Snack Time - August 25, 2022
sometimes you can't ask much of life
Snack Time: Cheetos à la Oscar Isaac
This week’s snack is… Cheetos. With chopsticks.
Look, sometimes you can’t ask much of life. Or of yourself! And that’s okay.
It’s been the first week of the semester at my day job, meaning emergencies (not mine), horrible traffic and parking (students struggle with things like roundabouts), and, for some reason, a new construction project in the building that has someone operating a jackhammer ten feet away from my desk. Overall, a “change my regular order from a chai to a dirty chai” kind of week.
Anyway, I eat Cheetos approximately 1-1.5 times per year. I have nothing against them; they are simply not my snack of choice 99% of the time. However, occasionally—and this usually coincides with a long night prior to a writing deadline—I need them.
There’s one distinct complicating factor to this, which is that I hate to have my hands dirty, dusty, or sticky. Cheeto dust? TERRIBLE. A NIGHTMARE.
Several years ago, there was a picture circulating of actor Oscar Isaac, wearing sweats and a beanie, midway through a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos… using chopsticks. This picture went viral for many reasons—primarily because everyone in the world (rightfully) has a crush on Oscar Isaac— but the chopsticks idea was particularly ingenious, and has stuck in my head. When I bought chopsticks for my silverware drawer a couple of years ago, I implemented the technique.
And what can I say? It’s a game-changer! The joy of a salty, cheesy snack with none of the downsides. No orange Cheeto dust fingers.
I bought my annual bag of Cheetos this week, and currently it is sitting on my desk, about 2/3 of the bag left, with chopsticks peeking out the top.
Sometimes you can’t ask much of life, but you can be a little kinder to yourself. This week’s recommendation: try out some chopsticks.
*Tilda Swinton Scottish Accent Voice* Stories
I saw two new releases this week. They were very different from each other.
Three Thousand Years of Longing has been a highly anticipated release for me. I’m a fan of its director, George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road, Babe: Pig in the City), and I liked the idea of Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba engaging in some sexy thousand-and-one-nights shenanigans.
The production is gorgeous, especially when Elba’s Djinn is sharing stories of his past. It’s lush and colorful and golden, the camera and editing carefully choreographed to whisk you into that other world. Swinton and Elba are excellent, but the real stars are the many talented actors who appear in the stories, many of whom never speak a line in English.
However, the film didn’t land for me. I admired its ambition, but felt it needed to be either more austere or more propulsive, instead of lingering between the two. A few scenes were particularly cringe-inducing, a few due to a combination of fat-phobia and fat-fetishization that made the audience around me laugh and me feel like trash, and others due to the film engaging in the “magical negro” stereotype while not fully examining what it means for a white woman to have such power over an incarcerated black man. Many of these issues would have been null-and-void if explored with more nuance or emotion, but either because of the detached storytelling air or an unwillingness to engage with the complexities, they certainly remain problems.
What I found most lacking in the film, however, was what it promised to me in the title: longing. I’ve often said that longing is the most cinematic emotion, as evidenced by films like In the Mood for Love, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Age of Innocence— heck, even Casablanca. But Three Thousand Years did not give me any of that soul-achingly exquisite desire, and consequently fell flat.
I acknowledge that everything I’ve just said may seem like I hated the film, but I truly did admire it. I like it when a film tries for something, really goes for it. It’s a visual feast, engaging with a different type of storytelling than we normally see in theaters, and its ambition is somewhat intoxicating. So, while I can’t exactly recommend it (watch The Fall instead), I’m still excited to see what George Miller comes up with next.
As for Orphan: First Kill, I have much less to say about it. It’s schlocky, B-movie heaven. The premise is absurd, the twist even more so, and had me in open-mouthed disbelief and delight. If you’re a horror fan that enjoyed, say, Malignant… this one’s for you.
Did Lee Pace Post a Thirst Trap This Week?
Sadly, no. However, the incredibly talented Winston Duke did. You may remember Duke as M’Baku in Black Panther or the dad is Us, in both of which he did his part to remind us all that we shouldn’t skip leg day… cause, damn, those thighs.
Recommendation: Normal Gossip
I don’t listen to many podcasts, but I am very religious about the ones that have ended up in my rotation. A recent new addition is Normal Gossip, an incredible podcast hosted by Kelsey McKinney and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin. The podcast is… well, gossip! Listeners submit their best gossip stories to the show, and then after a rigorous anonymization process, McKinney shares a juicy gossip story to that week’s guest.
The stories are simultaneously wild and mundane. McKinney and Laughlin go to great lengths to choose stories that you can listen to guilt-free— they’re light-hearted, not exploitative, and never too dark. Every story is evidence of how foolhardy, petty, and ridiculous all humans are, and will have you laughing and gasping along. An added bonus is that at the beginning of each episode McKinney and the week’s guest spend some time talking about what gossip means to them and how it functions in society, which adds an element of self-reflection that is a great balance to the show.
If you’re looking for an episode to start with, I’d recommend Season 1, Episode 3, “Can I Say Something Bitchy? With Rachelle Hampton,” which explores the capital-d Drama of a knitting circle.