January Recs '25

Trying another graphic style for these, though I still may change it up. Thanks for your patience everyone!

Music: The Yentl soundtrack

Okay, so, it's really just "A Piece Of Sky" that I've been playing on loop, but I have such a like/dislike relationship with this album.

My main dislike is how Mandy Patinkin, who knows fluent Yiddish didn't even get a single lyric to sing throughout the entire album. In fact, the song "No Wonder (Part Two)" has Barbra singing AND exchanging dialogue as multiple characters instead of having another artist on the record. It's hilarious, wonderful, and awful all at the same time.

Despite my minor issues here and there, Yentl could be an amazing Broadway musical, especially if the music closely adapts Michel Legrand's original score, which won “Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score” at the Oscars.*

 You can listen to the full soundtrack here.

Film: Deathtrap (Dir. Sidney Lumet, 1982)

So I watched this because the film was adapted from a play by Ira Levin. He’s actually one of my favorite writers, though we don't talk about the absolutely messy Rosemary's Baby sequel he wrote. It's quite bad despite the diversity win of including a canon trans character, even then her role is quite minimal.

I ended up loving this film, and the less you know about the plot, the better the experience it will be. It was such a ride constantly guessing how it was going to end.

You can watch the film for free on Tubi.

Book: Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits by Loren Cameron

I've been wanting to own a copy of this book for several years so I'm very glad to have one in my collection. It can be a bit difficult to buy, but it was absolutely worth the wait since there are some absolutely gorgeous photos of trans men included in this book.

You can read a digitized version of the book here.

*I took so long to upload this, the line is now too relevant as I'm posting this on the day of the 2025 Oscars.