This is a Newsletter #55
Newsletter recipients,
The year is coming to an end! Only a few weeks left. And you know what that means!!! Nothing in particular, for this newsletter! Books, movies, sports are Brad. All else is Rachel. Have a good weekend (or don’t it’s not my business!!)
I read The Alternative Detective by Robert Sheckley after Max Read mentioned it in his very good newsletter and I enjoyed it a lot. Funny and never-boring with elementally low stakes. Get hired to investigate a few things, talks to some guys who are maybe helping us and maybe aren’t, go to Europe, etc.
Interstellar (2014, Nolan)
there will be spoilers for Interstellar
Over the weekend we went to the Jordan’s Furniture Sunbrella IMAX in Reading, MA to see the 10th Anniversary re-release of Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece Interstellar. We saw it during its initial theatrical run at a regular theater and have watched it a handful of times since. When we upgraded to a bigger and better TV, we tested it first by watching the sequence on the water planet. But nothing compares to the Jordan’s Furniture Sunbrella IMAX in Reading, MA.
Staff members always get on the microphone before the show to explain where to exit, what the deal with the bathrooms and concessions is, etc. Sometimes, like before Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, they express discontent about what’s being shown—”We’re about to start Ant-Man 3 or whatever it’s called, I’m not saying the name”—and other times, like before Wicked, they add an additional PSA about decorum (no singing). Before Interstellar, after the business was taken care of, a second staffer took the mic to ask who was seeing the film for the first time. Observing the raised hands, she said “get ready for the best 3 hours of your life.”
While Interstellar was not exactly that, it was among the most spectacular movie-going experiences I’ve ever had. The Jordan’s Furniture Sunbrella IMAX in Reading, MA has a few things that distinguish it from anything else in the area. First, it’s massive screen size. It’s 80 feet wide and 60 feet tall, almost five times the size of an average theater screen and three times the size of the Assembly Row IMAX in Somerville. Second, it’s the only theater in New England with a projector that can show the IMAX’s full 1.43:1 expanded aspect ratio. Other IMAX theaters instead show a smaller but still-expanded-from-normal 1.9:1 aspect ratio.
Third, the Jordan’s Furniture Sunbrella IMAX in Reading, MA has “butt-kickers” in the seat, a personal subwoofer that booms and rattles and shakes your seat during loud and exciting moments.
Annoying men (like me) who are excited about specs are excited about these things because they make cool and exciting shit like the last third of Top Gun: Maverick even cooler and more exciting. And if that’s all it was good for, well, dayenu. But in the case of Interstellar, Nolan, perhaps the world’s foremost evangelist for these sorts of tools, makes the spectacle subordinate to the movie’s earnest argument about the power of love. In certain cases, like the crew’s perilous time on a doomed planet where every hour is seven years on earth, he overwhelms and exhausts with viewers with an all-encompassing wave and a bone-rattling escape. Where other filmmakers might let viewers catch their breath, Nolan goes almost immediately to the famous (or infamous, if you’re a hater) scene where Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) watches his childrens’ lives pass before his eyes.
It seems obvious that you would use the spectacle to feed the emotional, but few filmmakers have the skill and fewer have the resources to put an audience in the character’s position in such a visceral way.
This give-and-take between these poles reaches its apex as Cooper reaches the singularity, the point of infinite density in the black hole. There he finds a 3D representation of his daughter Murph’s childhood bedroom, which allows him to travel through time and communicate with her via morse code. This is the point at which the movie loses a lot of people, and it’s hampered by the Nolan Brothers’ overly-straightforward dialogue explaining the mechanics. But in the IMAX theater, enveloped by the massive screen and sound, I really just feel it. It feels like I am watching love transcend space and time to save the world. It is hokey and lame and mockable except for the fact that it really feels true. Loving one another is what makes us human and loving one another is the only thing that can save us. I don’t know if that means it can transcend space-time! Not my business.
Every time I see Interstellar I like it more and more. And they’ve added more showings at the Jordan’s Furniture Sunbrella IMAX in Reading, MA so you can see for yourself, too.
In other news, Sex Lives of College Girls is back on MAX. As you may remember, Renee Rapp decided to leave the show to pursue music full time, so she has been replaced by a new college girl. I have a passing familiarity with the replacement — Gracie Lawrence — because she is the lead singer of a somewhat popular band (1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify) that posts a lot of TikToks.
I guess it’s important to the showrunners that one of these four girls has something of a music career off-screen! The band’s name is Lawrence, and I have always found their music a little annoying. They describe the sound as: “mostly soul-pop music with some hints of funk, R&B, and rock and roll.” Isn’t that kind of annoying? Idk. Someone on TikTok said they make music destined to be in Old Navy commercials, and I thought that was funny and mean and accurate.
Anyway so far the season is fine. Feels like we’re having a little bit of a hard time getting off the ground but I’m still tuned in and laughin’ a bit!
The Ultimatum is back on Netflix! (In the next paragraph, I have a mild spoiler.) This is where a bunch of couples shuffle partners and live with a new person for three weeks. They do this because half of them are facing an ~ultimatum~ of marrying their current partner or breaking up. The idea is that living with a new person will make you realize whether or not you want to commit to your current person.
Obvi what it actually does is cause dramaaa!!! SPOILER, but if you’re still reading… in the first batch of episode, two couples have already quit! They snuck away and left with all their things in the middle of the night! Thanks Netflix!
Newsletter subscriber Matt flagged a benefit album for us called TRANSA! It is benefiting trans rights & awareness and features Jeff Tweedy, Faye Webster, Julien Baker, Bill Callahan, Andre 3000, Perfume Genius, Sharon Van Etten, Ezra Furman (who actually lives in Somerville, fun fact), Fleet Foxes, Sade, Sam Smith, and many more. Very nice!
Well well well, look who ruined her attention span by watching too many TikToks.
I don’t really know if that’s true. I have a good attention span for things that interest me, and I don’t have a good attention span for things that don’t interest me. Is that so bad?
It also seems to be a sliding scale: when I was working and in school, I found my schoolwork far more interesting than my work work. Now that I’m in school and not working, I find redecorating my house more interesting that my schoolwork. Nothing makes me more creative and productive than procrastinating something else.
So I’m using one of those dumb little Pomodoro timers to get my work done. You can flip it around to set a timer for 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes, and I often find that when I feel that I have been working for an eternity and need a quick break to see what my phone has to offer…it has been 9 minutes. And that’s much of the value of the timer. You can ask yourself to work for 15 minutes straight, Rachel, really.
And usually, once I set that timer and actually dive into my work, I can work relatively uninterrupted for a long stretch of time. It’s just about getting started. Thank you to the timer. You could buy a physical one, or you could use this website if you want. (Of course, you could also use your phone, but…slippery slope.)
On the one hand:
On the other:
lol
Until next time,
R&B