Something New (This Week)

Movies, music, books, being online, and being offline.

Howdy.

It’s been a couple weeks. My twin brother is married, my sister officially adopted a kid, and my midwest travels for the season are halfway over. It has been a month filled with big event preparation, and without much writing or reading. I’ve logged plenty of screen time and headphone time, mostly with podcasts and silly movies to take up time on planes, but I’m ready to have my feet back on the ground for an extended amount of time. In these couple of days afterwards, I’m already swimming in listening and watching projects.

Here’s some things that were new (to me) this week:

Working Girl (1988)

I took a small detour on my chronological watching of all of Mike Nichols’ movies, skipping over Biloxi Blues to watch Working Girl on a whim with Caitlin the other night when we needed some couch-time entertainment after our travels. Nichols, whose movie career ebbed and flowed in many strange ways, had a way of finding its way back to stories that involved a couple of people having real, human moments, and his ability to nakedly capture performances and little moments is one of his strengths. Working Girl has some bizarre ideas that I think would crumble under modern cultural investigations, but the vibes and the emotions and the striving for personal success are all great, and have real staying power. And, my god, the fashion. This might be the most 1980’s America movie I have ever seen.

You can find it on Hulu, currently.

Eliza and the The Delusionals - Make It Feel Like The Garden (2024)

I listened to this album front to back on Friday after an Instagram stories recommendation by Hanif Abdurraquib, who has exquisite yet sometimes very different tastes than I do. Make It Feel Like The Garden is so many different things, with many different sounds, and as a project it feels completely successful, which is so thrilling to discover in the moment from a new-to-you band.

City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940’s - Otto Friedrich (1997)

I’m having a wonderful time learning about Hollywood and many of its early players in Otto Friedrich’s City of Nets, which definitely reads as portraiture and not just a history. This is the second “Hollywood in this decade” book I’ve read this year, and taking in snapshots of the industry is a great way to learn about things that came before me, and that have led the way to many things I thought I knew about today. What’s your Roman Empire? I have mine.

Delayed gratification

I bought a dinky plastic point-and-shoot film camera to take to my brother’s wedding, and it has been such a delight, even without having a single picture processed and viewable. The physical task of loading a camera, of buying film in a retail store, of pointing, shooting, and then not seeing the image that I just took immediately shown back to me, is a fascinating change. I’m really loving it. I’m already setting alerts for other, better made cheap-o cameras on eBay. New expensive hobby unlocked! And, more importantly, a new way to enjoy the space around me without the chase of instant gratification has been unlocked.

Re-assessing How I Exist Online

After a big stretch of trip planning, and then trip doing, I’m suddenly back in my room, back at my desk, having to move forward with projects and deadlines and rent payments and job applications. Much of my life, and probably your’s, is spent moving through different technological and online spaces, and after some separation, it’s clear to see how unhelpful those spaces have gotten over time. Josh Terry, who writes my much-recommended newsletter No Expectations, wrote about these ideas this week, pairing with my own reassessments perfectly.

No Expectations 078: How We Ball

Additionally, here are some things I am looking forward to in the next couple of time intervals:

Twisters (2024)

A lot of people are seeing this movie, which is great for the business, and great for my willingness to join the masses. This came out last Friday, the same weekend that Barbenheimer happened in 2023, and while the returns aren’t nearly the same, it’s nice to see people going to the theater for some summer movie fun. Glen Powell is here to stay, I can feel it.

MJ Lenderman’s new album

I’ve listened to Lenderman’s new single She’s Leaving You at least 20 times since it was released earlier this month, and I love how different it’s production is from his previous work, which I have been digging into in preparation for a new album Manning Fireworks, due September 6th.

Trap (2024)

It’s a new M. Night Shamalyan movie. The dude is back to great form, and seeing his movies with a crowd is always electric. The trailer, and conception, of this movie are immaculate, and I cannot wait to see Josh Hartnett towering above me in a dark room again.

All That Heaven Allows (1954) at the Hollywood Theatre

This Tuesday, July 30th, the Hollywood Theatre is showing a movie that had one of the biggest impacts on me in the last couple of years. It’s a sappy, soapy romance, at least on the surface. Underneath is a film bursting with color and heart and love, with two wonderful leading performances. The German transplant Douglas Sirk became the master of melodrama in America in the 1950’s with movies like this, Written on the Wind, and Magnificent Obsession, all incredible works. This is a wonderful opportunity to see a small story with big emotions and great production and costume design projected on film. I’ll see you there!

https://hollywoodtheatre.org/show/all-that-heaven-allows-in-35mm/

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Thank you, as always, for reading. I really hope to successfully sit down and produce more for Something New in the immediate future. There are so many great things that we should be giving our attentions to. I hope you have some for yourself this weekend.

TTFN,

b