This Week in Pop Culture: January 10, 2025

Red carpet looks from the Golden Globes, some mid movies, and a great Apple TV series in this week's pop culture round-up.

Jan 10, 2025

Happy Friday, friends. I hope you survived the week and are looking forward to the weekend.

Before we get into the fashion of the Golden Globes, there was a LOT of celebrity relationship news this past week.1 First, of course, is that Zendaya and Tom Holland are engaged. The notoriously private couple didn’t make a formal announcement, but Zendaya was wearing what appears to be an engagement ring at the Globes and was caught on camera showing it to other celebrities at the event. She also got caught staring at the sparkler during a press event this week. Good for her!

In decidedly less happy news, Jessica Alba and Cash Warren have separated after 17 years of marriage. I don’t care about this man at all, but I have always held a soft spot for Jessica Alba in my heart2 and am hoping their three children are handling it okay.3 For the record, I don’t think that divorce (or separation) is the sign of failure, especially for a relationship that spanned 17 years. Relationships are hard, people change, and it’s okay for them to end!

And in some kinda Y I K E S news, Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster have hard-launched their relationship with a People exclusive. I actually laughed out loud at this totally candid and not at all planned pap photos of the two walking around:

Those who follow celebrity gossip likely know that Foster and Jackman have been together for a while, and that it’s been alleged they got together while performing in The Music Man on Broadway, while they were both married to other people. The internet does not seem excited about this official launch (except for his stans, which are out in droves in the comments on the People article), likely because the optics of Jackman leaving his wife of 27 years for Foster…aren’t great? Again, I don’t have a horse in this race and I think people tend to be way too black and white about “cheating” in general, but these photos really made me laugh (and I needed that this week). Best of luck to these two dorks!

Last weekend was the Golden Globes! It was hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser, and I thought she did a pretty good job, all things considered.4 She had a couple of really good jokes, but this one made me laugh very hard (I’m an easy mark when it comes to Glen Powell):

It was mostly a solid show, though the setup of the stage and presenters was deeply weird. The fashion was…okay? I don’t think I LOVED any of the looks, and I was absolutely flabbergasted by the amount of opera gloves on the red carpet, but there were still some good looks. Here are some of the standouts:

Abby Elliott in Monique Lhuiller (I wish this didn’t have a slit but love it otherwise) and Ali Wong in Balenciaga (love the color; think it kind of looks like she fell into a paper shredder).

Cynthia Erivo in Louis Vuitton and Dakota Fanning in Dolce and Gabana (this might be her best look ever).

Demi Moore5 in Armani (this looked silver on my TV screen but is really a gold color, which I like better) and Emma Stone in Louis Vuitton (love the color and her pixie cut; less thrilled about the poofy thing around her pelvis).

Janelle James in Cristian Sirano and Maren Morris in Carolina Herrera (I love how simple this is).

Mikey Madison in Bottega Veneta (I love the color and the sparkle; I’m physically itching to HOIK it up her chest a little bit) and Sheryl Lee Ralph in custom St John (she always looks so incredible).

A newly-engaged Zendaya in custom Louis Vuitton (obsessed with this color on her) and Zoe Saldaña in Saint Laurent.

The Golden Globes are really just the start of awards season, and I’m very excited, even though I know I have a lot of movies yet to watch before the Big Game.6 This month we’ve still got the Critics’ Choice Awards (which just got bumped to later in the month because of the wildfires in LA; what an absolute nightmare that situation is right now - I hope all the folks in California are staying safe), then we’ve got the Grammys AND the Screen Actors Guild Awards in February before the Academy Awards cap the season in early March. I’m excited! I’m grasping desperately to anything that sparks joy right now and this is one of them!

Here’s the rest of the pop culture that took up space in my brain this week:

What I Read:

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kleiwer: Charlie and Eve are a young, queer couple who flip houses. Their latest project is in a remote part of Washington, where one day a man and his family knock on the door, claiming to have lived there years before and asking to look around. A people pleaser, Eve reluctantly allows them in, and immediately, strange things begin to happen, including a ghostly presence in the basement. When the family doesn’t seem to want to leave, Eve wonders if something sinister is at work, or if she’s imagining it all.

The bones of this story started as a series on r/NoSleep and it’s easy to see how it blew up (there was a Netflix movie deal before the book deal), especially in the first half of this tense, incredibly scary novel. I am not scared easily, and I am insufferable when it comes to being able to predict what will happen, and even I didn’t exactly know where this was going at any given moment, which made for a very fun, very suspenseful read. I do not read a lot of (white) male authors, but this came highly recommended from

Sara H

and it’s been sitting on my library holds list for weeks. Even though I have some quibbles with the book - I think it could have benefitted from a stronger editing hand, and I think the back half is not as strong as the front - I could not stop turning pages and read this in something like two days. The ending is great, too, which is often where things completely fall apart for me. If you like horror, this is worth checking out - I just wish I’d read it during spooky season!

My Husband by Maud Ventura (translated by Emma Ramadan): A woman in France is 40 and has a life that most would envy: she’s beautiful with a successful career, a gorgeous house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and a perfect husband, one she is still obsessed with after more than 15 years together. But that’s part of the problem: she’s never sure if her husband is as in love with her as she is with him. So she works to make sure that everything in their life is perfect, all while setting traps for him to see if he still loves her as much as they did when they first met.

This was a wild ride, and not quite like anything I’ve ever read before! Structurally very clever and both darkly funny and sharp in its observations about marriage and wealth and aging, I zipped right through the audiobook this week. The narrator’s obsession with her husband and her commitment to control, as well as her inability to ever get comfortable within her marriage propel the narrative along, and her very funny observations about the people in their orbit add texture and nuance to the story. I can’t say that I could relate to these people at all - it truly seems like a marriage from hell - but I had a lot of fun listening to the descriptions of their life (and I may have yelled, “Girl, get a HOBBY!” more than once). The ending is a little contrived, though it does put a button on the story quite nicely. This is Ventura’s debut novel, and it’s definitely remarkable.

Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur: When romance author Truly Livingston goes on a podcast to discuss relationship advice, she butts heads with the host’s brother, the irritatingly handsome family attorney Colin McCory. After their disastrous first meeting, she’s ready to write him off, until he tracks her down and apologizes. As the two get to know one another, sparks fly, and Truly realizes she might be happier than she’s been in years. But is it too good to be true?

Because I’m still very much on a “reading is an absolute escape from real life” kick, I’ve been reaching for romance a lot lately (I don’t anticipate this changing anytime soon, given the state of the world and our incoming regime). This was hyped up on a recent thread on the romance books subreddit, with someone quoting a scene for the book that sounded so intriguing that I immediately pulled it up on my Kindle.7 And you know what? I really liked this and found the banter to be very good and the main characters to be especially well-developed. Both characters identify as bisexual and have a refreshing conversation about what that means when they enter into a relationship that can be seen to the outside world as straight-presenting. While I have minor quibbles (as I am wont to do), mostly to do with the fact that Truly waffles back and forth so much that it starts to strain credulity, and some of the sex writing got a little repetitive,8 it wasn’t something that derailed the experience for me. Extremely spicy, so not for the faint of heart, but I liked this one a lot!

What I Watched:

Slow Horses, Season 1 (Apple TV+): Slough House is where MI5 agents who have mucked up their careers end up to finish their careers. River Cartwright ends up at Slough House after a training exercise goes tremendously awry, and while he expects to languish there with nothing to do, he finds that he and the other agents keep getting pulled into larger cases with ramifications for all of Britain.

My husband and I might be late to the Slow Horses party, but we’re just happy to be here. We started this show over the weekend on a whim, and were both pretty much immediately hooked, even if he kept saying, “This show is weird.” Very good performances, with a tone that manages to successfully swing from very dark to very funny, and a genuinely tense plot, we flew through the six episodes of the first season. If you like a spy thriller, this is a must-watch: I haven’t been this hooked by something since we watched Netflix’s (underrated) Bodyguard. Smart, twisty, surprising. Violent, but very compelling.

F Marry Kill (VOD/Rental): When true-crime junkie Eva enters the dating app world after a bad breakup, she finds herself at the center of a real murder case. As she listens to her favorite podcast, she realizes she might be dating the infamous Swipe-Right Killer, and she decides it’s up to her and her friends to figure out which guy she’s seeing is a killer.

My expectations for this were low, but holy fuck. Hailed as a “whip-smart” comedy, I do not think I laughed once, and I’m a pretty easy mark. Lucy Hale is doing the most she can with this aggressively unfunny script (that can never quite figure out what tone it’s trying to strike and whose ending is so obvious I called it in the first ten minutes), but it’s not enough to make the movie’s 100-minute runtime worth it. I’m sorry to say it, because I think there’s a nugget of a good idea here, but it just didn’t work in any way for me. The dudes were all duds (even the ones that weren’t supposed to be), the characters felt flat, and it just wasn’t fun to watch. Whatever social satire the movie managed to show us at the beginning goes completely off the rails by the end, and I finished the movie and said out loud, “woof.” A skip! This Letterboxd review did make me laugh, though:

Your Monster (VOD/Rental):9 After her life falls spectacularly apart when her boyfriend leaves her during a long illness, soft-spoken aspiring actor Laura finds her inner rage and voice again with the help of a monster who lives in her closet.

You know what? Sure, why not! I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this (divisive) romcom that’s more than a little inspired by Beauty and the Beast, but about 15 minutes in, I decided to just go with it. The result was that I ended up grinning through many of the scenes between Laura and the monster, because their chemistry was GREAT. I could not believe how charismatic the monster was (played with an effusive charm by Tommy Dewey), and as I watched Laura (Melissa Barrera) fall for him, I definitely understood her journey. Do I think this was a great film? Nope! I think it’s deeply uneven, struggling to balance horror with comedy and romance, and the tone was kind of all over the place. The musical numbers were not as sparkling as I would have liked, though it was fun to see Barrera sing again (I actually forgot that she was in In the Heights). A part of me also thinks Barrera might have been a tad miscast here - she goes so broad in so many scenes that I think could have benefitted from more nuance - but there’s no denying that she has chemistry with Dewey and that she can sing. I really did like this! I just wanted it to be a little more cohesive (the less said about the ending, the better).

What I Listened To:

DJ Earworm, United State of Pop 2024: Maybe a little bit of a cheat, this week, since I’m still not listening to a lot of new stuff (blame it on a huge work project that’s eating up a lot of my brain space and time), but I really enjoyed this compilation from DJ Earworm of 2024’s biggest hits. DJ Earworm has been doing this since 2009 (that one is a trip down memory lane, let me tell you), and honestly, this is better than whatever Spotify Wrapped offered us this year. It was fun to pick out the artists I know and the ones I don’t (and the ones I wish I didn’t know - looking at you, Tate McRae).

Maren Morris and Julia Michaels, “Scissors”: Two of my favorite music girlies10 can’t stop collaborating, and I’m not mad about it! This duet is cheeky and silly and kind of disturbing if you think about it too much, but the song itself is a fun bop. I’m hoping for more new music from both of them this year:

What I’m Looking Forward To:

Love Me (Theaters, January 31): Long after human extinction, a buoy and a sattelite meet and fall in love, using the internet as their guide to their existence. Does the premise sound absolutely bonkers? Yes! Do I think this will be good? Who knows! But I love Steven Yuen and Kristen Stewart, so I will be watching it.

Good Cop, Bad Cop (The CW, February 19): Siblings who work as detectives in a small town deal with their strained relationship, kooky neighbors, and their police chief father. Look, I love Leighton Meester and wish she was being given better material than this, but I’ll check it out just to support her. I don’t think this is going to be exactly my cup of tea, but I’m willing to give it a try (for her).

That’s it for this week! I’ll be back next week with thoughts on the new Noah Wyle doctor show The Pitt (where are my ER fanatics at?), lots of books, and so much more. Have a great weekend, and thanks, as always, for reading!

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In addition to all of these announcements, Austin “Permanent Elvis Presley Voice” Butler and Kaia Gerber (child of Cindy Crawford) “quietly” ended their 3 year relationship this week, too. I can’t be bothered to even click on the article about it, so it will remain a footnote in this newsletter! Sorry!

I think she’s also, like, the most beautiful woman in the world? Fight me.

There have been cheating rumors plaguing this couple their entire marriage, for what it’s worth. We’ll see what happens if it gets messy.

It was a low bar to clear, considering last year’s unbelievable crash and burn by Jo Koy.

Moore won for The Substance and gave a really terrific speech in which she said that this was the first time she’s won ANYTHING in her 45+ year career!

The Oscars.

I had an electronic galley copy from the publisher languishing there, along with about 400 other books. I do NOT have a problem.

There’s only so many times I can read the phrase “his eyes darkened” before wanting to tear out my hair, you know?

Both F Marry Kill and Your Monster were written and directed by women for those keeping track. I’m doing another 52 Films by Women challenge for this year and I’m off to a good start! Last year I managed to watch 55 movies directed by women, so I’m hoping to beat that number this year.

My husband regularly mixes up Maren Morris, Julia Michaels, Caitlyn Smith, and Maggie Rogers. It’s a work in progress over here.

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