Once again, I’m visiting you from a swirl of glitter and dust beneath your floorboards. Is that a new suede vest you’re wearing?
A few things on my mind/screen:
golden globes
I watched most of the Golden Globes until my kid became so furious at Barbie’s losses that we had to cut it off. Would it have been so hard to lob a globe at Greta Gerwig? I’ve loved her ever since she blew a trumpet in the bathtub in Hannah Takes the Stairs. The other day I ate an orange in the bath, and it felt luxurious.
People are so mean about awards shows — the host sucks, the dress sucks, the winner sucks — but I applaud all those folks who mustered the energy to wash their hair, get a babysitter and risk being scrutinized by millions of dumdums on the internet. (Although there was one presenter who looked like she maybe forgot to wash her hair, and I applaud her, too.)
I went to the Golden Globes a couple times, and once I actually got a seat during the ceremony. (I missed dinner because I was out interviewing folks on the carpet, but they had a back room of hors d’oeuvres where one could nibble cheeses with Larry David and/or watch the smokers puff and gripe on the balcony.) My table mates included Ludacris and Josh Duhamel. They stuck us way in the back, near the restrooms.
barry keoghan’s face
I didn’t love Saltburn — it’s like a two-hour screed against baths — but I do love The Face of Barry Keoghan, which looks like you stuck a couple puzzle pieces in the wrong places but hey, it’s much better this way. Like myself, he loves a fantastic brooch, and I dig how he plays break-your-heart or screw-you-over with equal intensity.
air + blackberry + dumb money
Nostalgia and trends used to run in 20-year cycles, which is why my high-school friend Cindy took a tragic spill in her ‘70s platform shoes in 1993 and why I overheard someone waxing poetic about Blink-182 the other day.
But like our attention spans, that window is shrinking. Recently I watched Dumb Money, the scripted film about how a regular dude made GameStop stock skyrocket in 2021. It’s the kind of ripped-from-the-headlines story that Craig Gillespie is so great at telling, but maybe I would’ve been just as entertained by an article about it in The Atlantic.
BlackBerry dips back a little farther to the early 2000s and Air zooms us to the ‘80s. They’re all fun movies — Air is the best of the three — but if we’re going to tell true stories from recent history, could we possibly shake up the format and get a little weirder or gayer or more vaginal or all of the above?
wonka
Who’s refusing to see Wonka because of some lifelong allegiance to Gene Wilder? I’d say they’re mostly Gen X-ers (of which I’m one), because we are the only generation that holds on to nutty notions of selling out and nostalgic loyalty. Did we see the remakes of Arthur and Fame and Footloose? Hell no, though that was probably the right call.
Wonka is fun and flirty, even if you’re over 40. Chalamet plays the dumbest but cutest Willy we’ve ever seen, and Mr. Bean and Queen Elizabeth pop up to remind us we’re in England. My child says it’s their fourth favorite movie of all time, right alongside Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
“i am my own man” by the riot professor
This song popped up on Spotify the other morning and made me laugh so hard I walked around with jagged eyeliner for the rest of the day. Performed by The Riot Professor, it goes through a dude’s everyday routine — he’s gotta do laundry, put an old Cuisinart in storage — and proves that YES, you can write a good song about anything at all, not just money and lust and beer.
hollywood houselift + the curse
Reality television will stink up your living room faster than a tobacco candle, but somehow Hollywood Houselift crept into my algorithm recently and has become one of my favorite clandestine activities.
The Amazon Freevee show follows interior designer Jeff Lewis as he remodels the homes of celebrities with money to burn on exotic wallpapers. This season Christina Ricci, Regina Taylor, Anthony Anderson and Josh Duhamel (aka my former Golden Globes tablemate) are among the stars he realigns.
Jeff is made up of drywall and harsh opinions, but damn it, there’s something comforting and voyeuristic about watching people roam furniture showrooms. In the end, everyone’s happy, because when you’re rich and on TV, it’s no risk and all reward.
Hollywood Houselift is the opposite of the home renovation show that serves as the premise for The Curse, Showtime’s series starring Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie. I watched the first three eps before politely moving on, but I think that probably says more about me than the show.
The older I get, the less I wanna squirm — and The Curse is squirm city over here. At best, I only have an hour at the end of the day when I can be entertained. I just can’t justify spending those 60 minutes watching characters do awful, nauseating or (the worst) boring things. But please sample it for yourself; my friend Greg loves it, and he’s a rad guy.
elton john and brandi carlile
Elton is so fraught with loss at not knowing what to do next. He’s just gone over to L.A. to make an album with Brandi Carlile. They made an album together in two weeks. He says it’s one of the best things they’ve ever done.
Bless Brandi Carlile, who’s giving Rick Rubin a run for his haircut with her collaborations and career resuscitations. I keep thinking about the above quote in an experimental theater sort of way: Elton on a fainting couch in a silver sweatsuit, despairing over whether he should make a record or a cappuccino. What do you do after you’ve already done the thing you’ll be remembered for? How do you turn heads when everyone is laser-focused on The Young and The New? Elton turns 77 this year. That sounds like a number where maybe you finally figure it all out, relax enough to take some chances and shrug your old shoulders if they fail.
Also:
Filmmaker Eva Aridjis launched a Kickstarter so she can finish her documentary about “Goodbye Horses” singer Q Lazzarus. She has been working on this for years, and I’m hoping maybe Jodie Foster or someone can step in and give her the dough.
Heartfelt congrats to Lee Sung Jin (aka Sonny Lee) on his Golden Globe for Beef. In the early years of Pop Candy, Sonny was always so kind and positive — he wrote a blog about The O.C. that rocked my socks off. It’s thrilling to see him rewarded for his supreme storytelling skills.
In his latest collection, Satan’s Kingdom, cartoonist Robert Sergel has a comic about spite houses that I can’t stop thinking about.
If you wanna buy tickets to watch Sundance Film Festival movies online, do it now, because for some reason these virtual tickets sell out in a flash.
And now I’ve gone on and on. Thanks for reading this far, you win a new garage!
this is the third time i’ve typed “josh duhamel,”
and now we are all cursed,
whit
whitmath@gmail.com | instagram | venmo | dinah shore
I've loved Greta Gerwig since I saw her "eat" a slice of pizza in The House of the Devil. The choices she made were so interesting.