Tktktk, beautiful tiles, Elliott Gould was (is?) a cool guy, and a new Pee Pee Jeans song.
I am currently eating from a large tub labeled “mild street corn dip” from a brand called Rojo’s that my girlfriend came home with after a trip from Costco and it is the most questionable mush I’ve ever put in my body yet I can’t get enough of it. — Kevin
TKTKTK.
I also can’t get enough of these DV Digest hats! Shouts to the man Daniel Varghese for making these, inviting my partner and I to the party in which they made their big debut, and being a very good friend. Emilio, if you’re reading this, I have your tktktk hat. Text me your address because I don’t know where to send it. - Kevin
Stop talking about award shows.
I have nothing to say about the Grammys other than: award shows are stupid. It would be nice if we lived in a world where award shows meant anything, but the way people talk about how fucked up the world is and how corrupt the institutions are, it baffles me when people fuss about the Grammys as if they have any absolute authority outside of getting someone to update an artist’s Wikipedia page with the quickness. They’re the worst award ceremony, a literal circus act where they hand out the equivalent of participation trophies for non-televised categories like “progressive R&B” or “musica urbana” and then try to tell us Jack Antonoff is good. Victoria Monet winning Best New Artist was cool though. Fuck the Grammys, man. — Emilio
Beautiful, beautiful tiles.
Until this week, I haven’t considered tiles outside of old bathrooms. As someone who thinks far too much about everything and anything, especially the mundane, I’m ashamed to admit that. But this week I came across a Barber & Osgerby-designed collaboration with Italian ceramic brand Mutina and I can’t help but think about how much I deserve a house, if not to live in than to simply install good tiles. (Barber & Osgerby make a cool doorknob, too.)
The collection includes several lovely designs, and I dig its back-and-forth patternmaking of rough and smooth textures. It’s especially satisfying with the alternating colors, with every duller/muted tile feeling like television static or an easy-on-the-eyes glitch of some sort. — Kevin
Are there any cool actors left?
I recently had the pleasure of watching The Long Goodbye for the first time (as an adult) and it is very comfortably My Shit™️. Elliott Gould puts on an all-time cool guy performance (Note: I have a hunch that this is where Toshihiro Kawamoto came up with Spike Spiegel’s character design for Cowboy Bebop. - Kevin), and Rob Altman does some real subtle magic with the camera work in this one. I love the various shots in this movie where the camera zooms in on someone or something while a conversation is going on, rather than cutting back and forth between people or objects. Anyway, I digress because I’m asking: where are the cool actors today?
Caleb and I have discussed this at length several times. There are still droves of good actors, but the days of The Movie Star™️ are long gone. George Clooney in Out of Sight or Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich doesn’t happen anymore! In a way, the closest performance we’ve gotten to this echelon of stardom is probably what occurred over the summer with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in Barbie. You could argue that Barbie’s success hinged on their billing but the movie was one of the most anticipated releases of the last decade. (The movie isn’t very good without them, but that’s beside the point.)
For what it’s worth, I think about four cool actors are working right now. You might find yourself asking: Emilio, what the hell are you talking about? What do you mean by “cool”? I’m talking about Brad Pitt in Ocean’s Eleven or Sung Kang in Tokyo Drift yet, then you’re already disqualified from this conversation. Anyway, two of those four were already mentioned: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. I don’t have to explain Gosling; if you need an explanation, I’m tempted to believe you just have horrible taste in media generally.
As for Robbie, she’s a strange case. She’s not a flat-out star like Julia Roberts.
(Roberts’ turn-of-the-century run from 1999 to 2001 consisting of Notting Hill, Erin Brockovich, and Ocean’s Eleven is one of the most incredible runs by an actor of the last few generations. There’s a certain simplicity to those roles, especially in the latter two movies, where all she has to be is powerful and expressive, but that’s just it, she is.)
Robbie has a star player aura that makes bad movies good and good movies great. For the latter, think — and you can hate me if you want — Barbie. For the former, think something like I, Tonya, a fun but messy script manifested into a fun but messy film that is elevated by Robbie’s portrayal of Tonya Harding.
The other two cool actors are easy calls for me. Robert Pattinson spent a long time working off the stink from the Twilight series, a significant cultural moment and a big bag get, for sure, but clearly a long way from the serious work he started in the early 2010s. I was really resistant to him as the decade progressed, not as an actor generally, but as a Big Name actor. He felt more like someone who should fit into a movie rather than someone who was the movie. The reception of both him and the film is still mixed, but I think his performance in The Batman earned him a fair shot at being taken seriously as a star. The actual knockout performance of his career so far, though, is definitely in TENET, a movie that is so loud and ridiculous — even by Christopher Nolan’s standards — and yet, Pattinson puts in an incredibly sharp, warm, charming run as Neil.
The last person who also came in hot at the end of the decade was Daniel Kaluuya. He doesn’t have the sizable resume as everybody else on this list does but off the strength of NOPE, he has to be here. NOPE surprises me in how little it gets talked about for its incredibleness. It’s Jordan Peele doing his version of a Spielberg film, and he gets two excellent performances out of Kaluuya and Keke Palmer. Kaluuya, like Pattinson, has the it factor that manifests in being a cool guy. Unlike Robbie, who’s more of a captain who mobilizes, Pattinson and Kaluuya are leaders who lead by keeping it together. Kaluuya and Palmer play this dynamic incredibly well in NOPE, his quiet yet expressive demeanor against her powerful, dynamic performance.
Funny enough, I think Keke Palmer deserves an honorable mention on this list. After her performance in NOPE, I would be excited to see what she works on next. Another honorable mention is Sterling K. Brown, who is the most unique candidate I can think of because he’s just way too fucking nice yet… he’s still cool? More importantly, he’s way too fucking jacked, and that’s a disqualifier because, at that point, you’re in Jason Momoa's territory of cool-guy-who’s-too-freakish.
Sterling K. Brown also has the best Hot Ones of recent memory. — Emilio
This Pokemon card is sold for more than my most expensive pair of shoes.
One time I threw a party in Orlando and nearly 70 people (I mean overall, not at once) passed through my bedroom, many of whom spent time heckling my caged pitbull (to the verge of stress diarrhea), some of whom stole a few of my fucking Pokemon cards. I had a binder full of the complete base and jungle sets and someone jacked my Charizard at a time when jerks were flipping it on eBay from somewhere to $200 to $500.
I’m sentimental about the franchise because it’s the first thing I’ve ever collected. And as we all know: men be collecting shit. The Pokemon TCG was sold to my father as a way for me to invest in collectibles that would pay off later. It did, in a way, pay off. Just not for me.
(Also, I remember my sister getting mad at my dad for buying me Pokemon cards when she wanted Barbies and Beanie Babies and how he favored buying me stupid collectibles over her, and to that, I say, not only do men collect shit, they also force their sons into collecting shit. It’s a cycle I will break if I ever have a child.)
Anyway, there’s a promo Pikachu card that was given out at the Van Gogh Museum as a part of its 50th anniversary celebration. The Van Gogh Museum hosted a Pokemon exhibit from September 2023 through January of this year, mashing Van Gogh with arguably some of the worst Pokemon. But the celebration also came with a free promo card now flipping for something like $100+ on eBay. Flippers suck. - Kevin
Oscars 2024 reaction/hot take thing…?
I’ll probably wanna do something more put together when we get closer to the award ceremony next month but for now, enjoy these scrambled thoughts.
Seen some people suggest that Best Actress is “Emma Stone’s award to lose” to which I’ll say, not while Lily Gladstone and Sandra Hüller are both alive and well. Anatomy of a Fall is the token international nominee for these prestige categories but it just so happens that it fucking whips. Gladstone really did earn this one though, it’s not every day you act circles around DiCaprio and De Niro.
I still can’t believe Charles Melton didn’t even get nominated for his work on May December. It’s very easily the best work in the Best Supporting Actor category; hell, it’s better than every nomination in the past three years. Robert Downey Jr, I am praying on your downfall.
Emily Blunt feels like a shoe-in for Best Supporting Actress, which would be deserved, but I think the real runaway winner is Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers. She’s a certified scene stealer, adding some incredible emotional depth to a film that already had loads of it.
Really curious to see where they go with Cinematography this year. I think Oppenheimer leans more effects and Poor Things more set and costuming, though the latter does have some beautiful framing. Not to be a homer but Rodrigo Prieto really deserves it this year for Killers of the Flower Moon. There’s a shot where the symbol of the Masonic Lodge is reflected in Robert De Niro’s glasses that made my jaw drop.
I’m okay with anybody from the Best Director category winning as long as it’s not Jonathan Glazer. I haven’t seen The Zone of Interest yet and I don’t really intend to because I’m not gonna let y’all trick me into watching a movie about Nazis in the year 2024.
Oppenheimer should have run away with the award of Best Sound but the mixing for the dialogue was just so bad that I can’t suggest it in good faith. This feels like the category where Zone of Interest will snag at least one win.
On a separate note, kind of crazy that Oppenheimer isn’t nominated for Visual Effects! That was my runaway winner but I guess I’m okay with the sound of Godzilla Minus One, Oscar winner — even if it is just for effects.
Sorry to my Korean queen Celine Song but May December is winning this original screenplay award and I will personally show up at the Dolby Theatre myself and ensure it if I have to.
Good year for movies! Let’s do it again this year! — Emilio
Pissed Jeans back.
I paid it down! I shrunk it up! I paid it down! And now I’m only $62,000 in debt!
I didn’t know this band was from PA until recently and I’ve been seeing the lead singer at some local wrestling events. He wears funny sunglasses and dances. He rules. — Kevin