You may have noticed there was no Friday Night Dinner last week and that's because I've switched the cadence to every other week. Short tangent: if you want to demonstrate how dumb the English language is to someone, just remind them that "biweekly" can mean both "every two weeks" or "occurring twice per week." If I need to provide context clues for clarity, what purpose does the word serve? NONE. Anyway, this bimonthly (smdh) switch will hopefully straddle the delicate balance between reminding you that I exist without evoking an "ugh, this bitch again" reaction. Let's see how it goes.
Per usual, too many horrible things have happened in the newsletter interim: ICE terrorism, the Greenland saga, US warships heading toward Iran, Trump's TikTok deal, the US exit from WHO, the ongoing Palestinian genocide, and probably many other things my brain has compartmentalized for self-preservation. I keep waking up at 3am and, like a dumbass, checking my phone. Maybe I need to start keeping it in another room at night to avoid the sleep and sanity ruining temptation. If anyone has discovered a way to stay informed while maintaining sanity, please let me know.
In happier news, "Sentimental Value" got nine Oscar nominations, Margaret Killjoy made me feel hopeful about the Minnesota resistance, S18 of "RuPaul's Drag Race" has been perfect/mindless fun, and the anniversary of David Bowie's death reminded me of this pop culture gem. I still have 7 foster cats until February 11 and I'm unsure how I'll give them back. Would you worry about me if I decided to keep all of them? Don't answer that.
"Sound of Falling" is one of my favorite movies of 2025, second only to "Sentimental Value." Both are, in part, movies about haunted houses, only the former is depressing as fuck, whereas the latter deals with dark themes but won't ensnare you in a web of depression. I wish Mubi made it easier for critics to see "Falling" because if they had, it surely would have gotten an Oscar nomination. As only Schilinski's second feature (written with Louise Peter), I have to assume we'll see more ambitious work from her in the future that will eventually lead to a nomination. Like Joachim Trier, she seems like the type of filmmaker who will continue iterating on the same themes until she distills them down to their most emotionally impactful, technically skilled essence.
"Falling" is a non-linearly told story about a farm in the Altmark region of Germany during four different time periods: pre-WWI, the end of WWII, the 1980s, and the 2020s. Some characters appear in multiple timelines, which the movie doesn't explicitly point out because it's not made for idiots, so you must watch closely. During my second watch, I realized something that completely went over my head the first time around involving the 1980s and 2020s timelines. When I watch it a third time, I'll probably notice even more interwoven threads. If you love movies that reward/encourage multiple viewings and don't mind heavy themes of trauma, violence, and repression, "Falling" is likely your jam. It's one of the few movies I've seen this year that takes chances on every level, from sound design to cinematography to editing. The big swings don't always work, but they are consistently thought-provoking and I'm excited to see them better coalesce over the course of Schilinski's career.
I have more to say about this film and plan on writing an in depth review next week, but I wanted to include it in FND since it's now in theaters. If you can, embrace the darkness and go see it this weekend. Some images that might get stuck in your mind after watching it include: a little girl asleep in a tree, liquid pooling in a sleeping man's navel, a mom who can't stop gagging, a flaccid penis against a woman's cheek (warm), and an eel's mouth wrapped around a purlicue. Fill your backpack up with rocks, grab a strawberry popsicle, and settle in for 2.5 hours of German misery.
Watch if you like: "Cries and Whispers," "The Girl with the Needle," "Dark," Andrew Wyeth, Barbara Comyns, Andrei Tarkovsky, William Faulkner, suicidal ideation.
I had been in a bit of a reading rut the past few months. Not because the books I was reading were bad, I just couldn't focus on them. It shouldn't have taken me an entire month to read "The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam," which I'll probably write about in two weeks, but it did because [insert horrifying US atrocities here]. When I was younger, reading was an escape from everything I disliked about real life. I always had a book with me and when I got too overwhelmed by other people's bullshit, I read. I was a less obnoxious Rory Gilmore with a dedicated lunch book, bus book, and 3-month anniversary magazine. Lately, reading hasn't had as much transformative power. Maybe that's part of being an adult or maybe my brain has been ruined by the internet, I don't know; what I do know is that Andrew Porter gave me a little bit of that childhood spark back and now I'm on a hot streak that I hope lasts through WWIII.
I wasn't familiar with Porter until my friend Kyle recommended him, but now I'm tearing through his stuff like a maniac. "The Imagined Life" is told from the perspective of a man in his fifties, Steven, looking back on his mid-80s childhood around the time his father disappeared. When Steven is introduced, his own life is in shambles: he's separated from his wife and kid, no longer teaching at the University of San Francisco, and spends his days drinking too much and hunting down people who once knew his father in search of information that might explain his own dysfunction. It's a story about parent/child relationships, mental illness, queer identity, nostalgia, and the way perspectives shift with age. The themes are beautifully developed by someone who has clearly thought deeply about most of them, probably in therapy.
If I had one qualm, it's that the plotting gets repetitive around the mid-point and I started to get frustrated with the slow pace; however, Porter's prose is such a delight that I wasn't as bothered as I might have been with a lesser writer. I love the way he incorporates music and movies into the narrative, something I always try (and thus far, fail) to do with my own fiction writing. Here's a snippet where Steven talks about his dad's affinity for his inherited 16mm projector:
When I'd turn the corner onto our street on my way home from the 7-Eleven, I'd see the silver glow of the cabana house in the distance, the palm trees in our backyard illuminated by the ghostly light of the screen, and as I pedaled faster and pulled in closer to our house I'd hear the rhythmic whir of the film projector, and then, above that, the hardboiled dialogue of Humphrey Bogart or Edward G. Robinson or Raymond Burr spilling out from our backyard. Dropping my bike in the driveway, I'd head in through the kitchen and then out to the backyard, the cartons of ice cream already melting, and find my parents and their friends, lying supine in the pool, floating on rafts in their underwear, passing a joint back and forth between them or sipping on tropical cocktails, above them the twenty-food visages of these glorious icons from Hollywood's golden age, perfectly preserved in their celluloid brilliance, utterly beautiful, like strange deities from another time.
Read if you like: Stevie Nicks, Marilynne Robinson, 80s California when a professor and a nurse could afford a house with a pool, Proust, people with good taste in art.
When my friend, Kseniya, sent me this photo shoot with Elle Fanning, I was like, "Wait a second!" The photos very much reminded me of the ones from The Cut's feature on Rama Duwaji, and that's because they're both taken by the same photographer, Szilveszter Makó.
Does Makó have a cat? If not, I'd say he's an enthusiast.
Do you remember Jaden Smith's castle headpiece from the 2025 Grammys? It was made by Hungarian designer Dora Abodi, in collaboration with Makó. Here's some of the other work they've done together:
Unfortunately for Jaden, the concept doesn't work well outside of Makó's photos.
I like that the photos are immediately recognizable as Makó's, yet don't feel done to death. From what I gather c/o interviews, Makó is vague about his process. Here's a snippet of what he told MODELS.com:
The foundation of my work is a composed synthesis of natural light and texture. Texture is very important to me, and everything else follows from that. Natural light is my native language, though I can’t deny my work with digital, just as I won’t deny my use of analog. I exist somewhere between the two. The process I use to develop my photographs is kept quiet; I prefer to hold it close. What I will share is that it demands patience, obsession, and a labored hand. I also have an idealistic view of how I portray my images; nothing in my photographs is purely realistic. When I’m retouching, I approach it with a sense of ancient Greek idealization. I’m conservative in taste. I don’t care for overt sexiness, excessive heels, or forced posturing. I grew up under conservative restrictions and rules, and those influences have never entirely left me. I struggle with them, but they also shape who I am and the art I create.
His images are like the perfect blend of Dada, Renaissance, and the early days of photography. I greatly prefer them to whatever the fuck Annie Leibovitz has been doing lately and can't wait to see more.
You know those Instagram accounts like @books.in.films, @cats.in.cinema, @womenlivingalone? If I had the energy, I'd make one for medicine cabinets. I fucking love shots of medicine cabinets where I can press pause, take a screenshot, and hunt down as many products as I can like an absolute fucking psychopath to see if they're true to character. As I was watching "The Sopranos" last week, I found this gem in "Everybody Hurts," the bleak midway point of S4 before Tony and Carmela's marriage implodes/the Pie-O-My incident occurs:
Carmela's rich suburban housewife products include:
- Chanel Glossimer lip gloss and lipstick, maybe Hydrabase? In a Vogue interview, one of the makeup artists on the show, Kymbra Callaghan-Kelley, said, "When the series ended, the sales at the makeup department of the Saks where I used to shop dropped 10 percent. I used to spend a couple of thousand dollars on [Carmela’s] makeup; I bought Chanel. I shopped there so much that the makeup artist at the counter knew my name.” I can't find any information about shades, but I'm sure the mob wife TikTok hive has opinions.
- Osmotics Cream Extreme Intensive Repair. Carmela probably got talked into buying this while browsing the Saks beauty department. The Osmotics brand was founded in 1993 by Francine Porter, went through multiple acquisitions in the 2010s while retaining her as CEO, then eventually ousted her in 2020 (I'm assuming). At one point, it seems like they were a pretty innovative company, doing the whole "science-backed skincare" thing well before it was mainstream. They had/have some kind of patent on a formulation using copper peptides for anti-aging. Now that they're fully controlled by private equity, I'm sure a bankruptcy filing is coming before the 2020s are over.
- Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream. No notes/this shit rules, but yes... the company is owned by Johnson & Johnson.
- Paula Dorf Goddess Lip Liner. Dorf was a celebrity makeup artist who started her own brand in 1995. When it went bankrupt in 2009, a guy named Jack Sandbach bought a 51% stake, fired Dorf and took the brand from high-end luxury to piece of shit. Dorf sued him in 2014 and while I can't easily find the outcome of the case, I think they probably settled out of court. This snippet from a 2009 Wall Street Journal article is perfect: "What do Kiss, Pat Benatar, Barbra Streisand, Rene Zellweger and former President Bill Clinton have in common? They've all been made up by Paula Dorf, the celebrity makeup artist whose eponymous high-end cosmetics business filed for Chapter 11 protection this week."
- Exuviance Multi-Protective Daily Fluid. Maybe Carmela's facialist recommended this? The show name drops Georgette Klinger and the "Belladonna Day Spa in SoHo" (which doesn't exist now/maybe existed in the 2000s but I can't confirm). This company was founded by two dermatologists and is now owned by Johnson & Johnson [insert sad trombone here].
- Clarins Beauty Flash Balm (I think) and Gentle Eye Make-Up Remover Lotion. Clarins is still privately owned by the descendants of the founder, Jacques Courtin, a masseur who began selling skin-firming treatment oils from his salon in 1954. By 1980, Clarins was "the top-selling luxury skincare brand in France." The family now invests in other beauty/skincare companies like ILIA Beauty (majority stake) and Ceremonia.
- Dior Addict lipstick. It's killing me that there's no information on shades. If this show was on now, there would be 10,948 Instagram tutorials with Callaghan-Kelley, collabs with brands, etc.
What I don't understand about this medicine cabinet is the suspicious lack of Imodium, Tums, Pepto, hemorrhoid cream, and prescription-strength antiperspirant. You can only eat so much gabagool without suffering the consequences.
When I think of Carmela, the vibe is frosted makeup, bling, French tips, crosses, furs, and satin sleepwear.
Is anyone else watching S4 of "Industry"? When the show began in 2020, it was about a group of recent college grads working in London at a fictional investment bank called Pierpoint. Picture the sex/drugs/questionable decisions of "Euphoria" mixed with a dumb person's rendition of "Succession" and you'll have a good idea of the vibe. By S4, those rookies are thirty, no longer at Pierpoint (which gets bought by a sovereign wealth fund), and have a scary amount of power considering their complete lack of impulse control.
I got into "Industry" last winter when I was visiting my parents and randomly started it with my mom. She has since abandoned it like a smart person, but I can't stop watching, even though I'm constantly distracted by the terrible dialogue that eschews subtext. As an example, take this exchange from the first episode, "PayPal of Bukkake," where two characters discuss the nature of their professional relationship. For context: Otto Mostyn (Roger Barclay) is an old white dude who hired Harper Stern (Myha'la), a young Black woman, to run a shorts-only hedge fund at the end of S3. At the start of S4, Harper confronts Otto when she realizes she doesn't actually have any real decision-making power at the firm.
Otto: Unfortunately, Harper, this is a brave new world, based on merit.
Harper: You hired me on merit.
Otto: I hired you as a face. And the cost-benefit analysis of the progressive sheen that you brought to the wider umbrella of Mostyn Asset Management, and it no longer stacks up.
Harper: You wanted to hire a puppet in blackface, so you could continue being a crook.
Otto: And in whose eyes am I provably a crook? A crook anointed by the King? And that woke shit no longer moves the needle in this new world. I accidentally called a subordinate a retard yesterday. Nobody flinched. And you know what, Harper? Tomorrow, I might do it again.
"Hey everyone, did you know that discrimination is a core component of fascism? We don't really have anything deeper to say about that, but hopefully just mentioning it gives us the patina of intelligent commentary. Enjoy our new season steeped in the war on woke." At this point, I'm basically only watching for Ken Leung, Marisa Abela, and — it pains me to say this — Kit Harrington. E2, "The Commander and the Grey Lady," was significantly better than 1, but I still don't understand the immense hype or believe it will tie into the rest of the season in any meaningful way. Don't get me wrong, I mostly have a good time watching "Industry" by shutting off my brain and imagining it's on Showtime; I'm just baffled by all of these critics talking about S4 like it's the second coming. Maybe I'll be eating my words after a few more episodes have aired, but the first few make me think we're in for more of the same shit, just with an even nastier edge and more robotic dialogue.
Watch if you like: Chaos, drug-addicted shitheads, commodity fetishists, r/wallstreetbets, imagining how much money you could make without a strong moral compass,
There's a winter storm warning this weekend, so if you need me, I'll be here:
The book is "Teeny Tiny Tale" (1969) with words by Jan Sukus, illustrations by Terry Rose. Not pictured: my laptop, playing "The Sopranos."
