We’ve been writing this newsletter since 2020, but it’s a full astrological year since we made it available for all to read on Substack. Our very first post was The Piscean Urge to Go Deep, and now here we are, back in the cold, clammy grasp of Pisces season.

It’s currently Lent, the solemn religious observance that sees us wandering for 40 days and 40 nights through various branches of Sainsbury’s trying to find a box of Cadbury’s mini egg chocolate cakes, a confection that becomes more and more mythological with every passing year.

We’re starting a new thing! Since, apparently, you can now DM us via Substack. We’re launching a Film Prescription/Cinepharmacy/Agony Aunt advice column: send us your emotional, logistical or existential conundrums via reply, email or DM, and we’ll come up with a cinematic cure for you in future instalments. The Doctor is IN.

PS. We’re not affliated with the NHS, so you may tip us if you like.

xoxo Zodiac

Show us some 🩷

Lately we’ve been watching…

Nine to Five - Nothing we enjoy more here at Zodiac than fantasising about revenge (too many Scorpios) so Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin getting their own back on their sexist, credit-stealing boss is a no brainer.

All of Us Strangers - Surprisingly divisive! One thing we agree on: don’t bring crisps.

Cruising - For some reason, we waited SO LONG to see this film but we’re glad we were chaste because it’s true love.

Money/Business Class: 🎭

Money: Jonathan Glazer’s shaking hands, working out our astrological Part of Fortunes, spot stickers, people who make rare and out-of-print film publications available to all online, Sunday roasts.

Business Class: Books without any hint of what the plot is on the blurb, the way that your spots disappear once you buy spot stickers and reappear with a vengeance when you don’t have any handy, hangovers post-30, people who use the punctuation combination ?! when it’s not a complete fucking emergency (nothing spikes our cortisol like the long-form interrobang).

Films for Pisces Season ♓

Reality grinding you down? Well, a dose of daydreaming never hurt anyone, right? Our Piscean friends are prone to losing hours in alternate realities, and their creative minds can turn even the most mundane of prompts into narrative melodrama. We reckon a Pisces could probably spin up an epic fantasy saga simply from watching a washing machine cycle.

In homage to the Piscean talent for making dreams come true, our gift to you this month is a watchlist of dreamy animated films to stir up your subconscious.

Pisces babes include: Elizabeth Taylor, Rashida Jones, David Cronenberg, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Rodrigo, Spike Lee and Patty Hearst.

Inspirace (1949) and A Phantasy (1952)

Two for the price of one (free, it’s all free) this week at Zodiac. The official theme of this double bill is ‘animations made out of unconventional materials’ and the unofficial theme is ‘nice things to watch on gummies’.

Inspirace is a suitably watery film for Pisces season: on a rainy day, a man struggling to find inspiration imagines a fantasy stop-motion scene of glass figures brought to life. It really prompts the question: ‘When are the younger generations going to bring back glass figurine collecting, the way we’ve brought back vinyl?’ We’ve also been very into ice-skating ever since watching Jacqueline Castel’s My Animal last month at Final Girls Film Fest, and this gorgeous short feeds that obsession nicely.

Drawn entirely in pastels and what looks like beads from your Nan’s button drawer, A Phantasy is such a pleasurable viewing experience, like watching someone doodle if that person was both a magician and Salvador Dali. Cue them both up and prepare for childhood levels of delight.

Fehérlófia (Son of the White Mare) (1981)

Also potentially a good watch on gummies, this 80s retelling of a Hungarian folk tale is pretty trippy. Acid yellows, searing blues and mind-melting magentas flicker and swirl to give classic Eurasian folk tropes (the tree of life, the four seasons, and porridge) a kaleidoscopic whirl. Plot-wise (just go with it, please), a white mare gives birth to three human boys, the last of whom is breastfed for 14 years, which gives him super strength. This brawny hunk then goes on a journey to the underworld to save some princesses, collecting his feckless brothers and slaying monsters along the way (#youngestchildsyndrome). Plus there’s a Throbbing Gristle-esque soundtrack. As captivating as Fantasia, but a hell of a lot more phallic and yonic.

Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

We watched this one for the first time at the glorious Prince Charles Cinema this Tuesday afternoon. We’d booked it weeks before we knew how busy we’d be, so the enjoyment was possibly boyed by that bunking-off feeling, and the pleasure of going through with the plan and taking time for ourselves despite our inboxes being full of demands on our time. A young and beautiful peasant woman (with Instagram face) subjected to numerous acts of violence and cruelty makes a deal with the devil (who appears as, again stay with us, a talking penis), and gradually discovers her true nature. We were worried it would be merely a feature-length, aesthetically-pleasing rape fantasy, and though it did contain those elements it was so much more. A Freudian mind-fuck about a woman coming into her phallic power with a psych soundtrack so good you can’t help but feel liberated after watching.

Honourable Mentions: Aranyamadar (Golden Bird) (1987), Dougal and the Blue Cat (1970), The Wolf House (2018), Fantastic Planet (1973)

Recommended Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

Crosswords, sudoku and Wordle not your thing? Vulture recently launched Cinematrix, a daily movie trivia game. The trick is to play it while resisting the urge to google. We feel that Isra from T A P E Collective, who some of you might remember from our calendar launch event as the author of the world’s most difficult pop quiz, will be great at this.

How do actors learn to sob on cue? And can we learn how to too? Rachel Handler mines Oprah’s acting coach, a soap star and a clown-class graduate for their tips (also from Vulture).

The subject of film availability in the age of streaming, post-capitalism and tech overlords is very close to our hearts, so we devoured this Mubi deep dive into rarefilmm.com’s quest to preserve free digital access to hard-to-find and forgotten films.

Off-screen Gossip 🍸

Squashed bugs in 35mm scans of films are the new ‘Accidental Renaissance’.