Things I Liked This Week: October 11, 2024

Here are some things I liked this week, and reasons why I liked them.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Horror movies haven’t always been my thing. So I’m pretty behind on the classics, made clear by the fact that I just watched this movie for the first time ever this week. It more than lived up to the hype in every way possible. This film is a master class in bad vibes the whole way through. It sets the tone right from the beginning both directly (the graveyard horrorshow) and subtly (the constant stream of bad news on the radio) and never lets up. Something is always a little bit off, until things are a lotta bit off, and the buildup is wonderfully paced, taking its time letting you sit uncomfortably until everything unleashes in a fever pitch of what the fuck!

There’s this thing that can happen when watching a classic movie that is often imitated — sometimes it’s hard to fully enjoy the original because you’ve seen so many things that pay homage to it, and do so in new ways with higher stakes, so the original seems quaint in comparison. This can skew your enjoyment of the film because even though you know in your head that this was the originator, you’ve seen it before, so it doesn’t seem new. Texas Chainsaw Massacre basically drew up the blueprint for this kind of horror film to a point where I can’t believe it is legal to tribute rip off this movie as much as other movies after it have done. That did not affect my enjoyment of this movie at all. No matter how many times I’ve seen a group of young people on a road trip stop at an ominous gas station or encounter a creepy stranger on the road, no matter how many times I’ve seen that group get separated from each other and then separated from their own body parts, no matter how many final girls I’ve seen barely escape with their lives, this movie still absolutely ripped from start to end.

Classics are classics for a reason, I guess. Way late to the party here, but so glad I finally showed up.

The Big Picture podcast - It’s Saturday Night

I’ve been a real movie-boy lately and part of my newfound Letterboxd-reviewing, AMC-A-List-member ass deep dive into films has been getting into Sean Fennessey’s excellent Big Picture Podcast. The most recent episode features a discussion with frequent guest and colleague at The Ringer Chris Ryan about Jason Reitman’s new film Saturday Night, the somewhat biographical film about the 90 minutes leading up to the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live.

I saw the film a few weeks ago and their discussion and thoughts about it mirror my own almost exactly. It makes me feel nice when people who have respected opinions about things have the same opinions about something as me. Is that a weird ego-thing? Yeah, sure. But so what?

I’d write more about it here, but I’m serious about their thoughts and opinions exactly mirroring mine. If you want to know what I think, go give a listen to what they think.

Revisionist History podcast - The Georgetown Massacre (Parts 1 & 2)

The new season of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast (which also seems to be a companion piece for his newest book Revenge of the Tipping Point) comes in hot. I’m not a fan of everything Gladwell does. In fact, he’s done a lot of stuff that sucks. But what he does well he does very well, and this podcast very often falls into that category.

The two-part podcast focuses on the college admission scandal (remember that?), and while a case of super-rich people vs. corrupt college admissions departments doesn’t really have any heroes to root for, the story is able to focus on the court case that exposed that corruption in a way that made my heart sing.

The episodes are structured in a way that mixes interviews and commentary with courtroom reenactment readings and the format works to create a tension-and-release worthy of top tier courtroom drama. There are a few truly great moments of revelation from the trial that made me daydream of an alternate life where I actually did attend law school instead of going to open mics to talk about my dick.¹

I don’t want to spoil anything. But this is worth a listen if you love courtroom dramas, lawyers uncovering lies, and corrupt systems being exposed.

(The Discussion about) Joker: Folie à Deux

I saw the actual movie. And while I didn’t hate it, I definitely wouldn’t include it in a list of “things I liked.” But the movie did start a lot of discussions. And I’m fascinated by discussions.

On Letterboxd (follow me if you like to know what I think about things, and if you’re here, it’s a safe bet to say that maybe you do) I said that the film was “the Joker we deserve right now.” By this I meant that it was a movie about a bad, troubled person that completely lacks the part of the movie where being bad and troubled seems like it would be fun. This is seemingly on purpose as a reaction to the fact that people liked the first Joker movie for “the wrong reasons” and is a backwards, reactionary, strange take on how to make art. It doesn’t trust people to have media literacy and use their brains to deduce the actual message you’re trying to say as an artist. Which is directly due to the type of discourse being had about art online, where people openly misunderstand the meaning of movies , or push back against depictions of bad behavior as if they were endorsements of it. To watch a movie that seems to be a reaction to that reaction and then watch the reaction to that fascinates me.

It’s also very funny that the movie worked in that it pissed people off who were fans of Todd Phillips’ original Joker because of some kind of incel rage worship of the character. Watching these people complain about the Joker being ruined warms my heart.

The Secret Code of Pickup Basketball

This article from The Atlantic is an interesting dive into the unwritten rules and culture of pickup basketball and its existence as a third space. I love the idea of diving a little deeper into a mostly unexplored and unexamined place to find meaning that isn’t instantly recognizable on the surface. Plus, it’s a “place” (the world of pickup basketball) I’ve been familiar with for literally my entire life, so that’s cool.

Halloween in Toluca Lake

Not everything I like is going to be something I watch, read, or listen to. Occasionally, I actually experience things out in the world.

Los Angeles is full of wealthy neighborhoods. Of all the wealthy neighborhoods, my favorite is Toluca Lake. Why? For a few reasons. One is that I live within close walking distance, so it’s very easy for me to take a stroll over to the nice side of the tracks and walk around where the other half lives. Another is that when I first moved to LA my office was in Toluca Lake and I’d take many breaks just walking around the neighborhood. Anything that reminds me of a break from work is alright with me. A third reason is for the neighborhood’s proximity to Universal Studios and the fact that you can see some of the attractions (including a life-sized Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle, the Jurassic Park ride, and an enormous Minion peering down onto the freeway) from the neighborhood. I love that the ultra-rich have to wake up every day, look out the window of their multi-million dollar homes, and be stared down upon by Gru from on high.

Also, Toluca Lake goes all out for Halloween. They have house-decorating contests and the residents get way into it. Nothing says “disposable income” like spending thousands of dollars on a bunch of 12-foot-tall lifelike monster statues that sit in storage for 95 percent of the year only to unleash Hell upon your neighborhood for October. I highly recommend taking a twilight walk through TL.

And Finally…One Thing I Did Not Like This Week

Baseball

Please do not talk to me about the Philadelphia Phillies.

1. I don’t really “talk about my dick” all that much in my standup. It’s just the go-to reference when someone is being dismissive about the fact that they do standup. I should stop participating in this trend. I love standup. It’s great. Well, it can be great. I want to do it in a way that is great. So I should probably stop being dismissive of it. This note has gone on long enough.