Willow Catelyn Maclay
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willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Willow Catelyn Maclay
@willowcatelyn.bsky.social
13K followers 690 following 4.5K posts
Film Critic (Film Comment, Reverse Shot, Polygon 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
carolaverygrant.bsky.social
Mitski: writes a song titled "pig in a blanket"

Opening lyrics: There's a piiiig in a blaaaaankeeet...
October 15, 2025 at 9:09 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Cat in the Hat real as hell because it does suck when it's raining outside and you wanna play
November 14, 2025 at 11:29 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Is there an academic or critical textbook with great analysis covering Deep Space Nine? It's such a rich show and I feel like there's an enormous amount of thematic ground that could be covered on a multitude of subjects.
November 14, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
DIE MY LOVE seems to be a love it or hate it movie, and I loved it.

www.patreon.com/posts/143518...
In a former life, Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) were hip New Yorkers—she, a writer, and he, a drummer—but they’ve found themselves transported to the wide-open spaces of Montana after he came into possession of his Uncle’s two-storey home. Their economic need to retreat from the Big Apple insists something unexceptional about their artistic ventures, but sometimes life throws you a curveball in the form of a gift, and maybe it was too good to refuse. A millennial couple owning a house in 2025, what a fucking concept. Director Lynne Ramsay is a genreless filmmaker, but there’s touches of the modern Gothic in Die My Love. We quickly learn that the house was inherited after Jackson’s uncle committed suicide, and when Grace and her hubby settle, one of the first things they hear are the rats scurrying upstairs. The first shot of the film is from a locked position at the end of a hallway as the two venture into their abode, and Ramsay wanted it to feel ominous, as if the house were alive itself, and staring at them. The house hears their hope, and their best case scenario, “There’s an office upstairs. You can write all day and night here, no distractions. I’ll get my drum kit. We can do what we like”. They christen the home with sex, their beautiful youthful bodies, sculpted and clean, and their animalistic passion brings a child into their family in short order. Before we can blink, Grace has grown bored, been stricken with writer’s block, and inside their happy home, there’s both too much to do, and too little. Much has been said about the post-partum blues that Grace experiences, but Die My Love is most affecting when viewed primarily as love story of rigid, fragmented, unease that is maddening, humorous, failing, and occasionally enchanting. a still from DIE MY LOVE of Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence in close-up. They're about to kiss, and the image has a lovely cool sea green tint washed over the lighting.
November 13, 2025 at 8:12 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
DIE MY LOVE seems to be a love it or hate it movie, and I loved it.

www.patreon.com/posts/143518...
In a former life, Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) were hip New Yorkers—she, a writer, and he, a drummer—but they’ve found themselves transported to the wide-open spaces of Montana after he came into possession of his Uncle’s two-storey home. Their economic need to retreat from the Big Apple insists something unexceptional about their artistic ventures, but sometimes life throws you a curveball in the form of a gift, and maybe it was too good to refuse. A millennial couple owning a house in 2025, what a fucking concept. Director Lynne Ramsay is a genreless filmmaker, but there’s touches of the modern Gothic in Die My Love. We quickly learn that the house was inherited after Jackson’s uncle committed suicide, and when Grace and her hubby settle, one of the first things they hear are the rats scurrying upstairs. The first shot of the film is from a locked position at the end of a hallway as the two venture into their abode, and Ramsay wanted it to feel ominous, as if the house were alive itself, and staring at them. The house hears their hope, and their best case scenario, “There’s an office upstairs. You can write all day and night here, no distractions. I’ll get my drum kit. We can do what we like”. They christen the home with sex, their beautiful youthful bodies, sculpted and clean, and their animalistic passion brings a child into their family in short order. Before we can blink, Grace has grown bored, been stricken with writer’s block, and inside their happy home, there’s both too much to do, and too little. Much has been said about the post-partum blues that Grace experiences, but Die My Love is most affecting when viewed primarily as love story of rigid, fragmented, unease that is maddening, humorous, failing, and occasionally enchanting. a still from DIE MY LOVE of Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence in close-up. They're about to kiss, and the image has a lovely cool sea green tint washed over the lighting.
November 13, 2025 at 8:12 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
THE NAKED GUN is still in my top ten for 2025 lmao.
November 13, 2025 at 4:15 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
DIE MY LOVE review on my patreon tomorrow
November 12, 2025 at 6:25 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I am in agreement with Pete in thinking that EEPHUS might be the best film of 2025. Give this a listen.
petevolk.bsky.social Pete Volk @petevolk.bsky.social · 2d
🚨new episode out 🚨 talking my favorite new movie of the year, Eephus, with @davidjroth.bsky.social (plus, an intro from director Carson Lund!). this ep was an absolute blast to record

www.patreon.com/posts/eephus...
Players in Eephus lounge in the dugout
November 12, 2025 at 6:18 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Gentle reminder that I am going to be on TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES (!!!!) on Monday for an evening of programming that we put together. I hope you'll be able to tune in. Love y'all.
willowcatelyn.bsky.social Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 12d
My prime time program with TCM on November 17th covers Robert Altman's COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME and the Gay Bar Christmas Picture SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE. SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE doesn't screen anywhere very often and doesn't have a DVD in circulation.
an image showing the TCM program on the night of November 17th.
November 12, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I liked IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU. In this piece, I wrote about how the film uses the aesthetic legacy of ERASERHEAD to say something new. Go see it in the cinema if you can.

www.patreon.com/posts/143134...
November 8, 2025 at 6:33 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Last chance to vote in my patrons choice poll! There's about an hour left and we have a tie.
willowcatelyn.bsky.social Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 11d
We are going to be looking at movies from 1975 this month on my website. But which ones? In the running are a bevy of classics from THE MIRROR to SALO to DOG DAY AFTERNOON and more. Vote in the poll if you'd like.

www.patreon.com/posts/patron... (no paywall)
November 9, 2025 at 7:19 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I liked IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU. In this piece, I wrote about how the film uses the aesthetic legacy of ERASERHEAD to say something new. Go see it in the cinema if you can.

www.patreon.com/posts/143134...
November 8, 2025 at 6:33 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
There should be 33 1/3 style books about specific wrestling feuds/stories/matches
November 8, 2025 at 5:05 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Writing about IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU, which I liked a lot. Review might be up later today
November 8, 2025 at 4:16 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Very excited to go to the local horror film festival this evening with my Twin Peaks bag and have everyone come up to me and say "oh my god, your Twin Peaks bag!".
November 8, 2025 at 2:44 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
It's so bizarre that DIE MY LOVE is playing at mall multiplexes. Get your M&Ms and watch the new Lynne Ramsay. Let's rock
November 7, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I wish I liked Guillermo Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN more, because I tend to love adaptations of this story. I think it's only partially successful, because the monster's appearance and behavior don't create enough contradictions for our empathy to be challenged.

www.patreon.com/posts/142836...
Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein features a dedication to Mary Shelley, Boris Karloff and James Whale. This story, and the 1931 film adaptation, are sacred to him, his sensibilities as an artist, and to the shape of his life. He’s been very open and honest about how that film, and Victor Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)—a wartime picture set during the opening stages of the Franco dictatorship of Spain, and featuring a visit from The Creature—were fundamental in shaping the person that he became. Shelley’s story is a religion for Del Toro, and his fairy-tale belief in empathizing with monsters, while distrusting man, has become the dominant narrative focal point throughout his career. While watching Del Toro’s passion project I thought about religious pictures, and movies about Christ. Del Toro’s most tantalizing image connects that religious symbolism by showing The Creature hung on a cross before being shocked into life. Lazarus and Christ as one. Shelley’s story is so provocative because she manages to evoke sympathy in the reader through her examination of the unnatural perversion of sustained mortality in a creature who never asked to be born, but, importantly, shows us the violent capabilities of the monster too. Del Toro perhaps loves the monster too much, and it prevents the film from forcing viewers to be confronted with dual truths. In most films about Christ, he’s positioned as only God, but the Bible stresses that he was God and man. Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1987) was a lightning rod of controversy, because it presented both sides of Christ’s condition, and because he did, it made the sacrificial crucifixion resonate with a genuine grappling of what it meant for his divinity. It’s a film that works whether you believe in God or not, because the human element that was cast aside is tied to the sacrifice, and it could realistically stand in as a moral tale for anyone. Del Toro’s picture comes up short... a still image from Guillermo Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN of Victor (oscar Isaac) working on the creature in his Gothic castle lab.
November 4, 2025 at 6:47 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
I wish I liked Guillermo Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN more, because I tend to love adaptations of this story. I think it's only partially successful, because the monster's appearance and behavior don't create enough contradictions for our empathy to be challenged.

www.patreon.com/posts/142836...
Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein features a dedication to Mary Shelley, Boris Karloff and James Whale. This story, and the 1931 film adaptation, are sacred to him, his sensibilities as an artist, and to the shape of his life. He’s been very open and honest about how that film, and Victor Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)—a wartime picture set during the opening stages of the Franco dictatorship of Spain, and featuring a visit from The Creature—were fundamental in shaping the person that he became. Shelley’s story is a religion for Del Toro, and his fairy-tale belief in empathizing with monsters, while distrusting man, has become the dominant narrative focal point throughout his career. While watching Del Toro’s passion project I thought about religious pictures, and movies about Christ. Del Toro’s most tantalizing image connects that religious symbolism by showing The Creature hung on a cross before being shocked into life. Lazarus and Christ as one. Shelley’s story is so provocative because she manages to evoke sympathy in the reader through her examination of the unnatural perversion of sustained mortality in a creature who never asked to be born, but, importantly, shows us the violent capabilities of the monster too. Del Toro perhaps loves the monster too much, and it prevents the film from forcing viewers to be confronted with dual truths. In most films about Christ, he’s positioned as only God, but the Bible stresses that he was God and man. Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1987) was a lightning rod of controversy, because it presented both sides of Christ’s condition, and because he did, it made the sacrificial crucifixion resonate with a genuine grappling of what it meant for his divinity. It’s a film that works whether you believe in God or not, because the human element that was cast aside is tied to the sacrifice, and it could realistically stand in as a moral tale for anyone. Del Toro’s picture comes up short... a still image from Guillermo Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN of Victor (oscar Isaac) working on the creature in his Gothic castle lab.
November 4, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
cadenmgardner.bsky.social
Also if you haven’t read our book, there’s no better time than now to fix that.

bookshop.org/p/books/corp...
November 3, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
seantcollins.com
So as I usually do I'm keeping my eyes on my own paper for my upcoming project that may or may not be related, but @willowcatelyn.bsky.social has been writing about Twin Peaks for week after week and I know from experience that her work is worth your time
willowcatelyn.bsky.social Willow Catelyn Maclay @willowcatelyn.bsky.social · 18d
My TWIN PEAKS series continues with Season 3, Episode 17. We approach the curtain call, and everything feels wrong.

www.patreon.com/posts/twin-p...
a still image from Season 3, Episode 17 of Twin Peaks: The Return. It's a wide angle image of Dale Cooper at the Twin Peaks sheriff station, and superimposed in the background is a frozen dissolve of Cooper's worried face. The final two episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return aired together, and I felt a sensation of dread on the morning of the finale. It didn’t seem like there was enough time to get to where the series was going, and a final encounter between Mr. C and Dale Cooper (Both played by Kyle MacLachlan) was supposed to resolve what exactly? I began to question the impetus for the series, and the urge of viewers to go back to this place, and to experience more time with these characters. By dredging up the graves, what would come slithering out? David Lynch and Mark Frost exploited the assumptions of nostalgia to make bolder statements on topics of time, memory, and the traumatic underbelly of unresolved violence at a community, and global level. In the previous episode when Dale Cooper triumphantly regained consciousness and stated he was the FBI, and intended to go back to Twin Peaks to settle things, it felt ecstatic, and momentous and hopeful, but the status of those three letters in the body of a hero should have been read more closely. Cooper hadn’t done enough to earn that trust. It was evident in how Twin Peaks didn’t become a better place at the conclusion of the Laura Palmer investigation, and how it only bred more law enforcement, and more miseries behind locked doors for this logging town. Punishment instead of sympathy, and heroism instead of help, fell more victims. The original series ended with Cooper’s failure and his descent into monstrosity. It draped all over this community in the negative space of the years that we didn’t see, and Twin Peaks initially concluded in its entirety in 1992 with a film about Laura Palmer’s death. It was perhaps foolish to think that it could end in any other way.
November 4, 2025 at 4:38 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Beautiful
jamnpp.bsky.social Jason Adams @jamnpp.bsky.social · 10d
LOVVVE THIS clip of Diane Ladd talking about working with David Lynch (via www.instagram.com/p/DQo1NcAiEt-/)
November 4, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
littlepuss.net
Today is the LAUNCH DAY for
‼️GENDERTRASH FROM HELL ‼️
The zine that redefined transsexual culture forever

THAT'S RIGHT: GENDERTRASH IS NOW LEGALLY AVAILABLE WITHOUT AGE RESTRICTIONS

Get it from our website, or from all good bookstores. You can even ask your library to order it!

💥📕💏🫦💥
Gendertrash From Hell - ALL-NEW — LittlePuss Press
Long-lost and all-new zines revealing the secret history of contemporary transgender culture
www.littlepuss.net
November 4, 2025 at 4:24 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Thinking about Billy Ocean's incredible song "Nights (Feel Like Gettin' Down)", and the music video where he dances around a TIGER.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRmq...
Billy Ocean - Nights (Feel Like Gettin' Down) (Official HD Video)
YouTube video by BillyOceanVEVO
www.youtube.com
November 4, 2025 at 3:33 PM
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
We are going to be looking at movies from 1975 this month on my website. But which ones? In the running are a bevy of classics from THE MIRROR to SALO to DOG DAY AFTERNOON and more. Vote in the poll if you'd like.

www.patreon.com/posts/patron... (no paywall)
November 3, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Reposted by Willow Catelyn Maclay
willowcatelyn.bsky.social
Just want to say thank you to everyone who has spread word of Caden and I's upcoming TCM appearances. We're very excited about it. Love y'all <3
cadenmgardner.bsky.social Caden Mark Gardner @cadenmgardner.bsky.social · 13d
On November 17 and 24, @willowcatelyn.bsky.social and I will be on TCM talking about films featured in our book. More details to come.
November 2, 2025 at 6:47 PM