Media Diet on Sunday (#68)
Media Diet on Sunday (#68)
The Newsletter That Will Make You Question Whose Side You're On
Shownotes
I’ll start with full transparency: I’ve been watching mostly Top Chef (not a great season if you ask me) and MasterChef, and if the 4 hour restaurant documentary Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros would go on forever, I’d also forever watch that. This is the truth.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Rose Glass - ★★★★★ - watch trailer
I am ✨ profoundly✨ satisfied. I wonder if Rose Glass meant her story to tell us something about the wretched, all-encompassing, deeply horrifying love between two (or, God save us all, more than two!!) women in homosexual relationships. I know some people in my audience are just here as unaffiliated bystanders and I don’t expect you to grok the deep emotional trenches we wade through in order to find sanctity in our affairs, but for those who know what I’m talking about: is this the best movie I’ve ever seen about literally trying to consume your hot girlfriend?!
Who’s licking designer whey from my chiselled abs?
From the category “This Is What I Expect To Happen When I Match A Girl On Hinge”
A Thousand And One (2023)
A.V. Rockwell - ★★★★☆ - watch trailer
I had heard that A Thousand And One was one of the sleeper hits of 2023, and I agree vehemently, furiously, and need you to pop this into your BluRay machine and enjoy New York City transforming into the most beautiful side character of a movie. All the performances, the scoring, the cinematography and the plot are so heart-gutting, but wonderful and enjoyable still despite its heavy themes. I need more people to watch this and talk to me about mothers, homes, gentrification and family secrets.
From the category “Just Cried A Thousand And One Tears”
Civil War (2024)
Alex Garland - ★★★★☆ - watch trailer
Director Alex Garland, known for 28 Days Later and Ex-Machina, presents his most ambitious project yet. Civil War is a nerve-racking rollercoaster. My heart’s still pounding.
Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, and Cailee Spaeny play a trio of journalists who seem to have lost all humanity, chasing the perfect scoop in a rampaged country. With a unique blend of horror, impactful set pieces, and mesmerizing cinematography Garland creates an inverse magic fairytale of visceral violence. Despite epic proportions and pictures, the film's reception has been polarized; Americans in particular seem uneasy with Garland’s harsh portrayal of their country. Only assholes and no political direction in this movie. Either Garland is avoiding controversy, or he’s deliberately fucking with us. I think Americans just don’t like it when the British judge them. I had a great time.
From the category “We Need Two Bottle Of Wine And A Xanax”
Challengers (2024)
Luca Guadagnino - ★★★☆☆ - watch trailer
The longer I sat with the movie, the more I started liking it. The sexiness of Tennis notwithstanding, Challengers is about three types of a loser personality: each character thinks they’ve got it figured out, but ultimately they all play in mid-level leagues. On and off court, they perpetually try to negotiate their places in each other’s lives and who’s the greatest failure between them. This feels exactly like things grown up’s do. Hits a spot I can only describe as: “We need more adult dramas, please.”
That and the Zendaya of it all, the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the bisexual Churros… all of it. It just works1.
From the category “Movies That Made Me Attracted To Men”
Perfect Days (2024)
Wim Wenders - ★★★★★ - watch trailer
I do not hand out five star ratings easily, but here we are: Love Lies Bleeding and Perfect Days, two in one newsletter. Perfect Days is such a fine, gentle and consoling drama about life and work and the simple pleasures of solitude and stillness. Still: By the end, I wasn't sure if this was a sympathetic portrayal of an autonomous life of routine and ease, or if it was actually a soft judgment, ruling on the consequences of being abandoned.
From the category “When You Order Gay Trauma from Muji”
🍿 More Movies
Snack Shack (2024, ★★☆☆☆) Great summer movie if you can forgive the crimes against female characters.
Monkey Man (2024, ) Came for the action but stayed for the queer wholesomeness?! I‘ve never seen a more balanced depiction of toxic masculinity and the warmth of your chosen trans family. Unlocks a very niche cross-sectional of interests for me: warrior stunt queers. 😍 Give Dev Patel more!
The Idea Of You (2024, ★★★☆☆) I was stoned out of my mind when I watched this and the whole time I kept asking myself how old Anne Hathaway actually is. It’s been a few weeks and the fake song Guard Down by the fake boyband August Moon is still in my top rotation, I am not a serious person
📺 On TV
I’ve started and stopped many shows during the past week. Shogun wrapping up has left me expectedly lonely, and while Hacks is back and better than ever, there’s an existential lack of prestige TV right now. Apple’s Dark Matter is something to pass the time with, but I’m always waiting for Jennifer Connelly to be in a scene and fall asleep the rest of the time.
Back to Hacks: Perhaps the most lesbian - culturally if not canonically - contemporary TV that I’ve seen since The L Word. I have a very soft spot for Hannah Einbinder’s doughy, deadpan hotness, but just generally, the one-liners and deliveries are sooo spot on that it will be hard to cope once this season wraps up.
Still bumbling through Ripley, which I find just a bit hard to approach right now. I don’t have the focus to really appreciate the stunning cinematography.
The Sympathizer’s extreme Park Chan-Wook x Tarantino sense of direction hasn’t panned out for me at all, I felt overwhelmed, then bored, then emotionally aggravated when I hit episode 3, and haven’t looked back since.
🎧 Hearing
Movie soundtracks are killing it right now. Challengers, Civil War, Love Lies Bleeding - all masterpieces. Childish Gambino’s new album Atavista.
And I, too, can’t and won’t resist Tiktok’s most favorite track right now:
Judging from the comments everywhere, bro satisfied 4 generations at once with this beat.
Post-Script
Obsessed with Emma D’Arcy’s dyke era. Not me watching Top Chef and Master Chef like it’s my destiny to become a cook. Trying every Glucose Goddess hack to see if that can curb my pre-diabetic sugar cravings2. Palestine’s Lost Villages. The Roots of Recession Pop. Someone made a very smart and handy overview of all the cinema screenings in Berlin, sorted by whether they are dubbed or not, and if I could pay them for it, I absolutely would. This new Karaoke place in Berlin that I’m dying to go to.
Knowing that Justin Kuritzkes, who wrote the script, is the husband of Celine Song, who wrote and directed Past Lives, last year’s Oscar nominee about ANOTHER love triangle that seemed very autobiographical, adds a certain amount of spice to the story for me.
I know most of it is pseudo-science, but the recipes are good, and they only require like, 7 ingredients, so that works for me. Thanks Josie.