A Very Mary-Kate Monday: Is Love Alive?
An Olsen Divorce, Ben & Ana split, Debra Messing's dreams are crushed, Bree Runway takes over the world, and more from last week rated Top Shelf to Low Brow!
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How are we all doing now that we’re halfway through the first month of the new year? I know nothing has really changed, and if anything, things have only gotten worse, but I like to ask anyway. Remember: good things are on the horizon (read: the Gossip Girl reboot—okay, got my one-mention-per-newsletter out of the way right out of the gate) and we’re all going to get there together. I speak it into existence! This week looks as if it’ll be another tough one, especially if you’re in the US like me, but I hope that when we meet back here on Friday it’ll be a joyous occasion and not a grim afternoon.
In the meantime, what more can we do besides sip our Pastèque La Croix and run through the last week of pop culture together, rating it from Top Shelf to Low Brow?
Top Shelf, Low Brow: January 11 – January 17
The Emancipation of Mary-Kate
If you’re like me, you were deeply committed to your favorite Olsen twin as a kid. When they’re together, the Olsen twins remain two of the most powerful and enigmatic forces to ever trudge across this mortal coil. They’re only slightly less strong when separated, but their blinding auras dim just enough to be able to decipher them with the naked eye, which is when I would feel an immediate attachment to Mary-Kate. Maybe it was just how producers of their multimillion-dollar programming empire portrayed them, but I always liked how Mary-Kate was the more precocious one, the one who was going to really propel the story forward and take the risks that the twins needed to solve The Case of Thorn Mansion or pimp out their dad on a billboard. Real Olsen-heads remember the struggle to decipher which Influence cover was which twin because of rumors they swapped their personal style to fool people buying the books, I really stood my ass in Barnes & Noble for over an hour when I was 13 trying to make sure I was getting the Mary-Kate cover and I’m still not sure if I bought the right one. Side note: don’t ever trust me on what I think is going to be a rare print find ten years later, Influence now goes for like $5 online and I thought it would be worth hundreds.
So when news broke last May that MK was petitioning the courts for an emergency pandemic divorce from her husband of five years, Pierre Olivier Sarkozy, I was ready to put on my lab coat and goggles to develop a vaccine myself. Moderna, Pfizer, the other one, Spilde. The courts initially deemed her request nonessential, putting it on hold for other novel coronavirus matters. And while I see how those matters are certainly important…..whomst is saying Mary-Kate Olsen’s divorce is nonessential? This is the girl that gave us the Avril Lavigne speech in New York Minute, the late-acting-career move of starring alongside Vanessa Hudgens in Beastly, and one of the best covers W Magazine has ever done! After decades of cultural contributions, we can’t grant Mary-Kate Olsen one measly divorce? It’s like Nicole Richie once said, “It’s hard to tell who has your back from who has it long enough just to stab you in it.”
Luckily, proceedings were able to go forward a few weeks later, and as of last week, Olsen’s divorce is nearly “resolved." The events took place over Zoom court, and in a judge-approved screenshot, Mary-Kate Olsen sits smack dab at the center of the eight-person call, exactly where she should be. Cloaked in a black turtleneck and sporting a star quality so bright it makes my laptop fan kick on, Olsen is as captivating as ever. Her name is the only one in the call written in all caps, just “MARY-KATE,” no last name. She doesn’t need one—not her own and especially not Sarkozy’s. One half of the world’s most mystifying pairing is now free to be entirely herself again, unbound to any man. The world begins anew.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Nicole Kidman Ball-s Out, Debra Messing Lose-cille-s Her Mind
Just moments after I hit publish on last week’s Monday letter, news broke that Nicole Kidman was being eyed to play Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s biopic about the comedy legend’s marriage to Desi Arnaz. I do think this is particularly egregious because Aaron Sorkin shouldn’t be let near another redhead ever again after Molly’s Game when he took it upon himself to see that Jessica Chastain was painted in the worst smokey eye I’ve ever seen and made her talk faster than Rory Gilmore having a panic attack at Yale.
I have no real feelings about Kidman playing Lucille Ball, other than that I think she’ll do a fine job (as she always does, at the very least!), but Debra Messing certainly seems to feel otherwise.
The Starter Wife—who, from what I can glean, spends all of her free time on Twitter sifting through thousands of verified accounts and sharing every single thing she comes across—spent the afternoon retweeting multiple people saying that she should’ve been her cast in the role. It’s so strange when stars use social media to campaign for roles. Like honey, call your agent! Aaron Sorkin has a Twitter account he only used once in 2014, he’s not gonna see this!
Pack it up, Mysteries of Laura. I’m sure the sixth millionth Will & Grace reboot will happen soon.
(Rating: Low Brow)
P!nk Joins the Cast of Drag Race
While I think it’s admirable that P!nk is trying to branch out with this new career move, don’t you think her years of success as a performer and aerial dancer will give her an unfair advantage over the other queens? Not to mention her being a cis straight woman in a queer space. Yikes!
No, no, I’m only joking, that’s current Drag Race season 13 contestant and former co-host of The View, Kelly Osbourne. I was cracking up watching this week’s episode of Drag Race because Joey Jay walking onto the mainstage with full confidence with that 2014 shaved-sides haircut really was giving Kelly Osbourne sitting at the roundtable on The View thinking it looked like a total serve. If your haircut just makes people remember Kelly Osbourne pissing her pants in a Starbucks that didn’t have a public restroom during Pride, is it all that great?
(Rating: Low Brow)
Elizabeth Hurley Wants What Paddington Has
If you know me, you probably know that I’m obsessed with Elizabeth Hurley. From her collection of iconic outfits in Bedazzled (which I will plug a photo of myself wearing now) to her role as a horny muckraker in the original Gossip Girl (last plug of this edition I SWEAR), Hurley has been close to my heart for many years. Yesterday, she somehow managed to wedge herself even closer to my heart when she posted a photo of herself showing off her marmalade and her midriff.
“Lockdown has turned me into a demented housewife: 47 jars of marmalade nestling in my larder with more Seville oranges awaiting me,” she captioned the post. I can distinctly hear this entire caption in her accent, specific emphasis on “larder” and “demented housewife,” because she’s cheeky! If this is Hurley’s campaign to get her cast opposite the world’s favorite marmalade-loving cartoon bear in the upcoming Paddington 3, then I will see it through until the moment filming begins. Elizabeth Hurley is the perfect Paddington villain: radiating endless amounts of deceptively charming charisma with just the right touch of menacing. I didn’t think it could be possible for a film to be better than Paddington 2, but with Hurley attached, anything is possible. Avengers: Endgame, get ready to have your box office gross numbers shattered, bitch.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Anne Hathaway Cannot Seem to Lock Down A Good Role
Embarrassingly, I tweeted out last week that I was excited for Locked Down, the new film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anne Hathaway as a couple that, while stuck together during the start of the pandemic, decide to take advantage of lax security protocols and pull off a diamond heist at Harrods. I’m sorry, but that does sound like a good movie to me! And it could’ve been, if it wasn’t hopeless, faux-contemplative off-broadway bullshit masquerading as a heist movie.
Two (long, long) hours after pressing play, I felt so duped, but it was no one’s fault but my own. My first mistake was expecting any film made during the pandemic about the pandemic to be at all watchable. There is just no possible, conceivable way to make a funny film about this current moment, and I’d argue that this will be true for the rest of my lifetime. Jokes about Zoom calls and baking bread will still feel like they’ve been driven into the ground long after I’m in the ground myself.
My second mistake was trusting Anne Hathaway’s agent. While her performances are almost always excellent, the films happening around her are not, and Locked Down is another in a long string of duds that includes The Witches, The Last Thing He Wanted, The Hustle, and Serenity. It should be considered treasonous to cast Anne Hathaway in a role where she gets to be glamorous and save all the glamour for the last 25 minutes of the film. Director Doug Liman got clearance to film in Harrods while it was closed during the pandemic, and instead of spending at least an hour there, we’re stuck in a townhouse watching Hathaway and Ejiofor wax nostalgic for the genesis of their relationship. It’s EXCRUCIATING! Locked Down is nothing more than a headline, worth zero past “How Locked Down, a Film About the Pandemic, was Written, Shot, and Edited During the Pandemic.”
(Rating: Low Brow)
Bree Runway is the Moment, the Week, the Year
In the new video for “ATM,” the latest single from Bree Runway’s debut mixtape 2000AND4EVA, the burgeoning megastar parades across the stage of a dimly-lit lounge, empty apart from the few patrons watching from nearby tables: men clad in stiff-pressed suits with glowing ATMs in place of their heads. Runway and her team of dancers glide around the room, only acknowledging the men at their feet when it’s time to press the withdrawal button with a stiletto-sharp fingernail. Here, Bree Runway continues to nod to the tongue-in-cheek, exhilarating style and aesthetics adopted in the videos of Missy Elliott—her longtime inspiration who joins her on the song—to astounding success: “ATM” and its video seem poised to give Runway her first breakout hit.
After a mixtape of wall-to-wall instant classics like “APESHIT,” “LITTLE NOKIA,” and one of the best songs of 2020, “DAMN DANIEL,” as well as their equally impressive, hyper-stylish videos, it’s time for Bree Runway to take over the world. With music and visuals firmly grounded in Black joy and enough pure magnetism, talent, and personality to fill an arena, she has already proven that she’s up to the task.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Can Someone Help Meghan Trainor?!
We have a contender for my favorite headline of the year.
I can always count on The Daily Mail to give me a headline I’ll never forget. WHEEZING!
(Rating: The headline - Top Shelf / The wheezing? Someone get her some assistance! Kid from Spy Kids do something!!!)
BenAna Splits; Love Is Dead
Breaking news as the newsletter is going to press: Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas have split after almost a year together. I believed that if they could keep their brand-new relationship that started just before quarantine going this long, they really had something special. But unfortunately, the universe had other plans.
I’ll miss their daily pap walks. I’ll miss Ana pretending to laugh hysterically at Ben’s jokes. I’ll miss their constant Dunkin’ runs the most. You cant take the boy outta Bahstawn…
We’ll always have the spilled coffee and munchkins. We wish them well.
(Rating: RIP to an all-timer couple)
That’s it for today! Oh wait, before I go, in quick film news: today is the 13th anniversary of one of my favorite films of all time: Cloverfield! I may be writing something about it soon, we’ll see. And also watch Promising Young Woman! Whether you love it or hate it, I think it’s an important film (but one that could be triggering, so use your own judgment!).
Thanks for reading, I hope you all have a wonderful week and that we get to meet back here on Friday to discuss Fergie without, you know, the country being under siege. Until then, bye!