Anniversaries and Such...
A Year of Newslettering Gone By
We have made it to one year. Well, a little over a year. My first newsletter was published over a year and __ days ago, and since then I’ve attempted… sixteen (16) times to do this. I have tried blogging over the years, and it’s been turtle speed for me to get my groove back, but just as I’ve felt comfortable with that tedious act of turning thoughts into text… boom, blogging became vlogging. Which I’m not ragging on, okay. I just… I get that it’s more engaging to have a face and voice behind those thoughts (or in the case of podcasts, a voice), but I’ve felt more comfortable sitting on a computer and typing. Plus, I love reading despite my repeated failure to finish a book in the past year, or so. I’m embarrassed to admit that, but I think - following recent discourse - it’s more common than we actually know, thanks in part to shortened attention spans. But of course, reading is still a thing. I mean, why else are books still being made into movies and scripts for successful visual media doing pretty well for themselves? (Hello, Fleabag: The Scriptures, and Oppenheimer’s screenplay) But I digress.
We are here to celebrate, and in lieu of saying (dramatically sad), “We only did sixteen newsletters,” I’m saying (resoundingly cheerful) “Yaaaas, we did sixteen newsletters!” “We? Who’s ‘we?’” That’s you, reader. Thank you for following along. Your engagement means enough for me to keep going. What else is there to celebrate? Honestly, a lot more than you think.
Billion-Dollar Barbie
A film adaptation of a toy brand’s most popular product making $1 billion should be a given. But Barbie, the brand, didn’t need it in the first place. Selling plenty of Barbies on their own, and a cartload of direct-to-video animated films that have established their own lore should prove that Barbie’s legacy was already secure. But a fun exploration of womanhood through the lens of Greta Gerwig and led by Margot Robbie makes the journey more fun. The discourse that seemed to flag it down - its “wokeness” or its feminism being perceived as either too little or too much - never really got in the way (thankfully). It was, ultimately, all fun. And now it has $1 billion dollars. Margot Robbie was right. Haters can stay seething.
One of the many takes you can read on Barbie’s impact is this newsletter issue from Not J*ss. I don’t know what else to say, really, so read that.
Also, Barbie is coming back for an IMAX run starting 22 September, at least in the U.S. International dates? I don’t know, but even if I hope they run here I’m already saving up for A Very Good Girl and Killers of the Flower Moon. Sawri.
Mugshot Moment
Former U.S. President Donald Trump finally has a mugshot! It’s the first time a U.S. President - current or former - has had a mugshot taken. Nay, he’s the first ever president charged with criminal activity, period. He is facing four cases, two of which are related to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. Those four cases are basically:
Falsifying Business Records, mainly tied to hush money allegedly paid two individuals - including Stormy Daniels - of Trump having intimate relations with them.
Mishandling Classified Material. Highly classified documents were taken by the FBI from Trump’s decidedly unsecure Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. (Yes, Florida, America’s Cavite) The indictment alleges that some of the documents include details related to America’s nuclear weapons and military, as well as the military capabilities of other countries.
Election Investigation #1 - This case mainly involves Trump’s proximity in inciting the January 6 riots of 2021. Memes aside, it was a rare instance of American security being compromised by… well, Americans. Allegedly.
Election Investigation #2 - This latest case, which produced the viral mugshot and registered Trump as Inmate #P01135809, focuses on Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, to allegedly “find” votes he lost in Georgia. Here, Trump was charged with 18 other co-defendants.
Even if Trump managed to walk right out after his mugshot thanks to a $200k bail bond, seeing a modern symbol of social regression, misogynoir, and exuding unseriousness in decidedly serious environments being served a step of justice and having a tangible photograph of that moment is the kind of karma some of us have been waiting for, no matter how little it seems. I know a shoe collector who has yet to take one of these.
Bottoms on Top
A Vulture/New York Magazine profile highlighting the upcoming release of MGM’s impending teen comedy classic Bottoms just came out and it’s taken over the world by storm (my timeline). On the cover of NY Mag’s Fall Preview issue is the trio central to its existence - Ayo Edebiri, Rachel Sennott, and Emma Seligman. Edebiri and Sennott lead the film, a comedy about two high school outcasts who decide to start a girls’ fight club as a ploy to attract classmates. Bottoms is Seligman’s second film after 2020’s Shiva Baby, based on their short film. Sennott led both iterations of Shiva Baby, and here pulls double-duty as Seligman’s co-writer. Sennott had also worked with Edebiri prior to Bottoms, on a Comedy Central miniseries called Ayo and Rachel are Single. The trio, however, have had plenty of crossover since their college days as students at NYU Tisch. The profile enamored me plenty, because it almost feels like a peek into the trio’s lives and friendship together. Knowing that their history included working minimum wage jobs was something that resonated to me right now, a writer barely crawling through a minimum wage job (though I may be doing fine if I really slow down to take a look).
Though the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes may have dimmed the Bottoms domination (promotions and interviews going out now were most likely conducted prior to the start of the strike), it already has the statistical bonafides that align with film classics, notching a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4.1 on Letterboxd as of this writing. But the legacy of Bottoms is really how it serves as a snapshot in time of the trio’s multi-hyphenate ascent to A-List stardom. Like… this is why Sennott and Edebiri deleted their Twitter accounts.
Let the Music Play!
It was sort-of a momentous occasion for music last Friday.
Ariana Grande released a tenth anniversary edition of her debut album, Yours Truly. I’ve only heard her new live rendition of Honeymoon Avenue and while I don’t quite gravitate towards its production, her vocals are certainly pristine. I can hear Every Syllable, too. I definitely need new live renditions for “Love Me Harder,” “Thinking Bout You,” and “get well soon.”
Victoria Monét finally released her debut album, JAGUAR II. Delayed significantly after its 2020 predecessor EP, JAGUAR, this project was sadly whittled down from three parts to two. However, the music plays on, and JAGUAR II proves to be an auspicious, long-awaited welcome victory party for Monét, who’s cut her teeth through 6 EPs (excluding JAGUAR) and a songwriting career that's yielded work with Ariana Grande through all her albums, so far. JAGUAR II feels so much like an album our parents could have grown up on. Even its modern sensibility feels in service to a sound that’s not so popular now, and yet… it feels really invigorating. My current favorite songs are “On My Mama,” and “Good Bye,” though I’ll play plenty more of this album for the rest of the year, for sure.
Catch a Movie Before august Slips Away
Before August ends, you might wanna try and catch the variety of movie options that are in theaters until the end of the month. They’re not the big, blockbuster types, but they have a decent amount of hype from people who love movies (or have Letterboxd accounts).
The FDCP (Film Development Council of the Philippines) is running a "Curation for World Cinema” program including Aftersun, Close, Corsage, and Return to Seoul at various Ayala Malls Cinemas. I’ve only seen Return to Seoul, back when it ran through QCinema and I loved it. (Yes, I know. I will be watching the rest of these - starting with Aftersun - pretty soon) You can check the remainder of screenings of these films running through 29 August at this link, here or make a reservation through Sureseats.
Cinemalaya XIX is running a comeback of sorts, screening some of the films at Cinematheque Centers nationwide until 31 August. They all run on the same schedule, so it’s thankfully less confusing. You can look through a list version of the schedule here or see the version with pictures here. This is how I hope I get y’all to watch at least Gitling or When This is All Over.
Interestingly… Y’all should know… Even though Bottoms is skipping a theatrical release to jump right in through Prime Video, another SXSW hit is showing theatrically right now. It Lives Inside follows Sam, an Indian high schooler who tries to fit in by suppressing her culture, until a demonic spirit comes into contact with her former best friend. Megan Suri (Never Have I Ever) leads Bishal Dutta’s debut feature, and I can’t believe we’re getting it weeks ahead of the U.S. and no one’s talking about it. I mean, hello, how did everyone here miss Talk to Me??? Anyway, it’s only showing through SM Cinemas RIGHT NOW, but if they renovated all their theaters like they did with SM North EDSA then that’s nothing but good news.
The elephant in the room, of course, has been buzzing through film fans since Sundance earlier this year, and it’s got the kind of hype that may very well propel it into the Oscars. Past Lives is starting its Philippine run on 30 August in as many theaters as it possibly can, so run, don’t walk, towards it! No link needed ‘cause it’s quite likely everyone will talk about it, trust me.
By the way… to start Philippine Film Industry Month on September, the FDCP is hosting a free screening of the 1993 classic Home Along Da Riles Da Movie, the film continuation of the TV sitcom starring Dolphy. I don’t remember much about it now, because I was too young then (and now), but I do sense that general icon vibe from Dolphy being captured by it here, so… get into it if you can, yuh. It’s happening 1 September at EDSA Shangri-La, and the details are here.
It is almost 2AM, so I’m just gonna wrap it up here. I’m so glad I made it to a year doing this, writing newsletters. I feel like I should be writing more, but I wanna love doing it. So I hope I keep writing more, for you, for me, for us. *“If I Were a Boy” by Beyoncé plays*
I hope I get to write something for Virgin Lab Fest eventually. Or something that will be produced and seen. That’s all I can do for now, hope. And I guess write. But when I’m free. Ugh, why does writing on a (borrowed) MacBook feel so much better and main-charactery??? I promise to write even if it’s not on a Mac, I swear. Hindi ako ganon kaarte. eme.
Enjoy the bonus holiday tomorrow!