Hello Hello! It was the first week of what is objectively the worst month of the year. Here’s a recap of my week!
Things I Read
Books
They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman: This is a YA novel about a private high school with a secret society called The Players. There’s also a murder/death subplot going on. I picked this because this is often the type of thing that will pull me out of a reading slump—a quick, frivolous young adult novel about rich unsupervised teens that I can read in one sitting. It didn’t really work! This book was fine, but I never wanted to pick it up and sort of had to force myself to read it. I think that’s more a reflection on me and my current level of motivation to read anything than it is on this book, but it is what it is.
Articles
Reintroducing Sonia Sotomayor: I really loved this profile of Sonia Sotomayor, written by Irin Carmon, one of my favorite Supreme Court reporters (I am sorry to admit I am the type of person who can name multiple Supreme Court reporters). Sonia is so amazing, a brilliant woman whose brilliance has been overlooked and underestimated for years. With Ruth Bader Ginsburg gone, she is now the most outspoken liberal on the Court. We are lucky to have her there.
Things I Watched
TV
On Pointe: This is a six-episode docuseries about School of American Ballet in New York. The school feeds into New York City Ballet and is one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the country, and the show follows a bunch of kids at different ages through a season of The Nutcracker. I loved this so much, I watched it straight through during last weekend’s snowstorm. It brought me back to when I used to do ballet and the many years I spent in my own studio’s Nutcracker, and it made me miss ballet so much (the last big thing I did before quarantine was see Giselle at the Kennedy Center, rip). I don’t think you need to care about ballet to enjoy it, but I especially recommend this to people who do. It’s on Disney+.
Full Bloom: I was not kidding about wanting to watch every art competition show. This one is about flower arranging. It’s my least favorite of the one’s I’ve watched recently—the judges were annoying! The things the contestants made were really beautiful, and I did like that they had team challenges. There’s only one season of this, 8 episodes, so I watched it really quickly. It’s…fine. On HBO Max.
Movies
Erin Brockovich: This is obviously a very famous movie, but I had never seen it. I barely knew the story, I really just knew that this is the movie Julia Roberts won an Oscar for and that Erin Brockovich is a real person. I have nothing groundbreaking to say here…this movie got multiple Oscar noms, its pretty good! I feel like I’ve filled in a pop culture blind spot. This just moved to Peacock Premium, or you can rent it on Amazon.
One Night in Miami: This made it on my list of things to watch because it is getting awards buzz. It is Regina King’s directorial debut, about a fictional meeting between Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke in 1964. You can tell the basis for this movie is a play of the same name, almost the whole movie takes place in one room. The four main performances in this are really incredible—going in the only one I really knew anything about was Leslie Odom Jr., who plays Sam Cooke, but the other three are really really good. This is the type of movie I think you need to be in the right mood for…I think you’d miss a lot if you weren’t fully paying attention (I MISS MOVIE THEATERS OH MY GOD). This got multiple Golden Globe nominations, and I’ll be surprised if we aren’t hearing about this a lot more come Oscars season. Streaming on Amazon Prime.
Into the Woods: This is a screen adaptation of a Stephen Sondheim musical. It’s about a lot of famous fairy tales (Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc) and what happens after the stories we know end. This movie has so many famous people in it—Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine (The Best Chris). I really prefer the first half, before things go off the rails, but overall, I like this. If you’re not into a Broadway musical, probably skip this. This is on Disney+.
The Little Things: This was fine? A little boring honestly, but then the last 20 minutes were good. This is a serial killer movie, starring Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto. Again, it was aggressively fine. The best serial killer movie is still Zodiac. Streaming on HBO Max through February.
Emma. (2020): I just talked about this a month ago, but I watched it again. It’s just so lovely, so beautiful and colorful and romantic. Anya Taylor-Joy got a Golden Globe nomination for this! I love it so much. On HBO Max.
Things I Bought
American Eagle Dreamspun Crewneck: I’ve talked about this before, but I liked it so much I bought it in a second color. It’s really oversized, soft and warm, just a good sweater. I have it in cream and now burgundy.
One Last Thing…
Best thing that happened to me this week is this tweet:
That’s it for me. I’ve decided to make a giant three-layer cake this weekend for absolutely no reason at all. I’m doing fine! Hope you all have a good week.
TTYL,
Emily
You write so well Em