This week:
- Major movie recommendations.
- My new favorite comedian.
- The Kim Kardashian katastrophe.
- The most anticipated movie of all time?
- Very sexy news.
Get Thee to a Cinema
Searching for good movies is a thrill. And, let’s be honest, it is work.
Friends, I implore you to do the work to find my two favorite films of the year, both which are opening this weekend in limited release: Sentimental Value and Peter Hujar’s Day.
In my teenage years and early twenties, I fancied myself somewhat of a cinematic spelunker. (I learned what “spelunking” was at a very young age courtesy of an old computer game I liked to play with my dad, and it’s become one of those words that I use more often and in too many contexts than I should because it sounds fancy and fun.)
The local movie theater, a cineplex so sophisticated that it did not have the capability to take credit cards until this last decade and exclusively played Harry Potter and Lord of the Ring sequels, plus the latest animated movie for kids. That meant that every Oscar season, I was on a search.
What was a closeted high school junior to do when he didn’t have access to Samantha Morton’s performance in In America? You’re telling me that the people in my community were not as desperate to see Kinsey and Hotel Rwanda as I was???
I don’t even know how I found these recesses of the world wide web, but I would somehow discover pirated versions of this small indie awards films—grainy, barely intelligible rips on sketchy sites that set off pop-up ads every 25 seconds and delivered so many viruses that I’m surprised I didn’t contract one myself.
During winter breaks from college, I would drive the hour to the one theater that played independent films and Oscar contenders and marathon four movies in a day while I was there. In between screenings I would sneak Starbucks and Chinese food into the theater in my coat for sustenance, which would reliably spill as I fumbled being discreet. I watched the entirety of Revolutionary Road with chicken lo mein all over my shirt and lap.
Now, I am not encouraging the pirating of movies. And, thankfully, most theaters have enough food options now that you don’t have to stuff your pockets with egg rolls. But I am encouraging the spirit of tracking down the cinema that you suspect could be really special.
Sentimental Value is the follow-up from Oscar-nominated Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, whose The Worst Person in the World was similarly my favorite film the year it was released.
The movie is set in Norway, where two sisters (Renate Reinsve’s Nora and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas’ Agnes) reunite with their estranged father, a celebrated movie director named Gustav played by Stellan Skarsgård, following the death of their mother—his ex-wife. They greet each other with trepidation—Nora, especially—and are taken aback when Gustav says he has written a new film and wants Nora, an actress, to star in it.
Even as he eventually finds a Hollywood ingenue (Elle Fanning, in the performance of her career) to play the part, Gustav never cedes, in his own boorish, desperate way, to chase Nora with hopes of changing her mind.
It’s a film about healing past wounds and navigating towards the future with those scars. It’s also an incredibly observant portrayal of filmmaking and art, and its capacity to help us grow. As it happens, the film is also hilarious, hitting at the part of the human condition that finds humor and levity even and especially when there’s pain.
During the fall festival season, I’ve recommended it to everyone I’ve run into, and they’ve all come back to me with the highest praise: I didn’t overhype it.
Peter Hujar’s Day is a much simpler premise, but speaks just as loudly and as poignantly. In Ira Sachs’ film, Peter Hujar, an artist in 1970s New York, simply recounts his previous day to his friend, writer Linda Rosenkrantz.
One major sell I have for the movie is: “Watch Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall Be Unbelievably Hot on Screen for 75 Minutes.”
The two stars lounge and slouch all over a New York City apartment in a manner so casual it transforms into seductive. Befitting the film’s voyeuristic approach, they’re shot with intimacy and a hint of a horny eye by Sachs, so that you routinely gasp and swoon at how attractive they look.
That only adds to the immersive experience of watching this two-hander, a scatalogical conversation that finds Hujar rambling, whining, and desiring, delivering small mundane details about his interactions that, as a whole, paint a gorgeous, somehow devastating portrait of a yearning artist resigned to his reality: perhaps having to settle for second-tier.
These movies may not be playing in the theater closest to you right now, but keep an eye out for different ways to watch them over the next few months. And if you end up driving a long way to catch a screening and need a little sustenance, I have some tips.
Joining a New Fan Club
At some point this year, I became a huge fan of the comedian Leanne Morgan.
I don’t know what it is about her. Maybe it’s because, if I close my eyes, her voice sounds like Reba is talking, and that’s simply the sound I always want to hear. Or maybe it’s because her target demographic, from my assessment of her comedy specials and her Netflix sitcom, is fully “over it” white women in their fifties and sixties, which, let’s be honest, is how I spiritually identify.
Her new Netflix special Unspeakable Things is out now, and it resonated deeply with this middle-aged, divorced empty nester single gay pop culture blogger in New York City. Clearly, there’s something that is universal about Morgan.
I feel like I am watching my mother on stage; they’re so different, yet so the same. She’s from Tennessee and my mother is from Long Island, yet every story she tells about marriage or raising kids, especially the latter, I see me, my mom, my dad, and my siblings in the anecdote.
So many people are fans of hers because she’s speaking a truth that never had an outlet. I’m not a spouse or a parent, but I’ve been a boyfriend and a child—and so deeply feel like a character in her stories. She reminds you that the worst day of a family—no one got ready for church on time, there was a grouchiness epidemic in the household—ends up, decades later, being the funniest and most treasured memory.
It’s a really special gift she gives, and I’m grateful for it. Here’s hoping I’m one of her “darling men.”
It Really Is That Bad
You may have heard that the new TV show All’s Fair, which stars Kim Kardashian, Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts, and Niecy Nash-Betts, premiered to a 0 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, with critics ruling it the worst TV show of all time.
I had the misfortune of screening the first three episodes and, have to say, it’s not an exaggeration. The thing is, I generally like silly camp that others might rule “bad”—there’s typically fun in it. I went in optimistic. But there was no fun in watching this show. It was a succubus of joy. I am but an apathetic husk now, barely able to type these words.
You can read my full review here. Give me those clicks. I suffered for those page views. Be a Good Samaritan.
At the very least, we got this fun Glenn Close clapback out of it.
I Am Already Seated
Jennifer Lawrence revealed this week that she and Emma Stone are producing a movie about Miss Piggy that will be written by Oh, Mary! Broadway breakout Cole Escola.
I have never read a greater sentence in my life.
Big News in My Household
As you have likely heard by now, my husband Jonathan Bailey was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive, the first out gay man to win the honor. It’s been hard for us to keep the secret from you all, but it’s been worth it to see the reaction to the news and to the amazing photo shoot.
What you might not have known however, is that I was there, too!
We had such an amazing time together.
More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
They made a Barack Obama musical. Really. Read more.
Jeremy Irons talks about his showdown with Jennifer Aniston on The Morning Show. Read more.
The Michael Jackson biopic trailer is here—and fans already have a gripe. Read more.
What to watch this week:
Sentimental Value: Stellan Skarsgård is gonna win that Oscar. (Now in theaters)
Peter Hujar’s Day: Let’s all go swoon at Ben Whishaw together. (Now in theaters)
Pluribus: From the creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, but with…aliens? (Now on Apple TV)
Death by Lightning: Tom Wambsgans from Succession is a presidential assassin now. (Now on Netflix)
What to skip this week:
All’s Fair: Save yourself. (Now on Hulu)
