Impure thoughts about Andrew Garfield
8 things that turned me out in October, from 'We Live in Time' to Orville Peck
This month, “Interview with the Vampire” gave me an unexpected fright. I revisited another spooky szn watch, “Thir13en Ghosts,” and realized it’s better than I remembered. My all-time favorite concert performance, David Bowie and Annie Lennox singing “Under Pressure,” needed no critical reappraisal.
Here’s what else turned me out in October.
Andrew Garfield in ‘We Live in Time’
Movies make me cry more than anything else. So much salt comes out of my tear ducts that the Dead Sea serves a subpoena.
Reviews of the new film “We Live in Time” talked a big game about its Kleenex quotient. If anyone knows how to make a weepie, it’s the British. When I saw the Andrew Garfield-Florence Pugh drama last week, though, I only ended up with glistening eyes once. Director John Crowley is actually Irish, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Still, “We Live in Time” is exactly what it says on the tin: a cozy melodrama for the emotionally masochistic. The A24 film charts the rapturous but tragic love story of young couple Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh). The leads hoist this thing above its station. Garfield and Pugh are proper movie stars for the share-button age; both are naturally witty and charismatic, in a way that lends itself to viral clips spurring comments like “he’s/she’s just like me fr fr.” Plus: accents. We love accents.
Pairing them could only either maximize their joint slay or implode under the weight of charm overload, and nothing in between. Fortunately for us, the former happens. And while Pugh is warm, witty, and vulnerable in the film, I want to focus on Garfield, because I genuinely believe he should be 1,000 times more famous.
To witness the affable, Muppet-esque magnetism of this man is to become suspicious of him. Why does your hair have so much volume? How can you have won the heart of Emma Stone for that long and still believably slip into the character of a nervous beagle? What’s your game, limey?
Below, find a short list of charming things Garfield does in “We Live in Time”:
Eats cookies (excuse me, biscuits) in a bathtub — twice
Nervously films a corporate video for a breakfast cereal
Gets hit by a car, which causes the driver fall in love with him and bear his child
Laughs sheepishly in a neck brace (see above)
Goons out over an amuse-bouche
Makes a cute little sleepy face in bed while Florence Pugh feeds him whipped cream
Makes a cute little mischievous face while Florence Pugh pees on a pregnancy test (see Item No. 3)
Operates a stopwatch, but like, in a dashing way
Cries softly
Shows his butt to the camera but leaves the full lasagna to the imagination
Is “We Live in Time” a simply told story about finding meaning in the mundane? About seizing the joy of our ever-so-brief lives as they flit by like scenes in an A24 drama? I guess. It’s mostly about how if Andrew Garfield’s neck was just half an inch longer, he would look weird, but it’s not, so he doesn’t.
Catch “We Live in Time” in theaters now.
Orville Peck at Party for the Parks
So, I skipped Austin City Limits Music Festival this year. I’ve covered it every October for more than a decade. Almost as soon as the grueling 2023 edition wrapped, I knew that I needed to sit out 2024. No one asked me to cover it for them, either, which helped. I will sell my better instincts for a Form-1099.
However, I still got a taste of ACL Fest thanks to Party for the Parks. The annual midweek fundraiser for Austin Parks Foundation happens every year on the festival grounds in Zilker Park. Historically, you couldn’t drag my over-worked bones to anything between ACL weekends. But hey, opportunity knocked.
My siren: masked country singer Orville Peck, who headlined this year’s event. I’ve seen him perform a few times, including at ACL Fest in 2019. His Opry-via-Palm Springs shows always leave me exhilarated. This show was no different. His stage presence packs the same punch with a smaller crowd, and so does his sleeveless shirt.
Peck played a few of his best-known songs, including “Daytona Sand,” one of my faves. He also loaded the set with covers, like The Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl,” Deana Carter’s “Strawberry Wine,” and Willie Nelson’s “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other” — a career no-duh for this gay desperado, which Peck recorded with Nelson for the former’s album “Stampede.”
And I even got the kind of milestone memory that ACL’s given me my whole adult life. Peck covered Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” at the end of the set. I moved closer to the stage to soak it in. My friends Jessica and Bryan came up behind me out of nowhere, and we all sang along. A party with Peck in the park was the perfect dose for me, turns out.
‘American Football (Covers)’
No other band or singer has more branded apparel in my closet than American Football. Their debut self-titled LP helped define my teenage years, a not-uncommon experience. (I found this retrospective essay I wrote about it for the Statesman when the band played Fun Fun Fun Fest … 10 years ago. Kill me!)
None of the artists on the recently released tribute album “American Football (Covers)” try to one-up Mike Kinsella and co., obv. But each artist reworking one of these nine tracks finds their own sound amid emo reverence.
Highlights for me: Iron & Wine’s cover of “Never Meant,” which sounds exactly like whatever just played in your head; Ethel Cain’s gauzy post-rock take on “For Sure”; and Girl Ultra’s glittery version of “But the Regrets Are Killing Me,” the track that ventures the farthest away sonically from the original.
Gael García Bernal on NPR’s ‘Wild Card’
Previously, I recommended an interview with author Hanif Abdurraqib on NPR’s new-ish podcast, “Wild Card.” Host Rachel Martin dropped another public media banger earlier this month: an episode starring actor Gael García Bernal.
I’m not a Gael-head by any means, and I’m not going to watch whatever boxing drama he was on the show to promote. (Nothing personal.) This interview radiated warmth, however, and I found myself captivated by his life stories. García Bernal talks compellingly about memory and grief. He recounts learning to read as a child by reciting newspaper articles aloud to his now-deceased father.
It’s a good listen. You can also read a transcript on the NPR website.
‘Brat’ autumn
You know how Maggiano’s gives you a second portion of your entree to take home after dinner? Charli XCX is the Maggiano’s of pop. I’m proud to present the definitive track ranking of the “Brat” remix album, “Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat,” which Charli finally dropped on Oct. 11.
“Talk Talk” feat. Troye Sivan: Dua Lipa has two stupid spoken-word parts and Troye drops this bar over a rave-ready rework: “’Kay, here's the plan/ I wanna fly you out to Amsterdam/ I got a good hotel to fuck you in.”
“B2B” feat. Tinashe: Tinashe comes in with “’Bout to run it back/ The way my ass look in these jeans, I'm ’bout to throw it back,” and my ears get all tingly.
“Girl, So Confusing” feat. Lorde: Y’know, they really did work it out on the remix.
“Sympathy is a Knife” feat. Ariana Grande: The original is an electroclashy paean to insecurity. This is Ari’s “Piece of Me.” Issa knife when …
“I Think About It All the Time” feat. Bon Iver: While I understood that the original’s MIDI-esque vibe served a purpose on “Brat” 1.0’s most vulnerable song, I didn’t love listening to it. Here, Wisconsin’s finest adds the texture that Charli’s confessional needed.
“Mean Girls” feat. Julian Casablancas: Piano riff? Piano riff.
“360” feat. Robyn and Yung Lean: When this debuted as the O.G. “Brat” remix, I was disappointed by how it deployed Robyn. I far prefer her maxi-pop mode (a la “Dancing on My Own”) over whatever awkward Swedish swag sometimes possess her (like on “None of Dem”). But “Pick it up, darling, London calling/ When I go prancing, yeah, I go all in” has worked its way into my nervous system. (Still don’t know what to do about this Yung Lean character, though.)
8-16. Everything else, except …
“Apple” feat. The Japanese House: Tell me you couldn’t book MUNA without telling me. Maybe the biggest desecration of an artist’s work by their own hand since George Lucas re-released “Star Wars.” I hereby decree that this be removed from all streaming platforms and replaced with Griff’s cover of “Apple” for Like a Version. Now this … this is smokey, silvery stuff.
‘Agatha All Along’
This is the closest thing I’ve had to appointment viewing in a while, and you should watch it, even if superhero stuff isn’t your bag of CGI. The final two episodes drop on Disney+ on Wednesday.
Every performer does career-defining work, especially Kathryn Hahn. Y’know, they say you never know what life has in store. I would wager my soul that Hahn, a killer utility player in comedies, never expected her most compelling dramatic work to come from a comic book character who started out as the Fantastic Four’s nanny in the 1960s.
If you haven’t heard about the time-shifting Episode 7 featuring Patti LuPone, aka the best episode of TV this year, I don’t know what to tell ya.
‘TRUST!’ by Rebecca Black
A rhinestoned chainsaw. Fur leggings. Choreography breaks. Grinding on fuddy-duddy authority figures. Strobe lights. Music videos are back.
‘Doppelganger’
The most interesting entries in my Letterboxd diary are due to the programmers of Weird Wednesday at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. Case in point: “Doppelganger,” a perfectly bizarre 1993 thriller directed by Avi Nesher and starring a post-Studio 54 but pre-“Scream” Drew Barrymore. She plays Holly Gooding, a mysterious woman surrounded by murders that she claims are committed by an evil twin, or — say it with me— a doppelgänger.
This baby has it all: Drew in sunglasses and scarf walking menacingly, dialogue that’s way smarter and funnier than it needs to be, Sears catalogue fashions, George Newbern being a snack, Drew sexily freaking out at an L.A. party, disguise technology not usually seen outside of a Tom Cruise movie, absurd ADR, Drew containing cosmic horror within … what a nice Halloween week treat for you.
You can stream “Doppelganger” most places, including free platforms like Tubi.
Outbound message
Y’all are lucky that I restrain myself. A thirstier person would use their lease on your inbox to make my internet crushes everyone’s problem. And yes, I did read what I just wrote about Andrew Garfield.
Today, I’m going to use a recent Interview magazine Q&A with actor Zane Phillips as plausible cover for looking at pictures of Zane Phillips and telling you about it. On certain corners of Instagram, Phillips is omnipresent. I’ll do a show-not-tell situation here, but suffice it to say, he’s the kind of hunk who makes you think, “They really make them like that, huh?”
Unfortunately, he also has a great personality, which turns me into that one clip of Melissa McCarthy talking about Chris Hemsworth. You get a sense of his wit in the Interview piece, like when he says about the MTA: “What are we going to do about it, Kathy?”
In 2022, I interviewed Phillips about his role in “Fire Island,” and we bonded over both growing up in Central Texas. Very bad for my limerence, I’ll say!
Text BEEF for more fun facts about hot guys I follow on Instagram.
…
“Somebody Somewhere” is back on Sundays on HBO! All of God’s people said, “Amen.” A new season of TV’s most delicately delightful show is a great reason for a new profile of creator/star Bridget Everett. Vulture has been so kind as to oblige.
First, I’m 🥹 over the fact that you shared my Ss last week; second- have you seen Chicken Shop Date with Andrew Garfield? OR listened to his recent Modern Love episode?! I have fallen deeply in love with this man as a result of those!