Nosferatu
Although I watched this movie over two months ago in earth time and thirty five years ago in relative 2025 time (wildfires, hostile coup by technocratic oligarchs, Infinity Nikki), this review is going to be spoiler-free and light on…actual facts about the movie I talk about. Haha, sorry! You might still be entertained, because the context I watched this movie in will heavily feature in the review, and so it’s like a review of a thing that can only be experienced by this review! Have I invented a new kind of review? I am only one paragraph in! Picture it, you’re at your boyfriend’s fathers very nice house in Northern California. The guest bathroom has Froid and Chaud on the faucet handles instead of hot and cold. Their kitchen has one of those faucets over the range for filling a giant pot of water like you’re Strega Nona up in this bitch. Pretty hoity fuckin toity, down to the last detail which is that they don’t have a TV anywhere, just jazz records and stacks of New Yorkers. So, we’re all bored. I can only go on so many hikes and secret trips to the Trader Joe’s to buy actual junk food that does not involve flax or fresh persimmon compote. Suffice to sat we had arrived at movie viewing evening, and we needed something highbrow, but exciting and new. Cultured, yet chaud. Like you, we heard that Nosferatu was pretty good and so twas decided. Myself, Garret, his Father and wife, and his sister all piled into the least comfortable movie viewing room I have ever known. There is a smol, only kind-of-comfy leather couch flanked by two hard backed chairs that Dad and wife always occupy so that the couch can be for guests. So not only are you slippin’ around on a leather couch but also you’re sitting right next to people who think hard backed chairs are appropriate movie viewing chairs like some ascetic monks with a netflix account. The whole time you’re vaguely aware that they would be on the couch if not for you. Or would they?! Are they kinky FREAKS who like to sit far away from each other and watch Challengers? To make matters worse there is a poodle who cannot decide what the fuck is going on and will just stare at you with her too-smart eyes as you interrupt the movie to beg her just to sit on the couch with you. Chat, it’s a whole thing! But aaaaanyway, we each grabbed a sensible portion of heirloom popped corn and hunkered slightly down for some nice creepy scary movie times because the only other thing we could do is talk to each other. Family. Now, I love a scary movie. I am rarely actually scared watching them as I am unable to be subsumed by any narrative that includes monsters or ghosts or any plot holes whatsoever. And slasher movies have gone out of style since the scream series which is weird since they are the scariest ones and also the probably the cheapest to make. It’s just like, a guy, and some blood and random people running and screaming? You don’t even really have to buy clothes for the girls in them! Why are we not making more slasher films? Maybe it’s because of woke. So I really enjoy horror as a genre and I was excited for Nosferatu because it’s a horror movie, right? Right? *Queen Amidala face* An aside about Bill Skarsgaard: I met him once in Canada and he’s nice as almost every Swedish person I have ever known is, but on the evening I met him he was also very, very flirtatious. Swedes are flirty, and it’s really direct and can be disconcerting. You know when a dog goes right for your crotch and it’s not suuuper inappropriate because it’s a dog, but also, you’re in public? It was like that but more ominous, because he’s Bill Skarsgaard. So, a werewolf. Perfect casting! So I like, get it. The conceit here is not to do a scary movie, but a slightly eerie movie about a super scary sexy guy. Like what if the grossest spookiest guy was actually…hot, actually? And thus we arrive at problem a) Gross Womanizing Anti Hero Story is played all the way out. I have watched it, read it, lived it, watched it again, for what seems like many lifetimes now and yeah. We just don’t have a new way to tell the story of a man who is not worth shit but inexplicably finds hot women drawn to him. Not, anyway, from Robbie Eggers, who’s innovation seems to be…black and white? Like, why am I watching Manhattan? At least that was a bit of a romp and it had Diane Keaton. I think if Diane Keaton were in this film she would be cast as a Crone who tells Nos he’s a real schmuck who needs a new psychoanalyst, and then they’d have a cup of coffee together. 10/10 Would watch. The other problem is that this isn’t even a new take on actual Nosferatu. Unless you consider really fleshing out the lawfair of 1830’s estate management a new take. I cannot believe I watched Nicholas Hoult go on a business trip. Maybe that was the conceit: Instead of writing a character that is a new kind of grievously evil antihero that womanizes his way to his own demise, what if we don’t write anything at all and then put some gross stuff on a guy with abs? Listen, you had me at abs. And look, one scene in we realized that this was going to be an uncomfortable watch, and not just because of the furniture. Ellen, our main lady, played by Lily Rose Depp, is writhing and orgasming spookily on screen the moment the film begins. So, buckle up, it’s one of those nights. I prepared myself for two hours of throat clearing at overtly sexual content
Background Thoughts II: There and Backroundagain
A week ago I told you the sordid tale of someone I barely knew asking me something that made me really uncomfortable. I gave you the context that I had at the time so you would be able to understand why it made me uncomfortable, and what lessons I think people in man-shaped bodies should take from it.
Background Thoughts
Before I became the massive A-list celebrity star that I am now, I did some background work in New York when I was taking Improv 101 at a little known pyramid scheme called The Upright Citizens Brigade. The most notable project I worked on was Nick and Nora’s infinite playlist, where I played a person attending Michael Cera’s band’s show at a cool, Brooklyn bar. After debasing myself to that extent, you might think I would have run screaming from the entire movie industry, but actually it was kinda fun. I learned a lot, mostly about the hierarchy of important people on set, and what it feels like to be at the very bottom. Being a great background actor literally means you completely fade into the background, and that can be a little dehumanizing. The upper echelons of the call sheet really do treat you like set dressing, because in a sense, you are. Most background players are cool with this. It’s a pretty good temp job, especially if you live somewhere where there are laws about paying people living wages. Honestly the very worst part is getting stuck acting with another background actor who is unhinged. Many times you will be clumped in groups of two or three and you have to be on set with these people all day, and while filming you have to idiotically pretend to have conversations, or dance to different non-existent beats with them without making any noise at all. I had to do it the other day for a scene where D’arcy is hanging out at the bar, and TBH I was blown away by the skill of the two actors I was mime-talking to. They were subtle and deft and ultra consistent, even though it feels like you are having a stroke while you are sitting across from someone who is also having a stroke. The whole thing is so awkward. You’re also not supposed to talk to the principal (featured guest or series regulars or “stars”) actors unless spoken to, like some kind of serf. I hated that feeling when I was doing background work and I’m aware of how uncomfortable it must be, even for professionals. which to be crystal clear, I was NOT. One obvious reason for not interacting with principal actors during filming is that there is almost no moment, especially these days, when you’re on a hot set and you’re not being given notes about performance, or where to stand, where to look, or being touched or handed things by a hundred different departments. Principal actors are busy and often take any precious spare moment to ready themselves for the next take or scene. They really don’t give you time to rehearse anymore unless you’re in a prestige TV show or a movie with a Hemsworth in it. Also, it’s a slippery slope. If one background actor starts up a conversation with anyone on set, everyone starts talking, it’s just human. And then all the people who have to talk about lights and flags and shit can’t hear each other and it slows you down, and then Tom Paris from Voyager comes in and YELLS at you and you are inexplicably turned on. So, keep all that in mind for the following anecdote: There is what one might call a featured background actor who frequently appears on a certain set. I know him well enough for him to say hello to me, and for me to not recognize him completely but smile vaguely when he does so, one time. That kinda thing, which is fine, because I have only worked with him a handful of times and he has only had direct contact with me once before. So during a moment when there wasn’t too much going on, and I wasn’t being noted or touched up, he asked me, “Hey Alice, can I ask you something? Do you do your own replies and things for your social media?” I pretended to be very distracted and annoyed by something happening to my left and just said “No.” Now, chat, we know this isn’t true. I run my own discord. I love talking with the people who appreciate what I do, in general. But I knew that if I spoke the truth when he asked me that there would inevitably be follow up questions. And after that first one, hoo boy, did I not want to interact with this person at all. To be fair, to me, this guy hasn’t been the best background actor. He’s been spoken to before about making a meal out of moments he needed to keep it moving so the scene could progress with the proper rhythm. But as I walked away from that interaction, I became actually resentful, and for the rest of the day it stuck in my craw. My craw guys, and not in a caramel corn way where you are remembering how good that Chicago mix was. I get that there was no malice to his question, and maybe it seems like a fair enough ask to some of you. Maybe he wanted to network with me, or he’s a fan of my work, and wanted to chat. I don’t think that’s bad! Like I said, I don’t feel super comfortable with the weird hierarchy that the call sheet dictates. But here is what it felt like for me, the other person in that exchange: I felt violated. I know, the big V! Look, as much as I don’t want to assign ill intention to someone who was just shootin’ the proverbial shit, I simply must fortify the boundaries on who has access to my personal space both online and IRL. I have learned the hard way what happens when I don’t. Also, I have been stalked, I have been assaulted, and that is not because I am a famous-ish person or I let some fan talk to me for too long at a convention. It’s because I possess the