You might have noticed this newsletter looks a little different. That’s because Mailchimp recently started charging for over 500 subscribers, and we don’t want to charge you for this newsletter, so we’ve found a new home at Substack. It’s a work in progress. Currently unsure about the limited design and formatting options, but maybe it’ll help us concentrate on the ‘craft’ of writing (lol).

You also might have noticed this is the first Zodiac newsletter you’ve received this year, and we’re especially sorry about that to Capricorns and Aquarians since we missed your seasons. Zodiac isn’t really a money-making enterprise (shocker!), and one of us is a freelancer, so we occasionally get sucked into paid work and have to sacrifice the passion project. But the absence left a hole in our hearts, so we’ve vowed to keep it up for the rest of the year. 

We still managed to fit a couple of screenings in this year though, lucky we’re work addicts. We had SUCH a good time at our Sleeping Beauty (2011) screening. Thanks to everyone who came along. We’d been working making a zine about the film so intensely that we really didn’t know what to even think about said film any more. So we were pleasantly surprised when a bunch of you told us how amazing you thought it was afterwards, and then queued up to buy the zine! Sorry to the couple whose Tinder date we interrupted in the bar to give them free bookmarks, we didn’t realise until too late that you weren’t there for the film, and we hope you enjoyed Sarah’s plot synopsis.

If you’re a fan of the film (or equally if the film left you bemused and with more questions than answers) then check out the zine we made with artist Cathy Lomax. Lomax has been making Arty for years, and we were super flattered to be asked to collaborate on an issue. Inside, writer, editor and Girlhood Studies columnist Claire Marie Healy explores Sleeping Beauty’s second-life as GIFs and stills on Tumblr, academics Abigail Fine and Davina Quinlivan respectively discuss the dark details of the original Sleeping Beauty myth and offer up a feminist reading of the film. Fashion journalist Georgina Evans contributed a tongue-in-cheek beauty column. Production designer Annie Beauchamp spoke to us about creating the movie’s unforgettable aesthetic, plus we and Cathy contributed some pieces too. There’s also a ton of gorgeous stills, Cathy’s paintings and some other sleep-inspired artworks. Plus we made bookmarks and stickers, which we’re sending out with every copy.

That’s enough catching up now. Onto some sassy bits and astrological film recs.

xoxo Zodiac

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New year, new section. We call it Charming/Ghastly: 🎭

Charming: Famous people alluding to their private lives in their creative work – especially in cryptic or confusing ways that their fans can have fun decoding for decades to come, Sarah Michelle Gellar, moving social media apps onto old, slow phones, Sofia Coppola’s Uniqlo collab, DVDs, Blu-Rays and early Web 2.0-style piracy (Stremio anyone?)

Ghastly: Famous people discussing their private lives openly, the Metaverse, the promo for Sofia Coppola’s Uniqlo collab (perfect opportunity for Wes-Andreson-For-Prada-esque narrative short, instead a boring, lazy ‘fashion film’ with inexplicably normcore aesthetic), the long, long winter, the subscription streaming economy (too much choice, too little desire. Cinematic boner killer)

Films for Pisces Season ♓

Melancholy oceanic drifters, moody shapeshifters, sensitive artists and foot freaks. These are the Pisceans we know and love. Pisces is the final sign in the zodiac, and carries the great responsibility of melding all the traits of previous signs. These little fishies are ruled by the dual planets of Neptune (God of the Sea) and Jupiter (King of all Gods), which adds to their sense of quiet wisdom and influence. In other words, Pisces are the big sisters of the Zodiac, and all eldest siblings understand that this involves a lot of silent worry and hurt feelings.

As fellow water signs, we are especially akin to our damp cousins here at Zodiac HQ. We also appreciate their propensity for being moody, having fabulous glowy skin, being hopelessly romantic, and living in an illusion. Before spring whips us all into a frenzy, let us sink into the mysterious watery worlds of cinema with our aquatic friends.

Our fave Pisces are: Drew Barrymore, Emily Blunt, Lupita Nyong’o, Erykah Badu, Oscar Isaac, Elliot Page and Sharon Stone

Malá Morská Víla/The Little Mermaid (1976)

Not to be confused with the also-very-pretty Russian adaptation of the fairytale, which was released the same year, this Czech fantasy is, in our opinion, the most gorgeous of all the Little Mermaid films. With little in the way of special effects to work with, director Karel Kachyňa created an underwater kingdom with theatrical sets and costumes, slo-mo camera trickery and Zdeněk Liška’s haunting synth score. Fans of The Love Witch will also enjoy the Medieval-meets-disco-era banquet scenes. But viewer beware, it’s very faithful to the original tale, which doesn’t end happily…

The Swimmer (1968)

A perfect escape for a winter that just won’t end; the swimming pools of cinema. All that azure blue, and never any of it up your nose. Appearing unannounced in his friends’ backyard wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, Ned decides to ‘swim home’ via the pools of the interconnected gardens of his affluent suburb. As he journeys from encounter to encounter, the layers of his carefully-constructed public persona peel away to reveal the dark secrets underneath. While reading up on this film we noticed that it was written by director Frank Perry’s then-wife Eleanor, and it was one of many she made with him. When they divorced she left Hollywood and wrote a book about their marriage and the difficulties of being a female screenwriter in Hollywood. On our book stack it goes…

Water Lilies (2007)

Sapphic and subaquatic, Céline Sciamma’s debut film stars a baby Adèle Haenel. Over the course of a summer, three teenage girls experience sexual awakenings against the muted pastel backdrop of their synchronised swim team practices. This watchful portrait of teenage desire is obsessed with various bodies of water, various bodies in general and the ways in which we submerge our innermost wants. Okay, that’s all the water metaphors out of the way we promise. We especially love this film for the way it hints at the inner worlds and emotional depths of its quietly complex female leads.

Blue Planet (2001) Episode 2: The Deep

In this hour-long epic, first shown in 2001 we drop to the depths of the ocean and meet the plethora of mysterious, ethereal and brightly coloured creatures that reside there. How very Pisces of them we say. Special shout out to the ‘abyssal plains’ which sounds like an early noughties emo band, but are actually just where the gnarliest of the fishies live, along with the deep sea jelly that comes with its own disco lights. In all seriousness, this piece of programming withstands the test of time as a hauntingly beautiful capsule that thrums with a strange and otherworldly energy.

Honorable Mentions: Blue My Mind (2017) The Abyss (1989) The Swimmers (2022) and Cancer Moon (2021) - one of the shorts from our LSFF Astral Projections curation

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Recommended Reading 📚

Short Story: The Octopus Nest by Sophie Hannah

We read this short story at the beginning of the year on Libby (We know we’re always banging on about libraries but it’s worth restating during this cost of living crisis that you can get free e-books and audio books on the Libby app with just a library card, they don’t have everything but the scarcity is actually very refreshing in this post-capitalist time of option overload). What were we saying? Oh The Octopus Nest. Honestly it’s such a great, creepy short story that Sarah was immediately like, “Let’s quit our jobs and make a short film of it,” only to find with a quick google that someone already has. A couple notices that the same woman has appeared in the background of all of their holiday photographs, dating back to the beginning of their relationship… CHILLS.

Article: How The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Tackled the Topic of Black Fatherhood

The slappiversary is upon us, but it’s worth remembering there’s more to Will Smith than his most recent highs and lows. This piece reminds us of the actor’s star power and complexity, and makes us wonder why no-one has ever written a Richard Dyer star theory-style piece about his career, which has some really interesting stuff – Six Degrees of Separation (1993) – alongside the plethora of end-credit raps.

Novel: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

We’re obviously on a real reading streak right now. Originally published in 1973, this book’s hilariously cutting observations about love, sex and gender are just as poignant today. We join our chaotic protagonist as she cavorts her way around a psychoanalysts’ conference in Vienna, roars across Europe in a convertible and drowns her sorrows in Paris – she’s just like us, except with more travel budget! Special mention goes to one of the best chapter titles we’ve come across this year; ‘En Route to the Congress of Dreams or the Zipless Fuck’. Thank us later.

Off-screen Gossip 🍸

We love that Pisces babe Sharon Stone’s answer to making a whopping 13.5 million less than Michael Douglas on Basic Instinct (1992) was to keep her costumes from the film, and all her subsequent ones too. Those will be worth an absolute fortune at auction one day, proof that women are indeed better investors.