Month: March 2024

The Internet might never stop being weird about Sydney Sweeney’s body, but she’s moving right along. She’s also not too terribly hung up on Madame Web‘s box-office implosion, either, initially opting to point out that she was only “hired as an actress” and had nothing to do with any production decisions. However, Sweeney is grateful for the film’s existence and for appearing within it because, as she recently told GQ in a new feature piece, heading into a(n attempted) franchise reaped lasting positive effects.

Enormously positive effects. As it turns out, Madame Web opened the door for Sweeney, as both star and a producer of Anyone But You, to sell that movie, which was distributed by Sony. The romcom, which co-starred Top Gun: Maverick‘s Glen Powell and sparked romantic speculation IRL, ended up grossing over $170 million at the global box office. This also paved the way for a possible sequel and for Sweeney to snag the lead role in the upcoming Barbarella. Really:

Sweeney is frank about the career opportunities that saying yes to a big franchise has given her, even if the film didn’t turn out as she might have hoped. “To me that film was a building block, it’s what allowed me to build a relationship with Sony. Without doing Madame Web I wouldn’t have a relationship with the decision-makers over there,” she says. “Everything in my career I do not just for that story, but strategic business decisions. Because I did that, I was able to sell Anyone But You. I was able to get Barbarella.”

See? Madame Web might have earned Morbius comparisons, but at least it was a force for ultimate cultural good. And if you missed Anyone But You at the theater, you can currently rent the film on Amazon Prime or Apple TV, or you can wait for the April 23 Netflix debut. Either option is better than mulling over why Dakota Johnson was unenthusiastically rambling about researching spiders in the Amazon.

(Via GQ)

After YouTube phenomenon MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, 25, graduated high school in 2016, his mother made a deal with him. He could live in her house and go to college, or if he didn’t want to pursue higher education, he would have to move out and live on his own. So, he decided to go to college, although his heart wasn’t in it.

The content creator, philanthropist, and founder of Feastables chocolate snack brand had just started making videos on YouTube as a teenager and had yet to hit the big time. So, he went to school while continuing his passion for creating YouTube videos.

However, college was not for MrBeast and he quickly dropped out. “I got to college and I couldn’t stand it, man. I used to sit in front of other classrooms and think, yo, I don’t know what the fu*k is going on,” he said, according to Essentially Sports. Instead, he put all his efforts into pursuing his dream of being a YouTube star. By the following year, he had earned over 1 million subscribers on the platform and was well on the way to being a success.

Last year, MrBeast reportedly made $82 million from his hundreds of millions of subscribers.

In an interesting twist to his story, MrBeast recently warned aspiring influencers and content creators to be careful about following his footsteps and giving up everything to pursue their dreams.

“It’s painful to see people quit their job/drop out of school to make content full time before they’re ready,” Donaldson wrote on X on March14. “For every person like me that makes it, thousands don’t. Keep that in mind and be smart plz.”

Itu2019s painful to see people quit their job/drop out of school to make content full time before theyu2019re ready. For every person like me that makes it, thousands donu2019t. Keep that in mind and be smart plz

— (@)

MrBeast’s tweet contradicts the inspiring advice successful people often give about following their dreams. Especially for someone so young who gave up a college education to pursue his. MrBeast is not advocating for people to follow the words of the great T.S. Eliot, who once said, “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” Or Nelson Mandela, who famously said, “There is no passion to be found playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

But MrBeast definitely knows the business he’s in, and it’s a lot different than it was when he first started out in 2016. The number of YouTubers has expanded exponentially over the past 8 years, and there are only so many eyeballs and sponsorships to go around.

Further, influencers now have to compete with artificial intelligence and TikTok is in danger of being shut down by the government.

“The chances of you quitting your job without a safety net and becoming a successful content creator are slim to none and anyone who does that is the exception, not the rule,” Katya Varbanova, a brand marketing strategist and the CEO of Viral Marketing Stars, told Business Insider. She also added that a big part of MrBeast’s success was “being in the right place at the right time.”

MrBeast made it big by working tirelessly to figure out the type of videos the YouTube algorithm and viewers wanted produced. Then, he scaled up his budgets and production quality to become a leader in the content creator industry. But one of the keys to his success was that he got in the game at the right time.

For those who may be discouraged by MrBeast’s thoughts on becoming an influencer in 2024, it doesn’t mean to stop following your dreams. It means to be like MrBeast and find the next big thing before everyone else, work hard to perfect it and shoot for the stars.

When I meet Madi Diaz before her show at the Kessler Theater in Dallas, she is spent. We’re scheduled to have a conversation about the women in music who have inspired her but she’s coming off a week at SXSW in Austin that was taxing to the point of nearly breaking her. “I’m not usually like this,” she tells me and proceeds to have the entire conversation with her eyes closed. In fact, she breaks into tears after I ask her to recount the scene of an artist who played a showcase with her during SXSW.

Leaving the conversation, I feel concerned about how her show is going to go. But I know something Diaz doesn’t. The Kessler is a special room that is often mentioned as one of the best-sounding venues in Texas. And she knows something I don’t because it is my first time seeing her — that all the women she mentions when we speak will be present at the show. Not literally, but as I watch her set, I see aspects of all of them show up in her performance.

There is a saying that frequently comes up when we talk about women in music: “You can’t be it if you can’t see it.” At Diaz’s show, the crowd is made up of more young, fashionably dressed women than the venue usually attracts, many of whom likely discovered her when she opened for Harry Styles on Love On Tour in 2022 when she also joined his backing band. A big part of what makes her music resonate for women is how vulnerable it is — and how it gets to the heart of a feeling. That’s the thing that made Diaz love Joni Mitchell so much.

“I don’t even know if I need to get into why. If you know who Joni is, it’s pretty obvious,” Diaz says of Mitchell’s influence on her work. “She’s just a force with a knife of a tongue and a wild mind for melodies. She knows how to cut to the quick of things.” Diaz has a poetic lyricism that is reminiscent of Mitchell, tapping into that distinct style of describing things. ” Diaz references the lyrics to Mitchell’s “The Last Time I Saw Richard,” when Mitchell describes herself with the phrase, “Only a dark cocoon before / I get my gorgeous wings and fly away” as one of her favorites. It immediately makes me think of linguistic picture painting in Diaz’s own lyric in “Get to Know Me” from Weird Fatih, when she sings, “Sometimes I find a pillow and I empty out my lungs / I keep my room dark enough to obscure skeletons.”

It was Diaz’s father, who is the inspiration for her song “God Person,” who introduced her to Blue, one of Michell’s best-known and critically beloved albums. “He always had it playing in the background, just the kind of thing that was always played on long drives,” she remembers. It was also the album she played while driving around LA, after moving there from Nashville, with a now ex — and when the relationship didn’t work out, listening to the album became an act of self-harm. It took a lot of work to get that album back into her life but, she assures me, she has reclaimed Mitchell and Blue for her own.

She mentions that artist she saw at a quiet backyard party at SXSW: Kathleen Edwards. She’s in good company being blown away by the singer/songwriter; both Rolling Stone and the Austin Chronicle mention exceptional showcases by Edwards in recaps from the even this year. Edwards stepped back from music for several years and Diaz mentions the final song on her 2012 album Voyager, “For The Record,” as particularly meaningful after the festival. “I’ve been listening to her since I was 18 or 19,” Diaz says. “The line, ‘For the record I only wanted to sing songs,’ is so heavy. I was thinking about that a lot at SXSW this week. It’s a wonderful festival, but it does feel unusually cruel to musicians. That line is the crux of it. We’re all in this to play music and sing songs.”

Edwards wouldn’t release another album until 2020. She left music to open a coffee shop she called Quitters. Edwards is just starting a tour — SXSW was its first date — while Diaz wraps up her U.S. headlining tour and in April will head across the pond to open for Kacey Musgraves in Europe. Despite having mutual friends, Diaz and Edwards hadn’t met before this showcase, although Diaz had been listening to her work for a long time. “At some point, Kathleen got up to play,” Diaz says and sheds a few tears. “I heard her guitar and the second she opened her mouth to sing, it was so emotional. It was cathartic to hear a voice that I’ve heard for so much of my life, just singing 15 feet away.”

We take a breath for a moment, and when we get back to her list Diaz goes straight to Kathleen Hannah of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, saying she is “so important and has such a loud war cry of a voice even now.” Diaz recounts seeing Bikini Kill in early 2023 and says, “Kathleen is so good at reminding you of your own force and that you are your own living, breathing, moving work of art.” If you’re wondering how the influence of Hannah shows up in a folk and Americana singer, just watch Diaz perform “Think Of Me” from her 2021 album History Of A Feeling. That night at the Kessler, she strums her guitar until she gets to the line “I hope you f*ck her with your eyes closed” and lifts both hands to display double middle fingers. The guitars might be light and sparkly, but the sentiment is no different than a full-throttle riot grrl moment.

“Another one is Kate Bush,” Diaz says, noting that her unsung work as a producer is as influential as her artistry. “She is also another [influence] who is a fucking phoenix,” she says, talking about Bush’s return to pop culture in recent times. “She’s such a singular woman, driving her own train, writing her own songs, making her own art, and calling her own shots.”

I think of Bush, and her on-stage theatrics, the second I get a look at Diaz’s treatment of the stage — to be clear, the Kessler is a small room where musicians mostly play acoustic shows. They rarely change the stage. But Diaz completely took it over with a backdrop, a Persian rug topped at her mic with a fluffy turquoise rug and blue Christmas lights. It’s all her aesthetic. And it’s a highly unusual thing to see in this venue.

Finally, Diaz talks about Bonnie Raitt. “She’s a badass guitar player, what a slide player she is. I feel like everyone looks at her for her songs and voice, while her guitar playing is something about her that I wish was more spotlighted.” I think of Raitt as I watch Diaz strum her ‘59 hollow body Harmony that night. Occasionally she struggles with it, telling the audience it’s old and cranky like she hopes to be when she’s that old, but mostly she works it like an instrument she knows well, pushing on her distortion pedals and losing herself in playing it here and there. Raitt would be proud of those moments when Diaz closes her eyes and loses herself in the playing.

You might not be the most logically coherent TV show, but to its credit, it still manages to addict Netflix viewers despite the lead character being a reprehensible piece of work. Joe Goldberg has stalked his way in and out of trouble for four full seasons, and somehow, he keeps getting away with (literal) murder. The streamer decided that Joe was good for a final season, too, even after an ennui-filled fourth round in gloomy London that scored over 90 million streaming hours in its first week.

Joe, who is always on the move after each round of crime, is taking himself on one last voyage, and he has headed into a new-old setting for the show’s fifth season. Let’s get down to tackling what to expect from more You.

Plot

Let’s get this out of the way: Joe is a stalker extraordinaire, but he’s also a semi-chaste stalker now. That is to say, Penn Badgley voiced his resolve to no longer do sex scenes, and you know, it’s hard to blame the guy after a particularly humiliating scene involving Joe, Love, and another couple in the third season. With that said, he will still be up to his old tricks, and after beginning his story in New York, followed by Los Angeles, France, and England, he’s fully back in the Big Apple.

There, the show might address the biggest mystery of the entire series: how has he been making an on-off living as a bookseller? In all seriousness, however, Joe is opening a new book shop, which means that he will probably favor rare books that need to be preserved in some type of underground vault, the better to hide his inevitable victims. In the fourth season, viewers will will recall, the tables turned on Joe, and he became the hunted. Sort-of. Joe was actually the Eat-the-Rich killer, too, but the season finale saw Kate help Joe free himself from all consequences, and there he was, running merrily free again. Will that last?

Not likely. Badgley has been very upfront about rooting for Joe to get what’s coming, and it seems unlikely that he will face legal consequences because although he’s sloppier, the powers that be are somehow even more inept when it comes to Joe. What does seem more probable is that there could be a legit threat to Joe’s life. Do viewers really want to see him get out of this story alive, or should we expect him dead? The latter seems like the only justice possible.

As well, there’s apparently a ghost from the past (presumably beyond Beck, Candace, and Love) who will be back to mess with Mr. Goldberg.

Who will that be? A teaser has hinted at the open threads that remain in Joe’s story. Those include past victims who could very well get him busted, including Marienne (Tati Gabrielle) and Dr. Nicky (John Stamos), if they find the proper ammo and/or people choose to believe them. Also, Jenna Ortega has gone on record to express interest in returning for her Season 2 character, Ellie, who Joe met in Los Angeles. Here’s what Badgley has said about the final season thus far: “Can his inner monologue evolve some now? What does it mean for him to accept himself?” Take that as you will.

Heck, maybe Joe will take himself out at the end? We need more clues, but the show is shooting now in New York City, so we should at least see some official teaser photos soon.

Cast

Thus far, Penn Badgley has been confirmed to be accompanied by Madeline Brewer, “an enigmatic and free-spirited playwright” named Bronte (of course) who will make the unfortunate decision of working in Joe’s new bookshop.

Release Date

Supposedly, this show will see the Season 5 light in 2024, although it wouldn’t be surprising to see Joe Goldberg’s goodbye land in two parts.

Trailer

No trailer exists yet, but here’s Penn Badgley dropping a few hints and expressing his fondness for the show’s (admittedly obsessive) fans.

The food movie is a genre that inspires nostalgia, longing, and hunger (both metaphorical and literal). There’s an unspoken sexiness about so many of the films we’re talking about today, as they’re often deeply sensual and highlight the idea of cooking as a “love language.” But it’s not all subtle eroticism, there’s also a deep human connection on display –parents and kids reconnecting, sibling rivalries, friendship dynamics put to the test, and abiding friendship.

Another joy of this genre is the realism of life in the service industry — which some films just nail. It’s an aspect that certainly adds a layer of authenticity to the proceedings.

Today, we’re ranking our 20 favorite food movies. For this endeavor, we called back food and movie critic extraordinaire Vince Mancini to add his well-seasoned two cents. By arguing a lot over text, we came up with a great list of food-focused films you 100% need to watch. Just as a note, we didn’t include any documentaries. Those films feel like they deserve their own list.

Let’s have a cinematic feast!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since these guys fully shut out Spanglish, I’m dropping the famed sandwich that became a centerpiece to Sandler’s first big dramatic role here:

• We Tested Taylor Swift’s Viral Sugar Cookies Against The Internet’s Other Top Recipes
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• Big Bold Burger Battle — The Internet’s Most Famous Patty Recipes, Tested Against One Another
• We’re Naming The #1 Best Dish From 20 Different Fast Food Chains

20. The Slammin’ Salmon (2009)

The Broken Lizard crew is the epitome of mid-aughts comedy, and this movie is arguably their highwater mark (after Super Troopers, of course). The conceit is simple, a crew of miscreants, losers, and wild service industry folks (front and back of house) gather for a one-night shift in a seafood restaurant owned by an egomaniac former boxing champ. That alone is enough to bring the comedy. Add in the vibe between the Broken Lizard crew (they’re really firing on all cylinders here) and a murderer’s row of supporting actors (Cobie Smulders kills it in this) and you have one hell of a picture!

In the end, this is just a fun romp in a restaurant with ridiculous jokes that go well beyond any reality of working in a restaurant. But there is that foundation of authenticity that helps the movie cut a little close to the bone throughout. Plus, it’s freaking fun. Not all food movies need to be life-and-death tomes about lost love. — ZJ

19. Ratatouille (2007)

Ratatouille is an obvious choice, but sometimes an obvious choice is obvious because it’s good. There’s the pivotal scene during which Remy cooks snooty critic Anton Ego a life-changing ratatouille, of course (do you think they chose a vegetarian dish because the protagonist is a furry little animal?), which is both a brilliant depiction of the way food can be transporting through sense memory (a real Proust’s madeleine for the internet age) and an excellent bit of food porn.

That great climax aside, the entire film is an honest and surprisingly nuanced portrait of the restaurant industry. It manages to squeeze in why the protagonist chooses food as his raison d’être, a satire of white tablecloth restaurants and celebrity chef culture, and a depiction of the boys-clubby culture of the kitchen into the same movie, which also actually appeals to kids (I have a two-year-old, I can say this definitively now). It’s kind of like Kitchen Confidential for five-year-olds. They made it look so easy that, if anything, it doesn’t get enough credit for what they actually pulled off.

(And yes, Anton Ego may have set the public perception of critics back years, but the part about him being just a frustrated romantic at heart was dead on). — VM

18. The Founder (2016)

You might as well call this “America, The Movie.” An entitled white man — Ray Kroc — takes the hard work of others and claims it for himself and then (quite literally) takes the land they are on — plus the land every single one of their restaurants will ever be on and claims that for himself too. This all comes at great profit for Kroc, naturally.

Who knew a movie about the guy who screwed the McDonald brothers out of their ideas, innovations, and fast-food joints could be a parable about Manifest Destiny to its core? Yet, here we are. And that’s what makes this such a good watch. Even in food, America and Americans’ desire for self-defined “greatness” will always trample the dreamers and innovators. What a bummer.

This will make your next Sausage McMuffin a tad bittersweet when you think about everything the McDonald brothers lost out on. But still… a great watch. — ZJ

17. Pig (2021)

Pig is an easy choice for being both a pretty good movie (or at least a winningly weird one) and about as directly about food as any movie that exists. Nicolas Cage plays a mushroom forager who lives in a Pacific Northwest forest, hunting prized funghi with his pet pig. It turns out that he’s a formerly acclaimed chef who quit the business when he realized that the snooty restaurant industry was focusing on all the wrong things. In a pivotal scene, he makes another chef realize that his whole life has been a lie by cooking him an incredible butter-basted squab.

As far as food porn goes, that moment is a pinnacle. — VM

16. The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

This film is a bit of a hidden gem. It’s also a great airplane watch for a long flight — that’s not a kick at the quality. The film’s premise centers around a stuffy traditional French restaurant owner — played lovingly by Helen Mirren — opening up to new flavors and foodways when a South Asian family opens a restaurant across the street. The key is that the new restaurant owner’s son is a chef wunderkind (Manish Dayal) armed with a loving demeanor and a case full of amazing spices that he knows how to use.

The best part is that the film has one of the best “omelet” making scenes of any film (it’s far better than The Bear scene from last year). The beauty of creating a standard dish but taking it to a new level is beautifully encapsulated by Mirren and Dayal’s respect for each other and the food they’re creating side-by-side in the kitchen. — ZJ

15. Chef (2014)

Chef is a movie Jon Favreau wrote, directed, and cast himself in as the protagonist, is about a bored chef who gets his groove back by launching a food truck that makes Cuban sandwiches. It’s light and breezy with a great cast (Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale), though a smidge broad and paint-by-numbers, with the requisite 20-teens plot device of someone “going viral.” (“Oh my gosh, I’ve gone viral!”)

But there’s a scene early in the movie that’s pure food porn — Favreau’s character getting home from the restaurant late one night and whipping up a batch of pasta aglio e olio. Favreau makes it look gorgeous (thanks to his food mentor, Roy Choi), and it’s such an easy, everyone-should-know-this kind of dish that it’s impossible to watch the film without it inspiring you to attempt the dish.

If you remember nothing else about the film, you’ll remember that scene. And that’s what food is supposed to do, right? — VM

14. Waiting (2005)

Yes, I’m choosing another service industry movie from the mid-aughts. This time we have Ryan Reynolds in full Van Wilder-as-loser mode with an all-star cast of mid-aughts stars that had yet to break out (Anna Faris, Luis Guzmán, Justin Long, Rob Benedict, and Dane Cook in his best role to date). The story is simple here too. A newbie gets a job at a Shenanagins (shout out to Super Troopers again!) and has the craziest first day of his fledging service career. The film goes much darker than The Slammin’ Salmon while cutting a dead-ender tone that plagued so many Americans in their early 20s right after 9/11.

Looking back, it was hard to know the point of anything in those years, and this film perfectly captures that vibe. — ZJ

13. Goodfellas (1990)

Maybe it’s not strictly a “food movie,” but it’s one of the best movies of all time and the food scenes are some of its most memorable. Who among us hasn’t tried cutting the garlic so thin that it “liquefies” in a little olive oil? It’s a waste of time if you’re not in prison, but a fun little experiment nonetheless. Just don’t spend so much time stirring the sauce that you end up getting caught by the feds. — VM

12. Mostly Martha (2001)

This German-Italian film is a classic. The plot is pretty simple. A well-starred chef (Martina Gedeck) working in Hamburg inherits her sister’s kid after a deadly car accident and Chef Martha has to change her perfectionist ways by the end of the movie. Along the way, you get loving and vivid food descriptions by Martha to her therapist while trying to adjust to a niece who refuses to eat — an affront to someone who adores food so much.

Enter Mario (Sergio Castellitto), who arrives in Hamburg as Martha’s new sous chef. Mario is the magic pixie dream chef of German cinema, whipping up simple but amazing pasta that’s so good that he even gets Martha’s food-hating niece to fall in love with it right alongside effortless words of wisdom that change lives. If all of this sounds familiar, the film was remade in the U.S. with Catherine Zeta-Jones as No Reservations, and another remake was made in Spain as Chef’s Special.

You know the story is great when remakes abound. — ZJ

11. Big Night (1996)

Big Night is a movie that’s both pretty good and definitely about food. It stars Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub as two Italian brothers from New Jersey who are locked in a battle with a rival Italian restaurant. As the food version of a fraternity comedy that comes down to race to throw the best party the campus has ever seen, Primo and Secondo (they’re named after courses!) have to plan an epic feast to introduce the town to real Italian cuisine.

The centerpiece of the dinner is, as anyone who has seen it remembers, “the timpano,” a giant cornucopia of pasta baked inside a giant drum made of dough. If other movies on this list include dishes everyone tries because they look delicious and simple, the timpano from Big Night is the one no one attempts because it looks so hard. But all home cooks think “…one day.” — VM

10. Tampopo (1985)

No list would be complete without Tampopo. This is a food lover’s movie. There’s a long scene just about looking at and caressing ramen before you eat, for god’s sake. While that sounds so pretentious, Juzo Itami (the film’s writer and director) has the good sense to temper every moment of deep introspection with real-world comedic reactions to how ridiculous and ritualized we make food.

In short, this film is about making the perfect bowl of ramen. There are few better endeavors than that. — ZJ

9. Phantom Thread (2017)

Phantom Thread is a film about a finicky dressmaker named Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), who makes his entrance into the film by turning his nose up at a basket of beautiful pastries while flamboyantly declaring “I told you, no more snodgy things at breakfast!”

The scripts online will tell you he says “stodgy,” but they’re gaslighting. Watch the film, he definitely says “snodgy”.

Anyway, the signature sequence involves Alma, played by Vicky Krieps, lovingly cooking up Reynolds an incredibly sexy-looking wild mushroom omelet, which she uses to poison him. Not many directors could pull off an act of partner-poisoning that seems both loving and makes you hungry, but that’s the magic of Paul Thomas Anderson. — VM

8. Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (1971)

This is a classic for a reason. The songs — Pure Imagination and Candy Man — have become American standards. Gene Wilder’s performance is one for the ages as a slightly psychotic (slave-owning?) chocolate man. The story is so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that we keep remaking this novel from Roald Dahl over and over again, even though we achieved perfection with this one back in the 1970s.

It’s absurd, takes forever to get to the factory, and takes joy in the torture and death of children. That all kind of makes it a perfect piece of art. — ZJ

7. The Trip To Italy (2014)

“The Trip” movies are actually TV shows in the UK that are edited into feature films for the US market. I’ve never seen the full English series, but all of the “The Trip” movies feature Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan traveling around sun-dappled European vacation spots eating five-star food while doing impressions at each other. The movies are about 60% comedy and 40% food porn in a way that almost feels like cheating to include on a food-movies list.

But if they can write themselves a movie that allows them to go on gorgeous vacations eating delicious food, I can sure as hell use it to fill out my list. They make me almost as hungry for the food as I am jealous of Coogan/Brydon for getting to make these. — VM

6. The Trip (2010)

This film has the perfect balance of comedy, food porn, and travel FOMO in … Northern f*cking England. My wife (shut up, Vince) is from Northern England and I’ve spent a lot of my life there. And look, there are some wonderful places and corners tucked away in an otherwise very rural and post-industrial part of the country. So this film (a TV series in the UK) pulls off the best magic trick of the series — it makes a very rural and depressed part of the U.K. shine with great food and stunning (albeit misty) vistas.

Anyone can make Italy, Spain, and Greece look great with views and food (as proven in the next installments of “The Trip” franchise — the Trip-iverse if you will). But making Northern England look this good is a real treat for the senses and truly impressive. Also, “My-cocaine”! — ZJ

5. The Trip to Spain (2017)

Remember The Trip to Italy? The Trip to Spain is like that, only with less pasta and more ham. Plus about the same amount of impressions. There’s also The Trip to Greece, which is also a great food movie, but I’m not including it here solely as an example of editorial restraint. — VM

4. The Menu (2022)

You had to see this entry coming. The Menu captured the national zeitgeist at the tail end of 2022 into 2023 in a way that films rarely do. Plus (spoiler alert), that cheeseburger was legit. All of that aside, this is a movie that balances influencer culture, haute cuisine, wealth, and service/sex work in a deeply resonant way. Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult, and Anya-Taylor Joy give spot-on performances as a chef, his acolyte, and the no-nonsense sex worker they’re orbiting at a remote five-star celebrity chef restaurant with a real cult following.

The tension! The food! Tyler’s Bullshit! It’s all pretty goddamn entertaining and one of the great food movies of the 21st century. — ZJ

3. Labor Day (2014)

Sitting awkwardly alongside Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Young Adult, and Up In the Air in Jason Reitman’s early filmography, Labor Day is a steamy romance about an escaped convict and a lonely single mom starring Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet. As I wrote in my original review, it feels like Reitman tried to riff on the Nicolas Sparks movie formula, and he actually does a pretty good job of it.

Ah, but why is it a food movie, you ask? Well, aside from Brolin’s character proving himself to Winslet with a delicious batch of biscuits he learned in prison, there’s the finale, which I originally described thusly:

“The sexual tension comes to a gooey crescendo when Prison Biscuits Brolin teaches Lady Nightgown to make peach pie in the most sensual way possible.”

Yep, basically imagine the pottery scene from Ghost as applied to peach pie. I’ve been trying this whole list not to overuse the word “sensual,” but Labor Day finally forced my hand. I don’t know whether I wanted the two of them to screw each other or the pie. — VM

2. The Taste of Things (2023)

I was going to slide Babette’s Feast into this spot. Then I saw The Taste of Things and had to bump that classic off the list. The Taste of Things is very French but has this quiet sumptuousness to it that’s … well, transcendent. The food scenes are maybe the best I’ve ever seen on screen (Trần Anh Hùng’s direction is pure soft-toned visual splendor). I swear I could almost smell the food Juliette Binochet was cooking. It was so immersive and welcoming from top to bottom.

The film revolves around cook Eugénie (Binochett) and her partner and employer Dodin (Benoît Magimel). Their love language is food as they prepare menus and cook together in Dodin’s estate kitchen. It’s f*cking magical. Then tragedy takes the film to a place I cannot spoil here but gives the story so much more depth and reasons to enjoy the food in the film…just find it and watch it. –ZJ

1. Sideways (2004)

Does wine count as food? What this movie’s inclusion in this list presupposes is, yes, it does.

Sideways, Alexander Payne’s classic about a struggling writer from San Diego traveling up to Santa Barbara County for a two-man, wine-lovers bachelor party is notable as one of the best wine movies ever made (with the bonus that it isn’t about Napa! That’s right, they make wine other places too!), and also for helping to make Paul Giamatti a leading man.

It’s true, they don’t show food much for a movie set almost entirely in restaurants and during meals (they mostly weren’t drinking the wine by itself), but it’s the centerpiece scene that feels most relatable to foodies. Miles hears his ex-wife is having a child with another man and takes his prized bottle of ‘61 Cheval Blanc to a burger joint to drink out of a styrofoam cup. Certainly, it’s a scene meant to convey Miles’ emotional state, but I think it also shows that the snootiest foodies are usually the biggest hogs.

Yes, I love an oyster on the half shell straight out of the ocean, but you know I’ll eat some gas station nachos too under the right circumstances. — VM

If you’re a Star Wars fan, forget the Dagobah System. You will go to Disneyland for Season of the Force.

Beginning April 5th, Disneyland is getting a special Star Wars makeover. The main event of Season of the Force is “Fire of the Rising Moons,” which is described as “a nighttime experience that debuts a different view of the stunning Disneyland park fireworks display,” including a musical accompaniment from composer John Williams’ iconic Star Wars scores. Maybe grab a Ronto Wrap in Galaxy’s Edge, the home of Rise of the Resistance and Millennium Falcon – Smugglers Run, while you’re at it?

Season of the Force also features new additions to long-time favorite attraction Star Tours – The Adventures Continue, including transmissions from Ahsoka Tano (Ahsoka), Cassian Andor (Andor, which rules), and Din Djarin and Grogu (The Mandalorian) and a new destination in Peridea, as seen in Ahsoka. Space Mountain is also getting a limited-time Hyperspace Mountain overlay.

Is it too much to ask for the return of lovably bizarre Hyperspace Hoopla? I need to see a Stormtrooper twerk to Ice Spice. Disney is also teasing new merch and food options, which you can see here.

Season of the Force runs at Disneyland from April 5 through June 2. Try to time your trip with the re-release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace on May 4 to have the full Star Wars Day experience.

There’s a certain New Year’s tradition many people take part in: the cold plunge. It’s meant to ring in the new year with bravado. And that’s exactly what songwriter Sam Evian intended to do with his 2022 New Year’s Eve when he gathered friends on a snowy night to dive into a frigid creek in the Catskills.

And that wasn’t the only plunge Evian took. After years of writing, engineering, and producing music and three albums to his name, the songwriter is releasing his fourth studio album, aptly titled Plunge, via his newly minted label imprint Flying Cloud Recordings. And while this project marks an important milestone, he also had some help from his musical friends. Artists like Adrianne Lenker, Sufjan Stevens, and Ellen Kempner decamped to his Catskills studio to spend a 10-day period writing music. The result is Plunge, a collection of nine layered, pastoral, cathartic songs that take a rollicking approach to relationship woes.

Ahead of the release of Plunge, Evian sits down with Uproxx to talk Formula 1, Uma Thurman, and nearly drowning in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Waves, circles, earth, heart.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

That’s only 26 yrs from now so I hope I don’t need to be remembered yet.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

My parents, who gave me life and music.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life and what was it?

My mother’s table of course. Her grandma’s zuppa di pollo recipe.

Tell us about the best concert you’ve ever attended.

Pharoah Sanders at LPR NYC in 2017 or so.

What song never fails to make you emotional?

“Long Long Long” by George Harrison on the The Beatles (White Album).

What’s the last thing you Googled?

“Why is the Red Bull F1 team so good?”

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

A museum of natural history in Szeged, Hungary.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform and what’s the city you hope to perform in for the first time?

Currently Paris, but I’d love to perform in Rio de Janeiro. They keep saying “come to Brazil” on Instagram. I don’t know if they are serious though.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

It gets better, and then worse, and then better, and then worse, and then…

What’s one of your hidden talents?

Making fresh pasta.

If you had a million dollars to donate to charity, what cause would you support and why?

Palestinian children’s relief.

What are your thoughts about AI and the future of music?

My concerns with AI are not related to music. The potential risks to humanity are far more perverse than we could imagine. Read about the ‘control problem’ if you dare.

You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you.

Cate Le Bon, Bill Frisell, Caetano Veloso, Harumi Hosono, Floating Points.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on social media?

Perfume Genius.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

I almost drowned on tour and my friend Carlos from Ava Luna helped me out of the water. I got a tattoo in his honor.

What is your pre-show ritual?

It’s pretty yucky but 2 tequilas and a Red Bull does the trick.

Who was your first celebrity crush?

First was Brit in the early days but most important was Uma in Pulp Fiction.

You have a month off and the resources to take a dream vacation. Where are you going and who is coming with you?

Giant sabbatical for all my pals who are non-stop hustling to make it work. Island in the Mediterranean. On-call chef, beachside, wine cellar, sailing, stocked library.

Plunge is out 3/22 via Flying Cloud Recordings/Thirty Tigers. Find more information here.

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Through one listen of Justin Timberlake’s new album Everything I Thought It Was, it’s clear that the Man Of The Woods still exists. Six years have passed since Timberlake released his fourth album, an underwhelming project compared to his third album The 20/20 Experience, which arrived five years prior. The 20/20 Experience is sleek, braggadocious, and probably the flyest body of work in Timberlake’s discography. There, Timberlake lives under the bright lights of the nightlife where the fun continues as long as the disco ball spins.

Man Of The Woods, on the other hand, replaced a penthouse view of city skyscrapers with a porch view of country meadows. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but Timerblake failed to make that view enticing on Man Of The Woods. Everything I Thought It Was does a much better job. Timberlake isn’t back under the bright lights in a big city. Instead, he’s still in the fields and valleys, set on proving that some level of excitement exists on the new horizons.

Just as he did with Man Of The Woods, Timberlake emphasizes authenticity and simplicity in Everything I Thought It Was. He called it “incredibly honest” and his “most straightforward” record to date while noting that it’s also “a lot of f*cking fun.” It’s almost as if to say that the two lattermost albums in his career live in a world separate from his first three, and for what it’s worth, he’s mostly right. The “fun” on his first three albums is risque, suggestive, and youthful with goals to bring sexy back and pursue a woman and her strawberry bubblegum. Not so much this time around. Timberlake’s current “fun” is safer and a few steps back from boundaries.

On “Play” he tries to slyly pull a woman away from her daily obligations for a day of fun and sippin’ rosé. “My Favorite Drug” whisks a lover to the dancefloor for an intoxicating and riveting swing of the hips that takes their chemistry to steamy heights — a high that only drug use could bring. Still, a trip to the past is never out of reach for Justin. “Infinity Sex” is tongue-in-cheek in the same way that “SexyBack” is. On both, the message is pretty clear, and nearly 20 years apart, Timberlake can still crack a smirk for a fun moment that he gets a kick out of creating.

Though Timberlake is no longer a city dweller nowadays, there are plenty of callbacks on Everything I Thought It Was to those times that prove you can take the man of the city, but you can’t take the city out on the man. “My Favorite Drug” is a fun, drug-themed extravaganza just like “LoveStoned” from FutureSex/LoveSounds. “No Angels,” a funky tune where Timberlake simultaneously plays the devil on the shoulder and the awaiting prince for a woman who considers shedding a layer in the name of good fun, ends with an incredibly satisfying beat breakdown. Though Timbaland isn’t listed as a producer on the song, it’s great to hear the same lip-popping and tongue-clicking beatboxing that was so foundational in Timberlake’s discography (see: “Cry Me A River,” “My Love,” and “Tunnel Vision”).

Then there’s “Love & War,” a semi-distant cousin of “Mirror.” The former won’t be as popular as the latter, nor is it as good, but both are linked to Timberlake’s burning passion for love and his plea for it to exist at all times. The love songs on Everything I Thought It Was come from the same world as “Mirrors” but are constructed without the desire to put on a worldstopping show in the name of romance. “Mirrors” roared with fiery love as did Timberlake’s vocals on its unforgettable hook and a searing guitar that electrified the feelings at hand.

On Everything I Thought It Was, Timberlake’s love songs feel like peeking through a cracked bedroom door. “What Lovers Do” watches the clothes fly off two passionate lovers before they run up to the bedroom while “Technicolor” lives with them under the covers with the sun shining on them. “Selfish” showcases the overly smitten feelings and offloads the accompanying thoughts that exist in perfectly crafted relationships. In all these cases, it’s clear that romance is alive, Timberlake just pulls us a bit closer and away from the noise to see it.

At the end of “Memphis,” the track that opens Everything I Thought It Was (even though “F*ckin Up The Disco” would’ve served as a better intro), producer Danja brings the album’s title to life with a brief chant of sorts. “I’m everything you thought I was / I’m everything I thought I was / It was everything I thought it was,” he says. Timberlake, the man who stares at green pastures in the distance, as depicted in the artwork for Everything I Thought It Was, seemingly knew he’d arrive at this point. The moment when the show isn’t the grand spectacle that it used to be.

Things have certainly changed for Timberlake — it’d be wrong to say that isn’t the case — but it doesn’t mean that he has. Change happens for a reason and everything is what it’s supposed to be. Justin Timberlake’s Everything I Thought It Was proves that a show can be put on no matter where you are, so long as you know how to work the stage and new environment to your advantage. The differences will be felt, but in the end, the experience will still be a good one.

Everything I Thought It Was is out now via RCA Records. Find out more information here.

Kelsey Dawn Williamson, 23, from Benton, Illinois has ordered over 50 shirts from AliExpress, an online retailer based out of Hangzhou, China. But when the Frog and Toad shirt she ordered on May 10 arrived, she “literally did not know how to react so I just took a few moments to stare at it and try to process.”

The infant-sized shirt has a picture of the iconic reptiles from the children’s book series riding old-fashioned bikes with “FUCK THE POLICE” written at the bottom.

Williamson posted a photo of her daughter Salem in the shirt on Facebook and it quickly went viral.

The shirt that was delivered looked exactly like the one in the online store, just without the caustic N.W.A. lyric.

While it seems utterly bizarre that someone would create a shirt with “FUCK THE POLICE” written beneath a picture of Frog and Toad — a duo who’ve never been known to harbor ill will against law enforcement — there’s a good reason.

Memes featuring Frog and Toad are so popular they have their own subreddit. The shirtmaker, who probably doesn’t have a license to use Frog and Toad, must have got the photo from a Google search. The person who made the shirt was most likely Chinese and either didn’t speak English or has a very poor eye for detail.

After Williamson received the shirt, she Facetimed her husband and they screamed together. “We both just lost it, dying of laughter,” she told Buzzfeed. “All he could say was ‘Oh shit.'”

“I’ve told [Salem], ‘People really like your frog shirt!'” Williamson said. But she’s not letting her child wear the offensive shirt to preschool. “It’s going in her baby box so we can bring it up when she’s older.”

Unfortunately, the incident has been all laughs for Williamson. She’s received messages from people who’ve fat-shamed her daughter.

“People were actually messaging me just to say mean things about her,” she said. “A ton of people calling her fat, asking me what I feed her to make her so big, telling me the shirt I bought was too small.”

But Williamson has remained strong and fought back against the shamers. She edited her post to address her daughter’s weight but refuses to take it down. “SHE SEES SPECIALISTS FOR HER WEIGHT. SHE CANT HELP IT. I CANT HELP IT. MY HUSBAND CANT HELP IT. IT IS OUT OF OUR CONTROL. JUST LAUGH AT THE FUNNY SHIRT,” Williamson wrote on Facebook.

That’s right people, just laugh at the funny shirt, and stay out of people’s business.

This article originally appeared on 06.01.19

What are women up to when no one is watching?

Artwork courtesy of Sally Nixon, used with permission.

Well, take a look at Sally Nixon’s illustrations and you’ll see.

The subjects in her artwork aren’t aware we’re looking at them.

And that’s the point. They’re living in a world free from the pressures that exist in the real one.

“I like drawing girls doing their everyday routine — just hanging out, not worried about what others are thinking,” Nixon told Upworthy. “They’re usually alone or with other girls. Their guard is down.”

Editor’s note: An image below contains partial nudity.

Capturing her subjects in this liberated light wasn’t intentional at first, she explained.

But when she started a 365-day challenge last April to create one art piece a day, the work started reflecting the nuances of her own life away from prying eyes — “I was kind of like, ‘Oh, I’m brushing my teeth, so I’ll draw that.'” — and a theme began to form.Her illustrations show how women look, away from the exhausting world where they’re often judged more harshly than men.

You also might notice none of the girls in her illustrations are smiling.

According to Nixon, that’s a deliberate choice.

“I don’t sit around smiling to myself,” Nixon said, noting the double standard that exists in thinking women should always appear cheerful.

“I’ve been told, ‘You need to smile more.’ It’s so infuriating. I wanted to show the way girls actually look, comfortably.”

The theme of friendship is also an important one in Nixon’s drawings.

“I have four older sisters, so female friendship has always been a big part of my life,” Nixon told The Huffington Post. “You gotta have someone to talk about periods with, and dudes just don’t get it.”

Creating relatable scenes was key to Nixon, too — from the details of women’s lives to the physical shapes of their bodies.

“It’s important that the women I draw aren’t rail thin with huge boobs,” Nixon said. “I think there are enough images of bodies like that out in the world. The ladies I draw typically have small-ish, droopy breasts and thick thighs. They’re kind of lumpy but in an attractive way. Just like real people.”

The women in Nixon’s work aren’t real, but she hopes their stories are.

“One of my absolute favorite comments [on my work] is, ‘Oh my God, it’s me!'” she explained of the depictions.

“There’s a little bit of beauty in [everyday life] and I wanted to bring that out.”

You can view more of Nixon’s artwork on her website and check out her prints for purchase on Etsy.

This article originally appeared on 04.15.16