers to travel much further, much faster. It also coincided with the rise of most films being released everywhere at once, another thing that make it possible for spoilers to travel further and faster.

I could have been clearer in this thing I dashed off on the way into a movie, so: There have always been SOME people who don't want to "be spoiled," from the earliest days of storytelling. But the idea of "spoilers" as a thing to avoid for ALL stories is a.) very recent and b.) mostly marketing.

For more from me on this, check out these two pieces from Vox: www.vox.com/culture/2019... www.vox.com/culture/2293...

Spoiler paranoia is ruining pop culturewww.vox.com Why are the movies and TV shows we most worry will be spoiled for us always the most predictable ones?

okay it's time for a prompt post: respond to this post with a correction to a common misconception about something you know a lot about. if you feel like it, boost your response. (please use a kindly tone about it, otherwise i, your prompt curator, will get anxious.)

The entire plot of Star Wars was published in a New York Times profile of George Lucas in _1976_. Victorian era novels routinely said everything that happened in a chapter in the chapter title. Etc.

Reply to

Cynthia Gómez

Yes, those are twist stories though! Or, at least stories that heavily dependent on a twist and/or secret in the ending.

Reply to

Madame Hardy

The term was invented on USENET sometime in 1982, which is why I used “popularized” instead of “invented.” The USENET base was pretty small compared to the general public or even the AICN readership.

That’s why I called out psycho in the post 🙃

Reply to

Alan Sepinwall

We really missed out on a Clifford cinematic universe.

Beethoven is a dog who is Big.

you see the premise of Beethoven is that he is a dog who is Big but not unrealistically Big he is Big in the way a normal dog might be Big and Charles Grodin has feelings about that, mostly negative

Reply to

blake g.

I'll allow it.

Me, writing a mild takedown of the movie Hillbilly Elegy in 2020: At last, a chance to make history! (From here: www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/202... )

Reposted by

Emily St. James

I know folks post all the time about how it’s ok to block people who are making you miserable but yes you can do it. You *need* to do it. Is that person me? Totally fine! None of my business! You have the right to do it! I don’t know why you would, I’m a GOOD fucking person, but fine it’s, it’s fine

Reply to

Kelly W

There are worse coping strategies.

I don’t love to use this metaphor sociopolitically, but this is just classic abuse survivor justification.

I have never read anything more credulous than Axios’s thing about Trump this morning. Like…

QQ: Has the sun always been this bright?