Brad Pitt Trying to Convince Us He's Just a Chill Dude
F1, Jurassic World Rebirth, my top 21st-century films, the Bezos wedding and more!
How to help with the Texas floods. How to keep helping people in Gaza.
Not to be a total company man, but The New York Times dropped a glitzy-glammy-glossy project1 selecting the “100 Best Movies of the 21st Century,” and now it’s all I talk about!
[Well, that and the Mushroom Murder Case. Why don’t they pay me to start parties!?]
If you don’t have a subscription, you can see the entire list on their Instagram post. If you DO have a subscription, you can interact with it in several ways:
Look up celebrities’ top-10 lists
Rank the best movies by genre
Compile a watch list of the movies you haven’t seen and tally the ones you have. I’ve seen 56 and have 44 on my to-watch list. 😮💨 [Ben and I started last week with “Michael Clayton,” which is basically “Erin Brockovich” but kinda boring.]
Make your own top-10 ballot!
Here’s mine, which I made and then immediately remembered “Lady Bird.”
So, let’s hear it: What’s on your top-10 ballot?2
In the News: Do we need these sequels?
Except when it comes to securing a good seat in a first-come-first-served situation, I try to approach life with an abundance mindset. So when someone asks, “Did we need this sequel?” I tend to think they must kind of hate their life.
And yet I submit to you: Do we want or need these sequels?? As my friend Mish put it: Why try to improve perfection?
The Social Network
Aaron Sorkin says he is finally making a sequel to his Oscar-winning, 10th-on-the-NYT-100-best-list film, “The Social Network.”
It’s supposedly about the negative impacts of social media, such as January 6.
No cast or release date announced; it’s too early for that.
The Devil Wears Prada
Gird your loins! “The Devil Wears Prada” is getting a sequel, and not the lame kind with a totally new cast:
Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are all back.
Kenneth Branagh joins!
Thank God, loser-boyfriend Nate is nowhere to be found!
The director, writer, and producers are all returning, too.
All of this is great news, but I’m still very nervous. The original is a perfect film.
Something I think about on a regular basis: Early-aughts Anne Hathaway gave us two of the greatest makeover scenes of all time, instilling in all Millennial women the misguided belief that the only necessary step from our natural frizzy state to supermodel good looks was acquiring a Paolo or a Nigel.
In the News: My 3 Thoughts About That $50 Million Jeff Bezos-Lauren Sánchez Wedding
[JK I have 236.8 billion thoughts — mostly related to the voracious hollowness of extreme wealth — but here are three that are more fun!]
Nobody in the entire history of the universe has ever been more of an attention whore than Leonardo DiCaprio pretending to not want attention at that wedding. The way Leo pulled that black baseball cap down to his neckbeard tells me one thing: That Leo cannot abide the idea that he — the most famous person to have ever existed, in a list that includes Princess Di and Jesus — might be safe to walk around barefaced in the sunlight like a peasant. That’s a Diva Level just above wearing white to someone else’s wedding and just below Trump faking his own Time Magazine cover.
People say Lauren Sánchez is a gold digger, but can we stop pretending she’s bringing nothing to the table? Nobody can tell me that Jeffrey Preston Bezos, an established cringe nerd, would’ve had every A-list celebrity at his wedding without Lauren!? This playbook is as old as time: Step 1. Become a billionaire. Step 2. Attach yourself to an LA hot girl who is friends with the Kardashians and Oprah. Did we learn nothing from “Scarface”??
Far be it from me to speak positively on Tom Brady, or any older-male-to-younger-female flirtation, but Sydney Sweeney and Tom Brady … kind of make sense to me? They were rumored to be flirting at this wedding. Question: Do we think they hit it off more during the foam party, the pajama3 party, or the Gatsby party? [The wedding script was clearly ripped from a sorority girl’s 2012 Pinterest board.]
And now it’s time for some reviews!
If you’re enjoying this, would you consider sharing to help me grow?
“America’s Sweethearts” Season 2 — 9/10
Verdict: I have nothing to add to Ben’s reaction, which was: “They deserve a better team!!!”
The Cowboys suck! And I say that as a Saints fan!
P.S. This show is an excellent way to educate straight men about hair extensions. Ben was gobsmacked to realize that many women are walking around in the world wearing extra hair. [If you have hair extension recs, hit me up! My hair is thin as hell!]
Read my original review here:
“F1” Is A Brad Pitt Vanity Project, But It Is Also Fun — 6.5/10
This is a visually magnificent, logistically absurd sports movie with a plot and character development thinner than Brad Pitt’s shirt fabric.
It was … fine?! Not a single twist came as a surprise, but the built-in predictability reduced distractions from the thunderous display of racing’s big hook: “It really is chess at 200 miles an hour,” says director Joseph Kosinski [who also directed Top Gun: Maverick].
I’ll raise him one: In this movie, racing is like chess if chess didn’t have any rules and you could set fire to the pieces at random.
Verdict: It’s a very American take on Formula 1, where the grungy, bootstrappy, break-the-rules approach prevails thanks to the fact that we all eventually learn to take jogs together. My favorite parts were Damson Idris’ wardrobe and the fact that Kerry Condon got to be an almost fully developed female character.
While we’re on the subject of Brad Pitt, a seriouser note…
My most foundational belief is, as Bryan Stevenson so eloquently says, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.” Brad Pitt is more, as a human being, than the time when he allegedly attacked Angelina Jolie and their children in a private jet. He is obviously more, as a human being and an artist, than the fact that his kids allegedly won’t speak to him.
But it’s also hard to watch him go on this press tour and say, “I don’t think it was that major of a thing” about the eight-year divorce proceedings that followed that alleged incident.
And OF COURSE, he does NOT owe the public an explanation for his personal life. But it’s all very discordant to me. His press tour is giving, “I am the chillest man on earth.” His life is giving: “Objection, your honor!”
We are left with this: The public simply does not care. He’s Brad Pitt! The only person questioning him is Shania Twain in “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” a song that aged shockingly well.
Anyways, I enjoyed the movie just fine, and Brad is good at being a movie star. Plus, I bought stock in Damson Idris as soon as he ripped off that racing suit at the Met Gala!
“Jurassic World Rebirth” — 6/10
The best part of the new Jurassic movie is obviously Jonathan Bailey’s slutty little glasses. The next-best thing is Mahershala Ali’s and Scarlett Johansson’s biceps. The third-best thing is Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, who plays a dad having the most stressful 36 hours of his life.
The worst part was that it was a bit vanilla!
Verdict: It was considerably better than most “Jurassic” sequels, but overall a middling affair. There was less character development than what I’d call “character tagging”: They spent the first 20 minutes putting little post-it notes on each cast member with titles like “Mercenary with a heart of gold,” “Unemployed scientist,” “Creepy company man,” “Grief-stricken divorcee,” “Overwhelmed father.” And then sent them off to be chased by dinosaurs! No further digging needed!
I did jot down one thing in my little movie notebook: A quote from Bailey’s character (Unemployed Scientist):
“Survival is a long shot.” Clearly a counterpoint to Jeff Goldblum’s line in the original: “Life finds a way.” In 2025, three decades later, we’ve flipped the coin of evolution to its other side.
It made me sad because it felt like a fair depiction of the culture’s broad loss of hope in our collective future. I found the contrast interesting less as part of the film, and more as a reflection on what messages Hollywood thinks will resonate. I’m more of a “life finds a way” girl myself, but neither is wrong.
Jonathan Bailey Straightbaiting His Way Through His Press Tour is Movie Magic
“Straightbaiting” isn’t really a thing because it implies straight people are being exploited, and we’re just not. [Queerbaiting is a real thing and it’s icky.]
BUT it is so funny to me to imagine Jonathan Bailey just out here trolling us straights all day long. He is openly gay and one of the top targets of straight female desire right now.
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And I like how he’s just out here playing into it, for publicity, for the love of the game, for fun, for whatever! Kissing ScarJo, flirting with Amelia. Thank you, Jonathan, for bringing your cute little flirtations. Don’t overthink it!
We End With a Reading Recommendation
“The Worst Sandwich is Back” —Ellen Cushing, The Atlantic. An article that begins with the truest, bravest words ever written: “Wraps are awful.” Could not agree more! “Joyless, functional slop!”
That’s all for this week! Thanks so much for being here! As always, I CRAVE your thoughts, reviews, opinions, hot takes, feedback, and love!
Maybe it speaks to my childhood in early-internet days when every website was an Adobe-Flash frontier of custom cursors and animated graphics, but nothing excites me more than a webpage that changes as you scroll.
I tried to add “10 Things I Hate About You” to mine, and it turns out that was PRE-2000!?!? Am I from olden times???
Leo was wearing a black suit and baseball cap to the “pajama” party, which is, incidentally, exactly how I picture him going to bed at night. But also, if you look up what ANYONE was wearing to this “pajama party,” you will know that you would’ve been woefully underdressed if you took the title literally. Not a Joyspun set in sight.
I didn’t do the movie thing but Purple Rain is at the top of the list, and nobody else gets a mention. Also the Bailey TikTok made me laugh way, way out loud.
Here was my top 10.
John Wick
Inception
Capt. America: Winter Soldier
LOTR: Two Towers
Inside Out
The Dark Knight
Anchorman
Interstellar
Smile 2
Dodgeball