Sunday, December 15, 2024
Sunday, December 1, 2024
The Safdie Brothers Split for Next Movies
The Safdie Brothers—famous for directing Uncut Gems and Good Time—are splitting up to each direct their solo debut.
Benny Safdie (who has also acted in Good Time, Licorice Pizza, Oppenhimer) is making The Smashing Machine set to release in 2025. The movie stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. According to World of Reel,
"The film is based on the life of MMA fighter Mark Kerr (Johnson). Kerr’s career peaked during the “no-holds-barred era of the UFC,” in the early 2000s. His life — filled with substance abuse addiction..."
Josh Safdie is working on Marty Supreme starring Timothee Chalamet with a cast that includes "Gwyneth Paltrow, Fran Drescher (“The Nanny”), Odessa A’zion (“Hellraiser”) magician Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller), “Shark Tank” personality Kevin O’Leary (aka Mr. Wonderful) and filmmaker Abel Ferrara (“Bad Lieutenant”)."
According to World of Reel, "Set in the 1950s, “Marty Supreme,” produced by A24, will tell the wild story of a Ping Pong champion. It is said to be a “fictional work,” but Reisman’s life is being used as a template here... Deadline goes on to state that “Marty Supreme” will not be a traditional biopic and is instead being envisioned as a “fast-paced, globetrotting adventure-comedy” in the vein of ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ and ‘Catch Me If You Can.’
Jam Calender
New York Times - "How the Bonne Maman Advent Calendar Became a Hot Commodity"
"Bonne Maman begins working on the calendars roughly 18 months in advance, with all research, development and production completed in France. Each calendar contains nine to 10 new flavors, like 2024’s cherry honey chestnut, and apricot with orange blossom spread, alongside repeat favorites like cherry with pink peppercorn; strawberry and rhubarb; and mango, raspberry and lime. The company’s research and development team monitors food trends, like incorporating spices, herbs and flowers into fruit, often seeking an element of surprise.
A sweet and spicy trend (better known now as swicy) in 2023, for example, inspired that year’s cherry jam infused with fruity, mild pink peppercorns. If Bonne Maman receives enough requests, a popular flavor can make it into the big jars and onto supermarket shelves, as was the case with calendar favorites like guava, which hit grocery shelves this year, and mango peach, which debuted a few years ago."
Related,
Food Institute - "The Summer of Swicy"
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Mike Tyson on Legacy
"Training this Mike Tyson... is like restoring an ancient sculpture, carefully brushing away the dust of time, hoping nothing breaks."
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
May 23, 2025
Written & Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Angela Bassett, Henry Czerny
Written & Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Angela Bassett, Henry Czerny
Mickey 17
April 18, 2025
Written & Directed by Bong Joon-ho
Starring Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Celebrities Used to Be People
GQ "Pulling Weeds" Newsletter by Chris Black:
"When I was growing up, “cool” was everything. The musicians, actors, writers, and talking heads we idolized and tried to imitate were outspoken, often on drugs, and sometimes straight-up bad people. I recognize that it was a simpler time before social media and stan culture. People of note could do as they pleased without much risk of blowback—but now, in our sanitized world, cool has become almost meaningless. Playing it safe is the top priority for some of our most prominent and influential artists.
Lately, my friend Lauren Sherman has been chronicling the discussion around the baffling outfits of Taylor Swift and her BFF Blake Lively in her Puck newsletter Line Sheet. Swift has never been a fashion icon. Not working with major designers is unheard of for someone of her stature. But I agree with the prevailing theory, advanced by Sherman and many others, that it is all done intentionally. Ultra high fashion and advanced-stylist-collab looks signify wealth and interfere with the illusion that the wearer is Just Like Us, stepping out each day in whatever’s clean and close at hand. And for an artist like Swift, that can’t happen. In the ecosystem of modern fame, the goal is to seem relatable and “real” no matter how rich and famous you get. To present as the same humble, approachable person you were before you started selling out stadium tours or doing big numbers on opening weekend. This August, Swift recalled her state of mind while writing the Folklore album during COVID, describing herself as “a lonely millennial woman covered in cat hair in the house, drinking a lot of white wine.” And maybe that’s exactly how it was, back then—but she was onstage playing her eighth Eras tour show at Wembley Stadium when she said it.
It seems unrealistic, but it seems to be working quite well. Swift is just one very obvious example. The major difference between fame as it existed once upon a time and the version of it that exists today is that the star has all the power. Ultimately, they control their channels, which have a gigantic reach and no editorial voice or standards save their own. They can post a scripted TikTok video where they have final cut privileges and reach a rapt audience. Thanks to the domination of influencers, fans just want (and demand) access, whether performative or not. After the initial discovery, I don’t think they care about style or sense of humor. Of course, GQ, The New Yorker, Gentlewoman, and Fantastic Man still do deep-dive longer profiles, but even if subconsciously, are they getting the same honesty that existed before cool died and social media was the bottom line? Growth isn't the goal once you reach the top of the heap. Maintaining that level of fame and success is the goal.
Cool means different things to different people, but to me, it’s about authenticity—which is very different from “relatability.” People who make great art that moves the masses are not like you and I. They have a point of view, laser focus, a pinch of delusion, and a level of execution that is required to make something great and be able to sell it. Being guarded, playing it safe, and always being concerned with controlling the narrative just isn’t compelling anymore. Charli XCX is thriving because she is truly herself, Oasis is going to have the biggest tour next year because they have never stopped being total pricks in the public eye, and Chappell Roan’s streams continue to skyrocket even though she’s stared down her front-facing camera and told her fans in no uncertain terms that she owes them nothing. The light is peeking through the cracks—hopefully, cool is back. "
Historical Accuracy
From the 2023 Napoleon movie Wikipedia page:
"[Director Ridley] Scott dismissed criticisms of these historical inaccuracies. "Napoleon dies then, ten years later, someone writes a book. Then someone takes that book and writes another, and so, 400 [sic] years later, there's a lot of imagination [in history books]. When I have issues with historians, I ask: 'Excuse me, mate, were you there? No? Well, shut the fuck up then.'"
Monday, October 7, 2024
Juror #2
November 1, 2024
Written by Jonathan Abrams
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J. K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough, Kiefer Sutherland
Written by Jonathan Abrams
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J. K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough, Kiefer Sutherland
Sinners
Written & Directed by Ryan Coogler
Starring Michael B. Jordan,
Hailee Steinfeld,
Jack O'Connell,
Wunmi Mosaku,
Jayme Lawson,
Omar Benson Miller,
Delroy Lindo
The Death of the Minivan
The Atlantic - "The Death of the Minivan"
By Ian Bogost"
"Pickup was quick. In the first year after introducing them, Chrysler sold 210,000 Dodge Caravans and Plymouth Voyagers, its initial two models. Overall minivan sales reached 700,000 by the end of the decade, as the station wagon all but disappeared. But the new design also generated stigma: As the child of the station wagon and the service van, the minivan quickly came to represent the family you love but must support, and also transport. In a nation where cars stood in for power and freedom, the minivan would mean the opposite. As a vehicle, it symbolized the burdens of domestic life.
That stigma only grew with time. In 1996, Automobile magazine called this backlash “somewhat understandable,” given that the members of my generation, who were at that point young adults, had “spent their childhoods strapped into the backseat of one.” Perhaps it was childhood itself that seemed uncool, rather than the car that facilitated it. In any case, minivans would soon be obsolesced by sport utility vehicles. The earliest SUVs were more imposing than they are today: hard-riding trucks with 4×4 capabilities, such as the Chevrolet Suburban and the Jeep Wagoneer. These were as big as or even bigger than the plumber-kidnapper vans of the 1970s, and they got terrible gas mileage, cost a lot of money, and were hard to get in or out of, especially if you were very young or even slightly old. Yet the minivan’s identity had grown toxic, and for suburban parents, the SUV played into the fantasy of being somewhere else, or doing something better."
Related,
"Volkswagen ID Buzz Coming to U.S. by 2023" (Mar. 2021)
Sunday, September 22, 2024
John Madden's Sunday Set Up
LA Times - "John Madden is gone but his family is keeping his NFL gameday legacy alive"
"The best seat in the house is still reserved for John Madden.
His throne is fully reclined and draped in a fleece Raiders blanket. It sits squarely before a 20-foot-tall LED wall, a study in sensory overload, showing every NFL broadcast at once.
When the Hall of Fame coach retired from the TV booth in 2009, until his death in 2021, he watched games in his own temple of boom — a family-owned production studio in a quiet business park.
He would sit in that recliner, or at a table at the back of the darkened and cavernous room, where his family now arranges a weekly place setting in his honor. There’s a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice and a fresh-baked apple fritter, all of which go undisturbed throughout the day."
"The best seat in the house is still reserved for John Madden.
His throne is fully reclined and draped in a fleece Raiders blanket. It sits squarely before a 20-foot-tall LED wall, a study in sensory overload, showing every NFL broadcast at once.
When the Hall of Fame coach retired from the TV booth in 2009, until his death in 2021, he watched games in his own temple of boom — a family-owned production studio in a quiet business park.
He would sit in that recliner, or at a table at the back of the darkened and cavernous room, where his family now arranges a weekly place setting in his honor. There’s a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice and a fresh-baked apple fritter, all of which go undisturbed throughout the day."
Miami Vice Recreated Miami
@iam.major_dad Among the many iconic moments that defined this era, none are more indelible than the unforgettable scene in Season 1, Episode 1 of Miami Vice when Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" played. This moment not only left an indelible mark on television history but also contributed to the enduring legacy of both the song and the show. Picture it: Miami, 1984. The city's vibrant culture and pastel-infused skyline served as the backdrop for a groundbreaking television series that would go on to redefine the cop drama genre. Miami Vice, created by Anthony Yerkovich and executive produced by Michael Mann, burst onto the scene with its slick style, unconventional storytelling, and a killer soundtrack that would become the hallmark of the show. In the opening episode, detectives Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) embark on an undercover mission to take down a drug kingpin. The scene is set for suspense and intrigue, but it's the soundtrack that elevates it to legendary status. As Crockett speeds through the Miami night in his iconic "Ferrari" Spyder (later identified as a mock Ferrari and replaced by real Ferrari’s as an agreement between Ferrari and the producers), the haunting notes of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" start to play, setting the tone for what would become one of the most iconic moments in television history. #fakeguns⚠️ #80stv #miamivice #miami #s #donjohnson #sonnycrockett #miamibeach #miamiheat #philipmichaelthomas #vibe #80sshows #ricardotubbs #florida #freitag #tvshows #miamivicestyle #sfashion #southbeach #f #miamilife #ferrari #miamimtb #miamirace #vitico #bhfyp #viticoquality #miamimechanic #80strend #ultimatebluetoolwall #ciclismo #mtb #vice #80svibes #vice #testarossa #fakeguns⚠️ ♬ original sound - 🇺🇲 Ｍａｊｏｒ 🏴☠️
Axios - "“Miami Vice” celebrates 40 years. How the TV show shaped Miami’s brand"
Flashback: The show — filmed like a music video with glamor shots and a big-budget soundtrack — created a sensationalized version of Miami where detectives in pastel European suits and sockless loafers chased bad guys in sports cars and speedboats.
Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas were the leading men, but the city itself was a main character, too.
Zoom in: "Vice" was a huge hit for national audiences during its five seasons on air, and international viewers loved the reruns, but it was a source of pride for downtrodden Miamians.
In the early 1980s, Miami's murder rate was the highest in the country. The city was recovering from the police killing of Arthur McDuffie, which touched off devastating race riots.
The Art Deco Cultural District in South Beach was known as "God's waiting room" back then — a 180 from the young party crowds that fill Ocean Drive hotels these days.
What they did: The showrunners staged fake clubs, bars and restaurants inside Art Deco hotels.
They cast young, attractive extras to replace the retirees for beach and poolside shots.
Using a strict pastel-only color palette, they painted over drab South Beach hotels, à la preservationist Leonard Horowitz, who began repainting Art Deco hotels in the '70s.
By the end of the '80s, many say, the real Miami was beginning to look like its TV self.
The 9 Hour Prince Documentary We May Never Get to See
NY Times Magazine - "The Prince We Never Knew"
"It’s 1984, and Prince is about to release “Purple Rain,” the album that will make him a superstar and push pop music into distant realms we had no idea we were ready for. The sound engineer Peggy McCreary, one of many female engineers he worked with, describes witnessing a flash of genius during the creation of his song “When Doves Cry.” Over a two-day marathon recording session, she and Prince filled the studio with sound — wailing guitars, thrumming keyboards, an overdubbed choir of harmonizing Princes. It was the sort of maximalist stew possible only when someone is (as Prince was) a master of just about every musical instrument ever invented. But something wasn’t right. So at 5 or 6 in the morning, Prince found the solution: He started subtracting. He took out the guitar solo; he took out the keyboard. And then his boldest, most heterodox move: He took out the bass. McCreary remembers him saying, with satisfaction, “Ain’t nobody gonna believe I did that.” He knew what he had. The song became an anthem, a platinum megahit."
$4,999 Crustable Painting
NY Times - "Junk Food, High Art"
"Mr. Verrier, 44, an artist who lives in Tallahassee, Fla., has carved out a lucrative niche on social media with his still life paintings of junk food. He has rendered greasy cheesesteaks, extra-large sodas and dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets in delicate brushstrokes."
Emilia Pérez
Written and Directed by Jacques Audiard
Starring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Mark Ivanir, Édgar Ramírez
Starring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Mark Ivanir, Édgar Ramírez
Sunday, September 8, 2024
Palme d'Or Winner - Anora
October 18, 2024
Written & Directed by Sean Baker
Starring Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Aleksei Serebryakov
Written & Directed by Sean Baker
Starring Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Aleksei Serebryakov
God MC - Rakim
The Ringer - "The Word of God: An Interview With Rakim"
"Q: Walk us through your writing process. What do you draw from, and how do you apply it to music?
A: Early on, I learned how to think like a writer, meaning all day, every time I see a phrase or sign or anything, I’d hold on to important words that stood out. I’m always absorbing and trying to figure out different rhyme schemes. I write notes down on the side of the margins while I’m putting verses together. That way, I won’t get sidetracked and can focus on what I’m writing that moment.
When it’s time to record, I have premeditated rhymes. And I’ll add words as I write along to the music. Sometimes the music tells me what to write. If the music has feeling, it gives me visions, and my head starts spinning, especially if the sample grabs me. Then, thoughts come [to me] in different rhythms. When I’m in the zone, when all the phrases and all the information starts coming, it’s hard to stop it. I hear concepts right away, and words are flowing. I also pay attention to the different rhythms of the words. That’s why I write those sidenotes, so I can come back to them later. It’s a pretty organic process, I would say."
What Refrigeration Created
New Yorker - "How the Fridge Changed Flavor"
"In 2010, the open‐data activist Waldo Jaquith decided to make a cheeseburger from scratch, using only agrarian methods. He and his wife had just built a home in the woods of Virginia, where they raised chickens and tended to an extensive vegetable garden. Flush with pride in his self-sufficiency, Jaquith outlined the steps required: bake buns, mince beef, make cheese, harvest lettuce, tomatoes, and onion. Then he realized that he wasn’t nearly committed enough. To really make a cheeseburger from scratch, he would also need to plant, harvest, and grind his own wheat, and raise at least two cows, one for the dairy and another to be slaughtered for the meat.
At this point, Jaquith gave up. The problem wasn’t labor but timing. His tomatoes were in season in late summer, his lettuce ready to harvest in spring and fall. According to the seasonal, pre-refrigeration calendar he was trying to follow, Jaquith would have needed to make his cheese in the springtime, after his dairy cow had given birth: her calf would be slaughtered for the rennet, and the milk intended to feed it repurposed. But the cow that provided his beef wouldn’t be killed until the autumn, when the weather started to get cold. If Jaquith turned the tomatoes into ketchup and aged his cheese in a cellar for six months, until the meat, lettuce, and wheat bun were ready, he could maybe, possibly, make a cheeseburger from scratch. But practically speaking, he concluded, “the cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago.”
And, in fact, it did not. The cheeseburger is just one of many sensory pleasures made possible by a highly industrialized and refrigerated food system. More obvious ones include the delightful anticipation of pouring a crisp beer at the end of the day, the refreshing clink of ice cubes in a soft drink or a cocktail, and, of course, the joy of licking an ice-cream cone in summer. Brewers, such as Frederick Pabst and Adolphus Busch, were among the first to invest in mechanical refrigeration; without it, American-style lager beer was impossible to make year-round or at scale. David Wondrich, a historian of alcohol, has traced the cocktail back to a custom of drinking a blend of spirits, bitters, and sugar in Britain—but it wasn’t until such drinks met continual, affordable supplies of American ice, in the late nineteenth century, that the art of mixology was born. And though the ancient Chinese, Romans, and Persians all mixed snow or ice with fruit juice or dairy products to make chilled desserts, ice cream only became popular outside élite circles in the mid-eighteen-hundreds."
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Sunday, September 1, 2024
The Memeing of Life
GQ - "The Memeing of Life"
By Will Welch (Global Editorial Director)
Back in June, I was sitting at a dinner event next to a young writer friend. This was during that extraordinary moment in American politics when President Joe Biden was still on the Democratic ticket but facing mounting pressure to step aside.
The writer friend is wickedly smart, funny, and popular. Plugged-in. The kind of cutting-edge young person who's in all the cutting-edge group chats with all the other cutting-edge kids.
We were talking about the increasingly plausible possibility that Biden might drop out of the race.
"It's gotta be Kamala," my friend said. "I think she can do it." He paused. "And just imagine the memes."
Something about that statement hit my brain like a bolt of lightning. This young person was doing things at once: expressing an earnest and very serious political perspective and expressing a deliriously craven lust for LOLs.
You see, in 2024, the two need not be at odds.
In fact, for a political idea to connect, it very much has to meme.
For whatever reason, this exchange finally made me accept a hard and very modern truth: Right now, the meme is the primary mode of transmission, and the most important currency of our time.
The implications of this are far-reaching. They affect politics, business, news, fashion, every form of culture. Basically, all public-facing communication at scale.
Just a couple weeks after the conversation with the writer that galaxy-brain-memed my mind, I was having dinner with another friend, this time a musician.
He told me that his latest album had yielded disappointing results, and he'd just returned from a tour on which he'd lost money.
He was frustrated because, with the new album, he'd made a rich and complex work of art that he was unwilling and perhaps unable to reimagine as "content."
He resisted cutting his headphone masterpiece up into chunks and pushing it through the social media pipelines.
As a result, the album did not meme. Which means it did not travel. And it did not accrue currency.
Now, it's important to acknowledge here that the concept of the internet meme is some three decades old. But all this is very much new. To be honest, most people still haven't caught on.
Which is why the long-simmering conversation about Joe Biden's age didn't get serious until after the president's infamously disastrous debate with Trump, despite a whole genre of "Joe Biden freeze" memes that had been racking up views and LOLs (yes, memes are unsparingly cruel) for months.
Until the debate we weren't quite ready to think like my writer friend and accept that the freeze memes were showing us the truth and delivering the laughs at the same time.
Once you go galaxy-brain you start realizing that all the biggest cultural juggernauts of the last 12 months or so have been meme machines: Zach Bryan. Elon Musk. Dune: Part 2. The Drake-Kendrick beef.
And, of course, nobody memes as effortlessly and instinctively as Donald Trump himself—although Kamala Harris is a formidable meme machine herself, which suggests the Dems might be competitive in November after all.
Despite all the daily ridiculousness on TikTok, X, IG Reels, and all of our group chats, I don't think the grave importance of this election is lost on America's citizenry. Every news hit and campaign ad makes it extraordinarily clear that the future of the global economy, several wars, the climate, women's reproductive rights, fundamental LGBTQ issues, and much more are all on the ballot. Every day we hear—from both sides, for different reasons—that democracy itself is at stake. This one matters a lot.
Yet in 2024 each day's battle will be won or lost in the meme trenches, with dumb-funny user-generated social videos that make the internet laugh-cry. What a time to be alive.
Meanwhile, I have been grappling with what all this means for me personally, and for GQ. Honestly, on the personal side, at age 43, the thought of mastering CapCut so I can throw myself on the sword of the TikTok algorithm feels equal parts exhausting and demeaning.
But here in the relevance economy, you can't succeed if you're too cool to meme. Dignity is a forgotten virtue and clout is king.
As far as GQ goes, I think we're in good shape.
George Clooney and Brad Pitt have stayed at the center of culture for four decades now, and when we asked them to put on white suits, hop in Brad's pool, and mug for the camera they didn't hesitate.
I think it's a classic magazine cover. I also think it's a good meme. Right now, it's gotta be both to make a splash.
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