09/11/20
TRENDS THIS WEEK
☞ YouTube: Lady Gaga VMA Performance
☞ Letterboxd: Tenet
☞ TikTok: #welcomeweek
☞ Spotify: Over Now _ Calvin Harris ft. The Weeknd
☞ Netflix: Cobra Kai
☞ Twitter: #ChadwickBoseman
LIFE + CULTURE
Hackers are making millions by stealing Fortnite accounts. The accounts are being sold in a black market specifically dealing in stolen video game accounts, which makes over a billion dollars annually. The average stolen account goes for 200-250 dollars, while some accounts are sold for thousands.
Disappointed in the labor day weekend traffic? Same. But thankfully flying cars are almooost here. Toyota-backed company SkyDrive conducted its first public test flight this week in Japan. The car--which looks extremely futuristic, btw--is projected to land in a commercial market in 2023. The developers are hoping that flying cars will create a world with less traffic, especially in crowded cities.
Speaking of flying, David Blaine flew across the Arizona desert holding on to 52 helium balloons this week. Blaine is a YouTuber previously famous for his magic tricks and scaring celebrities by storing amphibians in his organs. His balloon stunt, which he dedicated to his daughter, went viral on Wednesday after he streamed it live. Watch the uplifting footage here. In even more flying news, a pilot flying into LAX informed the airport that someone on a jet pack flew by his plane on Sunday, and the FBI is now investigating.
With many colleges keeping classes online this year, students are finding ways to adapt. Some students are still choosing to live with their classmates in the cities that their colleges are located in, while others rented Airbnb homes in places like Hawaii and Montana in search of new experiences. Living together, even off campus, gives students the opportunity to work together and “recreate campus camaraderie”. Read more about the shift in Taylor Lorenz’s piece here.
Two TikToks that brought me joy this week: this Halloween costume idea i will in fact be stealing, and this 6 second slice of perfection.
FILM
I’m experiencing a serious internal dilemma as I try to pick which film to watch first this weekend: Niki Caro’s MULAN or Charlie Kaufman’s I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS. Wildly different films, but hey, I contain multitudes…
I’ve been anxiously anticipating MULAN ever since I first heard that they were making a live-action remake without Mushu or the original songs. While this initially felt like blasphemy, I’ve gotten pretty excited for Niki Caro’s reimagining of the Mulan story, which pays homage to the visuals of Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and other titans of Chinese cinema.
I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS, looks like textbook Kaufman - by which I mean I have absolutely no idea what to expect. Between the all-star cast (why aren't Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons movie stars yet?!), the incredibly trippy trailer, and last month’s WILD profile of Kaufman in the New York Times Magazine, I. cannot. wait.
TV
Some of my favorite guilty pleasures are back, even during quarantine! Both BIG BROTHER (a celebrity edition!) and LOVE ISLAND have both found creative ways to continue amidst the pandemic. Highly recommend watching for an escape from our own reality.
THEATRE
September 17th is the next installment of Paula Vogel’s “Bard at the Gate” virtual play reading series. Next up is Eisa Davis’ Pulitzer-nominated play BULRUSHER, starring PS fave Andre Holland. Set in 1950s San Francisco, BULRUSHER follows a young girl - multiracial, orphaned, and clairvoyant - in a predominantly white community who discovers a new sense of self when a Black girl from Alabama moves to her town. Tune in HERE!
COMIC
LONELY RECEIVER by Zac Thompson and Jen Hickman -- Catrin Vander, a lonely video producer, buys an Artificial Intelligence partner that's meant to bond for life. After ten years together, her holographic wife suddenly discon-nects without a warning. The breakup drives Catrin to the point of near insanity. She's alone for the first time in years and reeling from a loss she can't comprehend.
This new series is filled with so much honesty. It has all the shades of HER and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, but with a different enough twist that it feels completely fresh. Through Catrin’s relationship with this artificial intelligence, she forces us to question what it means to truly love another individual and the balance between independence and freedom in a partnership. This is a great read for millennials and gen Z as they try to redefine relationships in 2020.
BOOK
Everyone’s favorite woman-behind-the-curtain, Elena Ferrante, is back with her newest standalone novel. While I haven’t gotten to crack open my copy yet, I know that the aptly named THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS explores the cycle of lying between parents and children, who then grow up and lie to their own children. In classic Ferrante fashion, the characters are lying about all the good stuff: sex, infidelity, and the awkward fumblings of adolescents. If you’re looking for a juicy escapist Labor Day read, I just found it for you. You’re welcome.
PODCAST
Because we stan Imperative this week we want to highlight... THE SYNDICATE a 10-part narrative series about a group of college friends who took advantage of Colorado’s medical marijuana laws to create one of the longest, most lucrative smuggling runs in U.S. history. Under the guise of running medical marijuana grow houses, the group trafficked thousands of pounds of pot out of state for sale on the black market—and raked in cash. So much that it filled up their closets and offices. They threw bags of money with GPS trackers off cliffs in the Rocky Mountains with the intention of picking them up later. The good times couldn’t last. When a drug mule flipped, the whole scheme came tumbling down. Within months, SWAT team officers and DEA agents kicked down the doors of 32 individuals around Denver. In the ensuing plea deals and manhunts—what has become known as “Operation Golden Go-Fer”—the Feds realized that the smugglers had redefined what it means to be a criminal organization in the era of legal weed and that the marijuana black market is not just evolving, but thriving.
SHORT FILM
HANDHELD by Pisie Hochheim & Tony Oswald. It’s fair to say I am a sucker for any mother son story. Pisie and Tony’s short is narratively simple. It’s about a boy and his single mom who find a handheld camera in their attic and start to watch the old footage. The footage is of the boy’s father and sends the two of them down memory lane. It’s a relationship driven short which is often hard to pull off when you have such limited time. Recommend this one for the tears it may bring!!