March Content Recs 📺 🎤📚🎨📱
A round up of what I'm watching/ reading/ listening
SHŌGUN 📺
GOT, but Japanese!! The wardrobe, the hair, the intrigue, the ritual Japanese suicide! I’m hooked. Despite episode 4 being a bit of a sleeper, I can’t wait for more. A (good) period epic is such a rarity. I find myself wondering, “Why don’t I watch more of these??” and then I remember Amazon would rather make one RING OF POWER (715 million) than three good shows.1 Really curious how this will play globally. Fun fact: lead actor Hiroyuki Sanada, who is also a producer and cultural consultant on the show, entertained a singing career in his 20’s, so head over to YouTube if you want to hear some absolute bops. It’s a good thing I’m not involved in the show because there would 100% be a dream sequence where Toranaga falls a sleep and we cut to this flawless studio performance and then back to 17th century Japan with no explanation. Does a great musical number need explanation?? いいえ! (no!)
CLASS OF 88’ 🎤
I’m really enjoying this Wondery podcast hosted by Will Smith. It’s nice to hear him out of the context of film press or damage control. He was once just a 20-yr-old kid who wanted to do rap with his friends! Hearing old buddies reminisce is like the Calm app for me — he and DJ Jazzy Jeff are pretty effing sweet together. Artists discussing their creative process and careers is also my catnip and the show delivers in spades. Darryl “DMC” McDaniel’s interview in Episode 2 about his depression and crisis of identity is incredibly moving and the series includes great interviews with legends such as Queen Latifah, Rick Ruben, Slick Rick, Salt-N-Pepa + more.
GIOVANNI’S ROOM 📚
We read this James Baldwin classic for my book club and I was shook by how sexy and funny it is (yes, equally heartbreaking. But that’s a given for the genre). Add it to the queer education I never got. I can’t believe this isn’t already a Merchant-Ivory2 film. Everyone is delightfully drunk and French and gay. These boys are downing white wine and oysters at 5 am like they’re coffee and bagels. I’m still reeling from this advice that Jacques, an older Parisian gay man, offers David, a young American ex-pat who has just met his soon-to-be soulmate (Giovanni).
“Love him,” said Jacques, with vehemence, “love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last? since you are both men and still have everywhere to go?… And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty- they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty; you can give each other something which will make both of you better - forever- if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.”
<sobs in bisexual> If you’re off-put by the sincerity of that quote, don’t worry. The book is mostly flirtatious banter and mopey observations about masculinity. If you don’t read the novel, at least read this 2019 NYT article that includes a sexy Giovanni’s Room inspired fashion shoot. Would Giovanni have loved The Row soft flex tees? Peut-être!
INTERIOR DESIGN MASTERS (SEASON 5) 🎨
Am I the only American who watches this show?3 Probably!! Am I the only person in LA who used a VPN to watch the S5 premiere from the “UK” and had to look up London postal codes to register for a BBC account??? Mayhaps! Netflix aired Season 1 of this show back in 2019 but passed on future episodes, so now I watch through Daily Motion and I’ve seen every season at least twice. Alan Carr (of Drag Race UK) hosts and is an absolute charmer. Head designer/ judge Michele Ogundehin is mother, and I’ve grown very attached to the guest judges (effortlessly glam Matthew Williamson, paper bag princess Abigail Ahern, drag race Dracula Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen). First episode didn’t disappoint - we’re looking at a very talented group of designers. Right out of the gate, my money’s on minimalist chav Matt, victorian maximalist Ben, upholstery lesbian Jess4, and print happy Roisin. 5
THE PARODIES OF NICHOLAS FLANNERY 📱
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No, “The Parodies Of Nicholas Flannery” is not the title of a charming YA novel or a Benedict Cumberbatch film. Nicholas Flannery is the TikTok creator behind simmering parodies such as Every Movie Where They Hire A Crazy Nanny or The Mom Going Back To Work In Every Movie. In a choppy TikTok sea of fast-paced editing and overwhelming visuals, this slow-paced “wait for a punchline that never comes” comedy is the calming waters I need. The performance tightrope Nicholas walks is quite impressive. It’s not even “so bad it’s good”. It’s more like, “so accurate to the lazy source material that it’s brilliant.” How subtle. How restrained. How Nicholas Flannery.
What are you watching/ reading/ listening to this month?? Drop a rec/ comment below
Shōgun budget supposedly 250 million
Producer/ Director duo Ismail Merchant and James Ivory (partners is business and life) responsible for such hits as MAURICE (run to watch this if you haven’t already. Hugh Grant’s break out role as a queer Cambridge schoolboy), HOWARDS END (where Emma Thompson plays older sister to a young Helena Bonham Carter, two years before Helena would have an affair Emma’s husband 👀 👀 ) A ROOM WITH A VIEW, THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, and most recently James Ivory wrote the screenplay for CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (and won an academy award for best adapted screenplay at 89). Icons only.
Not to be confused with the god awful “Great Interior Design Challenge.” I’m talking about Interior Design MASTERS, the FAR superior show.
upholstery lesbian is the new horse lesbian
Personally I find this bold maximalist style very predictable and too on trend, but people love it so what do I know.
I've seen commentary reviews in a video format on YouTube, but this are the best reviews I've read in writing. It's so refreshing and straight to the point. Thank you for sharing!