August is for Air Conditioning
and Jake Gyllenhaal movies
I’ve been seeing people on the internet say that August is the “Sunday of months” and I’m beginning to agree. Frankly, I have beef with August. When Taylor says, “August slipped away into a moment in time,” I wish it fucking would already.
Living in Los Angeles doesn’t help matters much. Though not as humid as Chicago in the summer, it is abnormally stuffy here and being under the sun – no matter the temperature that day – might as well be the inside of an oven. As someone whose mental and emotional health is 80% dependent on taking a daily walk outside, this has been… not ideal. I tell myself every night, “I’ll get up even earlier tomorrow and beat the heat,” only to swing open my door the next morning and remember that I live in The Valley. The heat has indeed beat me, yet again, and this is her house.
August, then, is for being inside in the air conditioning. Instead of my daily peaceful walks amongst nature, I resentfully get on my walking pad in my apartment and trudge along for 40 long minutes, staring at the wall and blasting Charli XCX into my earbuds with a fan pointed directly at me to minimize the sweating.
Sure, there are plenty of enjoyable and productive things one could do in the comfort of one’s own air conditioning, but what have I decided to do? Hyper-fixate on men and their man movies.
When I’m not fantasizing about fall (watching TikToks about seasonal New England and making a Pinterest board of autumnal porn), I am solely watching movies inside because I am not invested in any TV shows right now. Not only that, but I am watching movies starring certain male actors or directed by certain male directors. “A film haul,” I like to call it – though a friend in a text generously referred to these antisocial micro-obsessions as “film festivals.”
I guess you could say I’ve hosted a few “film festivals” (attendance of one) in this air-conditioned apartment in the month of August. Most notably, and by far the most renowned: The Jake Gyllenhaal’s Complete Filmography Film Festival and The Robert Eggers’ Freaky Little Folklores Film Festival.
I wish there was a more nuanced and interesting explanation for how each film haul came to be, but the truth is much simpler. For the Jake Gyllenhaal’s Complete Filmography Film Festival, it started when I rewatched Prisoners on the big screen at a small indie movie theater earlier this summer. Around Jake Gyllenhaal’s third big scene in the film, I inexplicably remembered how hot he was for the first time in decades. (More specifically, I elbowed my friend and whispered – too loud – “oh my god, he’s SO hot!!!!!” and my friend didn’t know if I was talking about Jake or Paul Dano for a second). Oh, and also, he is very good at acting. Yes. That! As well.
I have now dedicated over a month to methodically going through every film Jake has ever starred in. This includes such sacrifices as voluntarily watching a Michael Bay movie (Ambulance) and sitting through Conor McGregor’s “acting” (Road House). But this is rounded out by pleasures like seeing Nightcrawler for the first time and rewatching Brothers, a film I completely forgot I loved in college.
I’d say what I’ve learned so far overall is that no matter the outcome of the movie itself, Jake’s acting is always far superior and worth watching. It’s unclear why I only knew him from a few movies like Brokeback for so long, but I am making up for lost time now. The Jake film festival has also led me down many a random rabbit hole related to his celebrity and public image, coupled with recalling how my friends and I would run into him almost every time we visited LA in the years 2009–2012. Jake became sort of like a moving Los Angeles landmark for us back then. Outside Lamill in Silver Lake with his dog, walking past us with a group of his guy friends at Chateau Marmont. Sometimes, multiple sightings would occur within one weekend. “I guess he’s just sort of… around?” we would say to explain away this phenomenon. But more on that later, somewhere else.
I checked on my status to see where I was in my Jake goal the other day and, to my surprise and also horror, I still have fifteen films left. Like damn, how many movies has this dude done?!
The haul continues – watch this space.
As for the Robert Eggers’ Freaky Little Folklores Film Festival, this started when I randomly decided to watch The Lighthouse because it was available on Max (a subscription I have) and I was sick of paying $3.99 to rent one movie for 48 hours on Amazon. (By the way, why are 90% of movies now not on streaming and instead pay-to- rent? Another sidenote: Jake Gyllenhaal has gotten a lot of $3.99 purchases from my ass this summer.)
Upon finishing The Lighthouse, a movie I both enjoyed and was baffled and horrified by, I immediately said, “I need to watch the rest of this guy’s movies STAT.” Unlike the undertaking that is Jake Gyllenhaal’s entire filmography, Eggers has three feature films so far (a fourth, his version of Nosferatu, comes out this December).
What all three films have in common right away is their beauty: Eggers and his cinematographer Jarin Blaschke really are That Bitch when it comes to scenery and breathtaking framing. There are several shots in each movie where I said, “damn…” out loud and pressed “rewind” to see it all over again. Aesthetics go a long way in my book, with movies like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette being one of my top faves of all time. I am, after all, “a sucker for cinematography,” as one guy on Tinder once put it (without ever meeting me and after I said my favorite movie was Dune).
Aside from the stunning photography, Eggers already has a style unique to him and knows how to set a very specific mood, a real vibe if you will. All three projects have a similar spooky yet cozy hygge-like feel, which I can’t believe he pulls off. Like, why am I feeling warm and comforted right now watching a ruthless, bloodstained Viking war epic such as The Northman?
The Witch (and The Northman after it) also made me appreciate Anya Taylor-Joy as an actor more. Something about seeing her through Eggers’ eyes just makes her elfin and wide-eyed thing make a lot more sense. (We really first came to know her through his lens, since The Witch was her breakthrough role in 2015 when she was a teen).
I think I am only a few years away from referring to Robert Eggers as one of my favorite directors. I just appreciate his style so much already after this 48-hour film haul.
And with a conclusion as abrupt as Gwyneth Paltrow saying, “and there we go, guys!”, that’s August 2024 for me in a nutshell. I think the only way to transition out of this and appeal to my inner fall-lust is to just start binging Gilmore Girls again come September. So, stay tuned for that.