Same Trailers, Different Park
DEAR READERS!!!!
SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAAAAAAY
No, it’s not a monster truck rally, it’s time for another great Dames Nation movie live-tweet! Join us!
What: CHARADE, starring Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, and the House of Givenchy, by GOD, pleasesomeone bring both Dames their fashion-lust fainting couch.
Date & Time: Sunday, April 26 | 7:30 PM ET
Location: TWITTER - use #charade to follow the conversation. Dame Margaret will be tweeting from @MrsFridayNext, Dame Sophie will be (wo)manning @TwoBossyDames. Based on our past experiences with you delightful, incisive smarties, it’s going to be a blast.
Best of all, you need not -- unlike poor Regina up there -- lose any of your treasured acquaintance to join in the fun. See you then & there, lovelies!
BE THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trailer Park
We’ve been kicking around this idea of sharing some of our favorite trailers with you all, and then the Slate Culture Gabfesters beat us to the punch with a segment on trailer and their discontents this very week. THE NERVE. Well, a good topic is a good topic, even if Stephen “Declinist Narrative” Metcalf gets there first.
Our assessment of trailers is: They are a great way to feel like you’re going to the movies, for free, with no traffic hassles, no waiting in line, no shushing of chatty types in the row behind you, and no lingering smell of popcorn on your sweater later. Apple.com/trailers is, of an evening, often a more satisfying choice for 30 minutes of one’s time than a sitcom. It’s like a delicious visual buffet!
We hope you like our choices below. What trailers are you excited for this Spring & Summer? Share your faves on Twitter!
Dame Sophie’s picks:
Girlhood is a French film about a group of teen girls who see each other through exhilarating good times and heartbreaking bad ones. Aminatou Sow recommended this one on Call Your Girlfriend a few months back & thanks especially to this trailer’s final tracking shot of them all chatting and snuggled up together, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. [Ed. note: The first version of this trailer I saw is just the long tracking shot, for a whole minute-- it's so striking and great. - DM]
I have soft spots for rock biopics, sensitive geniuses too good for this messed-up world, and for John Cusack, so Love & Mercy, about the struggles of Brian Wilson, is riiiiight in my wheelhouse. Trailer double-feature! Try the intro to biopic Saint Laurent, about the legendary French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent (sweetie darling).
We shared the Finnish-language trailer for Moomins on the Riviera a while ago and now it’s available in English, hurrah!
Dame Margaret's picks:
So, let’s not kid. Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep doing a movie about Emmeline Pankhurst, directed by a woman!!!-- I was going to be excited about Suffragette no matter WHAT the trailer looked like. BUT it just so happens that the teaser trailer is also GREAT-- atmospheric, gripping, great music, evocative imagery, just... the whole thing. The way the entire internet seems to feel about that Star Wars trailer, I feel about THIS ONE. Pure goosebumps. September can't come fast enough.
As my confessions on last week's OVERDUE demonstrated, I'm secretly QUITE ill-read for someone who professes to be a BOOKS EXPERT. So it may not surprise you to hear that I haven't yet read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl despite how highly my friends have praised it. I know! I know! I intend to! In the meantime, the trailer looks the way I wish all trailers for beloved book adaptations would look: As though it has a concrete idea of what it would like to do cinematically that's distinct from what the book did literarily. Like its director wanted to make a movie not merely a visual Cliff Notes rendition of the book. So, you can definitely mark this one down as something I'm looking forward to.
AND FINALLY! Yes, this trailer for Man Up is a bit rote, as trailers go. Not as formally unique as the teasers for Suffragette and Girlhood. BUT!!! Lake Bell and Simon Pegg in a romantic comedy together! LAKE BELL AND SIMON PEGG IN A ROMANTIC COMEDY TOGETHER!!!!!!!!! DO I HAVE TO TYPE IT AGAIN OR HAVE I SUCCESSFULLY CONVEYED MY GLEE AT LAKE BELL AND SIMON PEGG BEING IN A ROMANTIC COMEDY TOGETHER?????? And it looks like it has a winning conceit and good jokes that don't just involve being mean to Lake Bell's character! So, yeah. I'm excited for it, guys. I am.
Twee as Hell:
Corgi attempts to convince human baby to play, fails adorably
These 11 farms to follow on Instagram are not so much twee as embodying the unbaaaa-rable cuteness of being, but that shoe kind of fits, too.
Our beloved pal Rosie (1/2 of Our Transatlantc Sister Podcast, Rosie and Jessica's Day of Fun) introduced us to the incredible Ravelry patterns of Spanish crafter Loly Fuertes. The most important of these great patterns: The one Rosie and Jessica christened AMELIA BEARHEART!!
No, YOU peruse Etsy listings for the cutest dang vintage & modern tea cozy patterns, favoriting them by the dozen!
Miscellany (It's a Link Assembly!):
Remember how we told you about Robyn's all-girls technology conference, Tekla? WELL, Pitchfork had the good sense to send a reporter to cover it and the results are heart-eye emoji inducing in the extreme.
In similar ladies supporting other ladies news, Meryl Streep has funded a lab for women screenwriters over 40 so FUCK YEAH MERYL!!!! And!! Rose Byrne, Gracie Otto, and others have formed an all-female creative collective. They're calling it The Dollhouse. Both of these bits of news were gleaned from The Dissolve's great column "How's the movie industry treating women this week?", which also did a great job of addressing our beloved Chris Evans' boneheaded foray into Jeremy Renner-instigated sexism in press junkets this week.
Inside Amy Schumer came back this week and two of the week's sketches became essential viewing for Your Dames: Amy, Tina Fey, and Patricia Arquette celebrating Julia Louis-Dreyfus's "last fuckable day" and Amy's take on rape culture and Friday Night Lights.
The tragic death of Canadian actor Jonathan Crombie caused many of our Bosom Friends' hearts to crack with grief. Writing in The New Yorker, Sarah Larson explained just why his portrayal of Gilbert Blythe took on such importance to so many of us.
Pop Culture Happy Hour-approved comic Guy Branum spoke this week to The AV Club about his disdain for disaffected "guys with interesting hair," their tyrannical music-taste policing, and the unfair derision our culture shows to teen girls, winning over Dame Margaret's poptimist heart utterly.
AND FINALLY! It turns out that the couple behind Outlander-- showrunner Ron Moore and costume designer Terry Dresbach-- are maybe just as charming as Jamie and Claire themselves, at least if this terrific NY Times profile is any indication. (h/t to Kathryn, our remote TV correspondent!)
Advice Corner
This is a new experiment we’re doing, and your questions are, as we have learned to expect, super. We’ll tackle a one or two each week. Got a question? Our handy form awaits you!
First up, dear Brooke asks us:
What would you wear on an informational interview over coffee for a job in a corporate environment? I've been freelance writing for so long it's hard to find anything in my closet that breaks out of the "nice jeans and blouse" mode for professional wear. I'd know how to really step it up for a formal in-office interview, but this is supposed to be more easy going. Please help and thanks!
We recommend building on your current success with the Nice Jeans and Blouse look. The last thing we’d suggest is a new wardrobe or even a full new outfit. Since this is an informational interview, you can probably afford to be a little louder, visually, than you would be in a formal interview situation.
Possibilities:
A fancier blouse: maybe something silky, or in a minimalist print? Dame Sophie saw a woman d’un certain age in a navy-and-emerald polka dot blouse the other day and deeply regrets not asking where she got it because she looked like a BOSS.
Go a little bigger with your accessories: We kind of hate the expression “statement necklace” because it’s so overused, but Dame Sophie loves wearing them. They are widely available everywhere from TJ Maxx to Etsy to Baublebar, and set against a simpler blouse or lightweight sweater, they easily upgrade a whole look. With this route, we recommend sticking to tiny earrings. If large jewelry is not your thing, perhaps you could try to layer several smaller pieces together. For example, two necklaces - say a longish delicate-to-midweight chain peeking out from behind some chunkier pearls - could look really great. Take a look at what you have already and try some unexpected mixing and matching in the mirror.
Top layer upgrade: We are both forever fans of the cardigan, and big believers in a variety of cardi acquisition strategies including stocking up at Target, stalking sales at places like Boden (or Dame Margaret’s personal favorite, J. Crew’s Jackie Cardigan), and saving up for a once-in-a-while splurge on something reeeeeally nice that I plan to wear for years. If cardigans feel a little mumsy to you, a nicely-cut blazer is never a wrong choice, and if you find one that is almost perfect, you can have it altered for free at Nordstrom if you have a store account. (Technically, you pay for it up front & they send you gift certificates as a refund.)
AND! Jumping off Dame Sophie’s blazer suggestion, another good way to interpret “business casual” is by finding something business-like, such as a blazer or a sheath dress, but getting it in a forgiving fabric, like thick ponte jersey. You can find blazers like that at H&M and Uniqlo all the time and Dame Margaret swears by Land’s End for good, sturdy, yielding-but-never-clingy jersey sheath dresses. These could be something you have in your wardrobe already *or* something you’re looking for an excuse to buy. They run solid sales all the time - you probably know to check RetailMeNot for coupon codes, but that’s bound to be news to someone!
Brooke, thank you so much for being our first advice guinea pig! We hope our bossiness was helpful - please do follow up, yea or nay.