Blood and Guts and Dylan

It's 9am on a rainy Sunday morning, and I'm already done with the paper because I could only read 1/4 of it. When you're avoiding anything with Trump in the title, turns out that excises a good chunk of the news. I’ve been searching for a new way to exist since, oh, let's say mid-morning on January 20th. As many other people are realizing, I cannot spend the next four years caught in his tornado, getting knocked like a goddamned pinball from one carnival of treachery to the next. I do not agree to be a participant in Steve Bannon’s flooding of the zone with shit.

I turned off notifications from the New York Times. I subscribed and then, four days later, unsubscribed from The Contrarian, a new ‘pro-democracy’ Substack that seems to have the sole intent of giving me hives. I started and then discarded a post begging people to leave Facebook and Instagram (I will come back to that!) In general, I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself in our new world order. I am going to start a new business, I know that. Or resurrect an old one. Or possibly start a new political party. I'll figure it out and keep you posted. In the meantime, we'll always have our recs.

📺 American Primeval (Netflix)
You know what you need right now? A bloody, dirty, roll-around-in-the-mud story set in the 19th-century American West. It's a true depiction of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, a horrific slaughter of immigrant families by Brigham Young's Mormon militia, with several great not-true side stories added on. I binged it in 2 days, which is notable for me. Oh and it stars my beloved Tim Riggins. I liked it so much that I rewatched the Lonesome Dove miniseries when I was done, which is so so bad but somehow still works.

🎥 A Complete Unknown (in theaters)
I did not want to see this, much less love it, but here we are. Little Timmy is fine in it—he doesn't distract with his acting, which is the best you could hope for in this situation. He even has a few moments of greatness in him. But the real joy is in the rest of the cast and the story itself. Every single supporting player is note-perfect and damn delightful. Whoever's playing Johnny Cash, for instance, deserves a nomination. Ed Norton earned the hell out of his nomination, as did Monica Barbaro. Elle Fanning was robbed! The final scene in Newport is bananas and worth the price of admission alone. I'm going to end up seeing this damn thing again.

🎥 Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists (Max)
You're going to read the description of this and think, why would I want to watch that? My answer is because journalism is dead, and we all need to be reminded of how important it used to be. It's astonishing how many seminal events these two reporters were either present at or an integral part of. They were both in the room at RFK's assassination—Pete Hamill was holding his body at one point. Breslin was the reporter that communicated with the Son of Sam, and the only journalist in New York who spoke out for the Central Park Five. It's ostensibly a documentary about two influential reporters, but much more so a chronicle of 20th-century America.

Alright that's all she wrote, folks. Stay warm and dry and righteously indignant.

xoxo,
Carla