#82: Is Bill de Blasio... good in bed? Sorry.
Death By Consumption
12/16/25 - 12/22/25
It's Christmas Eve Eve, and I regret to tell you this will be the last email of the year — I simply will not be opening my computer next week, not when there's so much lounging and doing nothing to be done! I thought about reflecting on 2025, but, really, I don't know if I want to: the year was kind of bad! The US fell off a cliff in every single way and is trying to take the rest of the world with it, all the worst people alive got more power and more money while everyone else suffered, Survivor aired two of its most boring seasons of all time, Taylor Swift kept herself in the news every single week despite never once saying or doing anything interesting — it was a rough year! And yet, we all got through it (unless you didn't, in which case RIP, and thank you so much for being a subscriber!!!!!), so I guess that's something to celebrate. Anyway, I'm at least going to celebrate you, for reading this dumb shit every week, for subscribing and sharing my silly little emails with your friends and/or enemies, and for replying to me sometimes so I'm not just screaming about reality TV into the void. I still don't know what or why this newsletter is, but when I started it I said I'd keep consuming until it kills me, and it hasn't yet, so: maybe next year!
This week: I watched one of the most stressful movies of the year, I watched a documentary about how Shia LaBeouf sucks, I watched two Chinese films (one straight, one gay), I gave into my disgusting need for the lurid details of Bill de Blasio's sex life, and I read a fantastic short story collection about awful mothers.
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025) — on Apple
I assumed, based purely on Conan O'Brien getting second billing, that this movie was a comedy. Oh boy, could I not have been more wrong! If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is a stressful nightmare, unexpectedly one of the most intense movies I saw all year. As the tension ratcheted up with every scene, I slowly realized I was watching a horror movie, despite the Conan and ASAP Rocky of it all, and that the only way out is through. Rose Byrne, playing a stressed-out mother whose life is (literally) falling down around her, gives what is easily one of the performances of the year, with the camera staying tight on her face nearly the entire length of the film, so we're suffocating right alongside her. (Between this and Die My Love last week, my parents should not be expecting any grandkids from me anytime soon — and I still haven't even seen Hamnet! Why was every movie this year about how having kids is awful?) I loved this movie, and I never ever ever ever want to watch it again, thank you very much!
Megadoc (2025) — on Criterion
Watching Francis Ford Coppola's insane film Megalopolis, you can tell that Francis and everyone else went a little nuts while filming it. So we didn't even need this documentary about the making of that film to confirm what was already clear from the finished project, but it is a welcome treat to see firsthand just how deeply insane the process truly was. Francis famously sold a huge stake in his own wine company to self-finance the film, which ended up costing him $120 million (of which he lost something like $100 million when the movie tanked), and through this doc we see that with all that money Francis Ford Coppola, essentially, built a $120 million prison and then locked himself inside with Shia LaBeouf.
The documentary is ostensibly about the making of the film, but quickly turns into a character study that asks the question: how annoying can one man be? In the case of Shia, there is no true answer to that question, because he proves time and time again that he can find new ways to become even more irritating. At every step of the way, he questions Francis — but not for the obvious questions any of us were asking about the film (like: why is everyone speaking in nonsense riddles all movie? or, you know: what the fuck is this film about??). No, Shia brings a uniquely obnoxious perspective to set, where he's constantly asking Francis about his character's motivations in each scene, only to tell Francis that all his answers are wrong. Okay, then why the fuck did you even bother to ask, if you already knew the answer??
Tensions between Francis and Shia start high and only get worse from there, with several on-camera screaming matches over the tiniest issues — in one scene, Shia thinks he should walk a few steps while delivering his lines, and Francis thinks he should be seated, and over this minor issue they practically come to blows, causing Francis to leave the set entirely and direct the rest of the scene from inside his trailer. (The next morning, Francis emails Shia an apology and tells him he loves him, so they kind of deserve each other.) They should have had a police car waiting outside the set, to take Shia straight to jail the instant shooting wrapped. This man is just out there on the streets? Our streets?!
It's insane — especially in this era of overly sanitized stars, who refuse to give interviews to anyone who won't ask pre-approved softball questions — that any of this was captured or allowed to be shown to us prurient normie freaks, but I'm so grateful for this chance to see pure, unfiltered movie-making psychopathy. Shia takes up a lot of oxygen, but practically everyone gets swallowed up by the insanity on set (the only one who seems to be having any fun at all, naturally, is Aubry Plaza, who also seems to be the only one who actually understands that she is starring in a campy disastrous mess), and all of it is shamelessly aired out for our entertainment. This is the best and worst of Hollywood, all bafflingly on display for your viewing pleasure, and I found myself constantly asking how these people didn't manage to get their most humiliating moments cut out of this film — like when star Nathalie Emmanuel has her agent email the documentary's director that Nathalie is never to be filmed eating (which the director gleefully and messily reports to us on camera, technically respecting Nathalie's wishes while also humiliating her — so even the documentary's director gets caught up in the toxic insanity on set!).
It has to be said that isn't necessarily a well-made film — it feels more like a DVD extra than an actual documentary. But who cares, when it's this entertaining! And while the director doesn't pull his punches when it comes to showing how deeply insane everyone is, he's clearly too emotionally close to Francis, because he obviously wants to protect him from the box office and critical failure of Megalopolis. The documentary ends with footage of the standing ovation at Cannes (which reportedly involved just as much booing as clapping), as if Francis's film was received as the world-changing masterpiece he thought it would be, rather than becoming one of the most notorious flops in movie history. It's a strange ending, but it's not like any other aspect of the Megalopolis experience ever made any sense, so, in a very weird way, it fits.
Caught By The Tides (2024) — on Criterion
This film — largely consisting of stitched-together scenes from other movies filmed over 30 years — has been lauded by film people for the past year, so I regret to inform you that I didn't love it. It's certainly a film I admired (it's so beautiful!), but it's not one I enjoyed. The first 30 minutes are entirely plotless, with long stretches of aimless footage, mostly pulled from the director's earlier films and documentaries. Once the "plot" kicks in, it's still barely there, a delicately sketched out story of vaguely lost love, which mostly serves to highlight the way China has changed and developed over 30 years. It's genuinely beautiful, with some absolutely stunning sequences and shots, but extremely abstract, and more than a little exhausting. I suspect I would find this more moving if I were, say, watching it in one of those little screening rooms you find inside a modern art museum, but watching it at home left me feeling a bit exhausted and sleepy. Sorry to China and film bros! I'm not cultured enough for this, I fear!
Happy Together (1997) — on Criterion
This, however, was fucking great. I loved Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love, one of the greatest films about yearning of all time, but I had no idea he had made a gay yearning film a few years earlier. Happy Together follows two gay men from Hong Kong who live in Argentina while making each other miserable. Throughout the film, the men break up and get back together countless times, finding new, terrible ways to hurt each other, while also finding each other completely irresistible. They're toxic and, somehow, perfect for each other, with some of the most sweetly romantic moments I've seen in films (I, like everyone else, loved the big, stupid dramatic gay kiss in the most recent episode of Heated Rivalry, but it really can't compare to the quietly beautiful slow-dancing scene in Happy Together).
This film was made back in the time when all gay stories had to end in either death or AIDS or misery, some sort of divine cinematic punishment for the sin of homosexuality, and even though Happy Together does somewhat fall into that territory, it didn't give me the bitter taste so many of those old stories did. You're both rooting for these two to work it out, but also you kind of never think they should speak to each other ever again. This is the kind of couple you avoid most of the year, because you just can't deal with their bullshit, but also you invite them to your Fire Island share, because you need someone to provide the drama, you know?
In retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised that Wong Kar Wai's gay movie was great: every gay guy goes through at least one period in life of having a toxic, miserable yearning for someone who's absolutely not good for him, so I'm not surprised he captured it so well — all gay men are Wong Kar Wai characters deep inside, after all.
"Nomiki Konst's Revenge Tour" — in The Cut, by E.J. Dickson
For some reason, ever since Bill de Blasio left office we have been plagued by unasked-for updates on his disgusting dating life — first his open marriage with his wife, then his public attempts at dating, and now his hilariously dramatic cheating scandal, the victim of which has decided to get more attention for herself by talking to NYmag. This is an insane thing to do, but I'm grateful for her, because this article is a gift from beginning to end. Within the first three paragraphs, she compares herself to both Lily Allen and Shakira (she has Lily Allen's new album conspicuously playing when the reporter comes over lol). She gives us glimpses into her extremely Park Slope-ified life with Bill, waking up to make "sprouted quinoa bars" for breakfast, while also teasing us with brain-melting details, like the fact that de Blasio once wrote her a poem titled "One Pussy Nation."
Bill doesn't come off great in this article, of course, but it's not like Nomiki looks normal here, either. She keeps telling us horrifically embarrassing details about him, while reminding us that "this is a 64-year-old man," but, girl... you were the one with him this whole time!!! I think she thinks she's going to be relatable to women who have been cheated on, but, I'm sorry, the way their relationship ends is too funny to be tragic:
Then in September, the couple flew to Greece, where Konst did a round of IVF. De Blasio accompanied her to the clinic. They were in the elevator when Konst saw he had been texting someone photos from Greece, and that the person had responded with a kissy-face emoji. “I was like, ‘Who’s that?’ And he goes, ‘The mayor of South Tucson.’”
After the embarrassingly childish breakup in which, I guess, de Blasio started lovebombing the mayor of South Tucson (which begs the question: is South Tucson different from Normal Tucson, or does Tucson have a mayor for each cardinal direction, like the witches in Oz?), Nomiki becomes, somehow, even more embarrassing:
She’s been coping by watching the 1997 live Fleetwood Mac version of “Silver Springs” on repeat and throwing herself into two film projects, including one about disgraced former congressman George Santos, with whom she’s become friendly.
That sentence is such a beautiful gift, unwrapping so many delightful surprises as it goes, that I almost kissed my phone while reading it.
But fear not! They're both doing great. Bill, I assume, has relocated his One Pussy Nation to the town of South Tucson (although twice in the past year I have seen him, lumbering past the window of a bar or restaurant I've been in, like the Sasquatch of Park Slope), while Nomiki has, reportedly, found love with "a 28-year-old firefighter she’d met while judging a Staten Island Mustached Firemen competition." (Ok, I don't blame her for that one.)
This article is perfect, except for how short it is. I need 100,000 more words on this disgusting former couple stat. As usual with Bill de Blasio's love life, I'm only left with more questions, namely: how does this strange man keep driving so many women absolutely feral? I fear I know the answer, based on how tall he is — and how large all his physical features that we can see are, sorry sorry sorry — but I'm going to need reporters to stay on this disgusting Bill de Blasio romance beat. Bari Weiss: if you're not going to let 60 Minutes do any real reporting, can you please at least send a team down to South Tucson to keep eyes on Bill? I need daily updates!
Mothers & Other Monsters, by Maureen F. McHugh (2005) — paperback
If Jennifer Lawrence and Rose Byrne's new movies didn't do it for me, Mothers & Other Monsters has put the nail in the coffin: having children is hell!!!! This collection of short stories isn't explicitly about motherhood, but as the title suggests, nearly every story in it has something to do with the often monstrous relationship between parents and children, in some form. A mother who cloned her dead daughter deals with the health problems that come from cloning, and the guilt of what she's created. A stepchild has possibly disappeared, and the stepmother harbors secret relief. An abandoned space colony of humans is visited by researchers from Earth. None of these stories are linked, but they're all about the two-way street of resentment and need that happens between a creator and what they've created. The stories are largely speculative, and extremely well-crafted, brutal and beautiful. A lot of the time, short story collections are barely thematically linked, if at all, but this is one of the most narratively tight collections I've read in a while; and if you missed the point, Maureen McHugh ends it with a personal essay, all about her own complicated feelings about being a stepmother. While the stories are often about literal monsters and space aliens, this is somehow one of the most raw and emotionally vulnerable short story collections I've enjoyed. Read it if you like great stories, and/or if you hate your children!