Bodies Bodies Bodies (Discourse Discourse Discourse)
Or, No More Andrew Tate's in the Building
Viewers, as I type this I am patiently waiting to watch the season finale of Only Murders In The Building, the Hulu original comedy mystery series, produced by and starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez.
When the series was first announced, all I could think was “one of these things is not like the other”. How could this show possibly work? Selena Gomez is such a young specific talent, and Martin and Short are two of Hollywood’s oldest working artifacts. If I want to see Steve Martin and Martin Short do anything, it’s this:
The concept of Only Murders — about three true-crime podcast fans who find themselves caught up in an actual true-crime in their NYC apartment building and thus attempt to create a podcast of their own — was strong and ripe for comedy, but the ploy to bring the older and younger generations of TV fans together through Gomez, Martin, and Short seemed too….corporate synergy to me. But nevertheless, I binged the first 3 episodes and fell in love.
The serialized nature of the TV murder mystery always enthralls me (I haven’t shut up about Mare of Easttown for a full year) and Only Murders is chock full of cliffhangers that had me screaming, but its the loveably bumbling characters who endear me to the story. I could watch 10 seasons of these three solving mysteries.
Guest performances from Nathan Lane, Jane Lynch, Amy Ryan, Jane Houdyshell, Jackie Hoffman, and Shirley MacClaine make the ride even more enjoyable.
I will edit with my thoughts on the season 2 finale.
Andrew Tate has been taking social media by storm, leading an army of “alpha-male” incels raging against the “females”, and promoting violence towards women to a fan base of millions. But his time on platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, has come to an end, as his accounts have been banned or deleted for violating the platforms’ policies. As I always say, the dimmest lights burn the briefest (or in most cases, way longer than you’d hope). I mean, just look at the material. This guy just screams “my father never hugged me and instead of coping in healthy ways I’ve decided to make violence and cigars my only personality traits and make it everyone’s problem”.
(Look at his stupid tattoo going around his nipple lol)
I went to see A24’s newest horror movie Bodies Bodies Bodies expecting a sharp contemporary horror flick, and I got that. I had a blast, and can’t wait to see it again. But I left the theater feeling off, because I had arrived not realizing the film was ultimately a satire. And as I’ve stated before to you, viewers, satire is dead. We killed it. We took it out back, shot it, and told our son it went to live at a farm upstate. Why? Because the discourse surrounding satire is always incredibly stupid. Don’t Look Up was an ok movie, made entirely unbearable by the Twitter discussions regarding its satirical look at our political and media landscapes.
Bodies x3 attempts to make a statement on the way Gen Z uses language around privilege, mental health, and other relevant topics. Whether you believe its a well-constructed statement is up to you, but objectively, this message comes out of left field near the end of the hour-and-a-half runtime. A long argument scene during the 3rd act stops the plot dead in its tracks, hilariously and without warning. I was confused by this shift in the plot, until I came upon this enlightening tweet.
This is the purpose of Bodies Bodies Bodies: to examine inflammatory language in a thrilling and unexpected medium, through narcissistic flawed characters.
But there was one NYT critic who didn’t see the film this way.
Lena Wilson is a NYT film critic — who many have noted is the nepotism baby of a NYT writer — who slammed the movie, reducing it to “Euphoria with knives” and calling it a “95-minute advertisement for cleavage”. One of the film’s stars, Amandla Stenburg, sent Wilson a hilarious takedown through Instagram DM, messaging “Ur review was great, maybe if you had gotten ur eyes off my tits you could’ve watched the movie.”
The review is a joke. Wilson barely mentions the superb performances from Stenburg, Rachel Sennet, Maria Bakalova, Lee Pace (WILDLY underused here), and even Peter Davidson; or the impactful camera work from director Halina Reijn and cinematographer Jasper Wolf. Wilson disregards this in favor of criticizing the language, tone, and morally askew characters; completely missing the point by a mile.
I ultimately hope people seek out Bodies because of this story, even if they leave the theater confused but curious, which is a better reaction to have to a movie than that of a Lena Wilson, who left angry at boobs.
This week’s Prelude is dedicated to this post from Ethan Hawke that made me tear up, and to viewers like you thank you
Here’s this week’s Offering: