Media Diet in 2022 (I)
Media Diet in 2022 (I)
The Newsletter That Is firmly HENRY (High Earning, Not Rich Yet)
Shownotes
Hey everyone. It’s almost Christmas! The official Media Diet newsletter will be paused until mid January, but premium subscribers will receive the Media Diet 2022 highlights over the next few weeks, starting at the bottom of this edition.
Not a premium subscriber yet? Sign up during Christmas to get 20% off of the annual subscription (valid only until 27th of December). Happy Holidays!
📰 Nepo Babies. I was shocked to find out that Becka from Bad Sisters is Bono’s daughter! Turns out everyone has wealthy parents and probably a coke habit. Not me though - striving through inherited poverty since 1988.
It makes sense that zoomers, a generation steeped in pop analyses of structural oppression, would hit on the nepo baby as their particular celebrity obsession. Though as anyone who followed the journeys of mansplain and gaslight could tell you, a word that goes viral can shed its nuances.
🍿 Christmas movies! This was my first time with Eyes Wide Shut (1999), which feels like the audio-visual equivalent of manspreading. Kubrick may be the single most important contributor to cinema, but that man died with a terrible perspective on female characters. (D)
🍿 I’d much rather recommend the most unhinged and catastrophic Christmas comedy ever: The Family Stone (2005), in which Diane Keaton & Rachel McAdams bully and torture Sarah Jessica Parker until she has a complete meltdown (B).
🎙️Devouring episodes of the Ringer podcast “60 Songs That Explain The 90s”. Who knew that the Third Eye Blind frontman was such a dick? (A)
🎧 Speaking of the 90s: I watched Angelina Jolie’s leather-jacketed, flannel-shirted and combat-booted Foxfire (1997) and sure: we could talk about suburbian girl gangs who hand-poke each other on the titties (to a Mazzy Star track!) and kick their rapists’ balls as one of the best depiction of coming of age female friendships (Kubrick should have seen this one) in movies, but as always, the grunge soundtrack is where it’s at for me (C- for Movie, A+ for soundtrack).
🍿 Would you rather be liked or remembered? Is there a value in being nice? What if your friends only hang out with you because you’re stuck on an Irish island? What happens to a nice, simple man when everyone around him becomes a self-serving cunt? All of those deep and thoughtful questions are packed into the hilarious Banshees of Inisherin (2022), which I really liked, but didn’t love as much as McDonagh’s In Bruges. Justice for Jenny! (B-)
📺 Absolutely loving the journey of Fleischman Is In Trouble. I didn’t know how much I needed to see Claire Danes break down and cry. The series is often hard to watch, but episode 7 was truly rewarding. (A)
🔜 Some trailers, if you’re so inclined: Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, Sarah Polley’s Women Talking and Damien Chazelle’s Babylon are getting digitally released over the holidays. Also excited for The Whale and The Menu, both screening in theatres.
🎬 Barbie is coming.
Here are my Top 10 Movies of 2022: Everything Everywhere All At Once, TÁR, Top Gun: Maverick, Decision To Leave, Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, On The Count Of Three, RRR, Fire Of Love, Aftersun, Bodies Bodies Bodies. Lame! Who cares! Let me tell you about my top media moments of 2022 instead. Why? Because I am a mad person and I think recapturing moments, not titles, is more fruitful and productive act of remembering a year1. I am insane. I literally have no time for this. THIS IS PART ONE.
BEWARE: SPOILERS EVERYWHERE
House Of The Dragon: King Viserys enters the Throne Room
★★★★ - directed by Geeta Vasant Patel - streaming on HBO & Sky
There is no budget, no CGI or epic fight scene that can compare with quiet, masterfully written moments like this. "Any man who must say I am the king is no true king" - what epic foreshadowing to the season finale.
The Batman - Something In The Way
★★★ - directed by Matt Reeve - streaming on HBO & VOD
Something in the Way does what Reeve ultimately didn’t fully achieve despite 3 hours of runtime: it heightens the helplessness and introspection of Gotham City’s people, along with that of Batman - and the song’s ominous opening adds emotional vibrance to an otherwise stale neo-noir detective story.