Je suis babygirl
8 things that turned me out in November, from Nicole Kidman to waterslides
Before you start with me, I haven’t seen “Wicked” yet. I’m saving it for Thanksgiving, which hasn’t stopped me from holding space for “Defying Gravity” in the shower. (Or looking wistfully at screenshots of my Zoom interview with Jonathan Bailey.)
Here we go into December, a month of “uppahs and downahs,” as Jared Leto says in that one scene from “Requiem for a Dream.” Looking back at the past month, we talked Tilda, got silently angry with Laura Dern, and pitched a few Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon concepts.
Here’s more pop culture that turned me out in November.
‘Babygirl’
You won’t catch me bad-mouthing Ms. Nicole Kidman. That would be like saying nasty things about lettuce. I honor the important contributions to their respective fields (cinema and salad) but find it hard to feel strongly about either.
Delightfully, that stolid-yet-crisp quality is put to great use in “Babygirl,” Kidman’s newest. Halina Reijn wrote and directed the film, which comes out on Christmas Day. (Plan your double feature with “Nosferatu” now.) My friend Maggie and I caught a preview screening last week at Alamo Drafthouse.
Kidman stars as a fully leaned-in tech mogul who has it all, except orgasms from her husband (Antonio Banderas). As the holidays approach, she slides into a fraught fling with her new intern, played with palpable body heat by Harris Dickinson. (His Axe body spray wafts off the screen if you see it in 4DX.) Their relationship is all about power play: He’s the dom, and she, for once, is the sub.
“Babygirl” is an instant classic for the “I Know That Room Smell Crazy” canon. They do some freak business, even if it’s nothing you haven’t seen on Tumblr. Dickinson memorably orders Kidman to drink a glass of milk in public.
I wouldn’t characterize it as an erotic thriller, exactly. The stakes are fairly domestic. There’s a distinct lack of material danger or character choices that spit on the DSM. This isn’t the kind of movie where spurned lovers boil bunnies.
Yes, the forbidden couple’s flirtations have you gnawing at the bars of your enclosure, but the emotional core is solid. Reijn’s script is surprisingly generous to its kinksters. That’s the secret sauce — neither character is a villain. Their affair might be a nuclear reactor waiting to melt down, but hey, you can’t fault them for wanting a little warmth.
It’s saucy, suspenseful, and kinda sweet, if you can believe it.
‘ROCKMAN’ by Mk.gee
Mk.gee’s “ROCKMAN” sounds like someone strapped Peter Gabriel, the song “Kim” by Ryan Adams, and a piece of sheet metal into a Tilt-o-Whirl, set it to “high,” and then suddenly pulled the brake. I’ve been queueing up his songs for a few months thanks to TikTok, and this is my fave yet. His new album, “Two Star & The Dream Police,” packs in lots of the same: wavy shadows, echo-y production, and raw-nerve singing.
Before you listen to the studio version of “ROCKMAN,” watch Mk.gee’s “Saturday Night Live” performance. It makes the song sound a lot bigger, and he adds in some falcon noises. I’ve been yelping “you started a war!!!” for days.
‘Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point’
Brother, I’ve already played through Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” album once. Christmas has been here. Of course I’m shoving some cheer down your gullet this week.
Tyler Thomas Taormina’s “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” isn’t a movie, per se. It looks like a movie, and I saw it in a movie theater. Michael Cera, who primarily appears in movies, shows up. But it’s more of a reverie, something between seasonal cinema vérité and “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!”
Taormina strings together scenes from an extended Italian American family’s Dec. 24 gathering like lightly comedic popcorn kernels. Wine flows. Halls are decked. Adult children argue about what to do with mom. Late at night, the teens drive to the outskirts of a frozen town to make out in their cars. It’s choreographed like something from “Fantasia.”
Did I furtively check my phone’s clock once or twice? Yeah, but this is a nice time overall, and Taormina makes genuinely interesting choices. Some scenes are bridged by kaleidoscopic footage of vintage Christmas decor. And I could be wrong, but I don’t think the oldies-heavy soundtrack contains actual holiday songs.
The cast is familiar if not exactly famous, including Francesca Scorsese, Gregg Turkington, the girl from “Eighth Grade,” and Maria Dizzia (who is not Alanna Ubach, I am always shocked to learn). It’s like going to a family reunion and seeing cousins whose faces you know, even if you can’t quite remember which one is Lindsey and which one is Ashley.
It’s like a cup of hot cocoa spiked with Benadryl. Shave off 20 minutes, and you’ve got a great backdrop for wrapping presents.
‘Aquamarine’ by Addison Rae
Addison Rae’s whole deal eludes me. I’m not inclined to pursue information to remedy that. Instead, I’ll enjoy the bliss of her hippy-dippy electro-pop song “Aquamarine,” a follow-up to viral hit “Diet Pepsi.” It’s the Gen-Z stepdaughter of Madonna’s “Frozen,” raiding the closest of cool aunt “Nothing Really Matters.”
This is a sexy yoga bop — trancelike beat, chakra-aligning coos, stupid talk-singing. I love it dearly. Madonna could take Addison to the cleaners in court.
Waterslide-tok
In one of my most beloved recurring dreams, I’m sliding through a series of tunnels. It’s dark in them thar tubes, except for neon lights streaking into infinity. It’s all very “Tron.”
I haven’t had one of those dreams in years. Fate recently delivered me to the waterslide side of TikTok instead, where GoPro-enabled swimmers hurl themselves down passageways that look eerily similar to the ones my subconscious created. Most of these slides seem to be in Europe? Once again, America lags in basic social services.
For example:
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My dream slides didn’t have water, but I’m open to the idea.
‘RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K.’ Season 6
“RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K.” is one of the most reliable versions of the franchise, and the current season is about as good as the show gets. There’s a strong batch of contestants with varying approaches to the art form, from chill punk queen Lill to cleverly named sexpot Rileasa Slaves.
The recently aired Episode 8 is an all-timer, as the queens make over their family members. La Voix, a seasoned 43-year-old cabaret star and competition frontrunner, puts her elderly father into drag. He’s not merely accepting of his son. The man gives a stirring speech on the main stage, exhorting parents to embrace their queer children, all while draped in a red velvet gown. I will be bringing it up in therapy.
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And immediately after this, two drag queens lip-synched to “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, with the fire of two convicts trying to escape death row. That’s good TV.
‘Martha’
You can’t call R.J. Cutler’s documentary about the life of Martha Stewart a hagiography. It’s close! But there’s juuust enough honesty in this portrait of the cultural icon, like a bit of salt in a dessert.
My three big takeaways:
Martha is immune to a common interview tactic: staying quiet after a subject answers, so that they fill the silence with more information. In one such moment, she literally stares down the interviewer and says something to the effect of “what now?”
I don’t think she was guilty of insider trading. And if she was, good for her.
Whatever personality disorder she has, I want it.
Parker Posey in ‘The House of Yes’
A couple weekends ago, my friends Hannah and Sam wanted to watch a Thanksgiving movie. Options were thin on the ground, much like Thanksgiving music isn’t really a thing. I campaigned successfully for Mark Waters’ “The House of Yes,” the cover of which I remember seeing at Blockbuster when I was 9 or so.
There aren’t many seasonal trappings, but the first half of this movie is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s a snappy, witty send-up of high-society screwball comedies.
The second half, um, is a gothic drama about incest. As far as holiday recommendations go … up to you, boss.
But if you like genius performances, Posey has never been better. As a disturbed, quippy young woman obsessed with the Kennedy assassination (and her twin brother), she hits homer after homer. In one perfect scene, she turns a scream into a laugh, and film classes should study it.
In conclusion: Woulda been really funny if we rented this when I was 9.
Outbound message
Writing this newsletter has me thinking about zines. I’ve always felt that my words needed to be published through an established “thing” for them to be worth writing, so the DIY nature of Turning Out has been a neat little personal revelation. Zines seem like they’d have a similarly liberating effect, but with a physical touch.
I came across a primer/appreciation about zines from a Substack called The Queer Gaze. This jumped out:
“Zines can be anything, and their radical as well as fluid nature makes them almost indefinable. They're fluid like people, like communities. They mirror their creator; they're part of their creator. A zine is an experience, an education, a collection, an anthology, a novel, a comic, a gallery, a newspaper: a zine can be you.”
Where’s a good Xerox machine in this town?