Friends, foes, and potential sexy suitors, gather around and lend me a scrap of your already overextended attention. After a few weeks away, I have returned to natter on about this and that. The two weeks I took off (wow it has felt much longer) was needed and incredibly “productive”: I delivered two class presentations and wrote a midterm paper. I submitted some things that were way way overdue. I watched the Oscars.1 I also managed to finish, and get approval for, the two reading lists for the doctoral examinations I have to complete at the end of the summer (Yikes!). I’ve been working on these lists with varying levels of dedication since September and they have changed a lot and not changed at all. I am happy with them for the most part because they’re filled with things I want to read or need to read (though I dread making my way through On the Road) but also get panicky when I think about the reality of them—that I will have to write about them and make the tenuous connections I see between them legible. But that’s a problem for August me. For now, I am checking off the last of the books I want to “read for fun,” as well as the ones I’m reading for my finals (the very last ones I’ll ever submit…). Post American Fiction, RAFTM Ashley Bodika2 and I are reading Percival Everett’s Erasure together; we both did not like the movie very much so are obviously curious about how the book compares. I finished rereading Raven Leilani’s Luster yesterday, while drinking a latte in Dimes and eavesdropping on the table next to me. Luster is one of those books I indiscriminately recommend to everyone, though without being able to describe what exactly it is that I need them to experience. Reading it this time, I realized I hadn’t remembered just how sharp and unnerving it is, and also how bloody it is. (It feels significant somehow that I finished it on a rainy spring day, which is exactly how I finished it last time.) It’s easy to kind of put it in the same category as a lot of the young woman novels that have come out in the last five years, but even as it shares similar plot points, stylistically and philosophically, it is in a league of its own.
Now, our top stories:
Austin Butler, serving…
I saw Dune: Part Two with a friend at Village East a few weeks ago and loved it. From almost the first moment, I was drawn in and couldn’t help leaning forward as if that would help me better absorb it (though that was also partially because there was an inconveniently placed bar in front of my seat). What I have been repeating to people when they ask me what I thought of it was that I was surprised by how intimate it felt, even as it was a brilliant and grand spectacle. There was as much careful attention paid to the turn of a foot or the movement of a strand of hair as much as there was to aerial shots of the desert. The play between the intimate-quotidian and the mythic-spectacle extended to the dialogue as well, which at times felt very serious and grounded, and at times felt like an HBO-produced teen show. What worked visually was more uneven at the person-to-person level, so that Timothée’s most shouty, I’m a leader moments were a bit too much the Boy Who Played King (which is somewhat the point but not in the way it played out). Of course, the star of the show was Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha, who put that bald cap on, let them paint his teeth black (is that why he got new veneers?), and strutted his way into Little Freak status. He is magnetic on the screen, easily moving between ruthless and unfeeling killing machine, to whimpering and confused little boy. I’ve had one foot on the Austin Butler train for a while now, bolstered by my annoyance regarding the continued conversation about the fact that he’s changed his voice (when you should be talking about his veneers! Seriously, why are they so weird) and the lie that Jacob Elordi’s Elvis performance was better than his. But it was Austin’s performance in Dune: Part Two—he kinda ate Timothée up, I won’t lie—that really sealed the deal.
And maybe it was my newfound appreciation for his skill that a few days after seeing Dune, I turned on Masters of the Air, the World War II Air Force show that Butler stars in. I am not really one for war cinema—I refused to get swept up in the whole 1917 thing and will not watch Dunkirk, even if I stop disliking Christopher Nolan—but there’s something about Masters of the Air (produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and some other people I’m sure) that has hooked me. That something is Austin Butler. According to the show description, Masters of the Air tells the tale of the Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group during the last few years of the war. As to be expected, it is as chockful of American patriotism as it is explosions and scenes of fighter planes flying in what looks like a Microsoft 2000 screensaver. While it doesn’t rival Oppenheimer, it is also has such a random cast: apart from Butler, Barry Keoghan and Ncuti Gatwa star in minor roles that make about as much sense as Olivia Colman being in Heartstopper; Raff Law, son of Jude, appears as a Southern (?) plane mechanic and confirms that all he inherited from Papa Jude is his gorgeous eyes and not an ounce of his screen presence; Bel Powley is also there, though she makes more sense than anyone since most of her post Morning Show roles have been somewhat similar. A lot of Masters of the Air feels like frictionless pageantry (though it is chilling at times when you don’t expect it), with many of the performances feeling like impersonations. The only actor who feels like their not doing a character is Austin Butler, who melts into the role of Buck Cleven, a major from the Midwest whose quiet confidence makes him respected and loved by everyone he crosses paths with. Butler is amazing on his own but things feel most electric in his scenes with Callum Turner, who plays his best friend, John Egan, a major whose nickname is Bucky. (There’s a scene where someone asks them what the deal is with having basically the same nickname and Turner’s character tells some random story that conceals the fact that actually these men are probably IN LOVE.) Before starting the show, I had seen all the clips and comments about the chemistry between Turner and Butler, especially on their press tour, but I had largely dismissed it as the dream of overeager fans. But boy was I wrong. I guess you’re supposed to think that the two majors are best friends, brothers even, because they share a Midwest background and are tough guys with hearts of gold. But the way that these men are obsessed with each other, the way they giggle and tussle and orbit one another? That’s not just friendship, that is not just brotherhood, that is a deep and unmoving love. It seems that the friendship was purposely written that way, but Butler and Turner add another layer of tension to it. It’s just something about their particular duo. On his own, Turner is just a man doing his best Joel Edgerton impression. With Butler, it’s like they reinvented forbidden romance. I could watch them in a million vehicle-centric things forever.
More Screen Time
After finishing The Gilded Age, a friend recommended I watch AppleTV’s Edith Wharton adaptation, The Buccaneers. It took a moment to actually start watching, but when I did I guzzled it down in one weekend. What a mess it was! While I didn’t have really have any expectations, I thought it would be a fun and charming time, most of all because I love Kristine Froseth who plays Nan.3 The show follows a group of American girls in the 1870s who travel to England following their friend’s ill-advised marriage to an English gentleman. They are the raucous and shameless Americans who thumb their nose at the Brits stiff upper lips, whether that’s engaging in snowball fights or making out with their fiancée’s best friend. The show is obviously striving to be seen as feminist—a “women are expected to be quiet” kind of analysis—which it attempts to do by having all the women make grand speeches about how they no longer will feel shame, which might have been meaningful if it felt like there were any stakes to them doing so. Instead, the show moves through plot points at a breakneck speed, never taking the time to develop any kind of tension or give depth to a character’s motivations. Froseth sparkles but almost everyone else, even my dear Christina Hendricks, is wooden and flat. And like The Gilded Age, the gowns are nothing to write home about.
Up until this past week, I had assumed that everybody on earth knew about The Bodyguard, the Whitney Houston-led movie that defined my childhood. But then, I was talking to RRAFTM Ken Castaneda (Roommate, Reader and Friend to Me) and he told me he had never HEARD OF IT. In case some of you are suffering from the same affliction, let me enlighten you so that you can get your AppleTV trial and watch it before April is over.4 The movie stars Houston (a GOD if there ever was one!) as Rachel Marron, a popstar and actress, and Kevin Costner as Frank Farmer (lol), a former Secret Service agent turned private bodyguard. After an explosion backstage at one of her concerts and a slew of death threats (of the old fashioned kind—magazine letters and all), Marron’s team forces her to hire a bodyguard. She doesn’t want to—she’s nominated for an Oscar and the kind of safety plan they want to implement for her interferes with her plans for campaigning—but she reluctantly agrees when she finds out her stalker has been in her house. I can’t imagine a movie like this being made now and feeling as good as it does. This movie is equal parts action movie and romantic drama (and briefly, an ad for getting a cabin in Colorado). Houston’s Rachel is not just the girl that Costner sweeps off her feet at the end after he’s caught the bad guy. The movie is as much about her fame and starpower, as it is about his commitment to his job and his resistance to getting vulnerable. Ken told me that when I was watching, all he could hear was Whitney Houston songs and me laughing. It’s a funny movie! And it’s also ridiculous enough that you have to laugh! As I wrote on Letterboxd, The Bodyguard is the swirl industrial complex’s greatest soldier (sorry Shonda!)—the chemistry between Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston is off the charts, brain scrambling, foot kicking SPARKS! I just know that Bradley Cooper was watching this daily when Beyonce was still attached to A Star is Born.
Due to my frequent moviegoing last year, I watched the Problemista trailer so many times that I basically had it memorized. So it seemed right that I should actually see it when it was in theaters. I am familiar with Julio Torres, even though I never watched Los Espookys. But Torres has such a compelling screen presence (he was one of two good things about Together, Together, the other being Patti Harrison) and is clearly very funny, in a real way not in a SNL way, so I didn’t need much selling. Problemista reminded me of Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, in that it is playful and tender and curious. The movie follows Alejandro (played by Torres), an aspiring toy inventor who is currently working at a cryogenics center, overseeing the frozen-in-time body of an artist (played by RZA) who liked to paint eggs. When he loses that job, he ends up getting hired by said artist’s wife, played magnificently by Tilda Swinton, to assist her in curating a show of her husband’s work in the hopes that she can get him the art world recognition he could never get when he was living and not yet frozen. I saw a clip from the A24 podcast episode with Torres and Emma Stone where Stone mentioned that part of what made Torres’ comedy so good is that he played it straight. It’s easy to see that in Problemista, which is surrealistic and fantastical but still feels grounded in reality. Even as it deals with themes that are more now ubiquitous now—living with white people in Bushwick, how ridiculous the art world and art people can be, the difficulty of trying to be a true-blue artist—it never feels like overtrodden ground. Everything about it feels new, ahead of its time. Before seeing it, I wouldn’t have known how to ask for anything like it.
Girl, put your records on…
I’ve been listening to a bit of new music over the past few weeks after almost exclusively listening to the same four albums for the last 6 months (The National’s Laugh Track, Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS, Mitski’s The Land Is Inhospitable…, and Sufjan Stevens’ Javelin). I, of course, have been listening to Kacey Musgraves Deeper Well, a big upgrade from her last album starcrossed which was all over the place. As much as I tried to avoid Stranger Things actor Joe Keery’s turn to music, TikTok got me in the end and I listened to Djo’s “End of Beginning.” Unfortunately, I LOVE IT and have been listening to daily (and sometimes several times a day). It reminds me of the songs I listened to when I was fourteen. I’ve also had pinkpantheress’s Heaven knows and shygirl’s Club Shy on rotation. I definitely have to be in a particular mood for Club Shy but I really REALLY love Heaven knows, which reminds me of coveting MissSixty and wearing too much lipgloss for a seven year old and borrowing the bright pink purses my sisters bought for 99p. To top off the nostalgia: the McFly sample in “True romance” is genius and delightful!
My feelings on the Bleachers’ most recent self-titled album have wavered back and forth over the last few weeks.5 I have long believed (at least for the past year and a half) that the best Bleachers album is actually The 1975’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language, an album produced by Antonoff himself. Maybe Jack felt that too because Bleachers (2024) feels like an extension of that album with its cheeky lyrics and jazz-y accents and layered voice notes. I’m sorry to say that it is not better than The 1975 album but I did really like it on the first listen. Infamously, I rarely listen to albums straight through and prefer to just dump everything I want to listen to into a playlist and hit shuffle, but this is an album that is best listened to straight through and on its own. It is not meant to be shuffled between shygirl songs—my mistake! The stand out songs really are the features, “Alma Mater” with Lana del Rey, and “Self Respect” with Florence Welch, although the lyrics “The day Kobe fell from the sky / The day that Kendall Pepsi-smiled” are unforgivable.
I’ve also had Dua Lipa’s anthem for former rehab girlfriends, “Training Season,” on repeat and it has really been giving me life. With all respect, Dua Lipa has not put out a new song in a few years—her releases since Future Nostalgia (including the Barbie song) have sounded like demos or B-sides for the really good songs on that album. This is not to say that she is not a bop factory, but that the songs have been feeling very assembly line lately. “Training Season,” however has narrowly slipped into something more interesting. It is a hair flipping, hip-rolling kind of song that makes you to be in the middle of a dancefloor with a single blue spotlight on you. This is a song MADE for real choreography. And I get a kick out of her pronouncing the word “arrow” like Rrrr-OH.
Add to Cart
I don’t know if it’s the longer days or general restlessness but I am DYING to shop. I bought these satin slippers from 100 Percent Silk and want these Gil Rodriguez pants to wear with them. On the way to an event recently, I slipped into Sephora to spritz some perfume over my library-stale self—it ended up being Boy Smells’ LES which I now want to pick up as my spring/summer fragrance. I am on the hunt for new socks that are not Colorful Standard, Big Bud Press, or Uniqlo. The Comme Si newsletters are pretty convincing but I’m not sure I’m ready to drop $36 on a single pair of socks. I’m not actually sure AGOLDE jeans are worth their price tag but I’m down to buy two more pairs just to seal the denim hole in my life.
Thanks for reading! Next week…the 100th post of Consumption Report and, just maybe, a little treat.
It’s been too long for my take to matter but here it is: I was moved to tears by Da’vine Joy Randolph’s well-deserved win and speech—her performance in The Holdovers and Lily Gladstone’s in Killers of the Flower Moon were my favorite (and the best imho) of the year. I sat right up for the performance of “I’m Just Ken,” where Ryan Gosling proved that you just can’t buy that kind of star power. Controversial opinion (maybe): I actually think that he should have won the Best Supporting Actor award; when I looked at the list of names I couldn’t think of anyone whose performance matched up to his, not even Mark Ruffalo’s in Poor Things which is comparable in tone and which everyone seemed to love, though I thought it was nothing to write home about.
RAFTM = Reader and Friend to Me; credit to Rachel Tashjian!
If you haven’t already, you should go and watch Lena Dunham’s Sharp Stick where Froseth also outshines everyone, even Jennifer Jason Leigh.
I really didn’t see this dispatch becoming an ad for AppleTV…
I know the popular thing to do these days is to hate Jack Antonoff, to which I say to each their own, but a Bleachers song helped me through a particular rough patch in 2017 so I will remain loyal.
“With Butler, it’s like they reinvented forbidden romance.” now let’s say THAT!!!!!! you freaked it with this one!!!