It's Netflix Christmas time!!
PLUS: Disney+ Day, Taylor Swift directs a short film, SFF awards top prize to Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof.
The ‘Home Alone’ remake, which looks … not that good, ‘Home Sweet Home Alone is out! ⸂⸂⸜(രᴗര๑)⸝⸃⸃
I know it’s gonna be terrible but I kinda wanna watch it anyway! Also, after a month and a bit of being a lady of leisure, I’m starting a new job next week. I’m still hoping to do this newsletter (semi?) regularly though. Thank you for reading and for all of the support! <3333
🍿 What’s Shaking 🍿
🍿 The Sydney Film Festival awarded Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof the top prize for ‘There Is No Evil’, a film about the death penalty in Iran told across four stories. Rasoulof is banned from making films in Iran.
🍿 Taylor Swift has released a short film for her song ‘All Too Well’, which stars ‘Stranger Things’ actor Sadie Sink and ‘Maze Runner’s Dylan O’Brien. I love it partly because of the Jake Gyllenhaal tea (🐸🍵) but also because it is nicely shot and acted and is very personal. Swift captures very well the feelings of fleeting love and enduring heartbreak for a cute fckboi.
It’s very relatable as I too, went through a break up recently (with a job) that ended with a box of my stuff mailed to me sans my shoes! So I totally feel Swift getting her stuff mailed back without her scarf. While it’s not very subtle and one could argue the film is perhaps distastefully airing out one’s dirty laundry, the positive is basically everyone is now looking for Swift’s scarf and she may FINALLY get it back after 13 years.
🍿 Disney+ Day revealed a slate of even more content - among them -
‘X-Men ‘97’, ‘Wandavision’ spin off ‘House of Harkness’ and a Spidey series based on freshman year. Marvel also announced ‘Marvel Zombies’ - the spinoff from ‘What If’, ‘Ironheart’, ‘Secret Invasion’ and teasers for ‘Ms. Marvel’, ‘Moon Knight’ and ‘She-Hulk’. In the Star Wars IP, Disney revealed Obi-Wan and Anakin dueling again.
🍿 Speaking of - another ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ trailer is being released on Tuesday at a special fan event in LA, with promises of “big surprises”. Spidey Twitter is beside itself, Andrew Garfield has changed his tune to “we’ll see” when asked if he’ll appear, while here is Tobey Maguire is apparently holding the new film’s poster. Too much hype! What is going on!!
Related: Spare a moment for the guy who played Spidey in the 1970s TV show, Nicholas Hammond, who wanted to be in ‘No Way Home’ but wasn’t even approached. I mean, how would you feel? Elsewhere, Benedict Cumberbatch was also asked about Spidey, and Tom Holland has since said NWH will be “three generations coming together”, which sounds an awfully lot like there will be multiple Spideys.
🍿 Last week, Netflix released ‘Love Hard’, a Christmas rom-com starring Nina Dobrev (‘Vampire Diaries’) and Jimmy O. Yang (‘Crazy Rich Asians’). It’s so rare for Asian men to appear as leads in movies (Asians and Pacific Islanders account for less than 6% of speaking roles in Hollywood films), and even rarer in romantic roles. So ‘Love Hard’ was super refreshing in that sense. The film is about a writer (Dobrev) who writes a dating column and falls in love with a good looking dude from a dating app. She flies across the country to surprise him for Christmas and realizes she’s been catfished.
The movie is super cheesy and fluffy, but I don’t think you’d really expect anything else from a Hallmark/Netflix Christmas movie. Though I’m really stoked that Yang stars as the lead, ‘Shang Chi’s Simu Liu makes a really excellent point about representation in this interview (Liu is set to star in the romantic film, ‘One True Loves’):
So as much as I hear you about the importance of seeing Asian men as romantic partners, I think the greater goal is to just see Asian people as people – complete with dreams and aspirations, insecurities and secrets, who fall in love and get their hearts broken.
🍿 Last Shakes 🍿
Filming on ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3’ has started. Dr. Strange is undergoing reshoots. Paul Rudd is the world’s sexiest man, but Wong is clearly sexier. ‘Rogue Squadron’ is delayed, while ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 is confirmed. There’s a global translator shortage.
🐶 Pupdate 🐶
Rey at the pub last week:
Warmest virtual hugs
frankie’s MILKSHAKE CLUB