It ain't about the pasta!
AppleTV+'s "Ghosted", Bluesky, and Mystery Noodles.
Happy Thursday and a special welcome to our new subscribers! Thank you so much for being here to talk about inane pop culture nonsense with me.
In other news, I applied to be on Worst Cooks in America yesterday. I thought it could be a fun summer adventure and I’ve always wanted to be a reality TV villain. I’ll keep you apprised.
The Low-Brow Lowdown
Meghan Trainor won’t shut up about her husband’s massive member. The pop star has now spoken on multiple podcasts within the span of a week about how her clenched vajay doesn’t pair well with her Spy Kid husband’s “so very big” schlong.
We know from the Chris Olsen partnership that she plays the long game when it comes to promotional campaigns, so maybe this is all part of the set-up for her new sexual wellness collection.
While Gwyneth Paltrow reveals details about her dalliances with famous men. The actress appeared on Call Her Daddy this week where she shared that Ben Affleck was “technically excellent” in the sack, while Brad Pitt gave more “love of your life” energy. To have to marry Chris Martin after all of that. . .tough beat.
The Sun reports that Taylor Swift is dating Matt Healey. According to the fan fiction company, Taylor and Joe split in February, and she reunited with the 1975 frontman some time after. Obvi can’t trust The Sun as far as you can throw her, but this is also so feels like something that would happen.
Bluesky is coming for the blue bird. Backed by Jack Dorsey, Bluesky is a buzzy new Twitter challenger, currently populated only by a select few invitees, like tech podcasters and Chrissy Teigen. Kate Knibbs at WIRED described the emerging culture as “a fizzy, infectious fuck-around energy, like everyone chugged a Red Bull on a Friday afternoon and the boss is out of town.”
The writer’s strike heats up. From banning AI in writer’s rooms to navigating streaming residuals, the failed Writers Guild of America negotiations that ended in an all-out strike are nuanced and complex. As a Lonely Boy outsider, I found Matt Belloni’s coverage on The Town podcast to be especially helpful if you’re looking to learn more.
King Charles’ coronation day approaches. The festivities begin on Saturday, including a concert from none other than British icon Katy Perry, who came to the rescue after Elton John, The Spice Girls, and Harry Styles declined.
And speaking of Brits and old people, Ed Sheeran was forced to miss his Grandma’s funeral. His ongoing copyright trial over the similarities between his song “Thinking Out Loud” and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On” took precedence. The law bows to no man!
Mystery pasta found in the woods of NJ. Last week, residents Old Bridge, NJ encountered hundreds of pounds of cooked pasta deposited by a stream in the woods, from elbow macaroni to spaghetti. Its origins are unknown, but my money is on a literal interpretation of creepypasta from a troll with too much time on their hands.
This week I had the distinct honor of guest curating Kitty Guo’s
newsy. Check it out to see my favorite indie products, and be sure to read Kitty’s upcoming Caught Red-Handed interview with me on Monday!Is Ghosted the worst movie of the year?
In late April, AppleTV+ quietly released Ghosted, a straight-to-streaming action romcom starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, two of our hottest and biggest movie stars. If this totally flew under your radar, that’s because it was an objectively awful movie, so much so that Apple probably hoped it would get minimal attention, despite all the integrations for Apple AirTags and international texting plans.
That said, as a trusted source in low-brow culture, I thought it was my duty to watch this movie. To give you a taste, Chris Evans plays a farmer (?) who meets Ana de Armas at a farmers’ market, where they proceed to go on a marathon 24-hour date like a couple of U-Haul lesbians. After a few days pass without Chris hearing from Ana, he follows her to London where she’s on a “business trip,” and quickly realizes she’s not an art dealer as she said, she’s a CIA assassin.
The rest of the story involves the duo arguing and shooting at people in various green screen locales. The biggest favor the production team could have done for us was chop that hour and 56 minute runtime into a tight 90 — I seriously spent two-thirds of the movie looking at Pinterest recipes for easy weeknight recipes on my second screen.
Typically, even a bad movie like this can curry some favor if they up the charm factor. Like, I happily watched Ticket to Paradise last year because I knew I could count on the undeniable chemistry between George and Julia. But banter, which should have been Ghosted’s strong point, is where it fell as flat as my prom hair in 2014.
So rather than write you a traditional review — since you can comfortably take the word of critics everywhere that it’s indeed bad — I’ve instead ranked the five worst pieces of dialogue. Let’s get those robots out of the writers’ room!
“The mountains called.”
We hear this from Ana’s character in the movie’s opening scene when speaking on the phone with her therapist. It’s been established that Ana witnessed the death of someone close to her, and she’s driving off the grid to get away from it all. While her doctor advises her not to make any big, sudden changes, Ana counters that “the mountains called.”
Last night we were watching Gordon Ramsey’s Next Level Chef and my roommate got mad at me for making fun of this girl for tearfully saying that her “Nonna was with her tonight” while she made veal parmesan for the judges. “The mountains called,” has the same energy — no one would ever say that if it wasn’t fed to them by Ritalin-fueled producer in a reality tv confessional.
“Emojis don’t count!”
After their whirlwind first date — they don’t even get to sex until 10 in the morning the next day — Chris Evans can’t play it cool. He texts Ana eleven times in one day.
There’s abundant discourse with both his farmer family and later with Ana in the caves of Pakistan about the validity of emojis as proper texts — he maintains he only sent Ana seven texts, because five were just emojis.
I feel like as a culture we’re generally past emoji talk — the monocle means he’s a weird Redditor, a tapback means he’s not interested. If even our dads have a hang of them and what they signify, it’s thoroughly trodden soil.
“My mom is dead.”
Okay, I’ll admit that’s not the exact line, but it basically played the same.
At the start of the film’s final act, when you’re praying there’s only twelve minutes left, Chris and Ana have a touching moment on the beach where she reveals that her mother passed away years ago.
Character development! Is this why she has such a cold exterior? She’s afraid to let alone get close because the pain of losing them will be too great!? Florals for spring groundbreaking?!?!??!!?
This feels like a Q4 Hail Mary — you’re seriously trying to get me to care about this cardboard character now, 90 minutes into the movie? Don’t waste your breath, I’m browsing chicken piccatas.
“What are you, the patron saint of plants?”
Ana and Chris’s meetcute happens at a rural farmers’ market, where Chris is manning the plant stand. He’s eager to assist Ana, the hottest woman a humble farmer like him has ever seen, but when she reveals she’s often away from home for spans of two months at a time, there’s little he can offer her outside of a cactus. (Note: Cacti are then used for the rest of the film as a grating metaphor for love and care).
Ana insists that she wants this pretty pink plant that’s supposed to be watered every other day, but Chris refuses the transaction, claiming that he can’t sell it to her in good conscience.
“What are you, the patron saint of plants?” Ana replies, incredulous.
I knew she was going to say that before the words left her mouth because it was the lowest-hanging retort, and whoever wrote this screenplay blatantly did so on Ambien.
“Wow guys, get a room.”
It’s popular with fifth grade boys who just learned about third base and with the team behind this $40M dollar project.
Bickering Chris and Ana are told to get a room four times, three of which happen in quick succession as they’re jostled from bounty hunter to bounty hunter in the middle of heated argument about something important I can’t recall, like being nice versus being mean.
I bet the studio people were like, “This is great stuff, each time a character whips out this absolute killer of a dig the audience will laugh and laugh and it’ll keep mounting until the entire theater just erupts — Sean, let’s make a note at 47:32 to add some buffer before Chris’s next line to account for all that extra raucous laughter. Okay, I’m off to Sugarfish. Nice work, boys.”
Prekend Wrapped
Watching: The Diplomat (Netflix)
Reading: “Inside the Delirious Rise of ‘Superfake’ Handbags” (NYT)
Eating: These crack pistachios.
