18. Crunchy > Smooth
I like my movies like I HATE my peanut butter
Every once in a while on Film Twitter, someone asks, “Why do movie/TV sets look so shitty now?” Why is the aesthetic for homes across financial stratospheres and locations always giving Kim Kardashian? There used to be so much stuff in a shot; the general philosophy of set dressing was more is more. You can literally watch this happen over the course of Grey's Anatomy.
People try to come up with answers- digital picks up everything so it makes sense to do less, our TVs are different sizes/ratios now so shots feel less cramped, production designers aren’t given the time or money they used to have. There may be a grain of truth to all of those, but I think the simplest answer is the most likely: this is just what is in style right now. Set designers are taking cues from interior designers, and what’s considered aesthetically pleasing is that more minimalist, sleeker look. Obviously, there's fantastic work being done in production design right now and some of it I personally enjoy. It is folly to confer quality on something simply because it's from the past. And yet….look how beautiful they are….
Right now, I only want to watch crunchy movies! I am currently working my way through the 90s section on Canadian Netflix, and these perfectly mid movies are so satisfying. Like a microwave meal that tastes way better than you thought it would. It's not just the set dressing. The scripts, the performances, the minor characters…I don’t know how to describe it except as texture. Crunch! Part of this is because I think I enjoy a movie more when there’s a layer of separation. I can’t remember the parts of the 90s where a thousand of these movies were made a year, so my ignorance lends them a mystery that, say, A Family Affair, lacked. With production design, I think we are in a transition period right, but I don’t think this set decorating style is going to ever completely circle back the way scrunchies did. On digital, it could never look quite the same anyway as it would on the little TV with a built-in VHS that was in my childhood bedroom (brag).
An absolutely mid 90s drama has been my sweet spot, and the sweetest spot in that spot was The Deep End of the Ocean. This is a movie that is on the USA network’s programming five nights in a row, and you watch it every one of those nights and then it's burned into your frontal lobe for life. All the 90s staples are there. You’ve got Michelle Pfeiffer as a depressed mom, Whoopi Goldberg as a sage lesbian detective named Candy Bliss, the kid from Smart House, a dad you think is Bill Pullman but isn’t, the floppiest teen boy haircuts ever flopped, Michael Jordan being present in a subtle way the way Christ is always kind of there in Italian paintings. I watched this because I love movies about people who find out that as children they were kidnapped or switched at birth- just a little quirk about me! Halfway through, it was apparent this wasn’t just another domestic drama. The script was just bonkers enough to make it special, to make it dare I say camp. That special little sliver of personality in not good movies that were nevertheless made by competent artists who thought they were cooking a banger. Here’s some of my favorite lines:
“I’m taking pictures of leaves. That’s my job. I take pictures.”
“I like milk with pizza.”
Michelle Pfeiffer: [reading a gravestone] 14 years old. That must have been so sad. But look, 1869, he died 2 years before the fire.
Smart House boy: Maybe he killed himself like my mom.
good reads
The Cut | Unpacking the Gender Panic in Olympic Women’s Boxing by Andrea González-Ramírez
Everyone I’ve talked to has said that the only people who seem to be affected by these policies are Black and brown women from the Global South.
Parapraxis | Like a Bag Trying to Empty by Kaleem Hawa
Like the cancer, the jailor’s control had spread, a stinging radius with a social amplitude mediated by the body’s immune capacities; an unevenly distributed sarcoma, little aches of recognition in the people whose own families are or once were imprisoned, which at certain points has been estimated to be more than a quarter of Palestine’s population.
High Drama | Not just about cats by Louis Peitzman
Cats: The Jellicle Ball doesn’t merely feature queer people; it overwhelms the audience with queer joy, something that few shows even tap into.
SEEN/READ
08/02 Romancing Mr. Bridgerton
08/03 DAZED AND CONFUSED, THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN
08/04 THE MARTIAN, Irish Fairy Tales
08/05 My Brilliant Friend, MAD MEN
08/06 Irish Fairy Tales, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
08/07 THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES, The Summer Games: Settling the Score
08/08 Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, EVERYBODY’S IN LA
letter to the editor
Dear Gabby,
Have you heard about all the drama around the Colleen Hoover movie? Who the hell does that director think he is?
Love,
Brian Fleynolds
Hi Brian,
Oh, let me tell you. Justin Baldoni, most famous for playing Rafael on Jane the Virgin and directing that movie with Jughead, is one of my pet C-list actors. We all have a little list of those who for some reasons, through affection or irritation, worm their ways into our brains. Fittingly, the first time Who? Weekly played one of my calls on the show, it was a rant about him. Specifically, about his Instagram. As loathe as I am to be on Deadpool’s side, its also hard for me to be on Baldoni’s because for years, I read every one of his dumbass Instagram posts. Ughhhh, they suck so hard. He’s just one of those gentle parenting sunshine, life is beautiful types that as a hard-nosed East Coaster that I am incapable of trusting! And he did one of these like every day. Read it aloud to yourself and marvel at the hard pivots of each paragraph.
GIVE BIRTH,
Gabby