Picture it: you're at my house for Friday night dinner. I've guzzled 1 dirty martini and now we're sitting down to glazed woodcock with a side of truffled goose head. Because I'm just as smart and worldly as the Kennedys, I'm going to tell you about five things that have been on my mind this week with nary a butt model mention. If you show the appropriate level of interest, I'll let you walk around the house after we're finished and put Post-its notes on anything you'd like to have when I'm dead.
I made my distaste for Fennell's work clear in this review of "Promising Young Woman" and while I didn't have the energy to rail against it at the time, I hated "Saltburn," too. Both films are lazy, vapid bullshit that rely on cheap shock value for the sake of internet memes. They treat the audience like a bunch of idiots who need every single development spelled out for their atrophied brains. The more I see from Fennell, the more assured I am that she's a rich, privileged, out-of-touch twat. At least Phoebe Waller-Bridge has legitimate talent. Nothing is more embarrassing than coming from a wealthy as fuck family and still ending up a mediocre hack.
Anyway... I've been dreading her adaptation of "Wuthering Heights" since it was announced and these new images have intensified that feeling. Did this bitch not read the book? AV Club says, "This isn't your English teacher's Wuthering Heights" and like... yeah, this is "Wuthering Heights" created by someone who wishes to incite a riot. There's no way these baffling decisions could have been made for any reason other than rage bait. First, Jacob Elordi is boring. I'd rather eat a live cockroach than watch another project where he's supposed to be anything other than a blasé fuckboy because that's the extent of his capabilities. He's also white, so that's a real choice for the role of Heathcliff. Margot Robbie is too old to play Catherine unless they're doing something absolutely bizarre with the story, which I am fully expecting. Why do an adaptation if you're not even going to bother riffing off the same themes of the novel? (The answer to this is in the following article.) I usually try to go into movies with an open mind, but I fully plan on hate-watching this and tearing it to shreds for fun. If you're not convinced of the (poor) taste level involved with this project, check out his promo image:
Ok, so why is Fennell adapting "Wuthering Heights" when she has zero interest in the source material? Because it's pre-existing IP, AKA all that Hollywood is willing to fund these days. Anyone who (is older than 30 and) pays attention to the industry has watched this happen over the past twenty years. Since I can remember, Hollywood has always been obsessed with prequels and sequels, but the 90s and early aughts were still full of successful original screenplays. People like David Lynch, Nora Ephron, and Nancy Meyers were all working at a steady pace and (mostly) making money at the box office. Even when returns weren't huge, they could still get original projects made based on name and reputation. This all changed at some point but when and how is murky. Between studio mergers, the rise of streaming, AI, and writers strikes, it's hard to conceptualize the trajectory as an outsider, which is why I found Daniel Bessner's piece, "The Life and Death of Hollywood," so fascinating.
I've had several people try to convince me that IP isn't a death sentence for creativity and although I want to believe that, I no longer have the ability to delude myself. I can't fathom a world where art is so data-driven that no one is willing to take financial risks. Young people won't ever get to experience the pleasure of seeing a weirdo movie that flopped at the box office turn into a cult classic; there will be no "Ishtar" (1987) of the 2020s. Bessner shares my bleak outlook and I appreciate that there's no rah rah silver lining bullshit about how much this all sucks and how unlikely it is to improve. It's a sobering, necessary read and you'll probably end it feeling even more helpless about everything, so proceed at your own peril.
Despite not really caring about most of his projects, I'm somehow a Seth Rogen fan. What can I say? I'm hardwired to support the childfree stoners of the world who just want to do what makes them happy. I find him endearing/charming and loved him as a romantic lead in the underrated "Long Shot" (2019) with Charlize Theron. Even if you haven't enjoyed his past work, I still recommend giving "The Studio" a shot, especially if the aforementioned Harper's article resonates with you. In the show, Rogen plays a newly minted studio head who got into the industry because of his love for cinema but is forced to spend most of his time working on stupid shit like a franchise based on Kool-Aid. His character, Matt Remick, is an affable guy who wants to feel like he's part of the filmmaking process and doesn't quite understand how hated he is amongst actual creatives. The second episode is a fantastically tense look at how his interference ruins Sarah Polley's attempt to film a magic hour oner. It's the type of thing that might have been too cringe to watch if not for the perfectly timed humor.
Along with Polley, there are many delightful cameos (and significant roles) for other filmmakers playing themselves, like Steve Buscemi, Greta Lee, and Martin Scorsese. Theron shows up for a hot second simply to tell Remick to get the fuck out of her house. Some of my favorites — like Catherine O'Hara, Kathryn Hahn, and Ike Barinholtz (my husband's celebrity doppelganger) — play main characters who are generally always exasperated with Remick's view of cinema as an art form instead of a vehicle to make money. Three episodes are currently available with new ones being released each Tuesday, so it gives me something to live for early in the week.
ESPN's 30 for 30 series is too dude-centric for my liking, but I always watch the ones about and/or directed by women (e.g., "Qualified," "Dream On," "Jeanette Lee Vs."). "Motorcycle Mary," a 2024 short directed by Haley Watson, was released one day after its subject, Mary McGee, died. I heard about her thanks to The Vintagent and then promptly watched this doc and read her NYT obituary. She started racing sports cars in 1957, a time before the Equal Pay Act, Griswold v. Connecticut, and Roe v. Wade (which we have since struck down because this country is a broken as fuck shit pile). One newspaper headline introduces her as "'Woman Driver' Mrs. Don B. McGee," as if she's a show cat doing tricks on behalf of her owner. Instead of letting this constant belittlement eat away at her, Mary focused on having fun and seized the opportunities that came her way.
In 1960, she became the first woman to race motorcycles and somehow didn't kill anyone after an infuriating chain of events that I won't spoil. In 1975, she became the first person to complete the Baja 500 — a grueling desert race with unpredictable conditions — solo. Even though the terrains are totally different, the clips from this race immediately make me think of Reno from Rachel Kushner's "The Flamethrowers" crashing her Moto Valera at the Bonneville Salt Flats. This comparison might bring to mind an icy, detached badass carelessly flicking a cigarette into a can of gasoline, but that wasn't Mary. In spite of all the setbacks and doubts from other people, she radiated confident enthusiasm sans protective shell of bitchy armor. An icon and a legend; may she rest in peace.
Mary kept racing until age 76 and was inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2023.
The overwhelming theme of this Friday night dinner is how fucked the film and media landscape is. "Motorcycle Mary" is the one uplifting story doled out to prevent a pre-dessert suicide. Now that we're done with the meal, I can bring the vibe back down by telling you about what's going on at Simon & Schuster. The first piece in The Cut is a short profile of Sean Manning, S&S's new publisher, who wants the company to become the A24 of books (eye roll). I totally agree with the person in the comments who said, "This article feels like it could be a subplot on Younger." His big ideas for revolutionizing the industry include publishing books by people who already have a following, nixing blurbs, and forcing authors to whore themselves out like Instagram influencers. Cool cool cool, good stuff, boomer (he's not a boomer, but these are boomer ideas). If you want a quote that proves we live in hell, here's one: "In his eyes, S&S’s biggest threat isn’t another publisher; it’s social media and streaming." You better get rolling on those Post-it notes because it's nearly jump out the window o'clock.
The second piece in Harper's is about Simon & Schuster's 2023 sale to KKR, a private equity firm that also owns an oil and gas company. It's written by Justin Nobel, an author who was in the middle of a book for S&S about radioactive oil and gas waste ("Petroleum-238") when the sale was announced. Something I didn't realize until reading Nobel's article is that, while a federal judge blocked Penguin Random House's purchase of S&S in 2022, they're still tied to KKR/S&S via Bertelsmann/BMG, the conglomerate that owns them. If this is too confusing, all you need to know is that private equity owns everything, even the publishing companies you hope have some semblance of a moral compass. Nobel chronicles his journey from writing a book for S&S to pulling that book and traveling across the Eagle Ford Shale with an 88-year-old nun in an attempt to prove to himself that his decision was the correct one. It's a depressing read that's simultaneously life-affirming and makes everything about Sean Manning look even stupider. I loved it.
