We used to be a proper country.
Obviously, I love Katseye’s “Milkshake” GAP ad. And I support Kelis getting her streams! BUT we used to educate the masses through GAP commercials. Much like new generations of Americans learned who Burt Bacharach was and witnessed horrific renditions of disco songs on American Idol, the early 2000s were not only as fun to watch as an MTV video, but they were also full of music education.
You could discover the music from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s West Side Story and Jerome Robbins’ choreography.
You could learn Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity choreography, set to James Clarke’s “Blow Up A-Go-Go!” because it was presumably cheaper than the actual “Rich Man’s Frug” music. Beyoncé would later use Fosse’s choreography in her video for “Get Me Bodied,” which braindead stans on the internet claim is theft instead of homage. Even Robbie Blue, who choreographed Katseye’s GAP ad, threw in some Fosse! “Bob Fosse has always been my biggest inspiration as a choreographer,” Blue told Submission Beauty in 2024.
Movies
Favorite first-time watches: 25th Hour, Brief Encounter, Freakier Friday, The Ice Storm, Life or Something Like It, Misericordia, The Naked Gun, A Place in the Sun, Stranger by the Lake, Querelle, Weapons
Rewatches: D.E.B.S., The Departed, Freaky Friday, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Mission: Impossible II
Skip It: Heart Eyes
I injured my leg this month, so I watched nearly a movie every night (while I wasn’t bingeing The Gilded Age and Andor, two shows I’m now obsessed with). I still managed to make it to theaters to see some new films, of which Weapons is my fave. I loved it, even though I agree with many points in JP Brammer’s review of the film. The gun metaphor was pretty stupid but it was also only one scene, so I just ignored it.
I won’t exactly recommend Life or Something Like It, but I will say that Angelina Jolie gives an Oscar-worthy performance in this mess of a movie, and I miss when we used to stick A-list actors in big-budget rom coms. Real rom-coms, not Materialists.
Criterion had a very random collection this past month, ‘90s Soundtrack Movies: “These films form a must-listen playlist from the era when indie and mainstream cultures converged, allowing genuinely strange and exciting art to flourish on multiplex screens and Walkman headphones alike.” From this collection, I watched Singles and SubUrbia. Both are very of their era, and both films I will never watch again. Directed by Cameron Crowe and Richard Linklater, respectively, they’ve both turned out better versions of these films. For Crowe, Say Anything is a better romance than Singles. Almost Famous is a better time capsule of a specific place and time in music history. For Linklater, Dazed and Confused is a more fun watch, and Everybody Wants Some!! is a masterpiece.
Speaking of directors’ ‘90s endeavors, I watched Ira Sachs’ The Delta. It’s a queer film that I would recommend just for its southern milieu and seeds of the fantastic director Sachs would become.
I thought I was going to be a Bigas Lunas fan after Jamon Jamon, but I watched Golden Balls and was bored out of my mind. It’s a pretty simple story about Javier Bardem playing a womanizing cad who gets a dose of karma at the end. The film lacks a real antagonist for him and anything resembling the electric chemistry he had with Penelope in Jamon Jamon.
I’ve been rereading a lot of Neil LaBute and David Mamet for a play I’m currently writing, which led me to watch In the Company of Men. It would’ve made a better play.
Heart Eyes was my most disappointing watch. Recently added to Netflix, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a Netflix original. It looks like one! It’s a mix of a slasher film and rom-com, and while it gets the gore right, the end reveal makes no sense, and the rom-com part of the film is neither romantic nor comedic. Great concept though. I’d watch a sequel!
Reviews of all these films are on my Letterboxd.
Television
Yes, I’ve finished all of The Gilded Age and the first season of Andor, but the show I’m loving the most right now? Survivor: Australia versus The World. I’m watching via a VPN, though there are other ways to watch online, and no season of Survivor has made me smile this much. This has truly been like watching the Olympics. It has not only iconic Australian players, but the fact that I’m watching Cirie Fields and Parvati Shallow play Survivor together again is nothing short of magical. I’ll have more to say about this once the finale airs on Sunday.
I also have to mention how magical it is watching Rachel Reilly playing Big Brother again. Yes, she’s playing with a bunch of idiots. But also, the fact that she’s surviving with these people who are awful at the game is a miracle. She’s really putting in work in this house, and the Big Brother feeds are the better for it. TWICE she’s avoided being nominated! She didn’t even have to compete in the veto competition to save herself. This feels a lot like Boston Rob running circles around people when he won Survivor.
I watched the new Netflix series Hitmakers from Adam DiVello, creator of The Hills and Selling Sunset. I’m fascinated by music writing camps, where songwriters and producers gather to create songs for big-name artists. But this show relied too much on petty drama instead of the actual songwriting process, so I was kinda bored! I also tried Hulu’s Are You My First?, their virgin dating show. It’s horrible. I lasted one episode. It wants to be 2000s VH1 reality TV, but it’s not mean enough. Also, why is Kaitlyn Bristowe hosting and narrating the show? Recession indicator? I didn’t watch Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor, but he is not made for television. He has the charisma of a plank of wood.
Music
This includes the three good songs from Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend. I don’t have many thoughts about the album, which feels like a retread of Short ‘n Sweet. I will say, though, when I saw Carpenter at Coachella, the audience there for “Espresso” and “Feather” were silent (or silenced, actually) during the rest of the songs. She has a lot of albums. And many of them were throwing anything at the wall to see what would stick, like “Looking at Me,” which is a shameless Camila Cabello rip-off. It makes sense that she’d want to rush out a second album that sounds like her last one to give fans a catalogue they’ll actually want to stream. “House Tour” is fun as hell, I need the 12” remix.
I love Khalid’s new song “in plain sight,” his first since he was outed. I did his prior GQ interview, where it felt pretty obvious to me that Khalid was queer, if not gay, but that was none of my business. I’m happy he’s found peace enough to make an album about his journey.
Books
It’s been a slower reading month for me, between all the writing I’ve been doing and the television bingeing. One book I read and absolutely loved was Katie Kitamura’s Audition. I’m excited to read more of her work, and I won’t ruin the twists for anyone who wants to read, so instead I’ll focus on the form of the book. Kitamura has a PhD in American literature from the London Consortium and teaches creative writing at NYU, which is probably why her book feels so excitingly constructed. I’d suggest this book to anyone learning the craft of writing a novel, because the way Kitamura introduces characters and then slips into a flashback to reveal something about them in each chapter was beautifully done. In fact, the first half of the novel takes place in about 24 hours, but feels so much more expansive.
I’m also in the midst of reading Miranda July’s All Fours (finally). I’m alternating between the book and the audiobook. I’m also excited to dive into Baldwin: A Love Story.
I recently got ARCs of Brandon Taylor’s Minor Black Figures and Bobuq Sayed’s No God But Us, both of which I’m incredibly excited to read.
Theatre
I saw Can I Be Frank? at SoHo Playhouse, which I mentioned last week.
I also saw two fantastic Shakespeare productions from The Public Theater this past week. Twelfth Night at the newly remodeled Delacorte Theater and Pericles at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. My last Shakespeare in the Park show was coincidentally also Twelfth Night, which starred Anne Hathaway and Audra McDonald. It rained during my production. It was amazing. This recent one was just as amazing — Sandra Oh and Lupita Nyong’o, and Peter Dinklage were especially great. But the standout was Daphne Rubin-Vega, who plays lady-in-waiting Maria. The last time I saw Rubin-Vega was in a very bad Tennessee Williams adaptation (I’ve yet to see a really good Williams adaptation in New York, and yes, I’m including Paul Mescal’s Streetcar).
Pericles done as a gospel show with a full choir was astounding. Part of Public Works, it included stars like Alex Newell but also ordinary people who live in all five boroughs of New York. I was mesmerized watching the choir on stage, watching the individual quirks people added to their performances. It made me miss the Baptist church I grew up in. Not enough to go back to church, mind you, but I had a good time.
Completely envious about your recent Twelfth Night show -- it was my first Shakespeare in the Park performance, too! -- but my cast was Julia Stiles, Jimmy Smitts, Joseph Marcell, and Christopher Lloyd.
While In the Company of Men is not a great movie it really hit hard when it came out in the 90s. And the cast is FANTASTIC.