I Think I'm Becoming a Kyle Richards Fan
On Halloween Kills and stoned Wikipedia holes
I think I'm becoming a Kyle Richards fan. Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are that .
In all eleven seasons of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kyle (the real "sniper from the side" in my opinion) has never been my favorite. I love a self-producer, it's why Gizelle Bryant and Kenya Moore are two of my favorite Housewives, but they own their messiness a bit more. Kyle will never truly cop to bringing up topics long after they've died ("Aren't you mad that Yolanda called you bi-polar, Rinna?") or this season when she kept pressuring Sutton Stracke to be "honest" about her feelings for Erika, while completely downplaying her own.
Then I saw her in Halloween Kills.Â
It should come as no surprise that Kyle is a natural on camera, having been a successful child actor for years and before she took a hiatus was on multiple episodes of ER from 1998-2006. But I was shocked by just how relaxed she was, in a way that she never is on Bravo. She seemed to disappear into her character as well, away from the glam that constitutes Housewives and she genuinely felt like was part of this world. Never mind that she was also the best part of the film: Michael Meyers' kills were uninspired and Jamie Lee Curtis spends the entire film in a hospital bed and racks up maybe 20 minutes of screen time. All to set up the finale of the trilogy, Halloween Ends, but damn, at least Kyle got to hit Michael with a bag full of bricks! Spoiler: She also survives the film, so she'll be in that sequel!
To hear Kyle talk about acting in interviews is kind of surprising as well. There have been several profiles of Kyle released this week that have painted her in a much different light than Housewives has (or maybe I'm still just a residual Lisa Vanderpump stan). Namely pieces in The LA Times (far too long for her to ever read it, sadly) and The Cut. She discusses passing on roles that would have her cameo as herself (save for when Lady Gaga comes calling), opting instead to produce the series American Woman. It put her back in the conversation as a person dedicated to scripted film and television, not just reality. She sounds more convincing discussing her goals for returning to her career and discussing Halloween Kills than she does playing nice on Bravo. Or maybe it's just that she really isn't a sniper from the side, she's the sniper in plain sight but everyone else has agreed to play by her rules. And the ones who don't — Vanderpump, Denise Richards, her own sister Kim — get axed.
I didn't even mind her stirring the pot at this week's reunion. It felt nostalgic, tbh, and Sutton and Garcelle Beauvais should be more than well-prepared for how Kyle operates at this point if they want to survive RHOBH's shark-infested waters. If you're not, you're not keeping up with the game, and you're losing. I guess I am a Kyle fan now.
My new method of chilling out has been getting stoned as soon as work wraps for the day, which usually leads to a lot of Wikipedia holes. Some of these pop culture facts pop up in Keep It episodes but other times I have no outlet to discuss them, so why not do them here?
This week I dug into the Don Bluth film All Dogs Go to Heaven, which I’ve loved but always felt dark as hell for a kids’ movie. Oddly enough, for one of my favorite films, I don’t remember seeing it in theaters. Which made sense when I discovered that it was released on the same day as The Little Mermaid. Which sounds insane. Imagine the audacity of Bluth, who once worked at Disney but left to start his own studio. The film flopped at the box office but became an incredibly VHS hit, which is probably where I first saw it then rewatched constantly.
Meanwhile, The Little Mermaid is the first film I ever saw in theaters.
This is an excellent week for new music, you’d be remiss if you missed Juno, the debut album from Remi Wolf. She’s fast become a new personal favorite.
Also, many of you still aren’t familiar with one of my favorite bands, Tennis. I made a playlist this week of some faves so now you have no excuse.