The Whetstone 5/10/23
The Whetstone
A weekly newsletter where Maddie Weiner hones her thoughts about media and culture. Movies, books, television, music, and more.
Hello Whetstone readers! This past weekend instead of celebrating or participating in the Derby at all I got to be the DP on a low-key very short film with some awesome Louisville film ladies (three actresses/co-directors, a sound engineer and me!) It was a ton of fun and I think we got some really great footage. I've been dying to have something to work on ever since I finished my big gig back in February and it was great to run around in the gray Derby weather and shoot. I'll let you all know when the short is done and when it's available for viewing!
I have a feeling I'm going to be watching a lot more movies this month, so hopefully I'll have more to write about. Some things that I'm excited about are: the WGA strike; the next episode of Succession, even though I know it'll give me crazy anxiety; The Starling Girl and Master Gardener coming to theaters; and the first images from Todd Haynes's new film May December, which will premiere at Cannes and which I've been waiting for for YEARS. Come on: Julianne Moore plays a woman loosely based off of Mary Kay Letourneau, who's now an empty-nester of adult children and married to the former student she seduced, and Natalie Portman is an actress who will be playing a role based off of Julianne Moore's character, and she comes to stay with them to research her role? Are you KIDDING ME? Let's all say thank you to Todd!
May December.
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE
I followed up Body Heat with another De Palma cult classic, Phantom of the Paradise. It's crazy how much this movie has in common with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, considering that they were made right around the same time, so they couldn't really influence each other. I'm specifically thinking about a performance by flamboyant himbo glam rockstar Beef in Phantom, wherein he is "assembled" out of "parts" pulled from the audience into a sexy Frankenstein. There really must have been something in the air in 1973 (when Phantom was being written and The Rocky Horror Show premiered).
Phantom of the Paradise.
Paul Williams was rightly nominated for an Oscar for the original score. This movie was apparently a huge influence on Daft Punk (which you can see in the similarities between The Phantom's mask and Daft Punk's own costumes), so I can only imagine how it felt for them to work with Williams on Random Access Memories back in 2013. It just makes me really happy that the same guy who wrote "Rainy Days and Mondays" wrote the music for this insane glam goth musical. Paul Williams the goat.
This Week I'm...
WATCHING: The Comfort of Strangers
I ran a poll on Instagram to see what I should watch one evening and the winner was any erotic thriller on the Criterion Channel. I picked this 1990 film by Paul Schrader and BOY, did it not disappoint. Come for Christopher Walken's fabulous performance as an Italian-British diplomat telling stories of his childhood trauma to anyone who will listen; stay for the harsh look at the relationship between fascism and traditional gender roles in lurid blue and orange cinematography!
The Comfort of Strangers.
READING: Talk to My Back by Murasaki Yamada
I love comics but I don't read as much manga as I used to when I was younger. Someone I follow on Twitter recommended this book, which is an alternative manga collection by one of the foremost female alternative mangaka in the 1970s and 1980s, Murasaki Yamada. It's a really interesting and quite critical look at the experience of a housewife in Japan at that time. The illustrations are not what American audiences tend to expect when they pick up a Japanese comic, but I loved the style.
LISTENING: Lankum and Feist
Two very different musical vibes here, but I've been enjoying the new albums by Lankum (False Lankum) and Feist (Multitudes) this past week. Lankum's album is basically taking Irish folk and traditional music and running it through a noise nightmare machine (😍). As for Feist, I've loved her music since 2008 and I'm very glad she's back. Multitudes is sexy yet soothing, and has really stunning arrangements and vocal harmonies. I think I like it better than 2017's Pleasure.