Boy Movies #67

On Amadeus and Challengers and stuff

You’re reading Boy Movies, a newsletter. Please buy my stickers!!!!!!!! I have no creative way to implore you to do this anymore, just do it so I can clear out my inventory. It’s HONESTY HOUR in here.

Self-promo alarm

I (and friend of the newsletter Kelly Connolly, who longtime readers will of course remember from the Star Trek issue) spent the last three months working on a digital cover story previewing Interview with the Vampire season 2 and it finally came out last week. I spoke to very many of the smart, talented folks who make this perfect show (imo) happen, and if you’re sick of hearing me talk about it that just means you follow me on too many social platforms. And also that I am active on too many social platforms. IWTV season 2 begins this Sunday¹, so there’s no time like the present to give this a read.

Girl, anyway

Not to be all “I cannot believe we’re almost halfway through the year already” but I literally cannot believe we’re almost halfway through the year already. I feel like I’ve spent all of 2024 in an odd limbo. Historically, I know it is impossible to be “so back” until I have been “so over” at least three to five times, but the “so over”s have been hitting especially hard these past few months. I do feel a bit “Allison’s last stand” about a few areas in my life right now, especially as I rapidly approach yet another birthday. (Those just keep coming, don’t they…) But my literary guru Dua Lipa recently encouraged us to experiment with radical optimism², and I’m looking forward to [extremely Phantom Thread voice] settling down a little this summer. I always think about something Spike Lee once said about Do the Right Thing: “After 95 degrees, motherfuckers lose their mind.” It’s true — summer makes me foggy and irritable, but there’s also a level of possibility to all that oppressive heat. Who knows what’s coming?

I guess I could talk about movies in my movie newsletter

All this radical optimism has left me with very little time for movie-watching³ these days, but two I have seen recently feel, dare I say, joined by their sweatiness: Amadeus, which I saw for the first time as part of the Paris Theater’s delightful little 1984 film festival, and Challengers, which was recently kicked out of IMAX for [checks notes] The Fall Guy, a movie starring two people who need to be forcibly separated from their plastic surgeons. (I have not yet seen The Fall Guy.)

I saw Amadeus with Leah, longtime friend of the newsletter and leader of the Tom Hulce-assiance. Besides us, two gorgeous young women, the theater was otherwise packed with a mix of elderly people and men in their 30s. (The guy in front of us was truly vaping mid-film. Rock on, I guess.) This was basically the exact opposite of my Challengers viewing experience, at which my group of six women were surrounded by girls and gays around our age. These days, movie theater demographics are as interesting to me as the movies themselves. Everything feels connected to this goofy little boy-girl continuum I’ve devoted so much time to thinking about: Would I have paid to see Amadeus (boy movie) if Rolin Jones, the creator of Interview with the Vampire (girl show), hadn’t lodged it in my brain when he told me that it is, in fact, on his list of inspirations for said girl show? Probably not. Whether I like it or not, it all winds together.

In Amadeus, Miloš Forman turns Mozart⁴ (Tom Hulce, whose game I was unfamiliar with but now understand to be an ACTOR) and Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) into his bitchy little Barbie dolls. The rivalry between the two defines their lives, with Salieri’s jealousy of Mozart’s astonishing talent sending him down a dark path of sabotage, and Mozart’s blind trust in Salieri leading, in part, to his premature demise. I am historically a fan of the concept of male directors being like, “Y’all mind if I write some RPF and throw millions of dollars behind it?” It’s fanfiction for the big screen; it’s why The Social Network is still so good. If the feeling is there, the truth doesn’t really matter.

And Amadeus is full of feeling. The emotional scale of this thing is, frankly, absolutely crazy. The trivial jealousies, the all-encompassing irritation the flamboyant Mozart inspires in nearly everyone he encounters. Mozart’s drive, his agonizing love of the work, his fear of disappointing his father. Salieri’s bone-deep bitterness, his Mr. Burns-esque finger-tenting trickery, his indignation over being overshadowed by the younger, more accomplished Mozart. Oh, and those lush concert scenes! That effete quality the male leads of period pieces often tend to lean into! The whole film is underscored by Salieri’s spiteful narration, with whatever we see of Mozart filtered through his perspective. It’s all so devastatingly, hopelessly rich with emotion. Films about guys who are addicted to work will always be boy movies, but I always love when boy movies are slyly about feelings. Boys can pettily stab each other in the back, too. Boys can go moony-eyed over each other in the worst way, too.

And wouldn’t you know it? Challengers relishes in exactly that. Luca Guadagnino’s film turns the tennis court into a playground for horny treachery, weaving a twisted tale of three people who just can’t quit each other and have never been able to quit each other and will never be able to quit each other. I think the Venn diagram of Boy Movies readership and Challengers fans is a circle, so if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve already declared allegiance to Patrick (Josh O’Connor, the most beautiful boy on the planet) or Art (Mike Faist, my Newsie-faced little friend), or maybe you’ve come down on the side of “Tashi (Zendaya) is too good for either of them” (not the point and no she isn’t). In the hands of any other director, Challengers could’ve fallen into the love triangle trap we’ve seen approximately one hundred thousand times where both guys want the girl and hate each other in a tediously heterosexual way. I have my issues with Challengers that I won’t air out in public where people can be mean to me about them⁵, but this film is so effective in making its central triangle feel like a proper triangle. Art and Patrick want Tashi, but they also want each other, and Tashi sort of wants them both, but she wants tennis the most. They’re the rackets, she’s the ball, etc.

I know about as much about classical music as I do about tennis, which is to say nothing. But as I said, both are sweaty, in ways both literal and vague. Amadeus makes conducting look like a full body sport⁶, while Challengers focuses shamelessly on the perspiration dripping from its actors. But more intriguingly, both films understand the sweatiness of obsession: An early scene in Amadeus, in which Salieri spies on Mozart and his girlfriend, made me lean over to Leah and excitedly whisper, “MMF!” I was joking, but later in the film Salieri slimily tries to solicit Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge) for sex when she begs him to help get Mozart a job, only to become disgusted when she, in a moment of desperation, agrees. He doesn’t actually want to sleep with Constanze, he just wants to get back at the guy he’s reluctantly consumed by. In Challengers, the obsession between Tashi, Art, and Patrick is what propels them forward. Patrick’s unceremonious reintroduction into Tashi and Art’s lives injects their miserable marriage with a jolt of adrenaline, and his reveal that he slept with Tashi (using the signal they used as teenagers, mind you) pushes Art into playing the best tennis he’s played in years.

A lot of people have been trying to figure out who “won” at the end of Challengers, and I do in fact have to issue the same slap on the wrist that I issued during the Succession finale discourse. Challengers isn’t about who won, just like Amadeus isn’t about whether our narrator is telling the truth — the best stories are rarely about the facts. Resist the temptation to turn everything into a mystery waiting to be solved and have fun giving yourself over the feelings. And if you’ve made it all the way to the end and find yourself asking, “Allison, is there any reason you made this issue about two completely unrelated movies other than the fact that you just happened to see them both recently?” allow me to respond with a big resounding, “No. <3”

1. Because Lestat is mother…

2. This isn’t a music newsletter, but Spotify has not once but TWICE informed me that I am apparently in the “first top 10% of streams” for Dula Peep’s latest album Radical Optimism, which does not seem right, as I have not yet managed to successfully listen to the full album even once. I fear her true stans (I consider myself a casual Peeper) are failing her, which makes me sad, but also provides a good opportunity for me to again remind her people that if Service95 would like to buy Boy Movies, my board and I are ready to come to the table at any moment.

3. Jk I’ve actually just been regular busy.

4. So lol to just be like “Mozart.” Like, that’s Mozart.

5. These are the moments where the idea of a Boy Movies paywall becomes enticing.

6. Has anyone asked Bradley Cooper about Amadeus…