Lithium Magazine
  • Home
  • About
    • Editors
    • Writers
    • Artists
    • Photographers
  • Contact
    • Work With Us
  • Events
  • Shop
  • Read
    • Sex & Love
    • Culture & Entertainment
    • News & Politics
    • Life
    • Photography
Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Followers
Followers
Lithium Magazine
Lithium Magazine
  • Home
  • About
    • Editors
    • Writers
    • Artists
    • Photographers
  • Contact
    • Work With Us
  • Events
  • Shop
  • Read
    • Sex & Love
    • Culture & Entertainment
    • News & Politics
    • Life
    • Photography
  • Culture & Entertainment

Stop Rewatching Your Favorite Movie

  • October 27, 2020
  • No comments
  • 4 minute read
  • Sophia Peyser

I fell in love in Paris. It happened in a fourth-floor walk-up with high ceilings and beautiful brown tile floors, with a Juliet balcony and bookcases poking out of every nook and cranny. The August nights were hot and muggy, and there was little for us to do other than lie awake in bed, waiting for morning to come. One night, however, a breeze cooled the living room enough for us to watch a movie, so we pulled the projector from the ceiling and began clicking through Netflix. We arbitrarily picked a movie, and my tumultuous love affair with Good Will Hunting began. 

I should preface this discussion by noting that I have a weakness for inspiring, fatherly Robin Williams. Just a glance of his salt-and-pepper beard and soft, kind eyes brings a lump to my throat. The famous “O Captain! My Captain” declaration and mournful bagpipes of Dead Poets Society make my heart ache. No matter how empty or sad I feel, Robin Williams seems to speak right to me, saying just the right thing to make me feel better. 

So when he appeared in Good Will Hunting as a widowed therapist helping Matt Damon heal his wounds and move on, I was screwed. I fell head over heels in love with floppy-haired Will Hunting, cried when the “it’s not your fault” scene played out, and finished the movie with a full heart. Good Will Hunting is my comfort movie. It makes me want to fall in love and be stupid with my friends and experience the world with zero fears and regrets. It’s the movie that introduced me to director Gus Van Sant and his wacky, ultra-indie films, and to Damon and Affleck and their incredible success story. Movies like Good Will Hunting make me want to make movies. 

I watched the hell out of that movie. Feeling sad? Good Will Hunting. Needing a laugh? Good Will Hunting. I watched it so many times that I actually got sick of it. The performances weren’t as hypnotizing, and the ”it’s not your fault” scene just didn’t hit the same. I also had the startling realization that “Good Will Hunting” is a ridiculous title. What the hell is it supposed to mean? Is Will Hunting good? Is somebody searching for good will? As these things go, my love of the film dimmed, and I moved on. 

Then it happened again. I was in the Paris Theater, Manhattan’s last single-screen movie theater. It felt like the perfect place to experience a perfect movie.

And the movie was perfect; it had me whipped from the first piano note. From the bright yellow opening credits to the heartbreaking closing scene, Call Me By Your Name was dreamy and beautiful, a tale of love that could warm me up on the coldest, loneliest days. The film made me long for summer and drowsy days when I could read at the river and ride my bike around a quaint European town. In Call Me By Your Name I found my favorite movie, crippling wanderlust, and Timothée Chalamet (whom I love despite his problematic pandemic vacations with morally questionable actresses). I left the theater feeling blissful and melancholic, walked all the way home in a daze. For weeks, I fell asleep to the soundtrack (pathetic, I know) and watched endless cast interviews in hopes of getting enough closure to move on with my life. Except I couldn’t make myself move on, so I just kept rewatching until I had totally exhausted myself with the movie.

I’m sure I’m not unique among movie lovers in that I judge movies based on the emotional response they stir in me. The wave of emotions that followed my viewings of both Good Will Hunting and Call Me By Your Name blinded me. As time goes on, you gradually stop thinking about the movie, and as a result, you feel it less and less. It happened to me when I watched Titanic at age thirteen: I was in mourning for weeks following my viewing of the movie, but now I look back on that time and think, why the fuck was I so affected by that unrealistic, ridiculously long, and overly romantacized portrayal of a tragedy?

My dad always tells me that life is too short to watch the same movie over and over again, and I, a chronic re-watcher, used to laugh that off. But now I’m with him; there are millions of incredible movies out there waiting to be discovered and loved. I found that when I stopped obsessively watching the same movies over and over again, I had the time (and the emotional availability!) to connect with new ones. Ever since this epiphany, I’ve fallen in love with Good Time and Almost Famous and found a new favorite movie in the incredible, beautiful, sad American Honey. And you better believe I won’t be watching them again.

 

By Sophia Peyser

Illustration by Gabriella Shery

Related Topics
  • BITTER
  • Gabriella Shery
  • movies
  • Sophia Peyser
Previous Article
  • News & Politics

Breonna and Brutality: Why Aren’t Black Women Receiving Justice?

  • October 26, 2020
  • Gabriella Ferrigine
View Post
Next Article
  • Life

Why I Envy COVID Deniers

  • October 27, 2020
  • Derya Yildirim
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Culture & Entertainment

What’s the Point of “Fake Accounts”?

  • March 1, 2021
  • Katherine Williams
View Post
  • Culture & Entertainment

Oops!… We Did It Again: Why We Get Off on Women’s Pain

  • February 28, 2021
  • Tamara Jones
View Post
  • Culture & Entertainment

“Whole Lotta Red”: A Feverish and Avant-Garde End to 2020

  • February 28, 2021
  • Kaiya Shunyata
View Post
  • Culture & Entertainment

Blind Worship and the Films of Quentin Tarantino

  • February 27, 2021
  • Kaiya Shunyata
View Post
  • Culture & Entertainment

Why You Should Reject Music Elitism

  • February 26, 2021
  • Ellie Greenberg
View Post
  • Culture & Entertainment

Middle School Ends, But “Pen15” Is Forever 

  • February 26, 2021
  • Jadie Stillwell
View Post
  • Culture & Entertainment

How TV About Getting Lost Taught Me About Survival

  • February 25, 2021
  • Alex Eichenstein
View Post
  • Culture & Entertainment

An Ode to Garage Bands and Punk Shows Past

  • February 25, 2021
  • Sheena Holt

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Featured Posts
  • 1
    We’re Not Really Strangers Makes Me Feel Held
    • March 5, 2021
  • 2
    How the Left Is Becoming Reactionary
    • March 4, 2021
  • 3
    Sexual Empowerment or Reckless Endangerment?
    • March 2, 2021
  • 4
    What’s the Point of “Fake Accounts”?
    • March 1, 2021
  • 5
    Oops!… We Did It Again: Why We Get Off on Women’s Pain
    • February 28, 2021
Recent Posts
  • “Whole Lotta Red”: A Feverish and Avant-Garde End to 2020
    • February 28, 2021
  • Blind Worship and the Films of Quentin Tarantino
    • February 27, 2021
  • Why You Should Reject Music Elitism
    • February 26, 2021
Categories
  • Culture & Entertainment (141)
  • Fashion & Beauty (31)
  • Life (134)
  • News & Politics (70)
  • Photography (63)
  • Sex & Love (68)
Search
Instagram
@nat.geisel discovered @werenotreallystrangers one month into quarantine, virtually getting to know while concurrently falling in love with her girlfriend at the time, by playing their free, downloadable quarantine edition with her over FaceTime. We’re Not Really Strangers reminds us that even through sadness, anxiety, and emotions we can’t exactly name, we are all trying our best. Check out the latest on Lithium now ♥️
The left is becoming reactionary. Blame it on the proliferation of liberalism or whatever, but you can’t deny that a lot of leftists today constantly moralize, seeing personal flaws as akin to structural ones. Instead of politics of reaction, we should be practicing politics of actions. As @kosherwhitewine writes, “Instead of treating leftism like an inclusive club, we must treat it as it’s meant to be—as a collective banner under which we march toward the liberation of all people. We don’t break each other down; we build each other up, standing together, fighting together.” Read about it on Lithium now 🗣
OnlyFans, selling worn underwear, sex work—are these acts of sexual empowerment or reckless endangerment? As Modesty Sanchez writes, “Because OnlyFans creators are portrayed as entrepreneurs taking control of their image and brand, the role that the platform itself plays is often obscured and dismissed, especially since the company prefers to hide behind the feminist, sex-positive glow emanating from the sex workers that have flocked to the site.” Often, the dangers of online and IRL sex work are simply swept to the side while corporate exploitation is covered up by a girl boss narrative. Read the latest on Lithium now ⚡️
What’s the point of “Fake Accounts”? Written by Lauren Oyler, Fake Accounts is a perfect addition to the list of much-overhyped millennial reading: Normal People, Bad Feminist, How to Do Nothing, etc. And if Oyler wasn’t such a harsh critic of that specific literary circle, this novel would just be another pretty well-written, unmoving book. But Oyler has gone after too many media darlings like Sally Rooney, Jia Tolentino and Roxane Gay in open takedowns that center on her distaste for moralizing, self-absorbed, digital-first writing. Read Lithium writer @katwilliiams take on this book, live on the site now 📚
Britney Spears, Tessica Brown “Gorilla Glue Girl,” and trauma porn all have something in common—they are representations of our fascination with women’s pain. In @tamaravjones’s latest piece for Lithium, she points out that “It’s up to readers to support better journalism and think about the consequences before sharing their unfiltered hot takes on social media. Britney Spears’ legal battle will continue and inevitably, someone else will take Tessica Brown’s spot as the internet’s main character, and I can only hope that we manage to break this cycle before someone else gets hurt.” Live on Lithium now 💫
Playboi Carti’s newest album Whole Lotta Red is the rapper’s ARTPOP. While it’s different from a lot of the rap dominating the Billboard 100, Carti does something a lot of mainstream acts are afraid to do: experiment. Lithium writer @kaiya.shunyata dives deep into Whole Lotta Red and discusses how the album, like Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP, is a fantastic work of exploration and departure from the rap that mostly dominated 2020. Read about it now 🎧
When you’re first getting into film, you tend to hear the same names repeated over and over again: Fincher, Scorsese, and, most of all, Tarantino. But when @kaiya.shunyata rewatched his directorial debut Reservoir Dogs, she couldn’t help but think of his mistreatment of actresses (notably, Uma Thurman), his use of the N-word in films, sprinkled in like a garnish he and his fans can’t live without, and decades of controversies. She writes, “It’s become impossible to ignore the way Tarantino has been worshipped, while simultaneously not changing the things for which he’s been criticized.” Read about it on Lithium now 🎬
Middle school sux. Hulu’s Pen15 follows thirteen-year-old best friends Maya and Anna as they tackle an endless seventh-grade year. From day one, they face humiliations that only strike when you are thirteen, like bad haircuts and periods. But Pen15 sets itself apart from all the other middle school dramas by not only having good stories and actors, but drawing attention to the fact that even performing thirteen is a complex thing. Read about it now on Lithium, written by Jade Stillwell 📚
We’re all culprits in contributing to the shame and embarrassment that have become synonymous with listening to specific artists. Rex Orange County has become the unofficial pinnacle of a wannabe-indie girl who’s a regular Urban Outfitters patron. A Smiths fan is egotistical and decidedly unable to get laid. Bon Iver attracts the coffee shop connoisseur with a God complex. @elliergreenberg’s latest is all about why you should reject music elitism— this one is a must-read. Live on Lithium now 🎵

Input your search keywords and press Enter.