Media Consumption: The 2023 Kick-off
Here are five recommendations to keep you occupied over the next few months.
đď¸ The Menu: Exactly what genre of film The Menu âisâ is hard to say. Some say itâs a drama, others call it a horror. To me, it feels more like a thriller. Either way, most can agree that it is at its heart a satire on haute cuisine and the cult that has formed around it.
We follow a couple (Nicholas Hoult and Anya Taylor-Joy) on a remote island, set to partake in a lavish dinner by celebrity chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). As the meal progresses, the edgy take on fine dining swiftly turns into an experiment in how far the clienteleâs palate can be pushed. Also, how far is the staff willing to go to satisfy the mercurial chef?
The Menu is a commentary on many facets of fine dining, and particularly the Danish restaurant Nomaâknown for not paying its lower-level staffâis a source of much ridicule. The fictitious restaurant itself is modeled after Norwayâs Cornelius Sjømatrestaurant and Washington Stateâs Willows Inn. For anyone with an above-average interest in food, The Menu is a highly entertaining watch.
The movie currently streams on HBO MaxâI gave it a gentlemanâs â¤ď¸â¤ď¸â¤ď¸â¤ď¸đ¤ on Letterboxd.
đş Poker Face: It might sound unlikely, a modern-day Murder, She Wrote starring Natasha Lyonne. Yet, it works flawlessly.
Protagonist Charlie possesses an innate instinct to know when a person is lyingâa perfect skill for someone who weekly stumbles upon murders. Each episode starts in the middle of a storyline, and after about ten minutes rewinds to when Charlie got involved with the plot. The stories are stand-aloneâtied together by a rarely touched upon overarching plotâwith a different gallery of characters appearing every week.
Poker Face streams on Peacock. It was created by Rian Johnson, who perhaps primarily is known for Glass Onion, Knives Out, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
đ Never Be Alone Again: How Bloghouse United the Internet and the Dancefloor (Lina Abascal): For those of us who frequented MP3 blogs during the aughtsâthink Stereogum and Tiny Mix Tapesâthis is a worthy tribute to the era. My only hesitation to wholeheartedly recommending it is how indie rock is made into a side note to the DJ culture.
Still, there are a lot of fun anecdotes about the eraâs âwild westâ nature of music blogsâa description liberally thrown aroundâand I enjoy seeing artists like SĂŠbastien Tellier and Chromeo represented.
Never Be Alone Again is a good read for those who were into those blogs (and who still areâStereogum is going strong); for anyone else, it might not be quite as interesting.
đď¸ Meet Me in the Bathroom: A documentary about the early-2000s New York indie rock scene centered around The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and LCD Soundsystem. Itâs a funâyet darkâretrospective, with an insight into the characters one would expect: The tortured Julian Casablancas and the Ăźber-cool Karen O. The obsessive James Murphy and the borderline sociopathic Ryan Adams. The usual suspects.
Meet Me in the Bathroom streams on Showtime, based on Lizzy Goodman's book. I threw down a healthy đđđđđ on Letterboxd. Even if youâre not interested in the bands, the film is a good document of that eraâs Brooklyn and Manhatten developments.
đď¸ The Twilight Saga: Donât pretend you donât like it. Twilight for life.
𤡠Is there anything else I should dive into? Leave a comment with any recommendations.
Media Consumption: The 2023 Kick-off
Should I really try Twilight?