067: i get obsessed about everything
a q&a with my fave hunter harris
Going to accept love letters to Tree Paine till the end of the weekend, in case you have a sudden burst of inspiration.
In some ways, there is no way that this newsletter would exist if I had never read Hunter Harris’ work. I started following her in 2018 when her off-the-wall tweets about A Star is Born made me care about the movie way more than I had after initially watching it. That feels definitive of her writing—her excitement and curiosity about her subjects transform them from something you might passively consume to something that you become completely invested in. She’s the only person who could have gotten me to watch The Departed because she described it as a movie about “men using up all their Sprint minutes.”1 I always want to ask her about basically everything so I reached out to her about doing a little Q&A. And even though I once told her that RENAISSANCE didn’t really do it for me (an opinion that has now CHANGED), Hunter was still kind enough to answer my questions about her consumption habits.
What is your routine for consuming things?
Some days the first thing on my to-do list is that I have to watch something, other days I’m just trying to squeeze a movie into a busier day, sometimes I just want to watch two hours of Atlanta and that’s it. Being a working mother (to my puppy) it’s hard to go to a theater, and I’m depressed about it. I’ve had such a hard time watching stuff at home and not getting distracted. I miss turning my phone on DND and slipping into a cool, dark auditorium.
How do you decide what you want to read/watch/listen to? Who do you look to for recommendations?
I’m always making lists of things to watch. Greta Gerwig references a movie in an interview, Angelica Bastién mentions a movie in a review, the Mubi account posts a still on Instagram, Metrograph programs a movie I’ve never heard about but I can’t make it to the theater, or I’m reading Joan Crawford’s Wikipedia and read about something I’ve never seen — I just keep one long Notes App list, plus a hundred shorter lists.
I don’t watch a lot of older (like pre-2000s) TV, sometimes because it’s harder to find or the online archives of TV reviews aren’t as accessible. Finding a new TV show to watch is so social: a friend keeps posting about Jury Duty, a newsletter reader asks me to watch The Ultimatum, etc. I only started watching Succession because I trust Frank Rich, and he was a big part of Veep.
Do you prioritize one cultural mode over another?
I definitely prioritize movies because that’s the medium I’m most interested in and know the most about. I’ve been watching movies my entire life; I started watching TV intentionally only within the last five or six years. In one of the newsletter’s Succession chats someone said that movies could never do what Succession does and I privately started spiraling. They used to! All the time! I don’t begrudge anyone for being obsessed with TV now — it gets all the resources and all the talent.
Does your focus on film and TV filter the way you consume other forms of media?
Absolutely. Humiliatingly, you can draw a direct line from what played on Gossip Girl or in Romeo + Juliet to what I listen to now. The Beatles did not exist to me before I started watching David Fincher movies and he used “Baby You’re A Rich Man” at the end of The Social Network.
What is your relationship to books and reading?
I was a big reader growing up, like the kind of kid where some summers I’d want to go back to the bookstore twice a day. I wish I made more time to read fiction, but I’m always reading magazines/scripts/the internet. When I read something and really like it, I get obsessed with it. But then again I get obsessed about everything. I think a lot about this line from East of Eden, one of my favorite books when I was a teenager:
Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.
I’m always Tom.
But when it comes to books I will read anything my friend Tembe Denton-Hurst (who just wrote an amazing novel, Homebodies!) recommends. If I read something and don’t like it, I just kind of forget about it; if I watch a movie and hate it I will never forget that.
How much is your music taste influenced by what you heard at home growing up?
I make playlists for Hung Up’s paid list and sometimes I get so embarrassed that every playlist is like singles from Haim/Lana/Drake/Beyonce and then a dozen soul songs. Like very “Malibu” and then three Gladys Knight & the Pips songs that I can’t stop listening to. I like a lot of different music, but I grew up listening to Al Jerrau and Al Green and Whitney Houston, Earth Wind and Fire and the Gap Band.
What is something that people would be surprised to find out that you love?
I’m a Selenator, and people always act surprised by that. Selena Gomez cannot really sing, cannot really dance, but makes reliably excellent pop. I think everything I love is pretty obvious, but there are just some things that I never write about. I love movies from the 30s, 40s, 50s — Holiday and Johnny Guitar are two of my favorite movies, but I don’t think I’ve ever written about those.
In the last two weeks what is something…
…you’ve read that you’ve thought a lot about I read something about Shiv Roy that I felt was a fundamental misread.
…you’ve watched that you had mixed feelings about Watermelon Man (1970) — I honestly can’t decide if I am obsessed with it or found it loathsome. It’s about a racist white man who wakes up one morning with black skin — some scenes I’m like, This is satire we’re still trying to catch up to and other scenes I’m like God, please, enough, this is so tedious.
…you’ve had on repeat “I Can’t Help It,” from Off The Wall. I just read the amazing Margot Jefferson book of essays about Michael Jackson — 150 pages of thrilling, provocative analysis. Reading the book made me revisit his music in more than just a “PYT” playing at the supermarket-way. And also the “In The Morning,” plus two other Kelis deep cuts — I have no idea why, but I’ve been in a very Kelis mood.
You can subscribe to Hung Up here (a paid sub is 100% worth it and I have two to give away!). Follow Hunter on IG, Twitter, and Tik Tok.
I didn’t like the movie but the experience was greatly improved by reading it through Hunter’s perspective.
As a fellow obsessive Tom, thank you for this interview! :)
thank you! 💌