Kristen Stewart realistically could have decided to retire after The Twilight Saga. Those movies pretty much set her up for a (reasonably priced) life(style), but she has moved onto greater challenges such as Oscar fare with Spencer and gotten freaky with David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, but those are only a few of her most recent swings. She also produced a “super gay ghost-hunting adventure” series, and next up?
Stewart will romance a bodybuilder in A24’s Love Lies Bleeding. That’s not the entirety of what this film is about, of course. Let’s get into it now.
This “Revenge Gets Ripped” poster already says plenty, but it doesn’t tell us everything, obviously. Yes, that’s an obnoxious way to begin discussing plot, especially since director Rose Glass’ (Saint Maid) presence means that this story is in fine hands.
The film stars a mulleted Kristen Stewart as Lou, the daughter of an FBI-hunted criminal, portrayed by Ed Harris looking like Richard O’Brien’s Riff Raff. Lou ends up becoming enamored with Katy O’Brian’s Jackie, a ripped bodybuilder from Oklahoma who gets pulled into the town’s criminal underworld, and that leads to trouble, but don’t worry: Jackie can kick ass, and Lou can be in the driver’s seat.
The two become entwined in a steamy romance, but also, expect murder and mayhem. Stewart seemed pumped (pun fully intended) for this movie’s debut as she described the central pairing. “They are both so bizarre, but so different, and I think the line through them is desire,” the Clouds of Sils Maria actress explained. “I think there is a visceral kind of raging desire that comes out in both of them, but in a very different way.”
From the synopsis:
From Director Rose Glass comes an electric new love story; reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.
Cast
This isn’t simply a Kristen Stewart movie. Katy O’Brian wanted the co-leading role, and she got it. How? She was hanging on Twitter and noticed an aggregated mention of this movie looking for a “female bodybuilder”-type for the gig, and she threw her hat in the ring: “I’m free.”
2023 brought a slew of highly anticipated returns and splashy specials from some of comedy’s biggest names as well as a healthy injection of fresh voices to a form that can grow stale when it feels like an assembly line of the same old same. Whether you’re looking for personal storytelling that’ll make you feel while making you laugh, pointed political comedy that’ll make you think, absurdist riffs, or relatable observations, there is literally something for everyone in this list (presented in alphabetical order) of what we feel represents the 15 best comedy specials from this year. Enjoy… or take to Twitter to tell us we’re idiots for leaving out your favorite special. Whichever!
Baby J – John Mulaney (Netflix)
Netflix
Near the start of Baby J, John Mulaney warns that his stand-up has a different vibe now. And while that’s a little true as he delivers a blow-by-blow of his intervention, stay in rehab, and efforts to scam pills and drug money, his supreme talent is the same as it ever was. The meticulously layered jokes within hyper-compelling stories powered by pops of self-deprecation? Check! Those knowing winks that made him our comedy boyfriend before Bo Burnham was anything more than a YouTube twerp? Double-check!
While the darkness of Mulaney’s semi-recent past is the headline, Mulaney performs through those stories with a kind of detachment no doubt established by where he is in his life as a husband and father with some miles between him and the (“obnoxious, wasteful, and unlikable”) stories he’s willing to share. The only ones he’s willing to share because Mulaney refuses to be completely remade, as a performer, by the events of the last few years. He couldn’t control the headlines before, but he can control this. He can allow himself to control this.
As he sings during the special, “Likeability is a jail,” but with Baby J, Mulaney is going over the wall, at one point saying in one of the special’s only truly serious moments, “All I cared about was what other people thought of me. And I don’t anymore.” Good for him and for us. – Jason Tabrys
I first found this special after being trapped in a car for half a day and it amazingly held my interest, kept me awake, and caused me to laugh my ass off. A rewatch confirmed that exhaustion played NO PART in my enjoyment. Django Gold is a comedic voice that demands attention.
With his glasses on, he sort of looks like a young David Letterman. The commitment to jokes with hyper-specific language and phrasing recalls Norm Macdonald a little bit too. But Gold, who has also written for Colbert, is his own thing with a bemused vibe and a bunch of well-crafted material on the parallels between adult unemployment and teenage slacker-hood, the shifting definition of nerds, and how AI can’t “channel the clumsy grace of the human soul.” – Jason Tabrys
There are some subjects that seem too grim to ever joke about, but comedian Marc Maron blows through most of them in his HBO comedy special, which runs the gambit from jokes about the Holocaust to a carefully crafted joke about the death of his late girlfriend, director Lynn Shelton. Maron’s self-effacing grumpy-old-man schtick works perfectly as he describes the unique situation of grieving during the pandemic, wringing laughs from the most brutal of situations. The special starts with the idea that “things aren’t going to get any better,” so this isn’t the kind of stand-up show meant to coddle the audience or offer hope. Instead, it’s a deeply cathartic hour that gives Maron a chance to work through some of his demons and allows anyone with a twisted sense of humor to feel a little less alone. – Danielle Ryan
Few events grew as immediately annoying to think about as “the slap,” when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards, which makes the idea of an entire hour of stand-up about it seem positively unbearable. Somehow, against those odds, Marlon Wayans managed to make one of the best specials of the year, centered entirely around his personal relationship to Smith, Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Rock. Instead of making hackneyed, misogynistic jokes at Jada’s expense or airing the Pinkett-Smith family’s dirty laundry for uncomfortable laughs, Wayans mostly makes fun of situations and the bizarre ironies of life. (There are a few friendly jabs at both Smith and Rock, but they clearly come from a place of love and respect.) God Loves Me is shockingly hilarious given its central conceit, but let’s have Wayans special be the final word on the subject, okay? – Danielle Ryan
Comedian Zainab Johnson has only recently burst onto the scene, and her first stand-up special, Hijabs Off, is a laugh-riot done in the round, with the audience on all sides. That might seem intimidating for a newer comic, but Johnson is seasoned in life, as she explains throughout her set. As a Black Muslim with twelve siblings, Johnson has her fair share of wild experiences both funny and tragic, and she knows how to mine them both equally for laughs. Johnson’s style of comedy is bold, often softening the audience up with a funny anecdote only to punch them in the gut with the harsh reality of living as a Black Muslim woman in America. Her delivery is assured, her command of the room better than some comedians with decades under their belt. Johnson is going to be a comedian to watch, and Hijabs Off is a brilliant entry point. – Danielle Ryan
One of 2023’s best and most consistently laugh-out-loud funny specials has, probably, its most esoteric joke, told in the most delightfully unhinged way.
“I WOULD LIKE TO BUY A DILDO!” Pete Holmes screams repeatedly, mid-set, barely constraining his glee at the naughtiness of the phrasing and the confusion of an audience that takes a second to get the point of what he’s doing. That’s Holmes, clever, inventive, a little naughty, and exuberant in the comedy that he is sharing with us. My interview with him is one of my favorites from the year. In it, we discuss, at length, his penchant for laughing at his own material during the special and he offered this thought, which makes a lot of sense.
“It’s a powerful thing as a theatrical device to remember that I’m not trying to make you laugh. I’m inviting you to laugh at what I like to laugh at and how better to do that in the quickest and most efficient way than to just let myself laugh?”
In letting off a little giggle or otherwise letting us in on the joy and fun of the moment, Holmes is recreating the nirvana of being in a friend’s basement, laughing ourselves silly while goofing off. That’s pure comedy goodness, right there. – Jason Tabrys
The greatness of Wanda Sykes is on full display with I’m An Entertainer, her first special since 2019 and a tour de force that connects the personal to the political in powerful ways. Moving from stories about menopause to stories about living through the Summer 2020 wave of racist violence in the US, pandemic lockdown with her family, and the issues of the day, Sykes is commanding and clear. This is especially true when it comes to double standards on the left and the right.
She’s not hearing “when they go low, we go high.” She wants to have fun and not be bound by facts and rules of civility, comparing Democrats to PBS and Republicans to TLC. Politicians who say they’re trying to “protect the children” by banning books and speaking out against drag performers while being silent on gun violence take the biggest hit, with Sykes saying, “Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight kids to death with a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird I think you’re focusing on the wrong sh*t.”
To be sure, if you’re on the same side of the ideological divide as Sykes (or open to the idea of breaking out of a political box), this is first pump-level comedy. If you’re not, I don’t know, go watch a Rob Schneider special, I guess. – Jason Tabrys
There is no other stand-up special like John Early’s Now More Than Ever. The alt-comedian mixes musical numbers, cringe comedy, and pop-culture commentary to create his first hour-long HBO special, and it’s a doozy. The special, directed by Emily Allan and Leah Hennessey, is done in the style of a 1970s rock documentary and makes it feel like This Is Spinal Tap mixed with being trapped at a karaoke bar during a rather rambunctious gay birthday party. It’s weird! But it’s also full of scathing commentary on society and some pretty funny bits, though each viewer is likely to laugh at something different because there are so many different kinds of humor sprinkled throughout. It will be interesting to see where Early goes next, because Now More Than Ever will be difficult to top. – Danielle Ryan
Canadian comedian Mae Martin’s first hour-long standup for Netflix, SAP, is a warm and quirky look at life that weaves in funny observations alongside heartfelt confessions about gender and identity. Directed by Abbi Jacobson of Broad City fame, the special feels more like you’re joining Martin for a campfire chat than watching a stand-up special, with fake trees and a starry sky behind them that makes the whole thing especially atmospheric. SAP deals heavily with gender, dysphoria, and transphobia stemming from Martin’s life as a non-binary person without pointing fingers and getting angry, instead asking for empathy and understanding. Audiences looking for hard punchlines or standard joke formulas might feel a bit lost in Martin’s storytelling, but there are plenty of laughs to be had, they’re just a bit more sly. SAP is full of humor and heart, and promises great things to come for Martin’s future in comedy. – Danielle Ryan
The gravel-voiced stand-up veteran has a grab-a-beer-after-a-show vibe and a penchant for putting out high laugh-per-minute no-bullshit specials that eschew bigger settings and more show-y visuals.
Make no mistake, Shocks And Struts is on here because it’s flat-out funny, but also, more than any other special this year, it feels pure and transportive, making it seem as though you’re in the room watching Kinane own the stage and kill with his brand of well-honed and twinkle-eyed observational storytelling around topics like jam bands and drinking on a cruise ship. – Jason Tabrys
Joe Pera went and filmed his first-ever full-length standup special and then he went ahead and released it for free on YouTube. That’s cool. As is the special itself. Pera has a style unlike anyone else, slow enough to lull you to sleep and then punctuated with outrageous twists. There’s a bit in here about a squirrel with a pita chip that I’ve been thinking about for months. It’s all just entirely nice and fun and strange and silly and everything you could ever want out of a standup special to watch a bedtime. This, to be clear, is one of the highest compliments I know how to give. – Brian Grubb
I’m actively working to break a bad habit where I sometimes put on stand-up special that I’m not writing about as though it’s a podcast, letting them play in the background while I cook or ride a bike. Multi-tasking is death for anything with nuance, though, and I didn’t sufficiently feel Someone You Love until I watched with full focus while preparing for an interview, charting the goodness of Silverman’s run through everything from religion to life coaches, dried fruit, abortion, language, and obscure porn genres in an hour that’s fun, often silly, and meticulously crafted for maximum comedic effect. We discussed that craft with Silverman in that interview and it’s fascinating to learn about not just how she builds material, but moments where she reckons with a change in approach from the hardcore to the more earnest. – Jason Tabrys
Sasheer Zamata spent years as an ensemble player on SNL, lending her comedic talents to live sketches and musical parodies without ever reaping the fanfare awarded to peers like Vanessa Bayer and Leslie Jones. Just why Zamata was so underutilized on the long-running comedy series is the top-of-mind question her latest special will leave you pondering. Casually charismatic with an effortless sense of comedic timing, her hour-long stand-up, The First Woman, feels more like a breezy, intimate sit-down than most specials we’ve seen as Zamata engages the crowd on the most ridiculous of subjects before sharing anecdotes so personal, it almost feels wrong to laugh. She switches between silly – a segment in which the audience is asked to share which household items they first masturbated with is a stand-out – and serious, diving into taboo topics like mental health, how the healthcare system fails black women, and femvertising in a way that’s hilarious and fascinating, but never didactic or dull. – Jessica Toomer
The Old Man And The Pool – Mike Birbiglia (Netflix)
Netflix
The 40s and 50s comedy guys sure seem to be talking about death and dying a LOT in their specials, but no one can impact the heart and head like Birbiglia, comedy’s resident master storyteller. Here, Birbiglia visits heavy topics around sickness and health, stubbornness, family, and finding something to live for. The subject matter isn’t for everyone (specifically those of us still pretending that we’re going to live forever), but it will be, eventually, so if you can get there, get there. – Jason Tabrys
In this time of overexposure and content overload we rarely get to actually miss a comedian, but goddamn did we miss Trevor Noah. The now-former Daily Show host left that gig in December of 2022 and hit the road, touring the globe and building material while keeping off our screens. Now he’s back with this just-released Netlfix special, demonstrating his unique way of cutting through the noise to make clearheaded points about how our outrage is weaponized against us while also riffing on sexified National Anthem performances, being roasted while shopping for clothes in Paris, and his five favorite things about white people.
With that last bit, Noah trades cliches for undeniably fresh and funny observations that get big laughs. In particular, the physical comedy at the heart of the Olympic swimming joke and the payoff for his take about white people loving the song “Sweet Caroline” allow the whole thing to build into an utterly memorable and epic closer. As good as Noah was behind the Daily Show desk, Where Was I reminds us that he’s one of the best in the game as a comic. – Jason Tabrys
In a year that saw superhero movies crash and burn with shocking regularity, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swung into theaters and wowed audiences. Packed with wildly original visuals, pitch-perfect needle drops, and compelling characters, Across the Spider-Verse racked up rave reviews. However, it also ended with a major cliffhanger that has left Spidey fans eagerly waiting the next sequel, Beyond the Spider-Verse.
Here’s everything we know about the next Spider-Verse installment:
Plot
While plot details for Beyond the Spider-Verse have not been released, the cliffhanger ending for Across the Spider-Verse offers a rough idea of where the story is heading. That film saw Miles Morales get transported to Earth-42 instead of his home dimension. In defiance of Miguel (a.k.a. Spider-Man 2099), Miles tried to return home and stop The Spot from killing his father. Instead, Miles landed in Earth-42, which is where the spider that gave him his powers came from, making Miles an “anomaly” that threatens the whole multiverse.
While in Earth-42, Miles gets to experience his worst nightmare as he’s faced with a world where his father died in the line of duty. His Uncle Aaron, however, is still alive, only this time he’s not the villainous Prowler. That moniker belongs to this universe’s Miles, and he’s all business.
Desperate to save the Miles we know and love, Gwen Stacy reforms the team from the first Spider-Verse movie (along with some new additions) and sets off to save Miles before Miguel and the other multiverse-traveling Spider-Men can get to our hero first.
Cast
Considering there haven’t been any reports to the contrary, and it’s a direct sequel, we feel confident in saying that Beyond the Spider-Verse will bring back the voice cast from Across the Spider-Verse. That includes Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, Oscar Isaac as Miquel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, Mahershala Ali as Aaron Davis, Daniel Kaluuya as Toby/Spider-Punk, Issa Rae as Spider-Woman, Andy Samberg as Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider, and Jason Schwartzman as The Spot.
There’s also a good chance that we could see the return of John Mulaney’s Spider-Ham and Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Man Noir, who were both spotted in the final moments of Across the Spider-Verse.
Release Date
Beyond the Spider-Verse was originally slated for release on March 29, 2024. However, the film has since been “delayed indefinitely” following complications from the SAG-AFTRA strike and reports that the animation would not be completed in time. As of this writing, Sony has not yet announced a new release date. However, Christopher Miller confirmed during a Q&A in December 2023 that production is moving along, and the film is coming.
Trailer
Sony Pictures Animation has not released a trailer or any promotional material for Beyond the Spider-Verse, but we’ll definitely keep you posted once marketing material starts swinging its way online.
Nicolas Cage has always been an animal lover, and he has often talked about his wonderful relationships with all of his little pets. Even his crow, who is a known bully. But not every pet loves their owner. Cage has done some questionable things with his pets (like the one time he took shrooms in solidarity with his cat) so it was inevitable that one of them would try to get away.
Earlier this year, Cage starred in Sympathy for the Devil alongside Joel Kinnaman, who got a first-hand look at what it’s like to be starring with Nic Cage in a film. It seems to involve a lot of animal wrangling.
“I knocked on his door, and when he opened it, he had pink hair,” Kinnaman told The Hollywood Reporter. “And he was like, ‘My wildcat f*cking ran away for the third time,’ So it just carried on from there,” Kinnaman said in his best Cage voice. He did not reveal if the wildcat came back, or if the third time was a charm for the little guy, and we will likely never know. Maybe he just really did not want to eat magic mushrooms.
Kinnaman continued, “I then got a tour of his house, and he was like, ‘That’s my reptile manager,’” Kinnaman said, offering no explanation of what a “reptile manager” is. Maybe Cage needs a Cat Wrangler next?! Kinnaman then confirmed what we already know: Cage is a professional. “We went down to the basement to rehearse for the first time, and he was completely off-book on the entire script. He’d already spent countless hours working on the script to get to a point where he knew it by heart on the first day of rehearsal,” he added.
“Last year, I went through a period of really deep mourning because I lost two very important people in my life. One is Taylor Hawkins, our drummer. The other was my mother. She passed in July of 2022, and I was with her for all of the time leading up to her passing. Every day during that period, I would write something on the guitar, because I felt that if I didn’t have that release, I would explode. So, I would spend the day at the hospital and then come back to my house and try to translate it musically, with no real clear intention of what I was trying to achieve. I was just finding these chords and progressions that mirrored the way that I felt.”
He also reflected on what those last days with her were like, sharing a funny story:
“As I was sitting with my mother in her final days, we’d watch tennis and drink coffee and… I’d strum a guitar and play guitar to her all day long. I was working on a riff the whole time and it was coming into shape each day until… I think it might have been the day before she passed, I said to her, ‘I’ve been writing this. It’s a song on our new record called ‘Show Me How,’ and it’s a really beautiful kind of melancholy riff.’ I played the riff to her and sang the vocal melody and I said, ‘What do you think?’ And she looked at me and she was like, ‘Eh’ [laughs].”
He continued, “But with this song, I don’t know how to explain it other than to say that she was the most important person in my entire life, so I thought this had to be the most important music I’ve ever made, and that’s when ‘The Teacher’ started to take shape.”
Listen to the full episode on your preferred podcast platform or here.
Your timeline is likely drowning in a tsunami of Best Of Lists at the moment but if there’s any TBR list to pay attention to this year, it’s this one. We’ve recruited our most bookish UPROXX staffers and contributors to jot down their picks for the 2023 titles that deserve a place on your shelf and, as always, they answered with an eclectic roster of fantasy epics, sci-fi adventures, true-crime retellings, travel photobooks, and more. There’s truly something for every kind of bookworm on this list (which is presented in no particular order) with familiar bestsellers and hidden gems ranking right next to each other. Bookmark them for when your holiday vacation begins or just add them to your Kindle now.
Simon & Schuster
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus
Stories about men being swallowed by whales are nothing new, going all the way back to the biblical Jonah, but Whalefall: A Novel by Daniel Kraus is a stunning new take on a very old idea. The novel is a scientifically accurate representation of the nightmarish reality of being slowly digested by the world’s largest mammal, but it’s also an emotional journey through its protagonist’s life as he tries to face his past in order to make it to the future. Whalefall centers around Jay Gardiner, whose rough-and-tumble father was a diver who died by suicide the previous year. In an attempt to make things “right” before he goes off to college, Jay wants to try to recover his father’s body from the deadly waters off the coast of Monastery Beach, but nothing goes as planned and he ends up deep in the belly of the beast — literally. The book mixes pure existential dread with the fight for survival, making it an especially compelling read when the world feels soul-crushingly unbearable. It took the threat of immediate death for Jay to really want to live, and that’s a feeling that’s all too relatable. — Danielle Ryan
The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are by Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter
As good as Black Thought has been for as long as he has, there was always a sense of disconnect between his skills as an MC and his reception among hip-hop fans (who insist, against all evidence to the contrary, that skills are paramount to personality). I was never able to put my finger on why until I read this insightful, personal memoir; Tariq Trotter is a unique, colorful individual, and it’s a shame he took so long to show us the man behind the mic. Let’s hope he continues to do so in the future.
Harold is a stream-of-consciousness spin through the forming mind of a highly imaginative grade-schooler. As with the start of any universe, explosions happen everywhere as curiosity rules the day. Matters existential and irrelevant are pondered as we’re brought to remember the super-powered capacity of our brains when we were more focused on figuring things out than on weathering the storms of existence. It is the exact kind of proudly irreverent and sneakily brilliant work you’d expect from legendary comedian Steven Wright in his first novel. Check out our interview with him for more on the book. — Jason Tabrys
Jessica Knoll (author of Luckiest Girl Alive, adapted by Netflix and starring Mila Kunis) generally specializes in books that should come with a trigger warning, and here, she grinds her heels into the true crime genre. This book travels back to the 1970s and begins on the night that a serial killer attacks a sorority home before going on to charm the press and pull the wool over law enforcement’s eyes. Knoll wields her own ink-filled knife upon the situation, and it’s clear that this is a story about a real-life murderer whose name rhymes with “Med Mundy,” but his actual name does not appear in print. Why? Because Knoll realizes that he would have wanted it that way, and this book will not indulge his cravings for attention. Whew. — Kimberly Ricci
The future that author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah imagines in his latest book, Chain Gang All Stars is a perverse dystopia that, sadly, feels all too possible. An allegory of America’s moral decay via our unique vices – consumerism, mass incarceration, and systemic racism — Adjei-Brenyah’s sci-fi masterpiece tells the story of a prisoner named Loretta Thurwar made famous thanks to televised gladiator games that pit her against rival inmates in a bloody (but always entertaining) fight to the death. By opting into the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) program, Thurwar and her fellow prisoners – known as Links – have the opportunity to earn their freedom, if they can survive three years on the circuit. Their Pay-Per-View-style deathmatches are interspersed with episodic reality footage of their teams – or Chains – carrying out their daily routines in a kind of Big-Brother-meets-The-Hunger-Games-esque hellscape that turns suffering into social currency and penal punishment into watercooler fodder. As wild as its premise sounds on paper, Adjei-Brenyah grounds his nightmarish vision in unavoidable truths and footnoted history, quieting doubts that we’d ever let things get this bad. It’s a doomed Queer love story with a kind of lyrical brutality you can’t look away from – no matter how much you might want to. — Jessica Toomer
I’m happy to say I read more books than usual in 2023 but not that many from 2023. I’m still looking forward to reading my most-anticipated book of the year, my friend Matt Singer’s Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever but I’ve been saving it for Christmas break. I thought I had a winner in Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, but that came out last year. I guess by default my favorite 2023 book would be James Ellroy’s The Enchanters, a hallucinatory retelling of the events surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s death from the perspective of Hollywood fixer Freddy Otash. As Ellroy novels go, I’d put it in the good-not-great category and it’s a bad place to start if you’ve never read him before. But he’s still the one writer whose books I read the week they’re published for a reason. He’s built his own alternate Los Angeles out of yesterday’s headlines and telegraphic prose stripped to its ugly essence. — Keith Phipps
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments by Joe Posnanski
On the popular baseball podcast The Poscast, there’s a running joke in which co-host Joe Posnanski highlights the absurdity of writing a book called Why We Love Baseball just two years after publishing the 800-page The Baseball 100. Is there really more to say about the national pastime? The answer is a resounding “Yes.” In his latest New York Times bestseller, Posnanski counts down the 50 greatest moments in baseball history, telling the stories we know and love from fresh angles, while sharing untold stories about baseball’s more esoteric figures. With Posnanski’s informed, accessible tone, reading Why We Love Baseball feels akin to sitting down on a bar stool next to the most informed baseball fan you’ll ever meet—and staying until they kick you out. — Noah Gittell
Alright, so plenty of criticism has been lobbed at this book for arguably being “too long.” That’s impossible to ignore because an argument could be made that this book deserves both a shorter and unabridged version in the manner of Stephen King’s The Stand, only with vastly different subject matter. Ultimately, author Nathan Hill has delivered a layered American epic with a damn fine book inside — whip-smart, charming, funny, and devastating all at once. There’s also a good chance that most adults age 30 or older will see shades of themselves in this story about how people make life-altering decisions to cement their identities at very young-adult ages, long before their true identity fully forms. Fast forward several accomplishments and phases, and blammo, suddenly it’s rediscovery time. Don’t worry, the naval gazing in this book is fully worth the revelations that finally surface. — Kimberly Ricci
Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South by Kate Medley
For years whenever people have asked me about the best meals I’ve ever had, I’d often mentioned meals I’ve gotten from gas stations in the South, especially south Louisiana. So when I learned a few months ago that photojournalist Kate Medley was putting together a book of photography featuring gas stations in the South that serve food, I pre-ordered it immediately. That book — Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South — finally arrived recently and boy what an absolute treat it is. Available exclusively via The Bitter Southerner’s online store, the book features nearly 200 photos Medley has taken over the course of her career and travels, as well as a beautiful essay by Kiese Laymon. It’s my favorite photography/art book purchase of 2023. — Brett Michael Dykes
If you scrolled your way onto Tik-Tok this year then you no doubt stumbled upon Rebecca Yarros’ fantasy epic, The Fourth Wing. A kitchen-sink medley of genre tropes this entry in Yarros’ planned five-book series checks all the boxes for New Adult Romance fans and yet, even its something-for-everyone premise can’t fully explain its rise in the best-seller ranks. Set in a world where dragons are real and mere humans are tasked with riding them, the book follows a young woman named Violet Sorrengail whose chronic illness destined her for the life of a Scribe until her mother – a war general without those pesky maternal instincts – orders her to enroll in the Riders Quadrant where she’ll be tasked with surviving a series of brutal trials in order to earn her wings. If this deadly bootcamp stint weren’t dangerous enough, Violet’s name and her obvious weaknesses make her a target for sadistic cadets and revenge-driven wing leaders determined to see her fail at any cost. While no element of her premise is particularly original, Yarros’ prose – breezy and spellbinding in equal measure – effortlessly builds a world filled with enough action, forbidden romance, and moral stakes to make it an instant page-turner. — Jessica Toomer
This is the book that just about every person I know read this year. And it is quite good. In many ways, it feels like Rubin’s response to all the people who arched their eyebrows when they heard him tell Anderson Cooper he doesn’t play instruments or get behind the soundboards:
Rick Rubin became a world-class music producer without knowing the first thing about music pic.twitter.com/3DhJi0IpK0
The idea that Rubin’s superpower is his confidence in his own taste is really the nut of this book. But to his credit, he shares freely the idea of how to form that same level of confidence when creating. As such, I find the book to be quite inspiring. Morever, the audible version — with Rubin reading in his sonorous, resonant voice — fits the meditative tone of the text perfectly and makes an excellent companion on the car or at the gym. — Steve Bramucci
Colors of Film: The Story of Cinema in 50 Palettes by Charles Bramesco
Modern-day film criticism is hyper-focused on plot, politics, and whether there are enough sex scenes, so it’s refreshing to find a writer who sees film primarily as a visual art. Charles Bramesco is one of those critics, and his latest book, Colors of Film: The Story of Cinema in 50 Palettes, reminds you to look first and think second. Both a trenchant work of critical analysis and a dazzling coffee table book, Colors of Film winds its way through film history, stopping to note each time a use of color was innovated. Douglas Sirk, Jacques Demy, and Dario Argento all get their due, but there are also chapters on Tron: Legacy and, perhaps most startlingly, Saw II. Colors of Film invites you to gaze at the view and, in doing so, shows you a new, beautiful film canon. — Noah Gittell
After news of BTS’ hiatus hit the internet, their devoted international fanbase was gutted. However, each member keeps the chart-topping K-pop group’s legacy alive with their own solo releases. Now that the band’s future seems certain, supporters can enjoy the BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star documentary with sobering thoughts.
In addition to the Disney+ exclusive series, member Jimin hit the booth one more time to pen a heartfelt thank you through the single “Closer Than This.” As the documentary explores BTS’ roots, on “Closer Than This” gives a first-hand account of their ground-breaking start.
“Do you also remember? / The moment we first met? / We were so shy and awkward back then / Now that I look back / We’ve come this far in just a blink of an eye / We walked it together, alongside each other / At times, I fell and shed tears / We comforted each other, with a pat on the back / Gazing at one another with tears in our eyes / Calling out each other’s names / Starting on June 13 / To the us of thе present, herе and now / Even if you’re not here / At the same place, always,” Jimin sings.
The official video for the track features touching footage of the group over their meteoric decade in music.
Director Denis Villeneuve is ready to bring you and your loved ones back to a world of giant sandworms and sand and more sand and lots of other piles of sand and Timothee Chalamet in Dune Part Two, in case you didn’t get enough of that sacred spice. And sand.
Dunewas a massive hit in 2021, following Chalamet as Paul Atreides, a young man with a complicated destiny. The epic sci-fi franchise, based on the book series of the same name, will get another installment next year which will follow Paul as he tries to bring peace to the people of Arrakis.
“Part One is more of a contemplative movie. Part Two is an action-packed, epic, war movie,” Villeneuve said at CinemaCon earlier this year. “It is much more dense. We went to all new locations… I didn’t want a feeling of repetition. It’s all new sets. Everything is new… This time, it’s full IMAX,” he added. What else is new with Dune Part 2 besides its fun rhyming capability? Here is everything we know so far.
Plot
While the first film followed the first half of the novel, Dune Part 2 is expected to pick up where the cliffhanger left off. In Part 2, Paul rises power among the Fremen, which includes Chani (Zendaya), while preparing to lead a rebellion against Emperor Shaddam IV. Here is the official synopsis:
Paul Atreides unites with Chani and the Fremen while seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the universe, he must prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.
Villeneuve has been hyping up the next installment, promising it will be worth the (already long) wait. It’s going to be another beautiful journey in the desert again,” Villeneuve told Deadline. “It’s the journey where Paul Atreides and his mother, Lady Jessica, make contact with the Fremen culture and meet with the Fremen. It’s Paul’s journey against the enemy. It’s a movie that will be more cinematic.”
After all this, will there be a third installment? All signs point to yes, as Villeneuve has been working on a third film, based on the novel Dune 3: Messiah.
Cast
The stacked cast includes our good friend Timmy C alongside Zendaya, who will have more screen time in the second film compared to her measly 7-minute appearance in the first installment. Professional Elvis impersonator Austin Butler also joined the cast for the sequel, as well as Florence Pugh, who will portray Princess Irulan.
The rest of the cast includes Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Tim Blake Nelson, Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem. Stellan Skarsgard is also returning to fulfill the longtime prophecy that you must have a Skarsgard in your film for maximum creepiness.
Release Date
After some delays and pushback, the film is finally slated to hit theaters on March 1st, 2024.
Pat Sajak didn’t even try to hide his lack of interest in a Wheel of Fortune contestant’s hobby during a recent episode. The veteran host, who’s no stranger to moodiness on set, had little patience for a woman’s story about her fish.
The incident went down when it came time for Connecticut resident Mariha Feliciano to introduce herself to Sajak and the audience. Feliciano started by gushing about her recent interest in “aquarium life” until the conversation went belly-up after she started detailing her home collection.
“What do you have in there?” Sajak asked her, to which she replied that she currently had “some shrimp, snails and guppies.”
Feliciano continued, “And then I got two other fish I wasn’t familiar with and I named Piranha and Predator because they killed my other fish.”
This earned a laugh from the audience, but Sajak appeared shocked by the sudden turn of events. He replied, “Really a downer. I don’t wanna go on.”
Realizing the interaction went south, Feliciana tried to salvage the mood by noting the other fish are “still alive,” but Sajak wasn’t having it. The host was clearly over the introduction and bluntly said, “Let’s move on.”
According to Decider, the exchange was an omen of things to come as Feliciana finished the episode with a paltry $3,700 in winnings.
No one expected Suits (which aired its final USA Network episode in September 2019) to be the most runaway streaming show of Summer 2023. Even Meghan Markle, who might have been the initial reason for resurrected interest on Netflix, expressed surprise. The rest of the cast felt similarly, even “gobsmacked,” to see the first eight seasons of the legal drama trend week after week until people ran out of episodes on Netflix.
After reaching that point in the show, viewers must hop over to Peacock or Amazon Prime to watch the show’s final season, which did end in a seemingly sudden way. The good news, however, is that there will be more Suits. Sort of!
Let’s rundown what we know so far:
Plot
If you’ll recall, Suits attempted spinoff-land once before in the form of 2019’s Pearson, which lasted one season and probably far fewer seasons than initially planned. That show also followed Jessica Pearson’s non-New York legal travels and took an inward glimpse of why she decided to pursue the practice of law. This new Suits series will be nothing like Pearson.
Instead, Suits creator Aaron Korsh is now developing a show that is not a spinoff, a reboot, or a revival. Clear as mud? Yet this new show has been fast-tracked, according to Deadline, and could take place in Los Angeles rather than New York. This would add up to a “Suits universe” much like NCIS has LL Cool J solving Navy-related crimes in LA and Vanessa Ferlito doing the same in New Orleans. Here’s that lowdown:
This is not a revival or reboot and, unlike the 2019 Pearson, the new legal procedural is not a spinoff either — it would be a Suits universe series in the vein of the CSI and NCIS franchises featuring new characters in a new location, sources said. I hear Los Angeles is a backdrop considered for the workplace drama.
At the moment, NBCUniversal has not clarified whether the new series will also be a USA Network mainstay or head to Peacock and/or NBC proper. The door is also not closed to additional series from the Suits well.
Cast
Since Korsh has indicated that this will be all-new cast material, we definitely cannot expect the old characters to be present, although it seems unlikely that the show could resist dropping in the occasional original-cast cameo. And you know, Meghan Markle lives in the LA area, so why not allow her to get a little more paralegal action?
At the same time, Sarah Rafferty (who portrayed Donna and now stars in Netflix’s My Life with the Walter Boys) is enjoying the Suits resurrection and doesn’t sound like she’d be opposed to a pop-in, either. From People:
“I’m incredibly grateful, because our world right now feels like it is growing increasingly dark and fractured, and if escaping for a few moments through TV helps — that makes me feel good … It’s just as simple as that, knowing this thing that we worked on for 10 years is providing escape for people, or providing connection, meaning, in any way, shape, or form. Even if that’s just having a break from the news of the world, I’ll take it.”
Release Date
No release date has been publicized as of yet, but in all likelihood, NBCUniversal will want to push this baby out, soon, and hopefully, it won’t be quickly axed like Pearson was.
Trailer
Are you kidding? We wish there was a trailer, but instead, we can only suggest that you watch Harvey Specter closing those deals.
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