#93: Leo got hot and Timothee got ugly
And more stupid thoughts on the most boring Oscars in years
Death by Consumption
3/10/26 - 3/16/26
It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and I hope my Irish ancestors won’t curse me for saying bad things about Jessie Buckley in this email. I should probably get off her back soon, though — between last week’s The Bride! takedown and this week, I’m accidentally becoming the internet’s #1 Jessie Buckley hater. And I’m not even a hater! I think she’s fine! I just don’t like a lot of the stuff she does! But to get the heat off of me, I’m going to take some time off from working in the Jessie-criticism mines for a bit, but rest assured that I’m keeping a very close eye on her………..
This week: I watched the Oscars and barely felt anything, I bravely came out as someone with eyelash mites, I watched Gwyneth pretend to be British and other British women be insane, I watched another embarrassing Jessie Buckley performance, and I am finally free from carrying Gravity’s Rainbow with me everywhere.
The 98th Academy Awards — on ABC
For such a decent year of movies, the Oscars felt excruciatingly strange and mostly boring. Conan was stiff, and came the closest to bombing I’ve probably ever seen him get, but I’m not blaming him. Something was off in that room! The monologue fell flat, but even worse were the endless and meandering presenters’ jokes — most notably the unbearably long “banter” between Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans that was supposed to be Marvel promo but instead convinced me to continue avoiding those movies at all costs. So many movie stars on that stage, and so little charisma to be found. Hollywood, girl, you are in trouble, we do not need you putting on a boring show like this right now. Get it together!
The whole production felt cursed, in fact. Why couldn’t the cameras find anyone? Why was the audio so echoey? Even Maya Rudolph getting so much screen time wasn’t enough to save the thing from being a mostly unpleasant bore. When they brutally cut off the K-Pop acceptance speech mid-sentence and the entire room, (including Conan!) rebelled, it was almost a relief that something so cruel was happening: finally, some excitement!
It was, I suppose, an accurate look at culture these days: the monoculture is dead, and no one knows what to do about that, least of all a big old show like the Oscars. So it’s no surprise the show felt like a bunch of flailing attempts to grab someone’s, anyone’s attention. The awards were fairly spread out between the big movies, so it felt like there were no real winners or losers, other than, you know, Timmy (who looked awwwwful) and Rose Byrne (we will avenge you). So what we were left with was a panicky mishmash of attempts to keep your eyes on the screen. Your kids love K-Pop, so here are those beloved Demon Hunters, doing whatever they do! Oh, you liked the big musical number from Sinners? What if we put that on stage, but a poorly choreographed, sloppy version of it? Would that interest you? No? How about a Bridesmaids reunion? I’m genuinely shocked they didn’t trot those exhausted Heated Rivalry boys out, even though they’re not even in movies, just to try to force gay people to screenshot something from the ceremony and put it on their social media. It already feels like the Oscars came and went as if they never even happened. What does a multizillion-dollar corporation gotta do around here to get the homosexuals interested in their awards shows again???
At least Leo was looking more attractive than he’s looked in, like, 20 years. He should permanently stick with whatever de-swelling routine Scorsese got him on for their new movie! And, no Club Chalamet, but everyone celebrating Timothée’s loss should take a moment of reflection to understand that this means we now have to live through yet another Oscars campaign from him. So congratulations to Michael B. Jordan, but condolences to Timmy’s team, who are probably already reaching out to every podcast on the planet in anticipation of next year’s inevitable continuation of the endless Timmy Wants An Oscar And He Wants It Now! tour. This kid will still be tap-dancing for votes long after the nukes have been launched.
While we’re on the subject of little Timothée, I am so happy the forced outrage about his ballet and opera comment can be finished now. It was annoying and somewhat arrogant, yes (and his comments have also been completely misinterpreted, but I really can’t dwell on this nightmare any longer), but so was everyone else who took to the stage and scolded him all night. You’re all being annoying! Show me all the ballet tickets you purchased last year! And, if you’ll allow me to be woke for a hot second: it is very telling that everyone had more energy all night for attacking Timmy on behalf of ballet than speaking up on behalf of Palestine or immigrants or against war with Iran or Venezuela or Cuba or… etc. etc. etc. (Not you, though, Javier; you’re perfect as always.) This was a deeply annoying night of television, one I regret spending 4+ hours in front of, and I know I’ll do it all again next year, for some reason.
XDEMVY eye drops — in my eyes
I have a confession to make: my infamous stye, which I have been battling for over two months, did not come out of nowhere. It was caused by an ailment known as Demodex blepharitis, which is a fancy way of saying I have an overwhelming amount of tiny mites in my eyelashes. Mites! But don’t you dare sit there so smug, thinking that I’m a nasty little freak with my eye mites: you — yes, you — also have Demodex mites on your face right this very second. It’s just that mine went out of control for whatever reason, resulting in my horrific stye, and this lingering feeling of mite shame. But you’re disgusting, too, and don’t you dare forget it.
The cure for Demodex blepharitis for decades, if not centuries, has been to wash your eyelids with tea tree oil. This is a solution that may or may not work, but it’s at least guaranteed to make you wonder why you’re paying an eye doctor hundreds of dollars to tell you this, rather than consulting with a local forest witch.
However, that’s no longer true — a hot new bombshell has entered the pharma market! The second eye doctor I saw for this humiliating endless stye cued me in on the magic ingredient known as XDEMVY eye drops. (The first doctor I saw for the stye — who operated out of an office that was connected to a Crumbl Cookies, so her office reeked of 1,000-calorie cookies baking in the oven — didn’t even mention the Demodex blepharitis! Which makes me wonder if she’s in the pocket of Big Mite, or perhaps has her own case of D-bleph that’s gotten so out of control it’s spread to her brain and she’s trapped in some sort of Pluribus situation with the mites.)
This miracle cure known as XDEMVY is a simple, teeny-tiny bottle of eye drops that kills the mites lickety-split and costs — I am not joking — $2,000. Two thousand fucking American fucking dollars!!!! For an eye drop bottle smaller than the size of my thumb! And I have small thumbs! Miraculously, I appear to be one of the rare (according to my doctor) people whose insurance covers this liquid gold, so my bottle somehow cost $0. I have never, ever said a bad word about United Healthcare!!!!!!!!! I love my insurance company and all the things they do for me, and I think Luigi Mangione did a really mean thing to them and also isn’t that hot if you really think about it.
It is of course deeply, psychotically criminal that a company can create the only functional cure to a very un-serious disease that doesn’t seem to really do anything other than cause occasional styes (you can’t even see the mite overgrowth without a microscope, so I really need you to stop thinking I’m disgusting over here), and then charge $2,000 for a bottle that has something like 100 drops in it, max. But the good news is my Demodex levels are under control again (bragging about my normal level of eye mites), which means I’m willing to sell my remaining drops of this shit for $20 a pop. If you think you’ve got too many mites in your eyelashes, just hit me up on Venmo and I’ll send you a droplet in the mail. And if you’re a subscriber, I’ll sell you a drop for $15 to thank you for your support! Don’t say I never did anything for you.
Sliding Doors (1998) — on Criterion
It’s so random that Gwyneth was British for most of 1998. It’s also so funny that Shakespeare In Love, for all the awards and controversy it caused back then, has had absolutely zero lasting cultural footprint (unless you count paving the way for Hamnet, ugh), while Sliding Doors has lived on as a cultural reference to this day. And while I get why they wanted the most famous actress of the moment in their movie, I have no idea why the fine folks at Sliding Doors Inc. felt like Gwyneth absolutely had to be British in the film. She could have been American without any of the story changing — her character has no family, as far as the movie is concerned, and only one friend, which is kind of sad. Maybe the character originally was American, but Gwyneth wanted to get her money’s worth out of all those expensive Shakespeare In Love British accent lessons by showing off some more? (This actually seems extremely likely.)
Whatever the reason for her Britishness, this means you get to hear Gwyneth saying some of the most British slang ever forced into a movie’s script. Gwyneth says “wanker” and “bollocks” practically every five minutes; at one point, she refers to a man as a “pissing shagging wanker.” Everyone else speaks normally, but Gwyneth’s character speaks like she’s in a Guy Ritchie film. Characters will be having a nice little dinner party, speaking to each other as normal humans do, and Gwyneth will burst into the room, chugging a pint and screaming, “Oy! Wut’s all this, luv? Fancy a shag, mate? Bloody hell, I’m knackered! You fuckin’ wanker. Blimey!” It’s INSANE. I loved every second.
Ladies of London, season 4 episode 1 — on Peacock
The last thing I needed was another Bravo franchise of rich women acting like lunatics to get screen time and brand deals, but when I heard the Ladies of London reboot was being compared to early RHOSLC, that was all I needed to give it a chance. And oh boy did they find a collection of psychos.
The star of the premiere was a woman — sorry, a Lady — who has a chaotic riches-to-rags-to-riches-to-rags story, and currently lives in a literally crumbling apartment with an exotic bird who will pluck your eyes out if you look at it (visitors have to wear safety goggles in her home). But we’ve also got the Marchioness of Bath, who lives in “the largest house in England,” which she has turned into a literal zoo, and who is trying to claim the “first Black woman to join the Royal Family” crown from Meghan Markle, or at least to start some on-air beef with Meghan. There are 1-3 Swedish women (I can’t tell them apart to count them), who all confusingly have brown hair, and two women with a toxic relationship (one thinks they’re best friends, while the other can’t stand her). Everyone feels extremely Epstein-adjacent, so much so that I won’t be surprised when Trump pardons Ghislaine and she joins the cast next season.
How To Shoot A Ghost (2025) — on Criterion
This 27-minute short film by Charlie Kaufman and starring Jessie Buckley was some of the most pretentious nonsense I’ve seen in a while. Jessie Buckley and some other guy play two dead people who wander around Athens, whispering clunky poetry about death, life, violence, humanity, and everything in between. Jessie’s in Eternal Sunshine Clementine drag the whole film, taking Polaroids for no reason other than the forced poignancy of showing faded Polaroids on screen every twelve seconds. I spent every part of its 27 minutes begging for it to end. Between this and The Bride!, I’m going to need Jessie’s agents to stop sending her scripts for a while. This woman makes terrible choices!
Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon (1973) — paperback
My Pynchonian ordeal is complete! I found the last bit of Gravity’s Rainbow even more exhausting and twisted than the beginning, the way it loops and fractures and becomes almost a parody of itself. (But I did love how Pynchon’s language collapsed in on itself by the end, with sentences like, “The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting an apple.” This hilarious, obnoxious, pretentious dick!) What kind of a deranged madman introduces brand new characters 700 pages into a novel? This was frustrating, exhausting, sometimes gorgeous, often disgusting, and I am happy I read it, but I am probably not doing that to myself again.