When the House of Gucci falls, Magic Mike Rises
The House of Gucci crumbles, Adele announces a Vegas residency, Gwen Stefani's Christmas conundrums, Dua Lipa launches a newsletter, fancasting a new Magic Mike, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow!
Hi angels! I hope that, if you’re in America or just a very big fan of Gossip Girl, you had a nice Thanksgiving. Sorry for no new edition last Friday after all, I was too busy celebrating the festive holiday spirit with my second family in Massachusetts! To be retooled and released for an upcoming batch of pre-Christmas letters. Not much happened in the way of big pop culture stories last week, but let’s see what we’ve got to get into! I certainly won’t leave you high and dry.
Top Shelf, Low Brow: November 23rd-30th
The time has come…for our final House of Gucci lede
And I do wish it was a more pleasant story to tell! After seemingly everyone else I’ve ever known saw House of Gucci before I did last Friday—a sin for which all are still paying penance—I finally got myself in a theater seat at an AMC in Methuen, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, much to my dismay, it was far from the experience I was hoping for.
I still can’t quite say if the movie was good or bad or just plain confounding. It was ultimately difficult to sink my teeth into my most highly anticipated cinematic event of the year, simply because of such an abhorrent theater experience! We had talkers. We had bag crinklers. We had two different alarm sounds go off. We had foot tappers. We had people going to the bathroom every five seconds and slapping their ten-pound wooden clogs from the old country down the stadium seating stairs. Abysmal! Certainly not how I expected to take this movie in for the first time, but maybe that’s what I get for letting excitement and ego overtake rationale, I should’ve just waited to see it at Alamo Drafthouse where the no-noise policy comforts me every moment.
But I did digest the film well enough to have some reaction! And frankly, I am inclined to agree mostly with the critics who say it’s not very good…except for Lady Gaga, who is fantastic and a true movie star—even at her most Italian soap-operatic. To tell you the truth, I had a feeling that when filming started early last spring and it was announced that the final cut would be out for Thanksgiving, I did take pause. That’s too soon! We shouldn’t be giving this a rush job, Ridley Scott. But who am I to say no to the things I beg for when they’re finally waved in front of me like a steak in front of a gay, starving dog? House of Gucci makes the fatal mistake of thinking that anyone is here to see anything but the Lady Gaga show. People aren’t coming to the theater for the House of the GUCCIs (the entire family), but rather the HOUSE of the Guccis (Patrizia and Mauricio’s married life and their eventual marital turmoil caused by the business, jealously, greed, and love). We simply do not care much about Al Pacino mumbling about taxes. And we certainly do not care about Jared Leto hamming it up in his Wario prosthetics, at least not in scenes where Lady Gaga is nowhere to be found. House of Gucci banked on Gaga’s involvement, so it seems baffling to me that she’s not in every single scene. Let me re-edit this one, Rid, I think I could shave off a good hour and bump you up a whole letter grade.
Ultimately, I’d have to defer to the piece that the literal expert in this case, Tom Ford, wrote about the film for Airmail, ever the witty little queen he is. These really made me scream.
Ultimately, I came to the theater to see Lady Gaga act and Adam Driver be absolutely Huge. And I got what I came for! Bonus points for seeing them both fuck the daylights out of each other. Cinema is back!
(Rating: Low Brow)
If you’re like me and still holding onto 2004-2006 with reverence, I am sorry to show you this
This is just another cataclysmic loss for Little Stefaniacs:
As someone who relishes every chance they get to revel in festive Christmas spirit, I have to say that if my fav artist wore this outfit, I’d dive into pure catatonia. Cultural lobotomy, instantly. This just isn’t fair to the The Sweet Escapers, the Little Yummies, the Hollaback Girls/Boys/and Theys all around the world!
This play for the Queen of Christmas crown that Gwen Stefani has been running for the last three years with her twelve rereleases of her shitty Christmas album has left me not just tired, but hopeless. This is the real War on Christmas that conservatives are always talking about—a direct attack on what we know to be reasonable and normal festivity, taken up to a 20 and paired with honky-tonk, rockabilly renditions of classic Christmas tunes and the ugliest fucking outfits you’ve ever seen. I have reason to believe that Grinch Scroogefani is a psyop planted by some anti-Christmas entity, lab-designed to make us dread the holiday season.
If this is what dating Blake Shelton does to the brain, god help us all.
(Rating: Low Brow)
Coconuts Are Coming
Last week, President Biden met with the world’s leaders at the United Nations to strike a new international peace accord, where it was decided that Kim Petras must release “Coconuts” as soon as humanely possible. The release date has been moved from January to this Friday.
Whatever viral marketing strategy that they were going for with this song seems to have worked…I guess? I still don’t quite understand it. It seems as though they were banking on a fake release date causing outrage among the world when we all realized we couldn't have our Coconuts when we wanted them. After all, she said that we could watch them bounce up and down, right now right now! Thankfully, there are just two more full days standing between us and some tropical titty deliciousness.
I kept cracking up on Thanksgiving morning while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (a begrudging tradition that usually yields some sort of farcical payoff) imagining that Kim Petras would be performing “Coconuts” for a nationwide audience of children and parents. Of course, she performed a song from 2018 and not her current single “Future Starts Now,” released back in August, but was kind enough to give some behind the scenes coconutty anticipation.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
The absolute worst place to be on a weekend in 2022
Adele will take up a weekend residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas from January to April next year. I can’t think of a place I’d rather be less—not because I wouldn’t enjoy seeing Adele and all of her talent live, but I can’t fathom the ear-splitting, tone-deaf screeching of drunk people singing “Someone Like You.” If I wanted to hear that, I’d just crash the fourth hour of a book club discussing the newest Liane Moriarty offering!
And on another note, everyone who made fun of Gaga for doing the Enigma and Jazz & Piano residencies owes me a tail between the legs apology! “Only for artists at the nostalgia period of their careers” huh? You’re on candid camera now! How’s it feel!
(Rating: Low Brow)
As the year winds down, we begin to fondly look back
While in Massachusetts over the weekend, I was transported back to a simpler time called 2010 when I heard fucking “Moves like Jagger” on the radio not once but twice! And I think that’s worth remembering an all-timer tweet from January.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m just going to state the obvious: we have a doppelganger in our midst!
Dua Lipa has announced a new, weekly newsletter entitled Service95 (horrible name) that will include “everything from little-known hotspots to up-and-coming artists and travel tips. Service95 will serve up a considered curation of lists, recommendations, stories, information, thoughts, perspectives, and conversations.” Let’s just say it, she wants what Top Shelf, Low Brow has!
My lawyers tell me that this is likely payback for TSLB writing its most popular piece about Ms. Lipa’s pandemic travels. She wants to knock us down a few pegs, but unfortunately for her, that’s impossible. Many have tried it, and few have succeeded. Matter of fact, only Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP has managed to really make a successful venture out of celeb-helmed newsletters and recommendations. I think we all remember the saga of Blake Lively’s Preserve—which was designed to give exclusive news, stories, and sell Blake Lively-approved products, only to be shut down after a year.
Now, I wish my newest rival in the newsletter game all the success in the world! You won’t catch me not supporting women or holding back my Future Nostalgia streams. But I’ll certainly be keeping my eye on this. Not everyone is cut out for this life, but of course, Dua Lipa has all the money in the world to hire a staff of people to look for recommendations and write about them for her, so why should we worry about her overworking herself? In fact, let’s show everyone we can bury the hatchet, girlfriend! I’ll freelance for Service95, but on two conditions: My rate is $1/word and I get to write about the truffle popcorn at Alamo Drafthouse.
(Rating: Low Brow…unless she hires me!)
Real Housewives update
Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip continues to hold strong in both quality and quantity
Fancasting the new Magic Mike
Yesterday afternoon, Zoë Kravitz’s boyfriend Channing Tatum announced that he would be returning for a third installment of the Magic Mike franchise, which has lit a fire inside of me once more.
Now, I’d like to first note that I did not watch the second Magic Mike movie after being admittedly bored by the first, but I am a frequent consumer of multiple gifs from the film still to this day. And really, what more can you ask of mainstream horny cinema these days? Working backward from that perspective, I’d like to pass on a few suggestions for casting! Because sometimes the world drops things into your lap that feel perfectly designed for you, and I’d say that this is my moment after spending the last 11 months writing a newsletter that’s as much about pop culture as it is the constant horniness of your mid-to-late 20s. As a member of the Big Tiddy Committee, I think these should all be considered with grave sincerity.
Trevante Rhodes — Not only does Trevante Rhodes have the proven acting chops to carry whatever light drama work that Magic Mike’s Last Dance may require, but he certainly has the big honkers and the body to pull off a stripper role more than convincingly. After his Calvin Klein campaign that followed his role in Moonlight, I’m feral at the mere thought of him doing a single body roll.
Miguel Ángel Silvestre — With his starring role in Sense8, Miguel Ángel Silvestre made it clear that he has no qualms about stripping for a role. He’s also a genuinely talented actor underneath all that raw sex appeal! And it’s not like he’s not prepared to jump onto set and just go with it
Antoni Porowski — OKAY, stay with me here....no acting experience, but is anyone banking on these films being good? I thought it was understood that we’re only here for one reason, and I would like to see those polish pastries caked up in a g-string as much the few remaining moms on this earth who still watch Queer Eye.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II — Self-explanatory!!!! Big naturals, duh. Plus dick shaft was already shown in HBO’s Watchmen, so…let’s see that head!
Lil Nas X — Has the comedic chops and the charisma that are needed in droves to pull off a role like this! We also need twunk and twink-adjacent strippers as well. All body types matter! That’s a joke, these movies are kind of evil in that respect, actually. But though I may feel bad about my body, I can suspend that for a couple hours.
Karl Glusman — We, as a people, deserve to see Zoë Kravitz’s ex-husband and Zoë Kravitz’s current boyfriend go toe to toe and nipple to nipple in a stripping war onstage. Perhaps ending in a sensual kiss when they realize neither one can outstrip each other, and the only way to succeed in the cutthroat world of male entertainment is by joining forces to help oil each other up before shows? Just spitballing a few ideas for screenplay punch-ups.
WARNING TO STEVEN SODERBERGH: Please do not cast Harry Styles! Mr. Soderbergh, I beg of you to resist the temptation of trying to cast Harry Styles in this film! Not because I don’t want it but because the general public will be so mad about it that I don’t think I’ll end up surviving that fight. But I suppose that to die a martyr is better than to die a coward.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
That’s it for this week! I’ll see you all again soon. I love you for reading and I hope you have a fun, flirty week. We’re about to enter my favorite month of the whole year! 💖