Kristen Stewart's Oscar Is Being Engraved as We Speak
An emotional reaction to 'Spencer,' Lee Pace's tanned tiddies, Lady Gaga's delusional Italian ramblings, Cardi B's new boyfriend, Rihanna's attempted thievery, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow!
Hi girlies and gaysies and queeries. Already sorry for opening like that. Workshopping new greetings but that’s not a good one. Too proud to go back now though, I own everything I do. How’ve you been? Are you knee-deep in holiday festivity yet? I’m working my way up there. Enjoying autumn more than usual this year! Particularly my Thanksgiving albums (Plastic Hearts, The Fame Monster, every Rihanna album from Rated R to Unapologetic) before dipping my Wikifeet-coveted toes into nothing but Christmas music for more than a month straight. Anyway, let’s proceed.
Top Shelf, Low Brow: November 3rd—9th
I’ve seen Spencer. And I need to talk about Spencer…but I’m not sure I’m ready yet to talk about Spencer!
And that’s not because Spencer is bad by any means! It’s actually the complete and utter opposite. It’s a wonderous, haunting portrait of speculative fiction laced with hints of truth and rumors that all but became confirmed fact. It’s dazzling and deeply sad. It’s, actually, terrifying—there are hints of The Shining and The Others embedded within Claire Mathon’s superb cinematography. Kristen Stewart is just as good as you’ve heard, maybe even better, if that’s at all possible.
I’ve never really given one iota of thought to the Royals, but have always been interested in Diana’s story, simply because you grow up peripherally latching on to bits of cultural touchstones that are spoken about by the adults around you that slowly begin to be filled in as the years go on and you learn more. But needless to say, I wasn’t expecting to be quite as moved as I was by the time the lights went up at Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn last Saturday. I found myself wiping tears with my napkin and being reserved and quiet on the journey home. Turned my phone on silent. Didn’t talk much to my boyfriend. Got in the shower and absolutely started weeping all over again. Spencer took so much out of me, in a way that I think I understand but am not sure I’ll be able to fully articulate until I see it again. It’s just such a grave tragedy.
The Oscar is Kristen’s, by the way.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Stefani Joanne Patrizia Angelina Reggiani Germanotta continues her crisis of identity
As the House of Gucci promo tour continues—and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have this direct IV of pop culture painkiller leading me all the way to Thanksgiving—it seems as though Lady Gaga is, classically, obsessed with topping her own glorious achievements. Last week, she told British Vogue that she lived as her character, Patrizia Reggiani nee Gucci, for a year and a half to prepare for the role but refused to meet with her in person to speak and instead took a more high school AP English paper research-based approach to the role instead. This week, during press junkets after the film’s first (still-embargoed) screenings, Gaga elaborated on why:
This pull quote was really making me holler. “She will certainly lie.” Okay! She will certainly lie. Well, whatever you say, Stef. Who among us hasn’t proposed a cockamamie excuse as to get out of something where we know we’ll be roped into a long, arduous conversation with someone we know only tenuously, where we might have to answer an uncomfortable question or two? Hundreds of people get hit tweets off that premise every Thanksgiving alone (shout out to Thanksgiving, really getting huge promo in this edition).
To compound these truly wild statements, Gaga was only throwing out increasingly strange bombs into the ether, letting them drop and detonate without realizing what she just said was completely batty. For example, when discussing how House of Gucci is campy and fun, Gaga made sure to note that it is very much a film about a tragedy and the loss of a life—one that she was so deeply connected to while in character as Patrizia Reggiani that she literally had a moment where she, 12-time Grammy winner and one-time chicken waitress Lady Gaga, literally thought she had committed manslaughter herself.
“I thought, ‘What have I done?’” We are simply so lucky to have someone so delightfully deranged as one of the biggest stars on the planet. If there’s one thing she’s guaranteed to do, even at a press conference, it’s entertain.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
An attempted Robberih
I would just like to make it clear that Rihanna’s net worth is, literally, a billion dollars. Mine? About $300 and a bag of peanuts from Trader Joe’s that has been sitting on the top shelf of my pantry which was brought to a housewarming party in June 2019 and never opened as my boyfriend is allergic to nuts. So what I want to know is why one of us thinks it’s okay to try to sell vinyl for a price that can really only be described as Grand Larcenrih.
World famous “musician” Robyn Rihanna Fenty has finally remembered that she has eight albums under her belt over the course of her illustrious career. Vinyl pressings have been scattered at best, occasionally popping up with a standard black pressing here and there. But now, seemingly out of nowhere (cough cough, the throes of the Q4 holiday shopping season, Rihanna has announced an official Rihissue of all of her albums on unique colorways. For any Rihanna fan, such as myself, it was a cause of joy and elation! Until we all clicked the link to buy and realized that each vinyl comes with an irremovable additional ass-ugly fucking t-shirt or hoodie that bumps up the cost of each record by about 80%.
So my question is: just where does she get off? Raking in a billion dollars and she still has the GALL to slap some shitty t-shirt onto a vinyl reissue in the hopes that her fans will spend their hard-earned cash just so they can get a (very nice) pressing of one of her albums? One is really all you’d be able to afford, since they start at $100 a pop and only go up. This is a Fenty Felonrih. Even the most die-hard Rihanna fans can admit that each of her albums is laced with a few duds. My most personal favorites have a few filler track skips! And she’s telling me, “You’re going to listen to all of ‘Fading,’ ‘Stupid in Love,’ and ‘We All Want Love’ and you’re going to like it you ugly little troglodyte.” I’m sorry, Robyn, but unless your album is a top-to-bottom, no-skips, hit after hit classic, you should not be charging anywhere close to $100 for a vinyl package. And even Rihanna knows that! I know damn well she doesn’t know the words to “We All Want Love,” no one does! And no one should be forced to listen to it on vinyl.
(Rating: Low Brow)
I, unfortunately, don’t know what any of this means as I only know about things that are made for cool, hot people
What the fuck is Wicked? Who the fuck is Elphaba? Scratch that. I don’t want to learn and have no inclination to figure it out—not at this point, I’ve come too far. I am far removed from the Wizard of Oz industrial complex and I would like to stay that way. Sorry but a Wizard of Oz obsession past the age of 10 screams “I deeply need to let go of some things.” The fact that there’s a musical that’s all about like, telling “the untold story” of the fictional universe from another musical? Count me out, babe. People talking about Wicked always, always sounds like people talking about Succession to me. It’s the same vibe. “Oh my god, who do you think will play Nessarose? Or Madame Morrible?” (had to google those, btw) is very much the energy I get on Sunday nights when Succession airs and my whole timeline is like “Oh shit! Did you hear what Kendra and Michelle just said to NATHANIEL?” Like who the fuck are any of these people?! Am I just averse to fun? Feel free to take me to task on this. Let’s just say…
The Oscars, of course, being:
(Rating: Low Brow)
Hot new couple alert!
When I hit play on the video embedded in this Cardi B tweet the other day, I truly never expected who was going to pop into the frame.
First Penn Badgley now Robert Pattinson? She insists on stealing all of the men I’ve staked my claim on long ago. Good for her! Matter of fact, if they really want to get me to the multiplex, they should cast Cardi B in Wicked as Mrs. Guglinbow or maybe even Enphemdira! I assume those are characters.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Everyone’s asking me to talk about it!
I think he should be set on fire, honestly.
Can you imagine being this much of a fucking loser? Can you imagine marrying Anna Faris and fumbling the bag so horrifically that you end up a born-again Christian married to a Schwarzenegger-Shriver and making those weird, borderline emotionally-abusive white Midwesterner “hubby” jokes about sometimes doing one simple task for your little wife and that’s enough to prove you love her for one whole year? What a fucking freakazoid. I don’t even want to talk about this because it makes me feel ill. It has the same energy of when uber-Christian friends in middle school kept inviting me out to their creepy “fun” youth church and I repeatedly had to tell them I just wanted to stay home and watch the new episode of Ugly Betty. There really are only two types of people in this world! The ones that want to watch Emmy-award winning actress America Ferrera navigate through the cutthroat world of fashion publishing as a scrappy, young talent with a heart of gold and the ones who want to spend that time at church with a youth pastor playing guitar and delivering sermons that are like, “What if Jesus had Facebook?” Shivers down my fucking spine.
(Rating: Low Brow)
A newsletter cleanse. Out of the darkness and into the light of thirst.
Lee Pace really went from being an extremely private person who never really talked about his sexuality or showed off anything to full tiddies-out thottie after getting a little taste of the sweet but addictive elixir known as attention. And for that, we thank him.
We projected the following photo on the screen here at the TSLB offices and the whole staff cheered! Some people broke windows in their state of horny catatonia.
And on the Twink side of the societally/conventionally-attractive spectrum, we have my beloved boyfriend wearing my favorite color, clad in a tank top and a chain. Very important.
No, I still haven’t seen Dune! And yes, I reflect on that atrocious sin every night as I lay head to pillow and hope that Timmy will never find that out.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Another week of critical Housewives Updates
And no, don’t skip this section if you don’t watch! I absolutely don’t want you to miss the following screenshot of Sunday’s Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, presented without context:
Speaking of Heather Gay, I am still laughing at my own dumb joke from two days ago.
Shifting to the east coast, these photos stirred me so easily on the train to Alamo Drafthouse on Saturday that I absolutely should’ve anticipated being so wrecked by Spencer.
Before Sunset (2004), dir. Richard Linklater.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
If no one notified you about this yet, sorry
I don’t know how many Marvel heads are really subscribing to this newsletter, though. Anyway…sorry to my man but I’m not buying it.
As much as I’d like to see Harold in a superhero suit (albeit only one that is Spider-Man skintight, this is looking a little clunky for my taste. It’s not giving me tit or ass), this is just so funny to me. Like, this big cameo role and basically an announcement that he’s signed part of himself away to Disney for the next five years and he’s literally only played a small role in one movie so far. Yes, I know he’s got two in the can, one directed by his little girlfriend that stole him from me (jk love you, Olivia Wilde! I guess…) but it’s just truly hysterical to cast him in this without him really proving that he’s up to the challenge. He could still be totally hollow and laughable to audiences for all we know! But of course, you know I’ll be keeping an eye out. I never give up, not all the way.
(Rating: Low Brow)
This week’s residual necessities
Charli XCX went live on TikTok to play snippets of her new album CRASH, which isn’t coming until March, much to my chagrin. Whatever song this is has enough power in its first 40 seconds that it will singlehandedly sustain me until next spring:
Lady Gaga did a Life in Looks video for British Vogue. Incredibly interesting stuff, any additional detail into her artistic process is always welcome (which is how we got her thinking she committed a murder, so):
That’s all for this week! See you on Friday. Love you, angels! 💖