A performance I loved in a movie I didn't: 8 things that turned me out this month
The best things I watched, read, and listened to in September
Joyeaux (almost) October, gang. September brought us Fred Flintstone, pop stars with R-rated brains, old playlists and screwball comedy. And still, there’s room for more. Here’s what turned me out this month.
Kathryn Hunter in ‘The Front Room’
A24 teased Sam and Max Eggers’ promising “The Front Room” as a campy, Southern Gothic take on “Rosemary’s Baby.” Instead, it broke three cardinal rules:
Don’t waste Brandy’s time.
Don’t abandon your movie’s own rules.
Don’t overestimate how much I want to see poop.
The filmmakers laced up their clown shoes, but Kathryn Hunter put her back into this movie. From “Poor Things” to “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” she’s cornered the market on playing freaky old biddies. In “The Front Room,” she’s Solange, an inexplicably named, Bible-thumping widow who moves in with her pregnant daughter-in-law (Brandy, peerlessly moisturized). She immediately becomes the roommate from hell.
Hunter deploys a Southern accent with notes of Cajun, Confederate, and Gollum. Solange is at once instantly recognizable (the worst woman at Luby’s on Sunday) and impossible (beamed in from a bayou planet where alligators are people). Every blessing out of her mouth drips with cursed intent. Her body curls inward as if it’s been soaked in Cracker Barrel-brand formaldehyde, yet her presence is overwhelming. She clomps around on two canes like a gazelle in a touring production of “The Lion King.”
It’s a performance of comedic horror perfection. I want to send her an Edible Arrangement.
‘A Different Man’
Mean movies suck. A script with contempt for its characters makes me wonder: Why bother? I don’t need art to be pleasant and unchallenging (I haven’t been to a Southern Baptist Christmas pageant in years), but I also don’t find cruelty cathartic, much less entertaining.
“A Different Man,” the hilarious new mindfuck from writer/director Aaron Schimberg, is probably the only mean movie I will ever love, because it’s not mean-spirited. A24’s black comedy/light sci-fi made its Texas premiere on Sept. 22 at Fantastic Fest. It’s now in theaters.
Sebastian Stan stars as Edward, a man whose neurofibromatosis covers his face with tumors. He’s a struggling actor who can only find roles that reduce him to his appearance. The world isn’t kind. He retreats inside himself.
A miraculous (and Cronenberg-y) medical trial gives Edward a conventionally beautiful face. Now looking like the Winter Soldier, he assumes a new identity and pursues Ingrid, the playwright next door (Renate Reinsve), and a part in her new show. The role: his former self.
Cruel fate knocks in the form of Oswald (Adam Pearson), a man living with Edward’s former condition and appearance. (Pearson has neurofibromatosis in real life.) Bon vivant Oswald revels in friends, lovers, and adventures. He embodies everything Edward fought nature to achieve. The men’s lives start to blur in darkly absurd ways.
Like the Coen Brothers’ similarly titled “A Simple Man,” “A Different Man” drags its protagonist down a spiral of indignities. For wanting to be accepted, Edward receives deeper alienation. Alanis Morissette could never.
An easy surface reading of Schimberg’s film: Wherever you go, there you are. But I don’t think “A Different Man” wants to make a moral of Edward’s suffering. Too easy for a monkey’s paw this farcical. As the film’s funhouse mirror bends ever more bonkers, he lashes out in extreme but understandable ways. Perhaps that involves a full-body cast; who’s to say? Thanks to Stan’s performance — instinctually apologetic, tentatively confident, sympathetically frustrated — I found myself constantly thinking, “I mean, I get it, bro.”
We’re all on the punchline end of a cosmic joke sometimes, so that sympathetic thought has stuck with me the most. No spoilers, but the movie all ends with a laugh.
‘Alligator Bites Never Heal’ by Doechii
I intended to recommend “Nissan Altima,” a single from Florida hip-hop phenom Doechii that makes me feel like I could turn sheet metal into confetti with my bare hands. Then I drove to Brenham on a reporting trip and listened to her full mixtape, “Alligator Bites Never Heal.” To share only one song would be like taking a Bible verse out of context.
“Alligator Bites Never Heal” sprawls over 19 tracks of firecracker flow, swampy slow-downs, and weird wit. The track “Denial is a River” finds Doechii working through her issues with a therapist alter ego and hyperventilating on beat. “Wait” pairs an ethereal chorus with verses set on simmer. It references “The Nanny,” Little Orphan Annie, and “The Matrix” in the span of seven lines. On “Boom Bap,” Doechii blows raspberries and speaks in tongues.
And yes, “Nissan Altima” rips so very hard. A ferocious, squared-up Doechii dubs herself “the new hip-hop Madonna” and “the trap Grace Jones” before declaring with vintage Nicki elan:
“I'm like Carrie Bradshaw with a back brace on/ I been carrying you bitches now for way too long”
I should not quote some of my other favorite lyrics, but they’re really clever, so just listen. Also, watch the video, which I think is lovely product placement for Nissan.
‘His Three Daughters’
A three-woman chamber piece featuring Wanda Maximoff, our modern Columbo, and an actor who goes toe to toe with Christine Baranski at her day job? My expectations for Azazel Jacobs’ Netflix drama “His Three Daughters” soared high among the pigeons. I expected a-c-t-i-n-g; I was not disappointed.
Elizabeth Olsen, Natasha Lyonne, and Carrie Coon star as estranged sisters gathered for their father’s final days in hospice. It’s the perfect set-up for a play: Cram characters into a bottle, shake it up, watch them collide. “His Three Daughters” isn’t stagey, though. It’s akin to peering in on a zoo’s chimp enclosure.
Jacobs wrote dialogue that hits the ears like an argument overheard through paper-thing apartment walls. (He sneaks in a couple center stage monologues, but they’re good, so who cares.) Sam Levy’s cinematography turns a tight living space into a labyrinth, and death is the minotaur at the center.
But this is all about Lyonne, Coon, and Olsen, a formidable acting hydra. Or, in memory of brat summer:
It’s a three-mother pileup on the interserve highway.
It marks the signing of landmark mother accords at the Camp Slayvid summit.
It’s the most iconic gathering of three gifted divas since the Nativity.
Each actor dials into how their assigned archetype — burnout step-sister, imperious eldest sister, peacemaking “nice” sister — brings out the best and worst in the others. “His Three Daughters” triangulates the grief of losing a parent, and by doing that, it finds something sharp and truthful.
(… more like our three mothers, amirite?)
‘Galina’ by Allie X feat. Empress Of
Of all the tracks on Allie X’s latest album, “Girl With No Face,” I most connected with “Galina.” (“Off With Her Tits,” of course, also refused to be denied.) Over a sexy synth hook, the Canadian pop artist sang desperately about some woman who had taken her secrets to the grave.
Allie released a new version of the song featuring Empress Of last month. It’s a subtle rework, but the track oozes even more midnight movie mystery. You can practically hear a VCR turning its gears as red food coloring sprays behind a convex screen. The pair did a fun interview with Vogue about the track, too.
The Queen of Melrose holding court
Hopefully, the algorithm brought you to Cosmo Lombino, aka the Queen of Melrose. The nascent internet icon captured a zeitgeisty moment by ranting on TikTok about parking at a Madonna concert. But Lombino’s an L.A. fixture who’s seen it all, which you quickly gather in an episode of the “Who’s the Asshole?” podcast hosted by Katya.
In her unmistakable voice — if John Waters raised Dr. Girlfriend from “The Venture Bros.” — Lombino weaves tales of growing up in a Mafia family, selling clothes to Shaq, getting sober thanks to Danny Bonaduce, and more. If you like pop culture eccentrics, this one’s for you. Also, her giggle is very cute.
‘Uncanny X-Men’ by Gail Simone and David Marquez
Marvel’s new run of “Uncanny X-Men,” written by Gail Simone and drawn by David Marquez, is quickly becoming my most anticipated comic each month. Without getting too into fictional details that will make you lose respect for me, the storyline picks up after a seismic loss scattered our mutants heroes to the winds.
Simone’s first three issues under the new status quo follow Rogue, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Jubilee, and Wolverine to Louisiana. They’re hoping to catch their breaths. Instead, four mysterious teens come to them for help escaping a shadowy evil, and the heroes are pulled back into the fight against genocidal fascism. (After 61 years, why stop now?)
So far, we’ve gotten slice-of-life moments, beautiful art, tantalizing mysteries, promising new characters, and honest-to-goodness creepy nonsense. Plus, Rogue and Jubilee rule. Recommended for fans of Disney+’s “X-Men ’97.”
Moo Deng?
Moo Deng. <3
Outbound messages
The New York Times recently profiled Natasha Lyonne, speak of the devil. Melena Ryzik collected several quotes meant to be read in Lyonne’s wonderful taxi driver voice, like:
“So I went on a very extended walkabout,” she said. “And when I say walkabout, I do mean heroin.”
And upon not sharing her dessert with the writer:
“I would give you even one bite,” she continued, “but let’s just say Covid. You know, have you heard that syphilis is back? Yeah, I read an article recently. Something to think about!”
All that, plus hard-won wisdom, behind-the-scenes tea, and glowing words from Olsen, Coon, Rian Johnson, and Amy Poehler. You can read the article here.