Hello hello! Can’t stop thinking about the trailer for The Idea of You, I need this movie to be good so badly. Everyone read the book!! Here’s a recap of my week:
Things I Read
Books
If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.
I’m stuck!! I have barely read anything in weeks, I need a rom com to pull me out of this slump asap.
Articles
The Failed Promise of Police Body Cameras: I’ve had this bookmarked for weeks now but it took me a while to actually sit down and read it because I knew it would piss me off. I finally read it this week, and I was right. This is a really well written and well researched report about how body cameras have not been the end all be all for police accountability that many thought they would be. This article makes clear that it’s because we handed police officers this technology but then we also let them be the ones to control the release of the footage. Police departments will never police themselves in a way that is sufficient, or even adequate. They are not interested in doing that. They do not want to hold themselves accountable, they want to maintain their power. In the meantime, we are all funding hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement money every year for police wrongdoing (this article says that in 2023 the NYPD paid out $121 million in settlements for police misconduct. That’s just in New York City, in one year). Police departments should have less money, we as a society should not be relying on police officers to solve every social ill, and there should be independent mechanisms for holding them accountable when things go wrong. This article is well worth the read, and there is also an episode of The Daily about this.
Things I Watched
TV
If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.
The Traitors (Peacock): What a fun season of television this was. As someone who has been watching competition reality television for over a decade I find this SO FUN. I still can’t believe they put Parvati and Sandra and CT and Johnny Bananas in the same house. I loved the first half of the season, but I do feel it fizzled out a bit in the second half and I feel a little disappointed by who won. Despite all that, I will watch so many seasons of this. It is dramatic and campy and just the best. Even if you don’t know who any of the people in the cast are, I still think you would like this. Give Alan Cumming an Emmy for this, I’m not joking!! I want to watch the UK and Australian seasons next.
Movies
Drive Away Dolls (theaters): This is about two girls who go on a road trip and accidentally get wrapped up in a crime ring. I was very excited for this because it’s directed by one of the Coen brothers, his first movie on his own, and it stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan, who I really like. Unfortunately I net out kind of medium on this…it felt unfinished to me, like a first draft of a movie. This is weird and absurd and VERY gay, and there’s some funny moments, but overall I wanted it to be better than it was. I think it’s pretty skippable, certainly not worth a movie theater trip.
Dune: Part Two (theaters): If you’ve been here for a while you may or may not remember that I did not like the first Dune movie (I wrote about it here…you may notice I said you would not be reading a review of the second one in this newsletter, to which I say.. shhhhhhhhhhhh). I just do not like science fiction and I felt the movie was too long and I didn’t feel invested in the plot. I really did not intend to see the second one, but I swear the trailer has played before every movie I’ve seen in theaters in the last six months and this exposure therapy had me thinking it looked kind of good? And then I see all these reviews sayings its one of the best movies of all time and on par with Star Wars/Lord of the Rings and a once in a generation type of movie and I started to feel LEFT OUT. So, I google “what happened in Dune movie,” for a refresher (obviously I never watched it again), walk myself to the movie theater and get a popcorn (not the worm bucket sorry), and sit down for three hours (still too long!!!!), prepared to feel apathetic at best and bored at worst. Well. Turns out my main feeling from watching this movie was….confusion? If I’m being honest I barely had any idea wtf was happening for most of this movie. I get the broad strokes, that this is about colonialism and religious fanaticism but like, the beat by beat plot? I was not following, sorry!! It does a lot of showing and not enough telling, which I think is probably fine if you’ve read the book, but I obviously haven’t. At the end a girl in front of me said “I need to read the Wikipedia plot summary” and like yeah, me too babe. I have no idea how much time this movie covered, I didn’t know what was happening in each scene until it was already over, can I get a timeline or a TLDR please? I’m not reading a 700 page novel, be so serious. That being said, this movie is a true spectacle and a truly astonishing feat of filmmaking. The visuals in this movie are craaaaaaazy. CRAZY. Sound, too. This is one of the biggest, most ambitious things I’ve ever seen on a movie screen. You will simply not have the same experience if you watch this at home, it is so insane in the theater. Everyone is so good in this! Timmy carries the film so well, Zendaya is such a movie star, Austin Butler is an incredible creepy villain. I thought this was better paced than the first one (there’s a lot more going on!) so I think I liked it more. It still feels like an incomplete story, and I think it needs a third one to wrap it all up (I can’t believe we’re gonna do all this AGAIN smh). I still have so many questions about the Stellan Skarsgard character. Why is he like that??? I get why people love this and I am happy for you all or whatever. I just will never be obsessed with this the way everyone else is. Can Timmy make a rom com PLEASE.
Things I Bought
You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.
Dove Body Scrub: I do not ever see anyone talking about these body scrubs on the internet but I really like them! They are very exfoliating but not too harsh, and they’re also quite moisturizing. I have tried many scents and I like the macadamia and rice milk one the most, but they’re all good.
One Last Thing…
Oscars tomorrow! I have liked all of the Pop Culture Happy Hour episodes this week discussing all the movies and nominations— there’s episodes for original song, international feature, documentary feature, and a big will win/should win for the main categories. I don’t expect it to win anything but I hope you all watch Past Lives.
That’s it for me! This week I am going to try very, very hard to finish a book. I hope you all have a good week.
TTYL,
Emily