Welcome to the Weekend Snack - a quick roundup of my favorite bites from the past weekend.
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Happy Sunday! Spring has *hopefully* sprung in New York, and Iāve had a weekend full of absolutely delicious content that I canāt wait to share with you. My general takeaway from the last few days was a reminder that stories are often best with an audience. So get out there and see something with your fellow humans! Even if you make the underrated choice of going alone. I saw Saltburn by myself with a sold-out, raucous Los Angeles movie crowd and didnāt have to share my Junior Mints - a win all around. So take yourself or someone you care about and see some culture in this lovely spring weather. With that call to action, here are this weekās recs:
š¬ Love Lies Bleeding. This is Director/Screenwriter Rose Glassā follow-up to her wild first film, Saint Maud (one of the most bonkers movie-ending sequences Iāve ever seen). It tells the story of Lou (Kristen Stewart), a New Mexico gym manager with a haunted past who falls fast in love with Jackie (Katy OāBrian), a bodybuilder on her way to a Las Vegas competition. Their intense love affair takes a dark turn as more is revealed about Louās family (Ed Harris plays Louās dad in an all-timer wig), and weāre left to ponder whether love really does conquer all. True to film noir conventions, Love Lies Bleeding is a dark, visceral (people say this all the time - but truly, this is VISCERAL) and violent story with a last act that goes off the rails. Itās like a lesbian, mullet-filled Thelma and Louise meets Drive meets Pulp Fiction with some David Cronenberg influence sprinkled in. Kristen Stewart is cast perfectly in what feels like the role sheās been dying to play, and her chemistry with Katy OāBrian is palpable. She had me asking - is the mullet back?? This probably isnāt for you if you donāt like film noir, but I have a feeling it will catch the internetās attention a la Saltburn. Though there were some storylines I wouldāve liked to see further developed, itās a vibey film and the type of movie you should absolutely see in a packed theater. There were multiple moments where people audibly gasped, and thatās so much more fun to experience as a group.Ā
š The Hunt at St. Annās Warehouse. Itās slightly annoying for me to share this as a rec because the show closes next week, and I think it is pretty much sold out (though people are having luck with the cancellation line), but itās too good not to talk about. A transfer show from London, The Hunt is a modern-day parable that tells the story of a small-town kindergarten teacher (an astonishing Tobias Menzies) who is falsely accused of molesting a student and the townās ensuing investigation (a generous term, as itās more of a witch hunt). The staging is simple but brilliant - what looks like a tiny home on a rotating turntable that magically alternates from opaque to transparent, revealing something new each time. Itās a complicated subject matter presented in a way that has you thinking about truth, mob rule, and what comes after āresolution.ā I walked out thinking, āAnd thatās why we go see live theater, folks!ā It's my favorite play Iāve seen this year.
šŗ Girls5eva. And now for something completely different... If dark and twisty isnāt your bag, I started watching Girls5eva, and itās a fun, lighthearted, but clever time. It originally aired on Peacock, but the latest season has found a new home on Netflix. If you loved 30 Rock and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, this is for you (itās Executive Produced by Tina Fey and her recurring collaborator Robert Carlock). A one-hit-wonder girl group from the 90ās reunites after a young rapper samples their song. But, now in their forties with spouses, debt, and general adulthood malaise, the reunion is not as glamorous as their lives used to be. Even being silly, Sara Bareilles crushes it. See what I mean below in this song her character wrote in a hunger-induced Dolly Parton-inspired hallucination (wild sentence):
And since we began with Saltburn, Iāll leave you with my favorite Murder on the Dancefloor TikTok that hits too close to home if you live in New York.
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