Hi friends,

I moved this week and I still feel a bit like a crazy person. My goodbye to Chicago was drawn out and incredibly bittersweet and still hasn’t fully hit me yet. I left behind a lot of wonderful friends and also the best one-bedroom apartment I will ever rent, probably. There is a lot to miss.

Among the things I’m going to miss, as ridiculous as it sounds, is my movie theater. In the least dramatic way possible, moving into my Lincoln Park apartment in June 2023 and discovering that the AMC NEWCITY 14 was a reasonable distance away changed my life a little bit. Trips to my beloved AMC became a routine and a science - I left my house 30 minutes before showtime if I wanted to walk, which I usually did, unless it was really raining. I walked towards DePaul and then all the way down Halsted, past the Ramen-San where I was always convinced I would see someone I knew and never did, past Alinea where I think they filmed some of The Bear and so I was always prepared to see Jeremy Allen White if the moment arose.

The AMC NEWCITY 14 (don’t you just love her full government name!) is located in a weird plaza next to a Mariano’s and above a Nando’s, where I once got a really subpar spicy chicken caesar wrap to sneak into the theater. Near the entrance, there’s a speaker hidden among a cluster of rocks that plays the shittiest of pop music at all hours. You have to take two escalators up to the theater, and at least one of them is usually broken. The ticket scanners are lovely and never once asked me what was in my tote bag (usually a water bottle and a Ziplock of microwave popcorn). There were typically maximum two people in the special A-List concessions line, if I was being naughty and buying a $9 cherry slushy with my rewards points. The actual theaters didn’t have the squashy reclining seats, but they were comfortable enough. I sat in seat K16 almost always.

For my last Sunday night in Chicago, I convinced an unexpectedly large group of my friends to come see the new I Know What You Did Last Summer with me, on the grounds that it “wouldn’t be that scary” and “has a lot of hot people in it.” We smoked a very interesting orange-infused joint in my living room and then walked to the theater. It was a little too hot outside but I stopped noticing it. Walking into the air-conditioned dreamland of the AMC lobby felt, inexplicably, like welcoming my friends into my living room.

In terms of the movie itself, I had a nice time. It looked pretty good, everyone was wearing cute outfits (Chase Sui Wonders’ little green set!!), and while the kills weren’t especially creative, there were enough requisite blood and guts to keep me (a sicko) entertained. The standout by a mile was Madelyn Cline, who was surprisingly perfect playing the ditzy Helen-Shivers-Reincarnate best friend character. It’s a similar performance to what she did as the dumb hot alt-right girlfriend in Glass Onion, but that isn’t a bad thing. Let pretty people have a niche! Her comedic timing is solid and she’s nice to look at!

The rest of the cast is fine. Chase Sui Wonders is woefully misused playing the very boring final-girl-next-door, but I won’t hold it against her due to her extremely funny and weird performances in The Studio and Bodies Bodies Bodies. Everyone else is rather unremarkable. But I still had a wonderful time watching this dumb ass movie. If you took a shot every time a character says “diva” you’d be dead in about 40 minutes, and I think that’s beautiful, in a way.

As expected, I was the only one of the group I went with who enjoyed the movie, but it certainly gave everyone something to talk about/make fun of. Shitty horror movies bring people together! It’s a tale as old as time! There was truly no way I could have spent my last Sunday that would have made me happier than making my friends watch a bad and disgusting movie I endorsed. Life is beautiful.

P.S.

The Summer I Turned Pretty

This show is ragebait at this point. Oh, my god. I know I’m supposed to have some degree of understanding for Belly (it’s a college rite of passage to do unadvisable things in the name of love), but I am begging her to LEEEEEEEAVE CONRAD OUT OF IT. Let that sweet doctor man and his sexy little watch retreat to California in peace. In other news, I’m fascinated by (not supportive of) the choice to give Belly’s parents an It’s Complicated plot. The adults on this show are as ridiculous as the teenagers. However, I cannot lie and say I didn’t absolutely love this week’s extra-long Conrad POV episode. I’m not ashamed to say I cried during the peach stand scene set to The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses.” This is why we’re here.

Whisper of the Heart (1995)

I enjoyed the hell out of this criminally underseen Ghibli movie about a girl who discovers that someone has been checking out all of the same library books as her. There’s an enemies-to-lovers plot, there’s a weird antique store, there’s a mysterious cat. The animation and the score are so enchantingly beautiful, and they also play the song “Country Roads” like 30 times over. I felt very emotional about this. Please watch it.

Trailer Watch

• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You: Rose Byrne is one of the most underrated actresses we have! She can do it all! This movie looks excruciating and fantastic!

• Jay Kelly: George Clooney playing some sort of alternate-universe version of himself seems like a great idea to me. What a cast.

• HIM: I’m pretty intrigued by this Jordan Peele-produced movie about the horrors of being a professional athlete, starring I Know What You Did Last Summer’s Tyriq Withers. A Julia Fox sighting in the trailer doesn’t hurt!

That’s all, off to go eat too many $1 oysters!

xoxo, Lael