Class rage goes to the movies

From Knives Out to Parasite, the past year’s most talked-about cinema explores every intricacy of the gap between rich and poor and, in some instances, turns it on its head.

It’s been quite a year for Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or-winning Parasite. It has garnered a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Ensemble Cast, and recently won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

It has been the first South Korean feature to reach such heights, connecting with worldwide viewers on a scale that’s unmatched and unprecedented. In his acceptance speech, the director posited that if more people were willing to watch movies in languages they can’t understand and put a little more effort into reading subtitles, they would open themselves up to amazing storytelling and filmmaking. Parasite, for its part, has certainly earned all the accolades. There’s a complexity and a twist to it that makes it hard to describe and a joy to watch when you go in not knowing anything about it, but it’s also plain in its stark depiction of class dynamics — which could be what makes it so resonant, even to “very local” (Bong’s words) Western sensibilities.

Interestingly, the line that divides the well-to-do and the rest of us who struggle financially has also been explored in other favorite movies from the past year, unveiling a possible pattern in what makes today’s audiences tick. This discussion was arguably brought to the table and anchored by Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, released last November and another awards season frontrunner.

The whodunit opens, like murder mysteries are wont to do, with a body: bestselling mystery author Harlan Thrombey’s (Christopher Plummer) throat has been slit in his gothic mansion. Initial investigation reveals he did it himself, but it’s hardly case closed. With his fortune and property up in the air, Harlan’s surviving family reveal themselves to be despicable and unpleasant in several different ways — daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), for instance, built her own business “from the ground up,” conveniently leaving out the hefty loan from her father, son Walt (Michael Shannon) refuses to give up control of the family’s publishing house and has raised a teenage neo-Nazi, and grandson Ransom (Chris Evans) is spoiled and jobless.

When the Thrombeys — who have been swimming in privilege and privilege-blindness — find themselves threatened with the possibility of losing their wealth, they prove themselves each willing to do whatever it takes to protect their own interests. Caught in the middle is Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan’s nurse and friend, who is an immigrant and not exactly living in comfort. What she does have, however, is a pure heart, integrity, and fearlessness when it comes to standing up for what’s right.

Similarly, there’s bold and brash horror-comedy Ready or Not, in which Grace (Samara Weaving) marries into the Le Domas family, whose wealth comes from their board game empire. On the night of her wedding, she has to play a game with them as an initiation of sorts and ends up drawing Hide and Seek, which apparently now means they have to hunt her and kill her in ritual sacrifice to the Devil. But Grace is not so willing to die just for them to carry on with their elitism and their affluence, so she fights back and bursts their bubble (and maybe their insides) in the process.

Both Knives Out and Ready or Not depict the rich as the clear antagonist; the chaotic evil to Marta’s lawful good and Grace’s chaotic good. They’re both disruptive and subversive to a system that favors the upper class, and while this makes them far-fetched, it’s no less fun to watch some rich snobs get their comeuppance.

Mikhail Red’s Dead Kids, which premiered on Netflix in December, takes a more realistic approach. A group of misfits carry out a plan to kidnap the biggest jerk in school, motivated by revenge and the cool P30 million they’ll be receiving as ransom. The least well-off is Sta. Maria (Kelvin Miranda), who struggles to pay rent and couldn’t get a scholarship to the expensive university of his dreams. When they discuss what to do with the money, his co-conspirators talk about cars, and he only wants to get away from the big city and return to the province.

The movie comments on the drug war and how unfair society is and uses status symbols like Yeezys and AirPods to illustrate class differences, but perhaps lacks the tension and doesn’t simmer enough in the consequence for either the would-be kidnappers, the self-absorbed victim, or the corrupt cops to leave an impression or get a message across.

Parasite itself was criticized for its “failed revolution,” as the Kim family’s ruse of monopolizing the Park family’s payroll through taking different jobs without the latter knowing they’re related to each other — a scheme that would have made their lives infinitely more comfortable, if only it were sustainable — did not lead them to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, after all. But it’s a criticism that doesn’t really have merit when you consider how the turn(s) of events flow into one another and toward an ending that’s not only justified and believable, but also equal parts hopeful and wistful. It highlights that “work hard for a better life” is bullshit, and for the lower class, there’s always, always more to lose.

The main difference is that the Parks aren’t cruel. Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) observes that they’re actually quite nice despite their wealth, and his wife Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin) is quick to interject that they’re nice because they’re rich, because they can afford to be. What the Parks are, instead, is stuck-up and blissfully ignorant, and this cultivates a resentment in the Kim family that festers and boils over as the action continues to rise — which is the most radical, true-to-life part of all.

Filipinos are used to narratives that lay out the class hierarchy for us, but it’s mostly on teleseryes and in movies that depict being rich as something aspirational. But with billionaires amassing collective net worths higher than those of the rest of the world combined, more and more people have become uncomfortable with the mere idea of wealth, even for themselves.

Cinema has always reflected the times, and these days, people are driven by their anger against and frustration with a system that puts certain races, genders, and classes first and leaves them powerless. It’s refreshing and thrilling to see that filmmakers are pushing back on the status quo, and that the general public is actually here to listen. In telling, hearing, and sharing these stories, we can find ways to revolt and lay the groundwork for change — or at least see what change could be.

viewer discretion is (not) advised

I found out about Alejandro Amenábar’s 1996 feature debut Thesis on the same list of 1990s horror movies that led me to Perfect Blue. I have to say, the person who wrote that best-of list just gets me—or, more likely, they just have great taste—because it became one of my favorite movies not even a quarter of the way in. 

The Spanish thriller centers on Ángela, a film student who’s studying violence in cinema for her thesis. Her search for material to analyze brings her to Chema, a scruffy classmate with an almost unhealthy fixation on anything gory and NSFL, and the extensive video collection to prove it. While watching a movie in his apartment (practically decorated like a horror museum), Ángela wonders aloud about the idea of real violence caught on tape. (Un)lucky for her, she gets her answer: The next morning, she finds her thesis adviser’s body in the viewing room of the university’s video archives, and what killed him was a heart attack caused by a snuff film hidden in the collection. The tape depicts the brutal torture and killing of Vanessa, a girl from her class who’d gone missing two years ago. 

To further complicate things, Ángela meets and finds herself helplessly drawn to Bosco, a handsome and aggressive young man who claims to have known Vanessa—and who may or may not have had a hand in her disappearance. Desperate, terrified, and curious, Ángela enlists Chema to help her investigate the recorded murder, and soon uncovers a mystery that’s bigger and more sadistic than she ever imagined. And try as she might, she can’t look away. 

Mmm, jelly doughnuts.

I don’t know how easily perceptible this is about me, but I’m the kind of person who has a favorite serial killer. (It’s Jeffrey Dahmer.) Which is horrible, I know. But my interest is purely from a true-crime, psychological perspective… All right. Maybe I have more in common with Ángela than I thought. Point is, there is nothing out there quite like Thesis, with its balance of academia, snuff films, Nancy Drew-type sleuthing but better, dangerous boys, and Hitchcockian intrigue and paranoia, complete with a tense but highly subdued chase scene that turns the tables on our heroine. Nothing out there that’s as sharp or as subtle and surprisingly sensitive. There’s even a light spatter of humor throughout. 

Basically everything I want to say re: this movie is already in this excellent (spoiler-heavy!) discussion on Girl Meets Freak, a super nifty horror film blog that sadly hasn’t been updated in around two years. So many great points and witty observations about things that I barely even noticed. (My only qualm is: How could they not find Chema, played by a 21-year-old Fele Martínez, easy on the eyes?! I told my cousin this and she vehemently sided with me.) 

Still, there are a few more things I want to rave about.

Aside from incredibly nuanced performances from the leads (Martínez is joined by Ana Torrent and Eduardo Noriega), Thesis finds strength in layered characters with varying degrees of grace, magnetism, and moral ambiguity. There’s Ángela’s true relationship with violence, Chema’s exploitation obsession and whether or not he’s taken it a step too far, and whatever the hell Basco’s deal is. Such characterizations kept me guessing and made the twists and turns of the plot fresh instead of having them come across as stale or tiresome. The mystery itself is tightly written and very clever, with relevant clues and secret hideouts and all these great, horrifying details.The film’s two-hour runtime hardly drags, and it’s destined for multiple rapt rewatch sessions because it’s like there’s always something new to discover about it after every viewing. 

Nylon Private Icon material.

Finally, I adore how it had a very clean look to it that almost appeared to make use of a predominantly pastel (or at least light) palette. It just worked so well. I’m obsessed with the production design—from the My Own Private Idaho poster and little plants in Ángela’s pale pink room to Chema’s creepy/impressive nightmare lair with tons of horror paraphernalia and “REDRUM” spray-painted on the wall. Some literary references and callbacks made it sweet. (Really!) There’s also Ángela’s wardrobe, a fine, ultra-covetable example of the fashion of the decade. Very 1996. (Come to think of it, Chema and Basco, in their own very distinct ways, weren’t slacking in the dress-sense department, either.) 

Which, all in all, adds up to the fact that I’m super glad Thesis exists, and that it was made the way it was, when it was. How I was able to live twenty-one years without it is one case I’ll never solve. 

salt and heat and memory

An admission: I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump. It’s been a frustrating few years.

As much as I want to say that I don’t know what brought it about, I’m pretty sure the reasons are clear as day. I got busy with Elision and school. I got sad. Ridiculous as it sounds, I got an iPad—which, let’s be honest, did kind of play a major role in fucking up my attention span. 

The point is, I’ve always been a book person. But for quite a while I was only ever able to devour and love books in theory, and the thought of actually getting through them without skimming and finishing them became a far off improbability. I had a handful of starts and stops, and then I just stopped kidding myself altogether. 

This week I finished Cath Crowley’s Words in Deep Blue.  

And now, after what feels like a lifetime of not being able to write about what I’ve been reading, here’s me gushing about it. 

Three years ago, the world was ending. At least, the students of Gracetown High, inspired by Ray Bradbury, were pretending it was. Rachel was spending her last night in town. She was leaving a love letter in her best friend Henry’s favorite book and waiting for him to call. 

But that’s all in the past. Before Henry broke her heart and she stopped responding to his letters. Before she failed Year 12. Before she lost her brother Cal to the sea and everything she’s ever known stopped making sense.

Almost a year after Cal’s death, Rachel moves back to Gracetown to live with her aunt and work at Howling Books, the secondhand bookshop owned by Henry’s family, even though she’d rather be anywhere else. Henry is there all the time. He works there. He lives there. And these days all he does is mope because his girlfriend dumped him and he just voted to sell the bookstore, even though he loves it, because he knows it’s the practical choice. 

Neither of them is sure about the future. But their days at the bookstore, with the written and unwritten histories that surround them, see them begin to reconnect and find hope—on dog-eared pages and beyond.

I barely remember how I found out about this, but I knew I’d adore it immediately. Not only because I had read the author’s Graffiti Moon a few years ago, but also because the blurb promised me everything I’ve ever loved reading about—unrequited crushes on friends you’ve known forever; estrangement from said friends that only adds to the tension; miscommunication and grand, anguished declarations of affection; grief; and bargain bookstores—thrown together into one love story. And before you mistake me for a sap (which I am), it says “a love story” right there on the cover. It was such a simple but unprecedented premise, I couldn’t help but fall for it.

So, it might’ve taken me more than a couple of days to finish this and I’m still not back to my glory days, but I think it’s finally taken me back on a real literature kick again. I think I just needed to get to a healthier mental state for it. I was patient with the book and I held back the urge to skim far ahead and check the last page (bad habit) because I was super invested and glad to be experiencing it. Also, it’s about people and their relationship/s with books, so I couldn’t have chosen a better comeback pick!

That said, it felt very good to immerse myself in its universe. The novel, told from both Rachel’s and Henry’s perspectives, takes place in a small Australian town in the summer. However, there are also a few scenes on the beach because, among other reasons, Rachel’s home away from Gracetown is located right by the ocean. Personally, I’ve been away from the water for quite some time, and it was fun to live vicariously through and seemingly within the nice little fictional world Cath Crowley has built. You can practically breathe in the briny air and feel the splash of the waves.

Of course, most of the plot unfolds in and around Howling Books. Again, I loved the idea (and execution) of a secondhand bookshop as a setting. In one of Henry’s chapters, he says that the appeal of secondhand books comes from the way they can be full of mysteries, and I completely get what he means. When I buy previously owned books, especially copies that have been around as far back as the 1960s or even the 1940s, I always get to thinking a lot about all the sediments of past lives they carry with them. Who were the owners, to whom my life is now weirdly bound in the smallest yet most amazing way? What became of them, and were they anything like me? How far have these books traveled, and what sorts of events did they get to watch unfold?

Sometimes they’d leave clues. A personal bookmark, notes and highlighted quotes right on the pages, inscriptions on the title page that read To Katie, on your graduation. Love, Dad. (Katie, you heartless bitch, throwing away a present and a perfectly good book! Love, Fiel) Which brings us to the Letter Library, Howling Books’s claim to fame. It’s an entire section of books that aren’t for sale; instead, customers are invited to write on them and leave notes in them. It’s such a romantic notion, people leaving a mark in books that have left a mark in them. Samples from the Letter Library are interspersed between chapters, and they're mostly letters exchanged between the characters that are very telling of character and relationship development. It’s a charming and actually useful touch to the narrative. 

Don’t laugh, but sometimes I’d forget that Rachel and Henry were fictional. They were painfully real, flawed people with distinct voices and ways of looking at life—she from a scientific viewpoint and he with a more literary take. I have nothing but love for Rachel, who hides her sadness in deadpan snark and a lot of introspection, and is just effortlessly cool, insightful, and level-headed. She still wants to dive and swim across the world despite her newly conflicted feelings about large bodies of water. She’s too sensible to believe in ghosts or time travel or transmigration, but she’s still the kind of person who wants to believe, anyway. Henry, on the other hand...man, I don’t know if I want to throw a book at him or write poetry about him. He makes some truly questionable and immature decisions and pines over a girl who clearly doesn’t deserve him, but at the end of the day he’s a kind, intelligent boy who genuinely cares about the people in his life, lives for literature and the shop, and is prone to goofy self-deprecation. 

The minor characters are all very rich and endearing, and they all have their own unique way of loving books, but I particularly grew fond of George, Henry’s sister. She gets shit for being a “freak” at school and has turned to a moody, tough-girl, fuck-off exterior as a defense mechanism, but she’s really a softie who loves reading science fiction with her cat and isn’t afraid of being herself in general. There’s a beautiful side plot involving her and an anonymous pen pal/secret admirer that just took my breath away.  

The novel wears its subtitle “a love story” with a quiet confidence that, holy shit, delivers. Rachel has loved Henry like that for years, and she leaves his life feeling jilted because she thinks he’s ignored her bold, fuck-it attempt at making a move, finally. Henry, on the other hand, has no idea  why Rachel ended their friendship and forgot all about him—all he knows is that it hurt and that she’s come back “rude and gorgeous.” Three years of distance and change is a long time. Rachel returns feeling like she’s gotten over Henry, and Henry’s as clueless as ever, so they both get to experience the deliciously slow process, built up through a series of swoon-inducing moments, of realizing that they’re actually (still) in love (all along). 

There’s a kind of warm and fuzzy unresolved sexual tension going on between them, amplified by interactions that range from funny to stilted to pining to intimate. Part of it’s because they’re actually great at being friends; they know everything about each other. And yet, in some ways, they don’t. And their discoveries are sweet and tender and promising. It’s all in the details. For example, Henry absentmindedly reaches out to touch Rachel’s bathing suit strap when he notices it peeking out from under her dress. It never becomes super explicit, but the writing more than makes up for it. See:

‘You’re very neat,’ Henry says, looking at my handwriting, and it feels like he’s said something sexy.
‘You’re very messy,’ I say.
‘And yet, I’m the one who passed Year 12,’ he says.
‘You’re very annoying,’ I say, smiling at him.
‘You’re very sexy,’ he says, like it just came out and he had no control over it.
‘So are you,’ I say.
‘It’s not the way I’m usually described,’ he says.
‘Tonight feels sort of unusual,’ I say.

I mean...?! See also: “You owe me an apocalypse,” falling asleep together right inside the bookstore reading T.S. Eliot, “You smell of apples.” / “Don’t smell me, Henry,” unbuttoning someone slowly, etc. 

This is also a novel of grief, and it’s handled in a way that poignantly captures what real grief feels like. Sometimes it’s like it’s not there, but it’s ever-present, a current surging even when you don’t sense it. Sometimes you just pretend it isn’t. Rachel’s lament that her brother’s life ended up as a set of boxes collecting his abandoned belongings is soul-crushing, but through her eyes, we get to know Cal, and mourn him, and keep him alive.

The way Cath Crowley ties sentences together is just something else. So wonderful. Sometimes I get too wrapped up to highlight my favorite passages, but with Words in Deep Blue I couldn’t help it—the lines and paragraphs are so pretty or painful or funny or full of wisdom or #relatable or real or all of the above that I needed to remember them and keep them. There’s not a lot of flourish to them, very tell-it-like-it-is, but they sound incredibly nice. I also love that she seamlessly added a lot of references to literature and the theories of time and explored themes of family, gender and sex positivity, and diversity.

I cried. I mean, obviously, I cried. I cried at the letters and the way some of it turned out because all of these characters are facing many different kinds of loss and the effects of growing up or growing older. But, again, there’s a lot of hope and tomorrows to go around, and it brings people together. It’s a brighter kind of realism that reminded me of Sing Street. Life’s shit, but you have to swim against the tide or with it, whatever, something like that. 

I don’t think I’d ever had the pleasure of being able to read the exact book that my sensibilities were calling for at a specific point in my life, until Words in Deep Blue came around. It was so lovely I didn’t want it to end. I almost want to un-read it just so I can experience it all again for the first time. It was completely in sync with me and it’s both unfair and perfect that there will never be anything like it. I’m certain that it will remain with me the way the books in the Letter Library stay with the people who’ve written in them—the way only the best books can and do.

my loneliness is killing me

I'd never heard of Perfect Blue until I read about it on, of all things, a list of '90s horror films. 

I've never been an in-deep anime fan, sticking to the Ghiblis and the Cardcaptor Sakuras and the Sailor Moons, but last year my professor showed Whisper of the Heart in our creative writing class (I hadn't seen it before) and I just garnered this sudden deep appreciation for it. I haven't branched out, still. (Sorry, Cheska!) But I've definitely become less likely to write anime off from the start. I love the fantasy and sci-fi ones as much as the next person, but I find that I'm most amazed by the titles that are more realistic, like She and Her Cat: Everything Flows, because of what the creators can do with such apparent simplicity. 

Anyway, the list I read had described Perfect Blue as a mind-screwy thriller that was the inspiration for Black Swan. It's about a former pop idol, who leaves her girl group behind, hoping to be taken more seriously as an actor. She gets cast in an intense murder mystery series that pushes her beyond her comfort zone—to, you guessed it, dire results. Soon the lines between reality and illusion are horrifyingly blurred. The tight jump cuts and sequences that are equal parts dreamy and nightmarish (as only the Japanese can manage) will stay with you and leave you mulling over them long after the film is over.

It's so unique in its concept, and so haunting. Plus, it's meta and firmly rooted in true-to-life situations, which might just be the scariest part of all. I'm still trying to process. 

Perfect Blue tells of a descent into madness, punctuated by paranoia, the loss of identity, obsession, and fan culture. But more than that, it's about loneliness.     

And obviously, I identified with that. 

(Don't let these screen caps fool you, by the way—the film has its fair share of creepy get-me-brain-bleach visuals.) 

(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Lush and gorgeous in black and white, Mickey Keating's 2015 psychological horror Darling has drawn very obvious comparisons to Repulsion, Roman Polanski's 1965 film most known for its prototypical use of a female killer, practically unheard of in the genre at the time. Although flawed, it's an homage that commands—and deserves—attention.

With the absence of modern markers and technology, it looks to be lost in time, and it's a large New York mansion (with a dark history, naturally) that sets the perfect stage for the unnamed title character, who spends most of the film alone, to slowly lose her grip on reality. The movie is told in chapters, the moments that tie it together quietly unnerving and almost coming off as non-sequiturs serving only to illustrate that descent into madness—which, come to think of it, is kind of the point. The only distinct plot lines involve the young woman's sudden, furious fixations on a man from the neighborhood and a locked door upstairs. And by the time the credits roll, you could never quite tell the difference between what was an object of delusion and what really happened. 

Darling's rapid nightmare imagery paired with sudden bursts of sound will make your heart stop, but it's the long, anguished sequences and actress Lauren Ashley Carter's piercing stare that will keep you rapt. 

I can see the man in the moon, he's smiling at me.

A few years back it began to feel to me like identifying my favorite movie of all time had gotten too difficult, like choosing one over all the others was impossible because I loved them all too much. For the longest time it was consistent—I would go to see all these flicks that would turn me into a rapt, raving, ravaged mess, but they didn't exactly leave me feeling like a changed person. 

This was not the case when I watched Nothing Lasts Forever. 

Its history and production details are as interesting as the film itself. It was written and directed Tom Schiller, who is probably most notable for his (pre-taped) work on Saturday Night Live. Long before The Lonely Island's 100-plus Digital Shorts and the touching weirdness of Mike O'Brien, Schiller made short films featuring the OG Not Ready for Primetime Players and other SNL greats in a segment called "Schiller's Reel." His opus includes "La Dolce Gilda," an homage to La Dolce Vida featuring Gilda Radner; the sadly ironic "Don't Look Back in Anger" with an elderly John Belushi, written to be the last surviving cast member, at a cemetry lamenting the loss of his co-stars; and the whimsically wistful "Love is a Dream," a sweeping song-and-dance number with Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks. 

In fact, it's so deeply rooted in SNL that it arguably deserves a spot on this list right between The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World. It was produced by Lorne Michaels, it features music by Howard Shore, and Bill Murray (playing an affably evil bus attendant who doesn't scrimp on Murray's signature deadpan snark) and Dan Aykroyd (as the protagonist's slightly goofy no-nonsense boss) steal whatever scene they're in despite minor/supporting roles.  

But the thing about this that fascinates me to no end is its release—rather, lack thereof. Slated to come out in 1984, its scheduled premiere date was postponed by MGM and it was subsequently shelved. As of today it has never been released theatrically or on home media, and because of this has achieved cult status, even considered a "lost film" at times. Still, it made its way around through screenings hosted by Schiller and Murray, as well as being shown on European television, VHS-ripped bootlegs from which made it onto the internet...and therefore, all the way to me, thirty-two years later. (It has since been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies for US audiences.)       

Nothing Lasts Forever stars Zach Galligan, then nineteen, as Adam Beckett, a would-be artist who hasn't quite found his craft. Tired of waiting around for his calling, he leaves Europe in a rush and departs for his hometown of New York City, punctuating his actions with an endearing declaration that he will be an artist, swearing on names like Jesus, Buddha, and even James Joyce. He arrives in what looks to be the New York of a retro alternate universe, which is governed by a port authority and requires him to provide proof of artistry within a limited amount of time before he is accepted as a citizen. In the meantime, he takes a filler job watching traffic and begins seeing his sultry German "Dadaist at heart" co-worker. However, when he gives a homeless man some coffee outside Carnegie Hall, Adam realizes that nothing is what it seems in the city and soon finds himself on a bus trip to the moon because of it. 

Let me repeat myself: He boards a bus. To the moon. Where he is bound to meet Eloy, a beautiful young woman, and realize his true destiny. 

The overall style is what makes it stand out by a mile at first glance. Shot in (partial) black and white, it looks and feels as though it were set anywhere between the 1930s and the 1950s, and this is helped by creative decisions that give it the necessary charm. The visual effects and props used mimic the "magic" of cinema in the early days of filmmaking, such as the use of vintage animation, miniature sets, and cardboard cutouts. The supporting cast is also filled with classic Hollywood actors, although I'm not really familiar with them. Schiller successfully recalled the appeal of decades long gone and submerged his movie in them; nothing about it brings to mind 1984.  

It's also absurdly funny, smart, and weird in all the best ways, while remaining wonderfully whimsical, lighthearted, and touching. It's a satire of consumerism—the moon just so happens to be a supermall. It's magical realism. It's a swoon-inducing romance. It's a quest for identity. It even manages to be an art film with European eccentricity. It's political commentary, using art as anarchy! 

I was totally mesmerized a few minutes in and I was in love with it not long after. I couldn't look away, and it made me want to believe in everything it tried to tell me. I know it's not the greatest piece of cinema ever made, and it's not for everyone, but it speaks to me. Another thing I know is: My feelings may change somewhere down the line, because they always do. But at some point in my life, when I was trying to find my own self, this little gem enthralled me and opened up avenues of understanding, and it was all I can ask for. 

*

For more on Nothing Lasts Forever, check out these features on Motherboard, The New Yorker, The A.V. Club, and Geeks of Doom. There's also Nothing Lost Forever, a book by Michael Streeter about Tom Schiller and his work, which discusses NLF at length and includes interviews with Schiller, Zach Galligan, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray, among other SNL personalities and notable people.