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PAIRINGS
TO WATCH
THE END OF THE TOUR (James Ponsoldt, 2012):
Most empathetic biopic catches the legendarily brilliant writer David Foster Wallace (Jason Segal, endearing, slightly hammy ) on the precipice of fame as he hashes it out with a smitten-yet-envious journalist David Lipsky (Eisenberg, perfunctorily squirrely) penning a story for Rolling Stone in 1996. At the heart of this adaptation of Lipsky's own memoir are just two literary dudes having a workweek-long sleepover, cushioned by yeti-sized black Labs and junk food and French noirs, trips to the mall and Alanis Morisette singalongs, trying to get warm in cars and trying to get laid, and through it all having what tops up as the Best Conversation I've Ever Had for at least one of them. Lipsky's words, verbatim, not mine.For some, including those closest to him, the mere existence of such a public depiction of DFW besmirches Wallace's sacrosanct privacy, crashing against what would have been the man's vehement protestation of such glaring spotlight and saintly illumination. It’s likely he would have shuddered to the bone and sweated off his bandana at the sight of Segel's oafish teddy bear.
None of this dents the film’s nostalgia factor, ratcheted up to a toasty 70 degrees like the inside of a car on a cold winter night, your fingers frozen from idly smoking cigarettes in a strip mall parking lot. This is approximately the mood of The End of the Tour, throwing you back to 16, 18, or 21-years old, sitting on your hands in the passenger's seat and having a laugh while you drive to the home of a friend, the one who had better snacks and absent parents. This, DFW would have appreciated.
DFW bristles wildly when Lipsky pokes around the subject of image and authenticity, his real-life Midwestern-guyness. While the novelist admits to prizing it, he remains adamant about its genuineness, which the film continues to reaffirm visually through his eating habits, uniquely American, as if there were any question. Burgers flapping in their paper McDonald’s bag with their tell-all crumple; sodas guzzled and m&ms palmed int your mouth; cigarettes butts and deep-dish pizza crusts in perfect symmetry on the Formica, perfect in its ugly fluorescence.
TO EAT
A dessert recipe that implements store-bought candy. Typically found on Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok, posted by the frighteningly-much-younger-than-you doyenne of dye-streaked desserts and other horrendous violations of culinary taste.
Alternatively, on a whim, drive to your alma mater or the outskirts of its campus. Saunter knowingly into the corner convenience store or big-box drug store, the one you sought out for salty and tin-foiled wrapped excess. Let each footstep land intentionally onto the tired linoleum while you diligently peruse the aisles. Once you’ve got the bounty, shovel thoughtfully, not rapidly, into your mouth before you switch gears.
TO WATCH
Coldness blasted through a modicum of words. techno glitches and swampy interiors. a black abyss and dilapidated houses. A non-mortal in ScarJo-clothing preys upon men in dreary Scotland, effectively depicting the plight of being a woman in a cruel world. A trans allegory, the alien female form. TO EAT
cherry tomatoes, blistered and charred. plus, croutons, dill, chilessquid ink pasta | hijiki, oyster mushrooms
vanilla sorbet with macerated cherries, birch liquor
served on onyx stoneware, glitter.
THE EASY WAY OUT
Slice of chocolate cake. In the movies, the ultimate test for non-flesh-and-blood beings is to keep the food down and prove you're a real girl. She doesn't.
TO WATCH
THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, as it turns out is the miasma of desperate ambition and compulsory workaholism spread thin between fame and celebrity, a stench more piquant and far-reaching than the dead bodies that typically populate your average film noir. Murder never figures into this movie, directed by Alexander Mackendrick; the only thing at risk of expungement is someone's professional career, which is a terrifying prospect for Jack Lemmon's harried press agent who hightails it around Manhattan (filthy in mind more than sight) for a job he hates to love and loves to hate. Strung tight, he's nestled like a bug – a parasite – under the well-polished heel of Burt Reynolds news columnist, a hulking mobster in intellectual's spectacles. Mackendrick captures with too-shocking clarity the underbelly of the hustle and that ravenous turmoil stoked from the dangerous addiction to not just succeed, but survive.
Today's PR industry looks downright tepid compared to the day's-work of the 1950s equivalents, who ricochet gossip across velvet banquettes in smoke-filled clubs and brazenly in front of wives, and plant rumors as easily as they plant evidence. The city feels darkly pitiless, morality as elusive as daylight. Indeed, it’s hard to recall a single sun-lit scene here. New York City gets festooned by shadows and swallowed by curly fog, but I might just be dizzy from the rat-tat-tat dialogue, richly dark, of trenchant exchanges. Each one of them needling in the ribs.
Among the choice quotables in a script filled with many: I wouldn't want to take a bite outta you, you’re a cookie full of arsenic. Meant as praise, and perhaps the highest in this noxious business and its hawkers of celebrity. Keep in mind: if you can make it here, you may not be able to live with yourself.
TO EAT & DRINK
A dirty martini or gibson to cut the city's filth and anesthetize yourself from it.
The recession special, two hotdogs and a beverage, from Gray's Papaya. a meal as iconic as the New York skyline, scrounged up as last resort when you're low on cash and short on time and patience.
Pink peppercorn ice cream, from il laboratorio del gelato. Creamy and mellow, but an acquired taste. Not quite as foul arsenic.
The recession special, two hotdogs and a beverage, from Gray's Papaya. a meal as iconic as the New York skyline, sc
TO WATCH
LIVING IN OBLIVION (1995): Tom DiCillo's oneiric film unfolds less abruptly like sleep paralysis and more elliptically like Groundhog Day. Watching this feels like being stuck in a revolving door of dank rooms that finally releases you onto a film set, where it’s Steve Buscemi who passes as the babe and not Dylan McDermott clad in a leather eye-patch. Dreams simply are the strangest.
Mobilized not with clumsy exasperation, but an energized directorial confidence, Buscemi’s character commands his way through shooting the movie, the plot of which rotates ninety degrees every thirty minutes. It's only by Living in Oblivion’s end that we can appraise its entire shape. This is a prime—and overlooked—originator of the New York school of a capital-I indie movie, where everything is dressed in a threadbare kitsch and twists of garish quirk. It's prankish without being hostile and among the least pretentious film-on-film meta-narratives you’ll encounter. Catherine Keener spends most of her screen time in a wedding dress, Peter Dinklage lampoons his stature, romantic entanglements erupt between crew members, and a broken fog machine wreaks low-level havoc on set. Bad coffee leaves everyone queasy, making it plainly evident that no one can wake from this dream even if they tried. But the question remains: would they even want to?
TO DRINK
BOURBON COFFEE MILK PUNCH. An impeccably potent combination of caffeine and alcohol to maintain that feedback loop of dreaming and awake. Snap out of it, or don't.
1.5 oz bourbon
2 oz milk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 tablespoon simple syrup
3 oz of ready-made cold brew or Chock Full O'Nuts left out on the counter in your dreary office
Shake all ingredients vigorously over ice. Strain into a styrofoam cup. Grate a dash nutmeg. Enjoy.