Willow Catelyn Maclay
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willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Willow Catelyn Maclay
@willowcatelyn.bsky.social
15K followers 710 following 4.7K posts
Film Critic (Film Comment, Reverse Shot, etc). GALECA.

Co-Author of CORPSES, FOOLS AND MONSTERS: THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF TRANSNESS IN CINEMA
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willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · Oct 17
Every time there's a Twitter purge, I share the link to my book. I co-authored "Corpses, Fools and Monsters" and it is about transness in cinema. People seem to like it!

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/725695...
Corpses, Fools and Monsters by Willow Maclay, Caden Gardner: 9781914420580 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A radical history of transness in cinema, and an exploration of the political possibilities of its future. In the history of cinema, trans people are usually murdered, made into a joke, or viewed as ...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I wrote about A MUPPET FAMILY CHRISTMAS and EMMET OTTER'S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS for my reader's choice series. Happy holidays everyone. I hope they're kind to you.

This post is free. I don't believe in putting the Muppets behind a paywall.

www.patreon.com/posts/146603...
Patron's Choice: "A Muppet Family Christmas" and "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas" (Jim Henson, 1987 and 1977) | Willow Catelyn Maclay
Get more from Willow Catelyn Maclay on Patreon
www.patreon.com
December 24, 2025 at 6:28 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Submitted a ballot and wrote a few words on LET THE RIGHT ONE IN & THE WILD BOYS for Kyle's Queer Cinema at the quarter century list. It's awesome to be included with so many great writers. Check it out
December 25, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
daviddemchuk.com
A lovely Christmas surprise: thank you @willowcatelyn.bsky.social for mentioning The Butcher’s Daughter at @thequeerreview.com as one of the queer works that helped get you through the year 🖤 thequeerreview.com/2025/12/24/t...
The Queer Review 2025 – LGBTQ+ highlights of the year
As 2025 draws to a close, we invite some friends of The Queer Review, including prominent creators, performers, and activists to share the LGBTQ+ culture that has sustained, stimulated, moved, insp…
thequeerreview.com
December 25, 2025 at 4:45 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Both of these movies are on youtube in full If you'd like to watch either of them this holiday season.
willowcatelyn.bsky.social Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 1d
I wrote about A MUPPET FAMILY CHRISTMAS and EMMET OTTER'S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS for my reader's choice series. Happy holidays everyone. I hope they're kind to you.

This post is free. I don't believe in putting the Muppets behind a paywall.

www.patreon.com/posts/146603...
Patron's Choice: "A Muppet Family Christmas" and "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas" (Jim Henson, 1987 and 1977) | Willow Catelyn Maclay
Get more from Willow Catelyn Maclay on Patreon
www.patreon.com
December 24, 2025 at 6:38 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I wrote about A MUPPET FAMILY CHRISTMAS and EMMET OTTER'S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS for my reader's choice series. Happy holidays everyone. I hope they're kind to you.

This post is free. I don't believe in putting the Muppets behind a paywall.

www.patreon.com/posts/146603...
Patron's Choice: "A Muppet Family Christmas" and "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas" (Jim Henson, 1987 and 1977) | Willow Catelyn Maclay
Get more from Willow Catelyn Maclay on Patreon
www.patreon.com
December 24, 2025 at 6:28 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
It's so bizarre that A CHRISTMAS STORY wound up being canonized, because it is a deeply weird movie. It's subversive (as many other Bob Clark movies are), and clearly made by someone who was born in the States, immigrated to Canada, and with distance, saw the gun fetishism of America & satirized it
December 24, 2025 at 5:11 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Treat yourself today to this video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydvU...
December 23, 2025 at 9:45 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I find it moving that David Lynch loved IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE so much he couldn't talk about it without crying. His sincere belief in the redemptive possibilities contained in that film and what it said about people seems to me like a key element of understanding his own work.
December 23, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Did you guys know that BLACK CHRISTMAS is my favorite movie about abortion? I wrote about it from that angle and how the violence of the picture overlaps and is linked to the central question of the right to choose. It's one of my favorite movies in general.

www.patreon.com/posts/patron...
a still of Olivia Hussey in close up answering a phone in BLACK CHRISTMAS. Her eyes are wide with disbelief Black Christmas begins with this promise, and consistently avoids the cliche’s of the slasher film, because those tropes didn’t exist yet. This is not a picture that rises and falls with each set-piece of murder, but stews in a miserable mise-en-scene of shifting subjective camera techniques, occasionally, with the victim, and other times, with the killer. The viewer is always one step ahead of the victims, and we are made to wait until the inevitable reveal happens. We know that the killer is calling from upstairs, but Barb, and Jess, their friends Phyl (Andrea Martin) and Clare (Lynne Griffith), and their den mother Ms. Mac (Marian Waldman), do not. We know that he’s in the attic, because we see him kill virginal, innocent, Christmas loving Clare in a startling P.O.V. shot. We watch the life drain out of her brilliant, ever-widening eyes. She’s surprised at her own death. Whatever survival instincts she was taught as a young girl didn’t prepare her for the shock of fighting for her life. With a long plastic bag made for gowns wrapped around her face, she’s left gasping for breath, until she can’t anymore. The killer (he calls himself “Billy”) places her in a rocking chair with a view out the window. Our eyes do what her dead eyes cannot, observing through the deep focus through the window, that it’s a lovely winter night. The moon is reverberating off of the snow and making the evening a little brighter. Perfect for Christmas.
December 22, 2025 at 9:00 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
It's frustrating that Kevin O'Leary is in Marty Supreme. I won't be watching it because he's in it.
December 23, 2025 at 5:59 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I think I love PEE-WEE'S CHRISTMAS SPECIAL so much because it invites an audience who are not normally catered to in Christmas specials to participate and have fun.
December 23, 2025 at 5:47 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
My fantasy basketball team is now on a 3 week winning streak. Let's all cheer for Double Team VHS Tape
willowcatelyn.bsky.social Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 17d
We won our first game this week, folks. Clap for "Double Team VHS tape"
willowcatelyn.bsky.social Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 26d
I was hoodwinked into joining a fantasy basketball league by a friend because one of the league members ghosted them after the draft, and I have since discovered that they drafted like 4 guys from the Knicks. I am an excellent friend for putting up with this tomfoolery.
December 22, 2025 at 11:29 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS is on TCM right now, and in the opening one of the teenage girls introduces herself as Kim Novak, which reminds me that I flirted with the idea of naming myself that 10,000 years ago when I came out. I showed great restraint in not doing that, but restraint is for cowards.
December 22, 2025 at 10:33 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
The second of my reader's choice articles will be going live on Christmas and it'll be on the two holiday themed Jim Henson pictures made for TV: EMMETT OTTER'S JUG BAND CHRISTMAS and A MUPPET FAMILY CHRISTMAS. Hope everyone has a good week.
willowcatelyn.bsky.social Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 3d
Did you guys know that BLACK CHRISTMAS is my favorite movie about abortion? I wrote about it from that angle and how the violence of the picture overlaps and is linked to the central question of the right to choose. It's one of my favorite movies in general.

www.patreon.com/posts/patron...
a still of Olivia Hussey in close up answering a phone in BLACK CHRISTMAS. Her eyes are wide with disbelief Black Christmas begins with this promise, and consistently avoids the cliche’s of the slasher film, because those tropes didn’t exist yet. This is not a picture that rises and falls with each set-piece of murder, but stews in a miserable mise-en-scene of shifting subjective camera techniques, occasionally, with the victim, and other times, with the killer. The viewer is always one step ahead of the victims, and we are made to wait until the inevitable reveal happens. We know that the killer is calling from upstairs, but Barb, and Jess, their friends Phyl (Andrea Martin) and Clare (Lynne Griffith), and their den mother Ms. Mac (Marian Waldman), do not. We know that he’s in the attic, because we see him kill virginal, innocent, Christmas loving Clare in a startling P.O.V. shot. We watch the life drain out of her brilliant, ever-widening eyes. She’s surprised at her own death. Whatever survival instincts she was taught as a young girl didn’t prepare her for the shock of fighting for her life. With a long plastic bag made for gowns wrapped around her face, she’s left gasping for breath, until she can’t anymore. The killer (he calls himself “Billy”) places her in a rocking chair with a view out the window. Our eyes do what her dead eyes cannot, observing through the deep focus through the window, that it’s a lovely winter night. The moon is reverberating off of the snow and making the evening a little brighter. Perfect for Christmas.
December 22, 2025 at 9:24 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Did you guys know that BLACK CHRISTMAS is my favorite movie about abortion? I wrote about it from that angle and how the violence of the picture overlaps and is linked to the central question of the right to choose. It's one of my favorite movies in general.

www.patreon.com/posts/patron...
a still of Olivia Hussey in close up answering a phone in BLACK CHRISTMAS. Her eyes are wide with disbelief Black Christmas begins with this promise, and consistently avoids the cliche’s of the slasher film, because those tropes didn’t exist yet. This is not a picture that rises and falls with each set-piece of murder, but stews in a miserable mise-en-scene of shifting subjective camera techniques, occasionally, with the victim, and other times, with the killer. The viewer is always one step ahead of the victims, and we are made to wait until the inevitable reveal happens. We know that the killer is calling from upstairs, but Barb, and Jess, their friends Phyl (Andrea Martin) and Clare (Lynne Griffith), and their den mother Ms. Mac (Marian Waldman), do not. We know that he’s in the attic, because we see him kill virginal, innocent, Christmas loving Clare in a startling P.O.V. shot. We watch the life drain out of her brilliant, ever-widening eyes. She’s surprised at her own death. Whatever survival instincts she was taught as a young girl didn’t prepare her for the shock of fighting for her life. With a long plastic bag made for gowns wrapped around her face, she’s left gasping for breath, until she can’t anymore. The killer (he calls himself “Billy”) places her in a rocking chair with a view out the window. Our eyes do what her dead eyes cannot, observing through the deep focus through the window, that it’s a lovely winter night. The moon is reverberating off of the snow and making the evening a little brighter. Perfect for Christmas.
December 22, 2025 at 9:00 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Today's the last day to pre-order the deluxe edition of PERSONA and you'll want to do that! It's incredible.

www.littlepuss.net/persona-pre-...
December 21, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I wrote about SALO for my reader's choice series. I hadn't seen the film since I was a teenager, and rewatching it was a necessary, difficult experience. It's something we should all probably do every ten or fifteen years. It's not the easiest movie to write about!

www.patreon.com/posts/145367...
The powerful truth at the center of Salo is that its findings about the psychology of fascism are directly intertwined with viewer desire to see just how far a group of people can go in games of abject degradation. Salo has a structure that’s deliberately easy to understand, and its basic qualities at a level of plot, are legible by design. At the beginning, the Four fascist leaders (dubbed The Duke, The Bishop, The Magistrate and The President) demand their foot-soldiers to round up 9 young men, and 9 young women, and they proceed to subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual tortures. The “Ante’s Inferno” title-card stokes the curiosity of viewers who might wonder how each “circle of hell” may expand upon the intensity of the heinous depiction. The discernible qualities of the structure invite the viewer to engage in the depravity, and perhaps even enjoy the excessive qualities through pitch black comedy. But in doing so, Pasolini walks a fine line of danger, and it is something of a miracle that the film doesn’t get swallowed whole by what it shows—though it comes close at times in the “Circle of Shit”. The accumulation of excess breeds disgust, and when treated with Pasolini’s decadent, beautiful compositions that evoke Visconti’s dedication to the painterly qualities of his pictures about the bourgeoisie, it begs us to start asking questions about what we take from cinema, and what we might desire in life, and what he challenges us to reject. Pasolini’s rebuke of cinema doesn’t end with Visconi, but includes neo-realist directors of the common-man like Roberto Rossellini. Near the beginning, a wailing mother runs to her son, who has just been recruited to act as a soldier in duty to the fascist leaders that we soon meet, and she wraps a scarf around his throat to keep him warm. It’s almost an exact homage to Rossellini’s martyred woman in Rome, Open City, but now from an angle of utmost blasphemy in showing that resistance was conditional. a symmetrical and perfectly balanced wide angle frame from SALO of a huge room with people gathered to the left and to the right, awaiting a woman atop a stair-case in the center of the frame who is dressed in an elaborate gown. She is the master of ceremonies for the wretched games they will soon play.
December 8, 2025 at 5:19 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Things have been a little slow on my site this month because of the holidays, but we will be returning tomorrow with an essay on BLACK CHRISTMAS. It's my favorite movie about abortion.
December 21, 2025 at 4:32 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I wish my handwriting was as lovely as Therese's in CAROL.
December 21, 2025 at 4:08 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Going to steal "whorehouse decor" as a descriptor but use it as a positive tbh
paulinekaelbot.bsky.social pauline kael bot @paulinekaelbot.bsky.social · 5d
It’s becoming almost impossible to produce a decent-looking movie in a Hollywood studio. In addition to the touched-up corpses of old dramatic ideas, big movies carry the dead weight of immobile cameras, all-purpose light, whorehouse décor. (1966)
December 20, 2025 at 5:36 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
The perfect movie to watch on a drowsy Saturday
upnextcriterion.bsky.social [UNOFFICIAL] Now Playing on Criterion 24/7 @upnextcriterion.bsky.social · 5d
Now playing (09:00 AM PST):
"The Return of Godzilla" (1984)
By Koji Hashimoto
Runtime: 103 min.
Poster for The Return of Godzilla
December 20, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
kjshepherd.bsky.social
It's your birthday, Duane.
Duane Kearns Puryear, holding his panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt. It reads, in block letters: "My name is Duane Kearns Puryear. I was born on December 20, 1964. I was diagnosed with AIDS on September 7, 1987 at 4:45 PM. I was 22 old. Sometimes, it makes me very sad. I made this panel myself. If you are reading it, I am dead..." There are several great resources to learn about Duane, his advocacy, his family, his panel, and the politics of memory and re-creation, especially this one by The Dallas Way: http://www.thedallasway.org/stories/written/2021/9/19/duane-puryears-and-the-quilt-panel Duane Puryear died in 1991.
December 20, 2025 at 3:21 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
It was an absolute joy to work on CALVAIRE and I'm very excited for folks to check out my video essay! I dove into the Gothic elements at play, and how perceiving a final girl is free from bio-essentialism. This strange horror movie has more than a little in common with "Stag Dance."
December 20, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
horrornonna.com
Thrilled to announce this spectacular new blu of Fabrice Du Welz's glorious nightmare CALVAIRE (2004) I co-produced with the legendary @neilsnowdon.bsky.social for Arrow. Extras by @bjcolangelo.bsky.social @harmonycolangelo.bsky.social @willowcatelyn.bsky.social @antbit.projectedfigures.com + more!
Calvaire Limited Edition Blu-ray | Arrow Films
Shop Calvaire Limited Edition Blu-ray at Arrow Films. Free UK Delivery
www.arrowfilms.com
December 18, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
kevinnimmock.bsky.social
BREAKING: Skate Canada is boycotting Alberta over the province's ban on Trans women competing in women's sports.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Skate Canada to stop holding national, international events in Alberta | CBC News
Skate Canada says it will no longer host major events in Alberta following a review of the province's legislation on the participation of transgender athletes in women's sport.
www.cbc.ca
December 16, 2025 at 6:54 PM