The Oscar Goes to Kate Winslet's Philly Accent!
Obligatory Oscars talk, the Ciccone girls are modeling, Kate Winslet makes a Wawa run, a revue of hot men, Gaga goes in disguise, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow
Hello and welcome to another Monday letter! If you receive this in your inbox prior to 5:30pm Eastern Standard Time, know that the only goal I had for today was accomplished and that I am spending the time following that achievement trying AGAIN to fix the drain in my bathroom sink. It’s a seemingly simple system, I just have to screw a pipe in the right way after fixing a leak, but the solution has evaded me because I am not handy. I am, however, someone who becomes obsessively determined to fix a household issue on my own once I take on the task just to feel the sweet, sweet victory of a simple win. If the jobs I interview for won’t email me back, at least I can have the satisfaction of this.
If the letter arrives after 5:30pm, well then know that I’ve failed myself and I’ve now cut into the time I set aside every day for working out, making dinner for myself and my boyfriend, and smoothing out my brain with hours of reality television.
It’s a race against time, so let’s get started.
Top Shelf, Low Brow: April 19 — April 25
The “Oscars” have traumatized me for the last time!
Up until like 45 minutes before the 93rd Oscars began, I wasn’t sure if I was even going to bother to tune in. The award shows for this year still feel inherently unnecessary, and since I’ve barely seen any of the films nominated for the same reasons that they had to stagger celebrities in and out of LA’s Union Station during the ceremony, I wasn’t rooting hard for anything in particular. But! I needed to fill the two hours between when my delicious homemade soup was ready and when Mare of Easttown came on, so why not?
Literally a two-hour blur. For the first hour I didn’t even pick up my phone, I was just watching in a haze. I had completely forgotten that Steven Soderbergh had been hired to produce the show, so when I turned on my television and saw the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and intimate setting after expecting the hyper-HD, full-screen garishness of the usual Dolby Theater event, I felt like I had just been given my second Pfizer shot early and was working through a side effects-induced haze (yes, that’s a Soderbergh pun!). The only thing missing was the show being awash in piss like the rest of Soderbergh’s filmography.
Two hours in, after watching the guy from My Octopus Teacher win without even bothering to thank the titular cephalopod as well as like 300 Nissan commercials, I switched over to HBO Max to watch Mare of Easttown, which proved to be a much more fruitful and fulfilling experience, but more on that in a second.
After the episode was over, I expected the Oscars to be wrapped. I couldn’t get that lucky! Switched back over and was stricken with absolute whiplash seeing that they were about to award Best Picture. Surely, I thought, I could quickly check Twitter to see who had won Best Actress and Best Actor, only to find out that everyone else in the world was as gobsmacked as I was when the producers sprung Best Picture on everyone completely out of order. I’m still recovering from it. You can’t peel that grand tradition out from under us with no warning!!!
Still need to watch Nomadland, gonna do it this week, don’t get on my case! The producers switching around Best Actor to be the final award assuming that Chadwick Boseman would be posthumously celebrated without ensuring that was going to happen 100% beforehand is bonkers and stupid. Needlessly switching the order of the awards only to flub the big final moment is obnoxious. Anthony Hopkins being asleep in England after some sleepytime tea and crumpets was deserved. But ending the Oscars on an award for a man? Unforgivable.
(Rating: Low Brow)
Jean Smart playing Fruit Ninja in Mare of Easttown
Beyond.
Is Mare of Easttown good so far or do I just go feral for a prestige drama about a crime that rocks a small town where all the residents are connected and have known each other for years, their individual traumas feeding into one another until things finally threaten to collapse? I honestly can’t tell. But I’m going to say both.
Aside from Jean Smart playing Fruit Ninja, the show has given me a fantastic reason to rework my Philly accent which I haven’t picked up since I moved back to New York after a brief seven-month stint in 2015. Kate Winslet canonically drinks Wawa coffee with two creams and no sugar. She eats cheesesteaks! I haven’t gotten to say, “I need a hoer-gie from Wuh-Wah and a helf-a-gallun a’ Turkey Hill Ryaz-beery lemoneede” in years. Feels so good to be back.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
What if instead of remaking West Side Story we actually all just took a nap? Could be an idea.
Not too long ago I was rewatching War of the Worlds and thought to myself, “Wow, this is actually a really interestingly directed film. I wonder what Mr. Steven Spielberg is working on right now!” And then I remembered it’s the remake of West Side Story starring Ansel Elgort and I got so mad I almost shut the movie off and went to bed.
Let me be clear: I think we need to be very careful with how much we allow theater kids to have. We’re only just starting to really recover from the lasting effects of Glee. We’re lucky the film adaptation of Wicked has been in production hell for years but we still have the threat of the Dear Evan Hansen film on the horizon to fret over. The very last thing we need is teenagers seeing a new West Side Story and running around their high schools snapping their fingers and doing parkour tumbling off the walls while singing songs.
(Rating: Low Brow)
The Week in Hotties
Milo Ventimiglia brought out his tree trunks (again) for Earth Day
Lil Nas X continues to do everything he can to distract me from work
Big, Large Guy Adam Driver shirtless in the trailer for Annette
Lakeith Stanfield at the Oscars, giving disco dad deliciousness to 1000.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Wrapping all of this week’s Housewives and Housewives alum news into one beat so as not to annoy you!
This week, God proved Her existence to me when she arranged for the drop of the trailer for The Big Shot with Bethenny, Bethenny Frankel’s new HBO Max reality competition series.
Give me one part Bethenny Frankel, one part The City, and one part Lohan Beach Club, and I’m ready to have this mainlined into me the moment it premieres this Thursday. I can’t wait to watch this to quell whatever symptoms I may have after Dose No. 2. Also, a word from the duped: Skinnyirl popcorn is a ripoff! I was lured in by the lime & sea salt flavor and promptly found that this popcorn where “every kernel pops!” rattles around like a goddamn maraca with unpopped kernels when you remove the burnt mini-bag from the microwave after putting it in for the recommended amount of time. And yes, as a popcorn aficionado, I know never to leave the room while my popcorn microwaves! Not amateur hour, babe.
Speaking of popcorn, accepting the Golden Popcorn for Best Fight: Jackie Goldschneider for saying Teresa Giudice’s daughter does coke in the bathroom!
Kelly Bensimon posting a 25-minute video of her talking about what “really happened” during the Season 3 RHONY trip to Scary Island — this rollercoaster of a trip, for the uninitiated — entitling it, “CLOSURE. Truth about Scary Island. Thank you to all of the #rhony fans for believing in me ❤️kkb” is run don’t walk material.
Obviously, I watched with a snack. Did I learn anything? No. Did I believe a word of this? Not really. Did I want a single second of my life that I spent watching this back? Never. My favorite part is how she refuses to name any of her castmates by name, but instead refers to one as, “the woman with a health condition.” Which, to anyone who has seen the iconic three-episode arc, is Bethenny because she was pregnant. Just say Bethenny! Also…that photo being the thumbnail……bonkeurs.
Wendy Williams will not appear on Real Housewives of Miami, crushing my dreams
(Bethenny: Top Shelf, Jackie: No comment, Kelly: Top Shelf, Wendy: Low Brow)
The Ciccone Sisters revel in their youth
Last week, Madonna and the inspiration behind Ray of Light, her daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, were turning it out across the internet. Lourdes has a new profile in Vanity Fair, looking stunning photographed by Adrienne Raquel. In the piece, more of a Q&A really, she speaks of her time at the infamous LaGuardia High School, where she was “a little item” with Timothée Chalamet and calls fellow classmate Ansel Elgort, “a terrible DJ” (more reason for us not to have West Side Story, if you can’t DJ you shouldn’t be in a musical!). She also says Real Housewives is “soothing to her brain,” so basically, Lourdes has come into her destiny not only as a pop heiress but the ultimate cool girl.
Meanwhile, her mother has been slurping down spaghetti and having photoshoots for Instagram while she works on her Madame X concert tour special.
Madge-am X is looking stunning, and while a good portion of the content on her Instagram slides on a scale from cringe to terrifying, I’m happy to have the gorgeous reprieve of little photoshoot moments.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
She’s meditating, you guys.
Something I love is when artists imbue narratives into their visuals, especially if it’s for a visual no one was really expecting, which is why I love Megan Thee Stallion serving sci-fi anime to announce a brief hiatus.
“Megan Thee Stallion is recharging! Due to the demands of the Hot Girl lifestyle, Meg has now entered a period of regeneration to prepare for what’s next. In her absence: mgmt will manage all social posting on behalf of the Hot Girl Coach. Thee Hotties lead a brave RESISTANCE in anticipation for the return of their Fearless Captain!”
I hope that this is all part of a larger concept for the next era, be it a continuation of Good News or something new entirely. Megan doesn’t get enough credit for having such a deep hand in the inspiration behind her visual aesthetics. She knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, and this is just another thrilling example. Looking forward to whatever our Hot Girl Coach has in store!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
No thoughts, just this photo of Elle Fanning in custom Vivienne Westwood.
She’s obsessed with keeping her foot on my neck.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
“OPEN UP THE SAFE BITCHES GOT A LOT TO SAY”
Beyoncé seemingly in a room at a Courtyard Marriott is extremely important to me.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Closing us out is this photo of Lady Gaga in deep disguise.
As avid Top Shelf, Low Brow readers will remember, Lady Gaga is currently in Italy baking focaccia and drinking espresso with Big Boy Adam Driver. But thankfully, she was able to peel herself from their shared Italian kitchen on set to deliver a brief message for Elton John’s virtual Oscar party.
She looked like this:
WHO IS THAT WOMAN?! This is my Italian zia auntie coming home for Thanksgiving who refuses any Pizelles in favor of red wine and diet pills and keeps her sunglasses on all day. This is a woman on the subway who is too distracted texting her art dealer to move her three-child stroller when I’m trying to get off the Q Train, forcing me to miss my stop and go over the Manhattan Bridge. This is maybe Melania Trump? She’s going full method and turning into Patrizia Regianni, I’m convinced. And you know what? That’s okay. Because maybe this time next year I’ll be covering her being awarded Best Actress at the 2022 Oscars. As long as that award comes before Best Picture.
(Ranking: I honestly don’t know what to rate this Monica Bellucci drag. But you know what, what the hell! Top Shelf.)
That’s all for this week! Thanks for being here today and reading, as always I’m eternally grateful (and might just make it to your inbox before 5:30pm!). Also, I’m thrilled to announce that Friday’s edition of the newsletter, Tinashe is So Much More Than Your Meme, has been seen and Tinashe-approved with a like on the story’s post at the Top Shelf, Low Brow Instagram!
At the risk of being earnedt, it always feels really great when artists and people I admire acknowledge the work that goes into this newsletter, I’m lucky enough that it has happened a few times now and it always makes me remember that I’m not just throwng essays into the void and that the extensive research and careful attention I put into each edition is worth every second.
Have a great week and I’ll see you Friday! 💖