Reading, Watching, Listening 7/19/2024

A few words about Big Macs and Duolingo

Photo: Pacing

Another Friday, another post sharing some highlights of my media consumption over the last week. But first, some housekeeping/musing. Yesterday, I published my first paid subscriber article. It was a newsletter inspired by a recent rewatch of Twister and a tweet in which I joked about it being a “five-star three-star” movie:

If you pay for a subscription, you get the article. Free subscribers are also able to claim one complimentary paid article from my newsletter, though I get it if you’d rather use that on a different post.

Without going into things too deeply (again, pay to subscribe if you like), I did want to follow-up with a further thought. After publishing the article, I got into a conversation with a user over on Bluesky, comparing my notion of the five-star three-star movie to a great mediocre slice of pizza. You know the kind. Sometimes it’s the guy slinging the pie, that older guy who’s mostly given up on life, but doesn’t seem to mind at all, and smiles brightly as he hands you that slice with slightly crusty cheese and just a bit too much poorly flavoured sauce, and it’s the best part of your day.

A more consistent and comprehensible version of the same thing is the Big Mac. A mediocre burger by any definition, but perfect at being the mediocre burger that it is, unable to transcend itself to be a great burger in any way, but sometimes all you crave in life is a Big Mac. Perhaps that makes Twister Big Mac Cinema. (I’d trademark that, but McDonald’s might not be too pleased.)

Last night, I went and saw Twisters. That movie is not quite Big Mac Cinema. It’s not a five-star three-star movie. It’s just a normal three-star movie: really fun, a little bloated in places, a little lacking in others, perhaps a bit too in love with its own dramatic emotional stakes (every movie and show these days really needs to be about trauma, eh?) It’s not even that Twisters doesn’t do anything exceptionally, because I’m not sure the original Twister does either, but it’s missing some particularly spark in the craft that would make it the perfect version of itself. A good time at the movies, though, and I recommend checking it out, particularly for Glen Powell’s ridiculous charm.

(I also got into a wild altercation with a deranged lady who’d been talking loudly throughout the entire movie and was somehow offended that I and everyone else at the 10pm IMAX screening told her to shut up. Some people do not understand how to be in public or around other people. Sad times.)

But one last thing about my nonsensical five-star three-star concept, aka Big Mac Cinema, in case it clarifies anything further for people (though it’s not clear at all): Twisters is a three-star movie. Twister is a five-star three-star movie. Speed is a five-star movie. Hope that helps.

Reading, Watching, Listening

• “The Techies Who Lunch,” by Noelle Mateer was published this week at The Baffler, and I could not recommend the article more highly. It’s the story of Pittsburgh’s tech-fuelled gentrification, as expressed through a true oddity: an acclaimed Mexican restaurant called Duo’s Taqueria owned and housed at the Duolingo offices in the old steel town. There’s a lot in there about The Bear (apparently the company’s founder, Luis Von Ahn, loved the episode “Forks” so much that he made all his employees watch it and then do a quiz about it… Jesus), and it had me thinking about the ideas I wrote about in my own piece about the show for Defector last week, in which I questioned its relationship to fine dining, and who that kind of dining really serves. Mateer expands well beyond the scope of fine dining, toward a wider critique of urban gentrification, tech optimism and the people left behind. It’s also beautifully written. Do read it.

• Kill is the new film out of India from director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, which is currently playing in theatres and has been getting a big response from many in my circles. I headed out to see it, and while admitting it’s not the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in the post-John Wick ultra-violent action-revenge trend, it does a few pretty remarkable things. Set almost entirely on a train of sleeping cars, all the action takes place in extremely close quarters, and it’s handled so terrifically well. The choreography almost always works, both in its cleverness and the tightness with which it’s directed. It’s got a truly slimy, sadistic villain, which is always a plus. And without spoiling anything, it has maybe the best title drop I’ve seen in years. Somehow even better than RRR.

• Real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen, by indie artist Pacing is a long title for an album, but I was turned onto it this week by the lovely Michele Catalano, whose Substack you should also subscribe to.

  I’d never heard of Pacing before (her real name is Katie McTigue), but consider me an instant fan. Her songwriting has a diaristic quality that remains playful, often flitting between direct address and deeply personal reflection, and with a somewhat stream-of-consciousness quality that recalls Conor Oberst in places, but sounds nothing like Bright Eyes. Shades of ‘90s female alt-rock shine through, though tempered by a folk (and anti-folk) spirit that sounds to me at once like the ‘00s and pressingly modern all at once.

  Give it a listen!