#39: I had heart surgery, give me attention
Death By Consumption
1/28/25 - 2/3/25
I am currently recovering from — as I must admit I have enjoyed dramatically saying all week — some minor heart surgery. I had an ablation at the end of last week, which the doctors and nurses assured me was routine and actually not that big a deal. (But that's very easy to say when it's not your heart.) I'm fine, though, really, please don't send any gifts unless you feel deeply compelled. (Cash is fine!) Did you know they do outpatient heart surgery these days? Modern medicine is wonderful, someone please tell RFK! Recovery has been surprisingly chill, just a lot of lounging around mostly, and I'm looking forward to testing out my new-and-improved heart by screaming at health insurance reps on the phone all month.
In the weeks before, I worked myself into a manic terror, obsessively reading Reddit posts from people who had undergone this procedure, or talking to people who had it (turns out there are a lot of us — we're the true silent majority!). I was informed that I would most likely be awake for a portion of the operation, particularly the most uncomfortable-sounding part, when the doctor would have wires poking around my heart to map its electrical system, while he injected my heart with massive amounts of adrenaline. "You can feel wires moving in your heart," someone told me. "Very sci-fi." I'd be strapped to the table, I was informed, and mildly sedated while I was pushed to the edge of a heart attack. Okay, great, sounds fun, can't wait!
Thankfully I was either sedated for the entire thing, or my brain has spared me from remembering the experience, because I fell asleep on the table and woke up in recovery. The most uncomfortable part of the whole thing, it turned out, was the prep. Because the way they get to your heart is by going through your groin, the first step when I got to the hospital was a nurse had to — I'm going to have to say a word here that neither of us are going to like — shave my genitals. And, really, I'm sorry if this is TMI, but it feels urgent to impart that she didn't finish the job. She only shaved either side, the areas they might need to cut into, which means, essentially, what I am getting at here is: she gave me a landing strip. ("You lil slut!" my friend texted when I revealed this distressing update.) I feel like a shameful dog coming home from the vet with a random rectangle shaved out of his fur. I know this is a lot of information for you to take in, but I feel like we're friends and you can handle it.
Anyway, this is all to say I'm in the midst of a week where I've been instructed to do nothing, so I've spent most of it horizontal on a couch. Which means we have a lot of consumption to cover!
Secrets & Lies (1996) — on MAX
My first Mike Leigh movie, and within 15 minutes of starting I understood why film people are obsessed with him. This was a genuine masterpiece. His ear for dialogue is unmatched, and the natural performances are stunning. This is such a lived-in world, with deeply real characters. It's one of those films that is so perfectly made, so funny and tender and just good, that there really isn't anything interesting to say about it. It's perfect! I guess I will now be watching every Mike Leigh film I can find. I'm sorry it took me so long, I didn't know!
The Apprentice (2024) — on AppleTV
I'm going to say something really brave: Donald Trump is not a deep person. So what is there to be learned from a 2+ hour exploration of the beginning of his evil career? Not much, it turns out!
I watched The Apprentice and waited for the reason for its existence to become clear, and it just never did. I suppose the point of it is to see Sebastian Stan play Trump to perfection — he absolutely nailed the way he speaks and moves, and somehow did it without ever once crossing into parody — and to watch Jeremy Strong do what he does best, which is to pour all his weird little freakness into a weird little freak role. They're both absolutely incredible in this, genuinely delivering two of the performances of the year, but they're doing it in a movie that has no reason to exist.
Did you know Trump was evil? And Roy Cohn was, too? And that our entire country is built on flimsy laws and slapped-together societal norms that have just been waiting for someone shameless enough to destroy it all?
Elton John: Never Too Late (2024) — on Disney+
A mediocre, ambling documentary that remains extremely watchable thanks to Elton's sheer charisma and, of course, the music. (At several points, when Elton would get behind the piano and start belting, I had the thought that this wasn't 100% safe to watch 48 hours after heart surgery. The palpitations!) I can't say I'm an expert on the details of Elton's life, but even I felt like I already knew almost everything in the documentary. It's one of those films you watch with Wikipedia open on your phone, so you can dive deeper into all the moments they're skimming right over.
The highlight, for me, was the appearance of John Lennon in the film, particularly the audio they played of his final appearance on stage with Elton, when Lennon refers to Paul McCartney as his "old estranged fiancee." So cute! Turns out John Lennon can always reliably steal the show, even from Elton John. Anyway, the original song he wrote for this film with noted elder abuser Brandi Carlile is fine, and I hope it wins him the Oscar over those Emilia Perez lunatics.
Elton John: Tantrums & Tiaras (1997) — on YouTube
After the new documentary, we immediately turned on this far superior documentary, also made by Elton's husband David Furnish. And, look, between both his Elton documentaries, I think it's safe to say David is not meant to be a director. Regardless of its shoddy quality, this film is an absolute must-watch. It's a hilarious, revealing behind-the-scenes look at a true diva at the height of his fame and power.
There are so many moments in here that are just perfect. Elton's tantrum in the south of France after a woman interrupts his tennis match! Saying Jennifer Tilly has a fat ass! Mercilessly critiquing a flower arrangement sent to him! He is such a brat, and I found it all impossibly charming. You have a certain image of what Elton John should be like, and it's genuinely lovely to see that the performance of being Elton John is a 24/7 operation.
What we really needed, this movie showed me, was an Elton John reality show. If he can make receiving a flower arrangement this entertaining, I would happily watch him just putter around the house all day. Imagine the shit he says off-camera. (Funny enough, in his 2019 memoir Elton talks about this documentary and blames himself for the Kardashians. America deserved an Elton reality show and instead got Kim and Khloe, and doesn't that kind of tell you why we're in this mess today?)
The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) — on AppleTV
This French remake of a story we all know has gotten incredible reviews, and though I'm usually loathe to watch a 3-hour movie, I have nothing but time this week. At first, I was impressed by the sheer spectacle of it — the ship budget alone must have been massive! — and the pace was great. They wasted no time setting up the villains and getting our hero into prison. But once he gets out of prison and becomes the Count of Monte Cristo, it's shocking how quickly the movie falls apart.
I know the subject material is famously difficult to translate to screen, with its sprawling cast of characters and overly complicated plot, but where the speedy pace worked in the first third, the last two-thirds of the film feel absolutely slapped together. Everything is in service of moving the plot forward, so who cares if the audience is able to follow. This is a big-budget, incredibly stupid, Netflix-ass film.
We're led to believe that, because money is no object to the Count, he can do incredible things, which we shouldn't question the reality of because: well, he has money! How does the Count of Monte Cristo hide his identity from the people he's seeking revenge on? Well, he hand-crafts the most lifelike masks you've ever seen, of course! Didn't you know they had Mrs. Doubtfire-level prosthetics in the 1800s? And when the Count has a secret to reveal, he does so in grand fashion, usually by pulling a switch in a wall that triggers a steampunk contraption to open up a trick wall in his manor. Is steampunk back?! We're truly going into a recession, aren't we.
The worst part, however, is the absolute disinterest in character development. The characters are cardboard cutouts, from helpless women to mustache-twirling villains. A major character just shows up 90 minutes through and we're supposed to act as if we've always known her. Suddenly Haydee is on screen, sobbing through a monologue about how she's in love with some dude, and you're just like: who the fuck is Haydee? And, for a movie about revenge, the vengeance the Count gets is rather feckless. You would hardly have even known he had finished his grand plans for revenge if the Count didn't mutter a very helpful, "One down, two to go..." to himself after each plan came to fruition. Imagine plotting and scheming for literally 20 years and then your ultimate revenge is, like, "Say goodbye to your government contracts!"
Still, I seem to be in the minority. People love this movie! (I have seen your positive reviews on Letterboxd and, yes, I am judging you for it.) I fear this is a symptom of how thoroughly Disney and Marvel have poisoned the well. Or maybe it's just that people think a movie with subtitles means it's of a higher quality? Either way, I suppose it's somewhat refreshing to see that even the French can make terrible films.
Cecil B. Demented (2000) — on Criterion
"Death to those who support mainstream cinema!"
While the majority of people enjoy the mess of The Count of Monte Cristo, for the rest of us there's always Cecil B. Demented, John Waters' hilarious, twisted send-up of Hollywood. This movie is so stupid, and gross, and funny, and genius — so, you know, just classic John Waters. The star power alone is shocking and vintage 90s: Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, a baby-faced Maggie Gyllenhaal, Adrien Grenier huffing paint, Michael Shannon playing gay and very horny, Ricki Lake!, Dan Aykroyd playing Forrest Gump!, Patty fucking Hearst! If this movie isn't mandatory in film classes, it should be.
Great Expectations, by Vinson Cunningham (2024) — library ebook
I don't know why I chose the days after heart surgery to torture myself with two pieces of media based on two former presidents I have varying levels of disdain for, but I suppose I'll chalk it up to misery loving company. This book, which relives the 2008 Obama campaign (who is only named the Senator or the Candidate) through the lens of a campaign worker (who isn't author Vinson Cunningham but basically is) has, like The Apprentice, no reason to exist.
Autofiction is always annoying to me in principle, though there are exceptions, but Great Expectations commits the worst sins of the genre. It feels like it was written as a memoir and then changed at the last minute by lawyers. The choices on who is named and who isn't feel haphazard, or like Cunningham is worried about lawsuits. Is the fact that Obama is never named a stylistic choice, or a legal one? Why are some people given barely concealed anonymity, while others, like André Leon Talley, appear as fully named characters? Is it because André Leon Talley is dead? And, beyond that, what are any of us doing here?
Vinson Cunningham is clearly a skilled, beautiful writer, but he uses it in service of these meandering passages that pick up threads as quickly as they're dropped. We frequently leave the core plot for endless dissections of Biblical parables, or, randomly, a chapter on the NBA that, I have to admit, I completely skipped. You can't surprise me with basketball analysis 200 pages into a book! I'm suing.
The grand title, the historic subject matter, the insider perspective, the "Pulitzer Prize winner!" sticker on the cover — much like Obama's presidency, this book carried a lot of expectations, and failed at nearly all of them.
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions, by Jonathan Rosen (2023) — hardcover
This long, discursive book tells the story of Michael Laudor, a childhood friend of author Jonathan Rosen, who grew up to have schizophrenia but went to Yale Law, where he briefly became the most famous schizophrenic in America (Brad Pitt was set to play him in a movie), until it all fell apart after he went off his meds and killed his pregnant fiancee. It is, as you'd expect, a rough read.
Rosen spends a lot of time on the lead-up to the horrific crime, giving us probably too many details about his own childhood — no offense, but we're here for Michael, not you! — but the right amount of detail about the larger culture of mental healthcare they were both growing up in. Because, while the horrible crime is the hook of the story, the true tragedy in the book is the way our country treats mental illness. The book tracks the ups and downs of treatment, from forced institutionalization to deinstitutionalization to the "maybe the crazy ones are really the sane ones!" hippy philosophies of the 60s and 70s. It makes it clear that, though Michael is ultimately responsible for his act, the blood isn't just on his hands. It was a very, very depressing book to read during the RFK Jr. confirmation hearings, I'll just say that.