This week:
- Trying to understand the backlash to The Bear.
- The one show you should binge over the holiday weekend.
- The viral celebrity poop story everyone’s talking about.
- Happy birthday to the Greatest of All Time.
- An interesting move from Justin Timberlake.
What to Watch Over the Holiday Weekend
It amuses me when people ask what my July 4 holiday weekend plans are. With temperatures on the East Coast surging past 90 degrees—and a humidity point scientifically termed “Kevin’s body transforms into a geyser of sweat by just being outside”—I have no desire to do anything besides lay in front of an air conditioner and catch up on shows. (After all, few things are more American than lounging sedentary on a couch.)
If you share my patriotic spirit for doing absolutely nothing besides binge television episodes, then allow me to give you my recommendation: Everyone should be watching AMC and AMC+’s Interview With the Vampire, which just wrapped its stellar second season.
I can’t sing this show’s praises enough. A new adaptation of Anne Rice’s iconic novel, it is pulpy, eerie, twisty, violent, smart, and oh-so sexy. The psychological warfare happening in scenes featuring the titular interview are as unsettling and riveting as the gory—thrillingly so—vampire hunts and kills. Season 2 features one of the most emotional, and, it bears repeating, sexiest love triangles on TV since, fittingly, HBO’s vampire fantasia, True Blood.
In what should be music to the ears of viewers annoyed that other current shows, like The Bear, drag audiences along for an entire season without any gratifying narrative payoff, Interview With the Vampire delivers. Answers you crave are given, and are shocking. The Season 2 finale, in particular, is a wild ride in that regard.
If you’re familiar with Rice’s novel and the 1994 movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, then the starkest difference you’ll notice in this series is that the romance between vampires Lestat and Louis is explicit—not just implied. (As in, they fuck. A lot.) Ahead of Season 2, I had the chance to meet and talk with Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid, who play Louis and Lestat, about what that carnal attraction adds to the series.
“They have a soul- and fire-burning love story,” Reid said. “So you need to believe that when they’re in the same room as each other, it is fireworks, chaos, and trauma, like house-burning-down and building it back up again.”
Vampires “represent sexual desire,” Anderson said. The pair are the quintessential embodiment of that, finally depicted through a modern, uninhibited lens.
“One of their main powers is seduction,” Reid said. “They hypnotize you, and then they go in for their meal. That’s kind of appealing to think about. You’re like, ‘Whoa, I could be killed, but it could also be kind of raunchy?” The interplay between violence and sexual pleasure is titillating. Watch Interview With the Vampire, and you’ll understand completely what he’s saying.
A Shitty Situation
There’s a tabloid news story that’s gone viral over the holiday that I can’t stop thinking about, mostly because of the second-hand trauma I feel for the scandal’s subject.
The Daily Mail reported on gossip that had been going around the Hamptons hoity-toity glitterati: Someone had stayed as a guest in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Hamptons house and allegedly had such a bad case of diarrhea that they shit the bed (literally) in her guest room. They apparently then fled the scene before having to fess up to their humiliating actions.
The even more mortifying evolution of the story is that the Mail then ran a story naming the culprit. I have no interest in amplifying this person’s embarrassment by reprinting his name here. Let’s just say that if I was publicly outed as the person who pooped the bed in Gwyneth Paltrow’s house, my will to live would cease entirely. “Gwyneth told Oprah,” the Mail reported—a phrase that would then also be the epitaph on my tombstone.
This story was everywhere on my social media the past few days—just like, apparently, feces on Paltrow’s guest mattress.
Happy Birthday to the GOAT
Anyone who, given the state of things in our country right now, had misgivings about celebrating on July 4 needn’t feel guilty. All frivolity and jubilation was earned, because July 4 wasn’t just American Independence Day. It was the 100th anniversary of the invention of the Caesar salad.
I don’t know what my life would be like without my beloved Caesar in it. It certainly would be starved of joy and satisfaction. Happy centennial to an icon. A trailblazer. A hero. Thank you for your service.
What Timing…
Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods are apparently opening a bar in Scotland, which is certainly a choice to make given their respective histories. I guess we could all learn something from them: Don’t let anything stop you from following your passion.
What to watch this week:
MaXXXine: A brilliant end to A24’s beloved horror trilogy. (Now in theaters)
Kill: The over-the-top action movie of the summer. (Now in theaters)
Beverly Hills Cop 4: Axel F: The rare franchise revival that isn’t D.O.A. (Now on Netflix)
What to skip this week:
Despicable Me 4: It may be time to euthanize the Minions. (Now in theaters)
