Discover more from Pop Culture Personality
This Week in Pop Culture: November 15, 2024
The Martha doc, People's "Sexiest" man alive, Christmas movies galore, and more in this week's pop culture round-up.
Happy Friday, friends. How are you doing? I am still not exactly thriving, and nothing illustrates that more than this unhinged email I sent in reply to the New York Times1 this week:
John Krasinski is People’s Sexiest Man Alive in…2024? This is peak out of touch, even for People, and it makes me cackle and then say, “But WHY?” every time I think about it. It just doesn’t make any sense why this is the year they’d pick Krasinski, who would have made a great choice after the end of The Office or even after the success of the first A Quiet Place movie…but now?
Look, no one was a bigger Krasinski fan when he starred as Jim on The Office than I was. I was really into him/the character/the chemistry with Jenna Fischer,2 and I still think it’s a really great romance to watch unfold onscreen. But since that show ended, his career has taken a weird turn towards the copaganda/military/bad vibes all around, and I’ve never been able to get on board with it. This (good) piece from Business Insider tracks his career into the militaristic propaganda he’s become known for, including coverage of his weird interview(s) where he praises the CIA and says that we should all be thankful for them.3
Happy for him, I guess! In other Hollywood news that actually feels relevant, Vanity Fair has published their 2025 Hollywood issue (archive link if you’re paywalled). Now this is a list that makes sense to anyone clued into the pop culture zeitgeist. Zendaya, Glen Powell, Nicole Kidman, Zoe Saldana, Dev Patel, Sydney Sweeney, and a whole host of other up-and-comers made the list and the cover of the magazine.
What’s so funny to me about these issues coming out on the same day is that Vanity Fair correctly identified the guy who should have gotten this year’s People’s Sexiest Man of the Year (Powell) and then put him on the cover with the actual sexiest man alive (Dev Patel). At any rate, these people are all very hot and talented and I’m excited to see their new projects! Everything is FINE! I am NOT having a mental breakdown every day!
Here’s the rest of the pop culture that took up space in my brain this week:
What I Read:
Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten: Ina Garten - also known as the Barefoot Contessa - details her remarkable life, from a childhood raised by cold and emotionally distant parents to marrying her husband Jeffrey while still in college to her years on the Food Network and writing best-selling cookbooks.
I am not a Food Network person and have never read an Ina Garten cookbook before. If I’m being honest, I might have been conflating her with Nigella Lawson all these years, but I was intrigued by the good buzz I saw this memoir getting and listened to the audiobook, narrated by Garten herself. I’m glad I read - Garten has led a really interesting life that is certainly full of luck (and more than a little privilege), and there’s no doubt that she’s also put in the hard work to achieve a lot of her success. She’s a good storyteller and I loved reading about her marriage and decisions to remain child-free. I do think the first half of the memoir is much more compelling than the latter, not only because the book begins to meander into overly-detailed stories about the purchase and renovation of an apartment in Paris. What a dream, what a treat to have the kind of money where you can buy the apartment above yours to make your space even larger, but I found myself a little annoyed about it given the state of the world right now and the ongoing housing crisis. I still really liked this and want to make some of her recipes - they sound delicious.
Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London: Tess Rosenbloom is a grad school dropout who spends her nights managing a Brooklyn hotel and her days reading her favorite vampire novels, Blood Feud. Even though she loves the idea of vampires being real, she doesn’t really think they are…until she meets one who needs her help.
I can’t remember the last time I was so let down by a book, and I’m still feeling bummed about it, a day or so after finally finishing this ambitious novel that never quite comes together. Stayman-London’s One to Watch was a really fun, fresh take on the Bachelor-esque reality dating show romcom a few years ago, and this, her first foray into paranormal romance, should have been a slam dunk for me. And I did love some of the pop culture references and the obvious allusions to Buffy and The Vampire Diaries. I also liked some of the mixed narration - there are transcripts of podcasts and online forum posts that help propel the story forward that are fun to read (I don’t feel as strongly about the snippets of chapters from the fictional Blood Feud books, but to each their own, I guess). But what didn’t work was that there was just so much going on in this story that anything compelling got lost in the mix. There was no need to have both of the vampire siblings develop relationships with humans (save one of them for another book or something, my god), and every time I started to invest in the burgeoning relationship between Tess and Callum, I then had to spend 50 pages with characters I did not give a shit about. Maybe this just wasn’t for me, but I really wanted it to be!
Five Brothers by Penelope Douglas: From the outside, Krisjen4 seems like a rich girl slumming it on the wrong side of the tracks with Trace after she’s graduated from high school. She’s spent time at his house, where he lives with his four brothers and one sister, but after she realizes she doesn’t love him, she stops hooking up with him. Then she has an encounter with one of the brothers late one night at their house that rocks her to her core - but she isn’t sure which brother it was. Was it Macon, the eldest and most tortured? Army, the sweet single father? Dallas, who seems to hate Krisjen with an intense passion? All she knows is that it wasn’t Trace…
This was my insomnia book this week, and when I tell you that it’s absolutely bonkers, I mean it. I tried to explain the premise to my husband and he said, “Well, the book is called ‘five brothers,’ so…” I’ve read a couple of Penelope Douglas’s other dark romances, and they particularly excel at writing taboo romance, so this fit the bill. The writing is good enough that I’m willing to overlook how completely stupid the premise is and reading it at two in the morning means that I’m looking for something that doesn’t require a lot of critical thought but is very steamy and propulsive. This is sexy and silly and absolutely deranged and I devoured it in like 2 nights. I have a lot of quibbles with it: I think it’s too long by at least 100 pages and I wish the voices of the brothers had been a little easier to distinguish between. I do not think we needed quite so much plot, especially in the back half, where the pacing starts to be a problem, but I still absolutely tore through this one. I am not joking when I say that the spice level here is high (explicitly open door, and probably on the darker side for a lot of folks - the relationship dynamics here are not what I’d call healthy at a minimum). Not for the faint of heart, but it was the brain balm I needed this week when my brain wouldn’t stop spinning.
What I Watched:
Dandelion (Rental/VOD): When a struggling singer-songwriter named Dandelion makes a last-ditch effort to jumpstart her music career, she takes a gig at a motorcycle rally in South Dakota. While there, she meets a guitarist named Casey who also seems to be searching after giving up on his dreams long ago.
I wrote about looking forward to this movie a few months ago when I first came across the trailer and said it looked like it was made in a lab for me. I still think that’s mostly true after watching it - I love quiet movies about broken people who find connection, and I love movies that feature music.5 And make no mistake: this movie is very quiet, letting its characters sit in scenes with a lot of silence, offering viewers shots of gorgeous landscapes and close-ups of its characters making music. The script allows a lot of the dialogue to happen through the way Dandelion and Casey write music together. There’s a scene where they start fighting while writing a song together, and the way they play with how loud or soft they sing as things escalate was so brilliantly done it’s seared into my brain. The performances here are great, especially KiKi Layne, who imbues the character of Dandelion with such vulnerability and care that it’s impossible not to root for her even as you can see that things are not going her way. Thomas Doherty is so hot (and his Scottish accent so charming) that I would also probably agree to get on the back of his motorcycle if asked.6
I do think the film is too long - I’d like to see a stronger editing hand cut 10-20 minutes and see if it helped the strengthen the film’s shaky ending - but I really liked this and will be thinking about it for a long time. Written and directed by a woman, if that’s something you also keep track of!
Martha (Netflix): Told in her own words, the documentary chronicles the early life and unstoppable rise of Martha Stewart as she became America’s first billionaire, went to prison, and rose from the ashes once again.
Much like I was never a Food Network girlie, I was also not a Martha Stewart person. I used to watch one of her shows with a client when I worked as a personal care attendant in college, but my knowledge of her was mostly that she was very rich, very into, like table settings, and lost weight in prison because the food was so bad. This documentary was an easy, interesting watch, though I thought the first half was much stronger and much more compelling than the prison and public image rehabbing second half. Some interesting stylistic choices here, like not including any talking heads except for Stewart herself. I laughed more than once at some of the things Martha says, because only someone that rich [and arguably out-of-touch] would be able to say them. Thrilled this was just a sub-two-hour movie and not a series!
Meet Me Next Christmas (Netflix): On a quest to meet the man she’s sure is her soulmate, a Christmas lover (and hopeless romantic) races across the city to try to get a ticket to the sold-out Pentatonix concert.
Now this is what these Christmas TV movies are supposed to be (absolutely bonkers). The idea that anyone would put this much effort into getting a ticket to a Pentatonix concert is ludicrous; not to mention the idea that the band in question would ever sell out a concert requires a suspension of disbelief unlike you’ve ever seen. But Christina Milian and Devale Ellis seem like they’re having a pretty good time (and they know what movie they’re in), and I laughed out loud more than once because the whole thing is so weird. I will never watch this again but I’m glad Netflix is making these truly silly movies!
TV/Movie Tidbits:
Our Holiday Story (Hallmark): When their daughter’s boyfriend shows up for Christmas, a married couple recount the Christmas they fell in love while working as rivals on a town festival. Look, I love Nikki DeLoach - one of Hallmark’s very best actors - but I could not get into this movie that is so pleased with its own “keep them apart” shenanigans that the plot becomes baffling. It took me three attempts to get through it and I was mostly just left wishing they’d give DeLoach better material to work with.
Holiday Mismatch (Hallmark): Two women who clash at a Christmas committee meeting find out that they’ve accidentally set up their adult children via a dating app. As the two children fall for one another, the women form a friendship. This one was wholly unremarkable, even if I did like the reunion of Caroline Rhea and Beth Broderick.7 I generally like fake dating tropes but I couldn’t get connected to this one, and apart from one very weird scene where they do improv to a Charles Dickens story, this was very forgettable.
Trivia at St. Nick’s (Hallmark): Locals and faculty at an elite Vermont university spend their Christmas break competing in a Christmas trivia tournament at the local bar. Celeste is a type-A professor determined to win the tournament, but she balks when her new colleague - a football coach - joins the team. I…mostly liked this one! The movie is unhinged but it knows it, and Tammin Sursok leans all the way in to making her character A Lot. The trivia scenes are by far the movie’s best moments, but this was fun enough! I don’t think I’ll rewatch it - I find Brant Daugherty to be about as charismatic as a piece of blank paper - but it had a couple of actually funny lines and kept my attention (which is no small feat as my mental health hangs by a thread).
Santa Tell Me (Hallmark): When a woman finds an old letter from Santa promising that she’ll meet the love of her life by Christmas Eve and tells her the man’s name will be Nick, she’s shocked when she meets three men, all named Nick. While trying to figure out which is meant to be, she also finds herself drawn to a co-worker. I am an avowed “Santa is real” trope hater and that remains true for this movie that could have really shaken up the format but plays it so safe that I accurately predicted every single plot point, down to individual scenes. I do think there’s an interesting story in here somewhere, but this is not it!
Five Gold Rings (Hallmark Mystery): When a woman returns to her small hometown in Minnesota8 for the holidays, she’s met with a quest from her late grandmother: find the owners of five mysterious gold rings and return them before Christmas. This was SO BORING! Negative chemistry between the leads (Nolan Gerard Funk’s perpetual sneer didn’t help things) and the central mystery was so underbaked and so rushed for time that it was impossible to get invested. The scavenger hunt trope is not my favorite by a long shot but this was honestly unwatchable! Probably my least favorite movie of the season so far, and that is saying something.
‘Tis the Season to be Irish (Hallmark): When a house flipper buys a dilapidated cottage in Ireland on a whim, she arrives before Christmas to renovate it. But when she meets a local realtor determined to preserve his town’s heritage, she starts to reconsider. We’ve seen this exact plot about a hundred and fifty times (and I mean down to nearly every single scene). However, the leads in this were very likable with decent chemistry (there’s a sweet scene on a couch that packed a wallop the way the dry kiss at the end never does), and it’s hard to beat the gorgeous location in this one. Perfectly pleasant viewing but not something I’ll revisit. Also, the makeup and styling in this one was particularly egregious!
What I Listened To:
Taylor Swift featuring Bon Iver, “evermore”: At the risk of sounding like the complete sad girl autumn person I am, I’ve been revisiting some of the tracks on folklore and evermore during these dark days. We listened the shit out of folklore when it came out during the early days of the pandemic, and while evermore certainly got some plays, I didn’t gravitate towards it like I did the other sister album. But the opening lyrics of the title track have really hit home for me lately: “Gray November/I’ve been down since July,” and as a result, it’s been on repeat in the house as I try to get some fiction writing done. I mostly just want to listen to sad singer-songwriter music right now, so I don’t have a ton of new, happy recs for you!
Julien Baker and Calvin Lauber (ft. SOAK, Quinn Christopherson), “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying”: Arguably my favorite song by Belle and Sebastian and one that has deep ties to my adolescence, “Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying” feels like a particularly timely cover for Julien Baker (who you might also know from superpop group BoyGenius). Baker and Lauber offer a really unique cover, heavily influenced by 80s synth-pop and New Wave. I am into it (and feel like I need to go revisit all my old LiveJournal entries from when I was a college freshman, crying in my dorm room and listening to the song on repeat).9
What I’m Looking Forward To:
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Peacock, February 13): Bridget Jones is back after losing her husband, Mark Darcy. Now the single mom to two children, she decides to put herself back out there. I don’t actually know that I ever saw the third Bridget Jones movie, but the first one remains a perennial holiday favorite for me, and I’m happy to see Zellweiger working, even if I could do without the return of Hugh Grant.
That’s it for this week! I’ll be back next week with more Christmas movie recommendations, including Netflix’s absurdly fun Hot Frosty, thoughts on Apple TV’s Silo, and so much more. I hope you have a good weekend and are taking care of yourselves. Thanks, as always, for reading.
🖤 If you liked what you read, please consider tapping the heart at the top or bottom of this newsletter - it helps others find my work. 🖤
This is a real email I sent this week! Of course I realize that the mailbox is unmonitored and no one saw my reply, but it’s going to be a long fucking four years if every little thing that rotten sweet potato looking garbage man does is considered “breaking news.”
He’s been weirdly dismissive of her in interviews in the intervening years, which is…not a great look!
Literally cackling about this as I write it. What a bad take in the modern age!
The names get worse!
This is different in my head than a standard musical - I like musicals but am VERY picky about them.
This is mostly a joke for people who know me and my extreme aversion/fear of motorcycles!
Sabrina the Teenage Witch fans know!
I guffawed at the location being Minnesota. Filmed in Canada!
It’s FINE! Everything is FINE!
Subscribe to Pop Culture Personality
Pop Culture Personality is all about the pop culture I consume in a given week. Expect commentary about what's happening online, what I've been watching, reading, and listening to, and anything else that's taking up space in the cultural zeitgeist.
Trivia at St Nicks was my fave from last week! - Also Fang Fiction has to be the most polarizing book here at Substack. So many raves and so many people saying that it's a letdown. I don't know where I'll land
I highly recommend Ina's recipes - I've yet to make one that doesn't turn out well! I'm making her cinnamon baked donuts this weekend for my son's birthday (you just need to have a donut pan which you can get on Amazon! https://barefootcontessa.com/recipes/cinnamon-baked-doughnuts