Lindy West asks bizarre questions about blockbusters
In Lindy West’s new book, “S---, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema,” many important cinematic questions are asked. Such as, why is Laura Linney wearing a woolly hat to a church wedding in “Love, Actually”? Does the Hogwarts Express in the “Harry Potter” movies run year-round, or is it just twice a year to take the Hogwarts kids to and from school, and if so howd oes the witch who runs the snack trolley pay her bills? What exactly does being king of whatever the lion is the king of (in, duh, “The Lion King”) entail, and why should zebras and antelopes trust a lion to look out for their best interests? And how could a marriage possibly survive a husband saying, “Honey, I shrunk the kids?”
Yes, this is a very silly book— in the best ofways — and West, the author of the bestselling nonfiction books “Shrill” and “The Witches Are Coming,” knows it. In the introduction, she describes the book as an “inconsequential, ornery, joyful, obsessive, rude, and extremely stupid book.” But it’s exactly what we need these days, particularly whenwe can’t gather our friends to giggle and throw popcorn at a TV screen.
The book’s title, a play on “Love, Actually” (a movie West loves to hate), is a collection of about two dozen movie reviews and essays— some revised from West’s days writing about movies for Jezebel and GQ, some newly written. Most of the movies are blockbusters froma couple of decades ago: Think “Jurassic Park,” “Top Gun,” “Titanic.”
West was halfway
through the project when the coronavirus pandemic hit earlier this year— and suddenly, it seemed all the more urgent. “Itwas really cathartic for me to write it, to have this escape from gloom and doom and being terrified,” she said in a telephone interview from her Seattle home. “Thinking about sending something into theworld that would make people laugh, thatwas really nice.”
Researching the book involved a lot of time on her couch, with her patient husband, Ahamefule J. Oluo, streaming movies she sometimes only faintly recalled. “Some of the stuff is so muchworse than you remember,” West said, “and some of it is genuinely very good.” She especially enjoyed “The Rock,” “Speed,” and “Face/ Off” (“They take their faces off and they switch them! It’s incredible!”). And, of course, “The Fugitive,” which West calls in her book “the only good movie.”
Reading the essays— which are long, sprinkled with ALL CAPS and filled with delicious asides— feels like being on West’s couch with her. Why, for example, doesn’t somebody rewrite the Harry Potter saga fromthe point of view of Hermione? (Think of the eye-rolling!) Was the notebook in “The Notebook” really TomR iddle’s diary? Canwe please have a fan edit of “Titanic” solely featuring Leonardo “I Am Definitely Wearing Lipstick” DiCaprio’ s pal Fabrizio?
Writing the book took West back to her earliest days in journalism, as a staffer at The Stranger in the aughts. For a time she was the alt-weekly’s film editor, reviewing movies regularly. “Iwas young and Iwas kind of winging it, but I had a really good time and I learned a lot about writing and criticism and about what kind of writer I wanted to be, through trial and error,” she said.
Lately, West’s writing has been more for the screen than the page. She co-wrote the screening to Oluo’s made-in-Seattle film “Thin Skin,” and is a producer and writer for the Hulu TV adaptation of “Shrill,” which just began shooting its third season in Portland, Oregon.
“We wrote the whole season remotely over Zoom,” West said of the show, which stars Aidy Bryant of “Saturday Night Live.” After some pandemic-related delays, production has begun—“a big complicated operation with really a bare-bones crew,” West said. She’s not on the set— only one producer can be present— but is following the process closely. “Everyone’s super cautious, so far it’s working.” The season will premiere, she thinks, in the spring.
On the book front, she doesn’t have a specific project lined up yet, but is toying with something that might be “a memoir or maybe a one-woman show that is also amemoir.” And she’d love to write another movie-review collection eventually, if people like this one.
“It’s honestly kind of relaxing,” West said, of writing about movies. “It just makes me feel like myself.”