Hot Girl Dispatch: What I'm Watching (M3GAN, RuPaul's Drag Race, Interview with the Vampire), and Recent Bylines
Me? Up and writing before noon? It's more likely than you think.
We’re already a week into the New Year, and I can confidently say that I’m starting the year off strong with an impressive 1 new movie seen so far this year. Despite the fact that I haven’t made it to the theatre much over the past nine days, my 2023 has had no lack of media consumption - though (surprising even myself) much of it hasn’t been film or tv.
No, it seems that music and audiobooks are the name of the game for me lately: I’ve spent the vast majority of 2023 with my AirPods in, steadily working through my mission to rank every track on every Taylor Swift album. I’m approaching this needlessly thorough exercise as ‘studying’ for the Eras tour, but it’s also fulfilling that feminine urge to make lists and rank everything I love. What can I say, a girl loves her lists. Some new Taylor favorites thanks to this ongoing binge: “Wonderland”, “Come In With the Rain”, and “Should’ve Said No”.
The other artist I’m getting into lately is (bizarrely) BLACKPINK - the Korean pop quartet whose songs I’m sure you’ve heard on TikTok, and who recently turned the VMAs into their private concert. For someone who never thought they’d be into K-pop (and if I’m being honest, my new affinity for BLACKPINK doesn’t even come NEAR the level of devotion the average K-pop fan seems to have towards their idols), BLACKPINK has been in my HEAVY rotation lately: if you’re a new listener, I’ll rec “Shut Down”, “Typa Girl” and “Kill This Love”
Don’t take your headphones out quite yet, though, because I’m also chugging my way through a New Year’s resolution to finish 2 books a month, which means I’m on an audiobook grind lately. My current read/listen is Ghost Story by Jim Butcher, the thirteenth(!) book in his Dresden Files series. All of the audiobooks are narrated by Buffy’s James Marsters (hence my initial interest in the series) who has been voicing Harry Dresden since the series started in 2000. If you can stomach a chauvinistic protagonist and have the patience to get into a 17-book series that isn’t even finished yet, I highly recommend checking it out.
(sidenote - I’ve got a running fancast going for the entire series, if you’re the type of person (like me) who enjoys casting your books as you read them.
Other books I’ve got on my reading list once I finally catch up with Dresden Files: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, The Science of Self-Love, Enigma Tales, and Jeffrey Combs’ Nevermore.
But you didn’t subscribe to this sub stack for reading and music recommendations, you’re here for the movies, dammit! Like I said, I didn’t catch many this week, but there was one demonic little robot I fell in love with at the theatre, and her name is M3gan. Though I could’ve done with a little more violence with my camp horror-comedy, M3GAN is still heartily endorsed by yours truly - catch this one before it leaves theaters, it’s a hell of a good time.
I caught the second new-to-me title of the week at home as part of my New Year’s Resolution to watch at least one movie for leisure a week: this time, it was Neil Jordan and Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire. I know, I know, I’m a queer vampire devotee and I hadn’t seen IWTV until now? It’s been a longstanding blindspot that I was nudged to rectify following the release (and subsequent Twitter stardom) of AMC’s new Interview with the Vampire series, which I’m aiming to start now that I’ve seen the ‘original’. Interview is another title I’ll give a solid two-thumbs up: though Tom Cruise and 11-year-old Kirsten Dunst are acting circles around Brad Pitt pretty much the entire time.
The other big watch of the week came by way of MTV: we got the two-part premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15. With the network switch (the series was previously on VH1) came a new budget, a 16-queen cast, and an Ariana Grande/Ornacia fakeout for the ages. If you’ve never seen Drag Race and have been meaning to start, I’d point to season 15 as a great jumping on point: the cast so far is delivering on the drama, and that talent show was bonkers entertaining. My post-premiere favorites: Marcia Marcia Marcia’s Ross Matthews-centric ballet routine, Anetra’s duck-walking Karate spectacle, and Sasha Colby’s Cranberries-scored performance piece.
Last but certainly not least, I’d be remiss if I didn’t plug YouTuber Mike’s Mic’s latest TV deep dive: the first installment of his Gossip Girl series. If you’re unfamiliar with Mike and his videos, he’s a hysterical essayist and all-around-icon who regularly does “appropriately unhinged” and “unnecessarily deep” dives into 2010s tv shows: he’s previously covered Glee and Pretty Little Liars.
Though the anniversary itself was on the third, make sure you take some time this month to watch an episode of Deep Space Nine in celebration of its’ 30th anniversary. I penned a top-10 list for The Mary Sue on some of my favorite DS9 episodes, so feel free to give that a read if you haven’t already.