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thebenkaye.bsky.social
ben kaye
@thebenkaye.bsky.social
360 followers 350 following 660 posts
what he’s typed will be a window into his madness | writes about movies, theatre | bylines: Cine-File, Chicago Reader, The Spool, Newcity Stage, possibly you????? | chicago-based (they/he)
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thebenkaye.com
https://benkayewords.org
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thebenkaye.bsky.social
some people just have a fetish for being yelled at, and that's okay.
a post reading "Maybe I'm crazy but 2001: A Space Odyssey is such an annoying movie. The long whines and horns mixed with 4-minute long beats of silence while showing us space is probably meant to make the viewer uncomfortable but instead it just makes me wanna turn it off."
November 19, 2025 at 6:42 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
some words from me on Ira Sachs' PETER HUJAR'S DAY for @cinefilechicago.bsky.social. playing in Chicago now at the Gene Siskel Film Center!
a big brick of text about PETER HUJAR'S DAY for cinefile.info.
November 14, 2025 at 9:46 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
a really nice week, to be honest!
most recently watched; BLUE MOON, BEING JOHN SMITH, DIE MY LOVE, and PETER HUJAR'S DAY.
November 14, 2025 at 3:18 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
jim downey in the immortal "jeff epstein?" meme
November 13, 2025 at 1:39 AM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
new letterboxd top 4 dropped.
letterboxd top 4 films; Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Matewan, News from Home, and Om Shanti Om.
November 9, 2025 at 4:31 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
November 8, 2025 at 3:08 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
hahahahahahhahhAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Zohran Mamdani won the goddamn election.
November 5, 2025 at 2:37 AM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
could I see something in the next two months that changes this? maybe? this feels pretty set in stone though.
top 10 films of 2025; 1. IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT 2. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER 3. TRAIN DREAMS 4. PAVEMENTS 5. RESURRECTION 6. ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL 7. EEPHUS 8. WEAPONS 9. IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU 10. WHO BY FIRE
November 4, 2025 at 2:12 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
scene from COMMUNITY with Matt Walsh as a gardener with a Nazi tattoo saying "it's going to be a maze"
October 21, 2025 at 3:47 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
movies.
me in the Criterion Mobile Closet.
October 18, 2025 at 7:22 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
movie van day.
the Criterion Mobile Closet.
October 18, 2025 at 3:52 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
and then some words on Rowan Haber's WE ARE PAT. happy festival, one and all!
When it comes to Pat Riley, the clownish, androgynous sketch comedy figure created by Julia Sweeney in the early 1990s for Saturday Night Live, it’s hard to find someone more obsessed with the character than director Rowan Haber. Don’t take my word for it, though; they practically admit as much in the opening moments of the incisive and absurd documentary WE ARE PAT, a work built upon both adoration and condemnation of a figure far more complex than meets the eye. Haber’s obsession with the character—beyond their impressive and extensive collection of Pat memorabilia—revolves around how incisive—or not incisive—Pat sits within larger conversations of gender. Is Pat a “nonbinary icon” as some might suggest, or are they just a dated finger-wag at the concept of androgyny altogether? The question of who is the subject of ridicule in the Pat sketches—Pat themselves, or the gender-panicked cis-people attempting to “solve” Pat’s gender—frequently arises throughout the documentary, with no true answer to be found, though not for lack of trying. For a documentary covering the legacy of an arguably dated SNL character featured in a dozen on-air sketches and a flop feature film, Haber gets some surprising mileage out of this cinematic autopsy of the character, amassing a room of trans and genderqueer artists to write and perform “new and improved” Pat sketches, interviewing a wide array of trans and nonbinary comedians (including the likes of Murray Hill, Ally Beardsley, River Butcher, Joey Soloway, and Molly Kearney, to name just a few) to discuss the past and present of trans comedy, and even talking with Sweeney about the development of the character and her own feelings of personal “gender oppression," notably pointing out how —withing the overbearing Boy’s Club of early ‘90’s SNL—it’s no coincidence that the only way a female comedian could break out was to create a character far removed from perceived femininity. You may be asking yourself; is this far too much intellec…
October 17, 2025 at 8:19 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
some coverage for the Chicago International Film Festival over at @cinefilechicago.bsky.social !!! first up, on Annemarie Jacir's PALESTINE 36...
There’s a double-edged sword to the grandiose methodology of Annemarie Jacir’s often-bracing PALESTINE 36, a film that tackles unexplored territory through extremely well-trod means. Taking on the general structure of the Western Historical Epic, Jacir’s narrative portrayal of the early history of Palestinian rebellion against British Imperialism seems to follow in the footsteps of the most epically scaled work of filmmakers like David Lean, Ridley Scott, and Steven Spielberg, her camera navigating lush, sweeping scenery while following swaths of characters marching through the annals of history. It’s a tried-and-true means of using enormous tools to tell enormous stories, yet one worries that the cliches and trappings of these works threaten to flatten what is otherwise a genuinely compelling piece of history, here dividing our attention between soon-to-be revolutionaries, mothers protecting their children, reporters trying to stay afloat amidst a sea of Western propaganda, and politicians waffling between protecting their people and amassing power. Between these large stretches of historical fiction lie what appear to be digitally upscaled and colorized newsreel footage of Palestine as it truly existed in the early 1900s, though one wonders whether removing the shiny, digital gloss and letting the bare truth shine through might have made for a more honest and daring choice. Either way, the strengths of Jacir’s film, a genuinely entertaining piece of bravado, lie in its being able to contort this particular brand of motion picture around a tale blatantly opposing Western Imperialism, centering the Palestinian cause for self-determination within a narrative structure that has otherwise left them villainized or altogether absent. Most interestingly of all, in my eyes at least, the Jewish immigrants of PALESTINE 36—those cast away from Europe due to intense anti-Semitism and bigotry—primarily exist here as the British Empire likely saw them: silent pawns, relegated to…
October 17, 2025 at 8:18 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
it's Pat.
October 16, 2025 at 2:03 AM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
fascinating week of movies over here.
four most recent watched movies; IT’S PAT, DON’T LET THE RIVERBEAST GET YOU, NUTS!, and BAY OF BLOOD.
October 13, 2025 at 5:30 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
Diane Keaton in the film REDS.
October 11, 2025 at 7:08 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
Cynthia Erivo stars in the new play “Dracula Tickets”
a graphic for the new Dracula play starring Cynthia Erivo where the words “Dracula” and “Tickets” are given the same font size and design.
October 8, 2025 at 3:55 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
from Nathan Fielder's "The Rehearsal," approximate-Nazi soldiers wearing Paramount-logo arm bands.
October 6, 2025 at 12:58 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
quick look at my top films of the year before we dig into the big fall movies…
October 3, 2025 at 12:55 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
now and always.
me in a hat that reads “trans cinema 4ever”
September 29, 2025 at 11:26 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
news article citing "SIMPSONS MOVIE SEQUEL SETS SUMMER 2027 RELEASE DATE" a meme from The Simpsons of a child yelling "Stop! Stop! He's Already Dead!"
September 29, 2025 at 6:34 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
when being a theater influencer really *meant* something.
a campaign ad for Cubby Bernstein.
September 27, 2025 at 7:53 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
finally, $POSITIONS, the closing night feature at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. good stuff out there!
Line goes up. Line goes down. In a sea of personal and professional calamities, perpetual sad sack Mike Alvarado (a sneakily intense Michael Kunicki) can only focus on the line going up, or the line going down. The line here is the value of cryptocurrency that Mike has given his money, life, and very soul for; the very essence of his being seems to rest on whether the line goes up or goes down. It’s modern American life presented as eerily and plainly as possible, Mike’s bulging eyes forever glued to his phone screen, the mere concept of financial growth becoming an animating force that guides him through his own personal Hell on Earth. Writer-director Brandon Daley has created a family drama wrapped in a thriller wrapped in a nightmare, somewhere in conversation with the Safdie Brothers, Robert Altman, and Michael Mann, all frayed nerves and anxious energy and desperate souls grasping for stability in an actively unstable world. Mike’s devotion to his ever-shifting crypto-investments acts as a destabilizing agent between him and his developmentally disabled brother (Vinny Kress), his widowed father (Guido Z. Cameli), his distant girlfriend (Kaylyn Carter), and his newly sober, fresh-out-of-prison cousin Travis (Trevor Dawkins giving a live-wire performance that dominates the film). The horror of $POSITIONS lies in the continuously toxic ways that Mike stoops lower and lower to maintain the barest semblance of financial stability, trying to invest more in his faltering crypto-dreams, the horrific reverberations of his actions unfolding in ways more akin to a Greek tragedy than an American indie film. As stressful and chaotic as Daley’s feature gets, there’s something deeply upsetting in thinking about how many people around the world actually do invest their lives in such volatile economic markets. Mike’s story likely isn’t that far off from the millions of poverty-stricken citizens just waiting for that lucky break that will never come. The capitalist beast rages o…
September 19, 2025 at 8:13 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
...then SHE'S THE HE, also part of @reelingfilmfest.bsky.social ...
There’s something cheekily joyous in watching Siobhan McCarthy take what could otherwise be a morally noxious film logline out of context (“two teen boys pretend to be trans to get closer to their female classmates”) and transform it into something effortlessly funny, incisive, and heartfelt. McCarthy’s film is a gleeful queer-friendly spin on the tried-and-true heteronormative trappings of the high school comedy genre—from the makeover montage in the retail store dressing room, to the inevitable third-act “break up” moment at the house party. It follows two loser high school seniors, Alex and Ethan (Nico Carney and Misha Osherovich, respectively), as they grapple with their own gender insecurities; the two are frequently targets of homophobic name-calling from the more macho of their student compatriots, Alex’s pathetic attempts at tough-guy masculinity as pathetic as Ethan’s shut-in tactics. The generally welcoming spirit of the female students—alongside nonbinary force Forest (Tatiana Ringsby)—provides a runway for Alex to finally discover how to shed his sex-forward brain and become a more empathetic gentleman, whereas Ethan’s life finally locks into place, the ploy of their initial gender ruse unlocking something in herself that becomes euphoric and affirming by the film’s end. The tonal bridge between wacky teen hijinks (accompanied by onscreen onomatopoeic sound effects and high-octane editing) and deep-seated, lived-in dramatic moments is a tough one to navigate, yet McCarthy and her cast and crew of queer and trans artists handle it briskly, unlocking something that has the guts to aim for cult classic status and the craft to back that ambition up. As far-right forces in the US continue to make lives living hell for our trans youth, SHE’S THE HE is a welcome antidote of charming comedy light on didacticism, and high on good vibes, gross-out humor, and charming characters.
September 19, 2025 at 8:13 PM
thebenkaye.bsky.social
some festival write-ups for @cinefilechicago.bsky.social! first, as part of @reelingfilmfest.bsky.social, LESBIAN SPACE PRINCESS...
LESBIAN SPACE PRINCESS sits somewhere between “Steven Universe” and “Smiling Friends” in the realm of contemporary animation, mixing irreverent, joke-forward storytelling with impressive cartoon visuals and earnestness. The secret to Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese’s comic book-come-to-life is in how the hero’s journey—Princess Saira’s quest to save her ex-girlfriend (bounty hunter Kiki the Destroyer) from the evil Straight White Maliens—provides lessons in attachment, manipulation, and getting over your past loves and romantic insecurities. The film’s style, simple in expression but dynamic in design, allows for an exciting variety of modes, from stoic emotional confrontations to violent action bonanza. There are heaps of queer-centric character comedy in the initially timid voice performance of Shabana Azeez as the eponymous heroine, but the Straight White Maliens, voiced by the members of the Australian sketch group Aunty Donna, provide much of the film’s [adult swim]-adjacent comedy, with non sequiturs and vocal nonsense abound. Amidst the buffoonery, it’s charming to see a sci-fi film genuinely devoted to introspection and maturation, though having a wise-cracking spaceship and bloody sword fights along the way isn’t half-bad.
September 19, 2025 at 8:13 PM