When watching at home beats watching in theaters.
Spoiler alert: it's not because of your "secret" popcorn recipe
“I don’t wanna piece of you. I want the whole thing.”
-hint: one of this film’s actors played a bond villain
When I first started this newsletter I only focused on - like the sign says 👆 - what’s in theaters. In part because it limited my purview. I didn’t want to have to cover “everything” right away. But one reason I did not name it what I did, is that I hate watching movies at home. Because I love watching movies at home.
You can adjust the volume, nosh “free” snacks, as well as control the pee breaks; but there is one perk that I’ve come to appreciate, not every time, not even most of the time, but one that when it hits right, is above all others. I’m of course referring to, the snuggles.
The dog snuggles.
Sure, human snuggles can be fun, but they are second tier compared to when a canine is comfortable at your feet, snoring softly as the screen flashes with your chosen entertainment. My girlfriend / partner might balk at me saying this as she is the undisputed #1 as far who spends more time with dogs in tow. But I have my moments. There was one a few weeks ago when said partner was out of town. I don’t actually remember what I was watching, but I do remember how I was watching it. Ruby, the older dog of our two (the other is Nico, who is also very fond of the snugs, but is sometimes terrible at sharing space), had for most of her life been a calm and welcoming canoodling compatriot, but for a good chunk of the last couple years had not enjoyed participating in the couch party. But she has again more recently, and I asked if she wanted to join me. Indeed she did and so I picked her up, placed her on the blanket which was situated so as to prevent the transference of dog hair, a task at which it would inevitably fail, as it always does. Once settled, Ruby, eyes shuttered, looked more comfortable than someone receiving a massage performed with Xanax laced rubbing oil.
My gf often describes the pleasant atmosphere a sleeping dog creates as “just the best.” And I’m not sure there’s a more apt way to do so. Maybe because the animal is without worry in that moment, you also feel like you get to be for a bit.
In the instance I describe above it was an especially nice moment because as mentioned, Ruby is the older of our two dogs and is nearing the end of her life. There’s a lot to remember about the eight years1 I’ve known her, like, a lot, but one of the best moments will easily be her looking up at me with the biggest doe eyes “saying” everything’s all right at the moment.
Or that she had to poop. It’s hard to tell with her sometimes.
And because this newsletter is sure, about movies, but also whatever I want it to be about, right now I want it to be about Ruby. And the rest of the dogs that make watching stuff better.
❤️
NEWSY BITS 👾
Late-Night Hosts Switch To Podcasting To Fund Out-Of-Work Staff; Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers & Oliver Set Spotify Series [can’t wait for the “based on a true story” biopic we’ll see in three years where they get into all the behind the scenes drama. Jk this won’t happen, I’m clearly playing against how nice this is of them. But if it did, I wonder if they’d let Guillermo play Kimmel… 🤔] - Deadline Hollywood
‘Dune: Part Two’ Delayed to 2024 Amid Strikes [as I “said” a couple weeks ago 😭] - Variety
Los Angeles Sees Movie Theater Resurgence With Wave of New Openings, Renovations: “It’s Shockingly Optimistic” [obscenely local news of course, and Los Angeles is obviously a “theater town,” but maybe this portends well for the rest of the country as people seek to spend more time / money on “experiences”? TBD] - The Hollywood Reporter
EXTRA CREDIT MOVIE(S) 📝
Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose - Fun title. Just ok movie? That’s what the limited reviews are saying about this 1930’s set mystery where Simon Pegg investigates … oh you’re waiting for me to tell you? Sorry, it’s right in the title! Minnie Driver, Christopher Lloyd star as well. Playing in Limited Theaters This Friday (and VOD soon)
All Fun and Games - That title is a liar. There will be no fun, no games, as Stranger Things’ Natalie Dyer and Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield have a little Netflix meetup and make a slasher movie where Butterfield becomes possessed and um, kills people. No reviews waiting after that click but this genre has its converts so it’s probably fine without them. Playing in Limited Theaters & on VOD This Friday
You’re tracking a mosquito, eyes zeroed in on every zig and each zag of the little blood sucking bastard’s Jack Sparrow-esque drunken flight trajectory and then *POOF* the fucker vanishes as if sucked into some heretofore unimagined vortex. Your shock is only outweighed by your annoyance that now while you sleep it will… *BAM* your nemesis reappears, further taunting your patience with its… *ZAP* god damn it. Gone. Yet again.
You might think I’m about to compare The Equalizer movies to an annoying pest. I am not. Even though both are responsible for the loss of countless pints of blood. No, I don’t see the series as a nuisance. But I would like to talk about that wormhole effect, or wherever it is that mosquitos disappear to because I think somehow, and just go with me here, these movies get sucked in as well. I know, it’s a god damn mystery, right? See, this is the third movie in the series. Which is what that “3” in the title stands for. You’re welcome. And yet, every time one is about to come out it’s almost like collectively we as a society all go wait, where in the hell did that come from?! That wasn’t there like two seconds ago. But before we have time to consider its place of origin, shit’s gone again.
All this would seem to betray the countless hours spent by the hundreds of people, including Denzel Washington’s director buddy Antoine Fuqua (see: Training Day), that are spent making this ultra-violent entertainment ready for our consumption, but they’re almost so blandly consumable you barely even think about all that. You simply see Denzel2 (yes, we’re on a first name basis, deal with it), a human most other humans on earth love to love, reappear dispatching yet another set of humans who we are led to hate, in ways that show the utmost contempt for their bodies consuming oxygen. This time it’s in Italy. You think baseball is American’s favorite past time? Not even close. It’s watching one guy get knifed in the esophagus while the next dude gets a gun shoved in his eye hole which is then discharged as to shoot the third jagoff about to stab our beloved Denzel.
It’s our national therapy, really3.
And it’s back, just like that friggen’ mosquito which somehow reappeared right next to your god damn ear… *WAHM* got ya!
*bzzzzzzzzzz*
🦟
Out: Friday
Where: Theaters
1 hr 43 mins | R | 🍅: 68%
Welcome to your new favorite …
… vibe. From the director of A Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell), we see Barry Keoghan (the heart breaker from The Banshees of Inisherin) get sucked into a world of British opulence, headed up by Euphoria’s Jacob Elordi. And he likes it.
… inspiration. Biopic about Bayard Rustin, the civil rights leader who helped organize the March on Washington, but whose sexual orientation (he was gay) sidelined his historic influence as it often placed him behind the scenes.
… dad movie. Michael Mann, aka, the guy who made that scene where Al Pacino and Robert De Niro finally act opposite each other, thus forever granted “dad god” status for all eternity, does a biopic on Enzo Ferrari. The guy who started… Ferrari.
… creative blasphemy. LaKeith Stanfield peeps what Jesus is doing and thinks.. *pffttt* I can do that.
… operatic violence. *said in best trailer voice* From the twisted mind of director David Fincher comes.. THE KILLER. Jk, it’s not that kinda movie. But is directed by David Fincher, so it probably will be a bit twisted.
Oh you want more? As in a Meg Ryan rom-com more? A cute old age Irish rom-com more? Things that are movies but not rom-coms more? Cool, click below.
she’s 14!
Washington is known to be a religious man, he’s talked about in interviews how he reads the Bible daily. But based on this movie, I’m gonna guess he’s an old testament kinda guy?
of course it isn’t. therapy is therapy and the country could probably use more of it