The long awaited show from It Girl Rachel Sennott, full of all her It-People friends (Jordan Firstman, Odessa A’zion et al). A group of quirky misfits like, totally, trying to make it in LA via influencer-adjacent cringe activities is a tale as old as time, but hey, I do love LA. 

Writer Vince Gilligan is best known for creating THEE Breaking Bad BUT before he was a ~*~*prestige ~*~* drama creator, Vince was but a lowly writer on the greatest show of all time aka The X-Files aka the OG OTP. All this is to say, in Pluribus (er Plur1bus?) he is leaving his drug days behind and returning to his sci-fi ROOTS. In Pluribus, an (alien??) virus has taken over the world, making everyone inexplicably happy…except for grumpy Rhea Seehorn whose bad attitude makes her humanity’s de facto savior. I will be honest with you, I don’t really see the problem here and am ready to succumb to the happy virus, kind of seems like a nice change of pace. But I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, Vince!

As my loyal (as of three months) readers know, my passion for The Pitt sent me back in time to central-line the glory of ER. But what if you could go even further back in time to when modern medical techniques were still being invented, like in 1900 by an opium addict!  The Knick is a medical miracle — starring Clive Owen, introducing Andre Holland, with every episode directed by the GOAT Steven Soderbergh.  These new age doctors rely too much on “antibiotics” and frown on “injecting drugs into your feet.” Not so at The Knickerbocker Hospital of New York, my friends! 

Content Warning: Everything

We stan a woman succumbing to madness, especially if it’s J Law, ESPECIALLY if she’s married to Robert Pattinson ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if Lynne Ramsay is the conductor. It’s Feel Bad Fall and ladies — we are coming out of the wallpaper and creeping along the floor. 

The new movie from the director (Joachim Trier) and star (Renate Reinsve) now with Papa Skarsgård and the littlest Fanning. Papa Skarsgård is an aging film director struggling to reconnect with his adult daughters after a childhood of neglect through the medium and magic of filmmaking. Absolutely incredible acting across the board, including from a house.
More on this in my Film Festival supplement coming soon!

Pro: I love Edgar Wright!
Con: His past two movies have…been lacking
Pro: Seems timely!
Con: But we’ve already had many Squid Games
Pro: People love Glen Powell!
Con: But is that suspicious???
¯\(ツ)/¯

To continue to unceasingly tease my upcoming Montclair Film Festival supplement - mostly to ensure that I actually write it - doing a little tie-in. One of the movies I saw that I will feature in the supplement, that I am definitely going to get to writing right away, was No Other Choice, the new feature from Park Chan-wook. I am a Director Park stan from the beginning of his oeuvre (er from JSA, I haven’t seen the Cyborg one), but his films in the last ten years have just been all killer no filler. The Handmaiden is a loose adaptation of the novel Fingersmith, wherein a young (lady) thief starts working for a noblewoman in an attempt to get into her pants and thus her wallet. Erotic complications ensue, and when I tell you this movie is lush, beautiful, sexy, and Director Park really likes to get weird with an octopus.

But Martha, this date is cleary October, when obviously this is the November blog — how could this happen? Agh I KNOW, you got me! I couldn’t believe I missed this somehow for last month, and during my full meltdown Alex reminded me that this is my blog and I can do whatever I want (huge if true). Even though it is anathema to me to break my own carefully constructed rules, I simply MUST put this in front of you -— whatever the cost to the natural order.

Philip Pullman is the author of the His Dark Material book series — one of the most important/influential in my life!  The Rose Field is the final book in Pullman’s Book of Dust supplemental trilogy and therefore the final chapter of the overall HDM world. The series follows Lyra, a plucky young girl who, like me this month, is also forced to confront the natural order of the world along with the physical animal manifestation of her soul, Pan (I have one of these as well). If you love talking animals, soft magical realism, and want to attack and dethrone god — these books are for you!!! 

Oyinkan made a splash with her first novel, the darkly comic My Sister The Serial Killer and is back at it again. Her new novel similarly explores themes of familial pressure, defining yourself as an individual, and trying to convince everyone you aren’t a reincarnated family member. These things happen. Oyinkan wields her wickedly sharp tone to flay open the family ties that bind us.

Continuing to really push my self-imposed boundaries here with a book that came out one month before I started the blog as ‘old’. But hey I am feeling wild and empowered to color outside my own lines I guess! You probably know RF Kuang for her bestseller Babel, which sees college students in a world where magic is invoked by language translation, confront systematic racism in a hellish alternate Victorian era. Katabasis, by contrast, sees grad students in a world where magic is invoked by logic, confront systematic imbalance in literally Hell! Honestly, both books are so much fun, especially if you have also spent too much time in academia, read a lot of books, or tried to travel to Hell and back.

Kseniia the Rhinestone Lady
This Danish woman is decorating for Christmas by  gluing a rhinestone onto the side of her house for every follower she gets. I have been watching this from the first rhinestone and now she has almost  two full sides done. She 3D-printed her own rhinestone sorting device to put on sparkles faster, sometimes a rainy day thwarts the gluing.  There’s really not much more to it than that — but her steady pursuit of the project is incredibly soothing, and sparkly. If you give her a follow, she’ll be forced to glue on a rhinestone for you too!