The Kids Are All Right, Somehow
Yellowjackets, The Sex Lives of College Girls, The Marrow Thieves & more.
Hello there,
For reasons I can’t explain, I’ve been leaning into more dark entertainment even as we find ourselves in the middle of a particularly dark moment of the pandemic.
Watch
On a scale of dark content from one to 10 — one being “Care Bears” and 10 being “Silence of the Lambs,” Yellowjackets (Showtime) is an eight or nine. It’s so dark that watching (the very excellent) Station Eleven after it feels like a palate cleanser.
I don’t care for the horror genre, and it treads a bit into this territory, but the story is so compelling that I’ve happily watched it. It’s about a high school soccer team that gets stranded in the wilderness after their plane crashes, and what happens to the survivors in adulthood. Juliette Lewis is getting a lot of the buzz around it, but Christina Ricci is the one who really knocks it out of the park.
For lighter fare, Mindy Kaling has another fun teen comedy out with a self-explanatory title: The Sex Lives of College Girls (HBO Max). The disastrous, unwatchable new Sex and the City series wishes it could be this: funny, relevant, of the moment, and endearing.
If you want something really light that also brings a measure of relief from making you weep copiously, the new season of Queer Eye (Netflix) is out. I especially loved the episode where they surprised a high school class.
Read
The Marrow Thieves is a quick, heart-wrenching YA read about a post-apocalyptic Canada in which climate change and disease have destroyed the planet and rendered humans unable dream — except for Canada’s indigenous people. As such, they’re hunted down and put into new versions of residential schools. The story focuses on a group of mostly children and teens who came together since everyone was on the run to escape imprisonment. And while it takes place in a dystopian future, so much of the book really echoes the past and present. I’m already onto the second book, Hunting by Stars.
See the full list of recommendations.
Follow
Blake Angeconeb is an indigenous artist from Canada who makes Anishinaabe prints, and sometimes combines the style with pop culture.
Do
I recently joined my local Buy Nothing group on Facebook, and I really recommend it. In these hyperlocal groups, people give away things for free, or ask others if they have a specific item they could have for free. The variety of items is just wild. While some things are likely destined for the trash or are even perishable, I’ve seen people give huge furniture items, like a new-ish queen bed and barely used mattress, a stainless steel refrigerator, and even a telescope.
Until next time,
Rachel