70s 4EVA

The Great Rewatch of 2024 continues. I finished Friday Night Lights and actually miss it. Can we make it so the residents of Dillon, Texas perpetually hover around me? I stopped with Will & Grace because, while it is still funny, it is the same funny over and over. I'm in the middle of Girls and continue to find Lena Dunham grating AF but she is an excellent writer. And then I happened upon Rolling Stone's list of the best TV episodes of all time and dove headfirst into a walk down memory lane. There's so much goodness contained within but what stood out most in my mind is how atrocious the 70s were for design. Just take a gander at Mary Richards' second apartment:

The white brick wall. The rainforest canopy in the kitchen. The giant M. That wallpaper! And just off camera to the left is a navy blue wall with more plants hanging on it. Every inch is atrocious and not at all fitting for a woman taking downtown Chicago by storm with her hat.

Wait, just one more. Check out the bedroom from groundbreaking show Maude (she aired an abortion episode 2 months before it was legalized). Sorry for the picture quality.

This is a reference only Austinites will get but—this is an exact replica of every section in Room Service Vintage. I feel pattern-sick.

Anyway. There's your interior design criticism for the week. Who wants recs?

🎥 Three Colors: Blue (Max)
I've been meaning to watch these for years and finally got around to starting. A notable art house trilogy from director Krzysztof Kieślowski, Three Colors is made up of psychological dramas featuring gifted French actors and cinematography like you've never seen before. (The other two films are White and Red.) Blue stars Juliette Binoche as a woman who loses her husband and daughter in a car accident and her ensuing struggle to recover. It's phenomenal.

🎥 New Hollywood on the Criterion Channel
The Criterion Channel is having a fall sale - 20% off annual subscriptions - and it's the perfect time to take advantage because they're highlighting my all-time favorite era in cinema. From 1966-1979, "A new generation of upstart filmmakers took over the Hollywood studios and forever changed the possibilities of American cinema, liberated from the censorship of the Production Code and bankrolled by executives eager to reach an increasingly counterculture-minded youth market." Apocalypse Now, The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Taxi Driver, The Last Picture Show, Dog Day Afternoon - I mean, come on. Go sign up and revel in masterpieces this fall. (No I'm not getting a cut.)

📖 Memorial
A lovely, easy read that features wonderfully developed characters, despite its terse, punchy style. Set in Houston, it's the story of a couple falling in and out of love and their problematic families. The author, Bryan Washington, has written food columns for the NYT Magazine as well and I just love his voice.

I'm very happy to have football back. It was 65 degrees this morning. The gourds grow closer...

xoxo,
Carla