Everything we canât stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
[Manage newsletters]( [View in browser]( [The logo for Daily Beast's Obsessed] Everything we canât stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. with Kevin Fallon Everything we canât stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. with Kevin Fallon This Week - One of the yearâs best acting performances. - I screamed at this Christmas commercial. - I cried at this Christmas commercial. - Englandâs must-see new play. - The best celebrity statement Iâve ever seen. Attention, Oscar Voters There are times when you sit down to watch a movie and, almost immediately, you know youâre in. In the case of [May December](, that happened after about five minutes, when [Julianne Moore]( opens a refrigerator, a dramatic music cue plays, director [Todd Haynes]( zooms in on her face, and Moore says with utmost seriousness, bordering on terror, âI donât think we have enough hot dogs.â This moment spoke to me because I, too, often fear that we donât have enough hot dogs. (Thatâs not a joke.) But it also set up what would be the filmâs magic trick. Itâs a tense drama about whatâs to be gained and lost by dredging up secrets from the past, and also a darkly comedic thriller. It is campy without being ridiculous, yet almost shocking in its willingness to be goofy. And it is somehow both soapy and deadpanâplayed so straight and, sometimes even, listlessly, that the major story beats end up crashing through the screen like a wrecking ball. [Haynesâ film](, which is now on Netflix, is one of the [best of the year](, delivering what the youths I follow on social media would call a âmother-offâ between Moore and [Natalie Portman](, who perform a delicious dance of sisterhood and suspicion. While they are as great as youâd expectâI pulled out my best Oprah impression as I skipped out of the theater: âYou get an Oscar nod! You get an Oscar nod!ââmy favorite performance was from [Riverdale]( star Charles Melton. In a film full of surprises, the combination of this unexpected casting and the fascinating levels of emotionality Melton brings to the role is one of its cleverest. May December is loosely inspired by Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher who made headlines in the â90s after she had an affair with her 12-year-old student Vili Fualaau, had children with him, and later married him. If it wasnât directly based on this case, thereâs no audience member who wouldnât make the obvious connection. Although, maybe thatâs not true; I had a particularly harrowing conversation with a younger colleague in the industry who informed me he had never heard of Letourneau before. At that point, my knees creaked, my back gave out, my hair instantly turned gray, and I began yelling at strangers to âget off my lawn,â despite, in fact, not having a lawn. What must it be like, I wonder, to have gone through life without that womanâs face plastered on every grocery-checkout tabloid and TV screen? In this film, Moore plays Gracie, who became the center of a national scandal when, at age 36, she was caught having sex with 13-year-old Joe at the pet store where they worked. Itâs now 2015, and Gracie and Joe (Melton) have been together for 23 years, are married with children of their own, and are seemingly settled post-controversy in their community in Savannah. Thereâs going to be a movie made about their relationship, and the actress cast as Gracie, Portmanâs Elizabeth, arrives to shadow Gracie and meet the family. Her presence and her digging dredges up memories from the past that Gracie and Joe purport to have left behind, especially with their twins about to graduate high school. Of course, thatâs not the case. Especially when it comes to Joe, we see the toll that repression has taken, and the clarity that was stolen from him because he was so young when signed on for this life. Throughout the film, Haynes employs jolts of humor to create distance from the monstrousness of the filmâs subject matter. Thatâs mischievous in its own right, creating an even more upsetting impact when weâre forced to confront the darkness head-on. When we meet Joe, Melton plays him at a fascinating juncture between arrested development and dutiful father figure; heâs so juvenile that Gracie still takes care of him, but tangibly wizened after two decades of raising children. As an audience, youâre tempted to assume heâs emotionally stunted at the age the affair began. So much so, that any moment that hints at Joe being a manchild elicits huge laughsâone moment in a hotel room with Elizabeth, particularly. But that just intensifies the tragedy. Elizabethâs digging forces him to excavate all the questions, confusions, and frustrations that he hasnât just bottled for 23 years, but which have fermented and complicated as heâs gotten older and earned perspective. His struggle to articulate themâto even feel themâis devastating; you see both the abused child and the resilient man, each needing closure that heâs not sure how to seek. Are we watching a 13-year-old unfamiliar with how to express such extreme emotions, his body trembling and uncomfortable as they combust? Or are we seeing a grown man terrified to unleash the darkness of the past, unsure of what would happen to himâand to his familyâif he does? Thereâs an element of âwho knew?â to the fawning over Meltonâs complicated, stunning work in these scenes. Heâs best known for Riverdale, a gloriously ludicrous teen drama that isnât exactly the kind of series youâd expect a prestige film director to cast his next star from, putting him in scenes with Oscar winners. The teen soap-to-Oscar movie pipeline is well-traveled, from [Michelle Williams]( (Dawsonâs Creek) to Shailene Woodley (Secret Life of an American Teenager). But we still have our biases that leave us amazed when it happens. I think Haynes is shrewdly playing with those expectations with this casting: Joeâs complexity is underestimated, so that when he does break down, itâs unmooring. On a meta level, whoâd have thought the guy from Riverdale would pull that off, and how fun is it to lavish in the success now that he did? Melton has already won the Gotham and New York Film Critics Circle Awards for his work. Hereâs hoping that the rest of awards season is fully stocked with hot dogs. Advertisement
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year It is my favorite time of year. I love the coziness of [Christmas](. I love the desire to indulge and celebrate. I even love the tinges of melancholy that creep into the merrimentâit makes the season more dynamic and human. Most of all, though, I love the incest. What was that? Youâre not familiar with that last holiday tradition? Allow me to explain: One of my absolute favorite parts of every year is when the Folgers coffee commercial âComing Homeâ resurfaces on social media. I have seen it countless times. I watch it each time it comes across my timeline. And each one of those times, I am still rendered speechless, flabbergasted, and stunned by what Iâve just watched. If youâre unfamiliar, âComing Homeâ began airing in 2009 and ran for three years before being preserved on YouTube as internet legend. ([Watch it here](.) The commercial starts with an attractive man being dropped off at a suburban house for the holidays after a presumably long time being away in, we later learn, âWest Africa.â He smells the Folgers coffee brewing and pours a cup, and then hands his sister a wrapped gift. She grins and pulls the bow off, placing it on his chest. âYouâre my present,â she says, smiling at him with a tinge of naughtiness. He grins back flirtatiously. You, at thome, scream in horror: âARE THESE SIBLINGS ABOUT TO FUCK???â It is baffling that no one at Folgers caught on to the palpable eroticism of the commercial and the bizarre sexual chemistry between its actors. Thereâs a fun oral history of the ad [in GQ](, where everyone involved claims to have been blindsided by the reaction to it. After anyoneâs first viewing, itâs impossible to see the commercial as being heartwarming (as intended), and anything but foreplay between two people who are about to rip each otherâs clothes off and get down and dirty by the fireplace. It is one of my favorite pieces of holiday content. Grab a Kleenex On the opposite end of the spectrum from the horny travesty that is Folgersâ âComing Homeâ is Chevroletâs new commercial, âA Holiday to Remember.â ([Watch it here](.) While inexplicably five minutes long and, at first, alarmingly corny, it eventually becomes so beautiful that you will absolutely cry. A grandmother who appears to have Alzheimerâs is having âmore bad days than good,â so, on Christmas while everyone is getting ready for dinner, her granddaughter goes up to her and says, âLetâs have a good day.â As John Denverâs âSunshine on My Shouldersâ plays, they drive past all the locations of the grandmotherâs fondest memories, with her perking up and coming more alive after each stop. Finally, she reunites with her husband, the two of them breaking down in tears, replicating exactly what was happening on my couch as I watched it. The best part? Not a single sibling came on to another. The Must-See Event of the Season It has come to my attention that Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Dorit Kemsley will be performing in a [stage production of Peter Pan]( in the U.K., with Boy George as Captain Hook and her children as two of the Lost Boys. She will, apparently, be playing a mermaid, a role I do not even recall from Peter Pan, but which has earned her major billing on the productionâs poster nonetheless. Beyond âWhat in the world?â and âWhose idea with this?,â the most pressing question surrounding this news is: âWho is going to fly Kevin to England to see this?â âTis the season for giving! We Are Now Sabrina Carpenter Stans There was a [mini saga]( this week when a priest who allowed Sabrina Carpenter, a pop star who I had barely heard of but is now the source of my extreme obsessions and devotion, to film a music video in a Brooklyn church. He was apparently relieved of his administrative duties after it was revealed that Carpenterâs âFeatherâ filmed there. In response to the controversy, Carpenter [told Variety](, âWe got approval in advance, and Jesus was a carpenter.â Stunning. Perfect. Never has there been a greater âstatementâ made about a scandal. No notes. This is now a Sabrina Carpenter fan newsletter. More From The Daily Beastâs Obsessed Everyoneâs talking about Saltburn, but the âshockâ over the movie has gotten out of control. [Read more](. Legendary action filmmaker John Woo is giving Hollywood another shot with his new movie Silent Night, and we got to talk to him about it. [Read more](. The surprising reason why The Simpsons fans fear replacing the showâs voice actors. [Read more](. [See This] - Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé: We knew this was going to be good. But itâs like good good. As in, like, a [masterpiece](. (Now in theaters) - Family Switch: Jennifer Garner in a new [body-swap comedy](? Be still my 13 Going on 30-loving heart. (Now on Netflix) - The Artful Dodger: What if Charles Dickens had seen Greyâs Anatomy? He might have written [The Artful Dodger](. (Now on Hulu) [Skip This] - Candy Cane Lane: Eddie Murphy, you are getting nothing but coal in your stocking this year. (Now on Prime Video) Like our take on what to watch?
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