#12: Glen Powell, that rapscallion, has charmed me

Death By Consumption

7/22/24 - 7/28/24

Spent the week in Wisconsin with the family, where we consumed a fair amount of culture in between laying around, going out on the boat, and eating various grilled meats. We also consumed a lot of Paxlovid, as, one by one, practically the entire family came down with covid. 13 people — 5 of them very young children — sharing a house while all sick at the same time is kind of gross! But, as a childless person, I am learning that this is just, like, normal for you nasty people with children??? JD Vance wants all childless people to be executed, but I actually think we need to build a gated community where we can lock away all the people with children, until the kids turn 18 and have graduated some basic hygiene classes.

Twisters (2024) — at Marcus Cinemas Oshkosh

God, I've missed Hollywood blockbusters in which an actress of middling talent urgently says to a rakish bad boy with a secret heart of gold, "We have to link up to a supercomputer!" Twisters was insanely dumb and I enjoyed every minute. I used to be a Glen Powell hater, but I no longer have the faintest idea why. That part of myself has been fully excised. I couldn't even begin to access those feelings if I wanted to. It's like those feelings happened to a different person. Glen Powell has charmed me, and there's no going back. People keep saying movie stars are a thing of the past, but Glen's trying his best and we should all thank him. (Daisy Edgar-Jones, though, should maybe consider another line of work. Yikes!)

My only real complaints about Twisters are: 1) Glen walks out into the rain in a white T-shirt that gets, like, 3 droplets of water on it and then the scene ends before it gets fully soaked through?? I'M CALLING A FUCKING LAWYER; and on a similar note: 2) RELEASE THE KISS CUT. This movie was trying to save the old-school summer blockbuster from extinction, but they're forgetting the key ingredient to those blockbusters: the characters should be horny, all the time, no matter what disaster is befouling them. Has Hollywood truly forgotten its magic formulas?! Every day, a new warning sign that our once-great nation is collapsing.

Twister (1996) — on Max

Before seeing Twisters, it's important to refresh yourself on the lore. (There are actually a couple incredibly baffling references to this film in the new movie, which are never explained, somewhat infuriatingly.) Twister has still got it! Helen Hunt steals every scene, and Bill Paxton remains lovable despite being a rather terrible actor in this. Bill's dialogue was all stolen from a generic video game NPC — a lot of, "Hurry!" and "Watch out!" and, "Careful!" And, most importantly, to my points above, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton's characters are horny for each other, even while dodging shrapnel/cows. This is how you do it!

Hit Man (2023) — on Netflix

I TOLD YOU GLEN POWELL HAS SUDDENLY CHARMED ME. This man has made, what, 8 movies so far? And I watched two of them in one week. Just like Twisters, Glen (and Richard Linklater!) was clearly attempting to resurrect the 90s heyday of stupid, fun films, and Hit Man is mostly successful, even though this is one of the cheapest-looking movies I've seen in a while. (Also, the less said about the score the better... there are long stretches with zero music that make it feel unfinished, and other parts feature endless solos from baffling instruments. Like, I swear there's a banjo solo inexplicably dropped in the middle of this movie??)

This was, essentially, a $10 million Glen Powell acting reel. The man is absolutely desperate to host SNL and show us that he can do funny accents, but he got tired of waiting for them to call, so he dialed up Richard Linklater, slapped a couple Party City wigs on his head, and just started doing impressions until someone finally turned a camera on him. While Glen is, again, charming and serving real live movie star of a type you don't see much of anymore, his costar Adria Arjona delivers the funniest, worst, and most thankless performance of the year. I swear to god, she has three scenes in a row that end with the suggestion that she's about to give Glen a blowjob. Three! She spends 75% of the film in various cheap stripper costumes, lounging around an AirBnB the producers rented for the 2-day shoot, waiting for Glen to walk into the scene so she can deliver a couple of sexual innuendos before the plot can continue. At first, I was like this actress is terrible, but by the end I was like... this is camp and she's maybe iconic? This movie felt like the kind of film you would have found on a Blockbuster wall in 2003 (this is a compliment).

Longlegs (2024) — at Marcus Cinemas Oshkosh

The main takeaway from this movie is that Nic Cage has an amazing Vicki Gunvalsen impression. Other than that, if you’re one of the people raving about this movie, I have some serious questions. I don’t get why this was made! It’s got a halfassed Satanic storyline (between this and Maxxxine plus the psychotic tweets in response to the Olympic opening ceremony, I guess satanic panic is back?? Fun!), mixed with a few other bits from more successful horror movies. Is it homage or is it lazy? Either way, I found parts of it funny more than scary (the Nicholas Cage of it all is wildly distracting, an INSANE casting choice if you want the character to be actually terrifying), and I was relieved once the movie got to its whimpering, stupid end. 

Also his legs weren’t even that long???

Cuckoo, by Gretchen Felker-Martin (2024) — in paperback

I really love Gretchen Felker-Martin. She's published two novels, and I already know I won't forget either of them. I don't think it's reductive to call her the Jordan Peele of trans horror authors. Her first book, Manhunt, was like the indie film that got her a ton of attention at festivals, and Cuckoo feels like the first true, big blockbuster from her, a sign that her first book wasn't a fluke and she's here to stay.

Set at a gay conversion camp, Cuckoo follows the queer teenagers being tortured by religious evangelicals and... something else. The story is rather simple and the metaphor isn't subtle, but the book really comes alive through her writing — the characters feel specific and distinct, and the horror scenes are gorgeously disgusting in an Annihilation way. To continue my terrible, flattening comparisons, it's a Stephen King plot, written with Jeff VanderMeer flair, with the humor and intelligence of a Jordan Peele film. This was a fucked-up and fun book to tear through on a hot summer weekend, but I bet it's good whenever you read it. We love Gretchen!

Man Crazy, by Joyce Carol Oates (1997) — in paperback

Joyce, Joyce, Joyce. A tiny, cruel genius not afraid to ask the tough, bonkers questions. I love her deeply, but I hadn’t heard of this book until a friend gave it to me for my birthday a couple months ago, and, no surprise, I loved it. It’s very dark and depressing, but beautifully written, with a propulsive energy. (It also happens to align nicely with my Manson Family readings a few weeks ago.) I didn’t intend for this week’s book readings to both be about children getting horribly fucked up and abused by adults, but what’s done is done! People can be fucking terrible, but at least that can lead to really good books.

"Costco in Cancún" by Simon Wu — in the Paris Review

This essay feels like an artifact from the internet of 15 years ago. Remember travelogues where the writer goes somewhere for ironic reasons and then learns a valuable lesson??? I genuinely love that shit and this is a great example of that style. Now I need to read Simon Wu's new book of essays! Also, he drops some great tidbits relevant to our purposes here at Death By Consumption HQ:

Here, however, in the Yucatan sun, stripped of this architecture, the Costco psychology (“Everything Is a Good Deal”) merges with the all-inclusive hotel psychology (“Everything Is Paid For”) in a sinister marriage of value and engorgement. This nexus of ensuring what you Paid For Is a Good Deal creates a relentless compulsion to feast: when the price of an experience has been prepaid, the value you derive from it is based on your ability to consume. Thus, you need to consume a lot to get your money’s worth. Sometimes consuming so much, for so little, is tiring. Sometimes constantly optimizing the best deal gets in the way of relaxing, particularly after the third or fourth all-you-can-eat meal.

Consumption is tiring, and yet it is our sacred duty and our greatest pleasure, so keep it up!