Welcome back to our regularly scheduled newsletter! We quietly decided to take a break this past month to account for work trips and vacations. Hope you missed us!

This week, Daysia grapples with her former Gleek fandom and Hannah reviews Thor: Love and Thunder. Plus, some of the latest bonkers pop culture news.

Happy reading,

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Daysia and Hannah

This Week's Fixations

Daysia: Lea Michele’s casting and Beanie Feldstein’s departure from Funny Girl is a cruel joke turned into reality. Any former Gleek—or really, anyone familiar with Lea Michele—knows that Michele was basically born to play Fanny Brice. But she’s also a notoriously difficult and shitty person to work with, as former Glee co-star Samantha Ware has attested.

There has been turmoil at Funny Girl for months, and Feldstein’s been at the center of some fair but humiliating critiques. The production’s been losing money. Feldstein has been dragged for not being able to sing. She was kind of set up for failure, and it’s disappointing! And while Michele’s version will undoubtedly be good, I must ask: at what cost?

In a kinder, fairer world—in a different plane of this multiverse—we would have gotten a version of Funny Girl that looked like this:

I am, as always, thinking of and deeply missing Naya Rivera, especially when any Glee-related news is trending. We’ve just passed the two year anniversary of her death, and it’s still devastating! So to distract from the petty Funny Girl drama and to remember Rivera, I made this:

glee but it’s just naya rivera - playlist by daysiatolentino | Spotify — open.spotify.com

Listen on Spotify: (including duets) rip 🕊

Hannah:

Warning: some spoilers ahead for Thor: Love and Thunder!

Okay so… Thor: Love and Thunder, takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. It certainly was a movie that had its moments but that’s all it really seemed to be. Just a collection of moments together with a storyline that was hanging on by spit and a prayer.

The movie clocks in at about two hours which is relatively short for a Marvel movie these days. I’m not sure that more time would have fixed it but it might have allowed more of the emotionality of the film time to breathe and develop. You’re basically strapped into a rollercoaster of jokes and the absurd with no time left really for your heartstrings to be tugged. To be clear, I don’t think the more absurd elements of Thor: Love and Thunder are solely responsible for why it falls short. We have seen, just recently, how well absurd and maximalist style filmmaking can work with films such as the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once. Bao, the god of dumplings, and screaming giant goats are not why Love and Thunder didn’t work.

Thor: Ragnarok definitely set my expectations high, Taika Waititi was a refreshing change to both the Thor franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He embraced the inherent silliness of superheroes as a concept but also developed Thor more as a character and it was genuinely funny.

You can see some of those same elements replicated in Love and Thunder—the soundtrack, Valkryie’s dry humor, and the comic relief of Korg. Plus, the return of Jane Foster is a full circle moment, Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth have sizzling chemistry. Portman also makes a badass Thor.

Also in an unexpected twist, the use of the Guardians of the Galaxy actually endeared me to them more! I enjoy the Guardians movies but now I’m definitely excited to see them again and how their story develops.

Outside of the film, there has been recent coverage, including Twitter Discourse, on how removed Waititi and the cast are from the final version of the film. An example that got quite a bit of coverage was Tessa Thompson’s reaction in the middle of a scene as she was reacting to something that didn’t make the final cut as revealed by her and Waititi’s appearance in Vanity Fair’s “Notes on a Scene” series.

Apparently, it was even a surprise to Waititi and Hemsworth that Thor will return as we learn in the post-credit scene.

To summarize, I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch Thor: Love and Thunder but you can probably wait until it becomes available to stream on Disney+.

Has Lorde Dropped a New Album?

She's been busy while we were away! She went blonde. She released a music video for "The Path." And she said, "Fuck the Supreme Court!"

This week she scored nominations in the inaugural Rolling Stone New Zealand Awards.

ICYMI: Rina Sawayama’s latest single “Catch Me in the Air” is out now.

Too Many Tabs

Ana de Armas opened up to writer Marisa Meltzer about escaping L.A., shooting The Gray Man, struggling in her public relationship with Ben Affleck, and finding her place in the film industry for Elle.

Sabrina Carpenter broke down a few songs from her upcoming album with Rolling Stone's Tomás Mier. She also spoke about stepping out of the Disney mold and freeing herself from how others perceive her.

GQ's Gabriella Paiella interviewed The Bear's Jeremy Allen White about dealing with the sudden influx of thirsty fans, his family of performers, and the appeal of Carmy (who, he confirms, does not fuck).

Plus... Ken is a scrub!, Khloe... we're here for you babe, Constance Wu opens up about online harassment (cw: suicide attempt), two unexpected pieces of Armie Hammer news, a new Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer project, what will likely be a very good and very hot movie (directed by Bong Joon Ho!), and Ezra Miller did not get into a fight with Austin Butler, despite the rumors.