Something On Sunday.

Vacationing with Ari Aster, lost TV series, killing it on Letterboxd, road-tripping, the WNBA, feeling bad about books and a song.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m on a “vacation” back at the Portland Pied-à-Terre, and all that really means is that I’m watching more films and television than I was when I was not on vacation, which I know makes zero sense. But here I am.

It’s been both a wild ride and also very relaxing and that’s a good outcome no matter how it’s defined. On the downside, I’ve watched so many series that I’ve actually forgotten many of them already (probably a bigger issue there) and, because this is Portland, a very bad place to be if you’re trying to watch what you eat, I’ve watched myself eat lots and lots of amazing food (probably a bigger issue there as well).

That’s the short of it.

One of the more intriguing specifics of this time I’m having is that I’m sharing my vacation with Ari Aster. Not literally, of course, but because “Eddington” was coming out (you’ll notice I already wrote about that), I wanted to freshen up the Aster-specifics.

So I watched “Midsommar,” “Beau Is Afraid” and “Eddington” (the latter on a big screen in a great theater) and since I’ll never watch a pure horror movie like “Hereditary,” that’s where I stopped. But of course if you’re familiar with Aster then binge watching his movies is not really without danger, as his films tend to arc your brain. I will also add that while I had a short night’s sleep between the two, I essentially created for myself a double feature of the body-horror film “The Substance” from Coralie Fargeat and “Beau Is Afraid,” a combination that put a real strain on my Xanax and Prozac, so if you’re thinking about doing that (I mean, who would?), I would say think carefully.

(Quick side note on my ceaseless hatred of Substack’s editing platform: It will not allow me to write Coralie Fargeat with “t’s” and then her film, changing it every single time to … Target. Even if I x-out the autocorrection. It’s possible that this is how I will die.)

Anyway, life is interesting with Ari Aster and I will note a couple of reasons why after I drop in this cool photo of Portland’s beloved, cinephile heaven, the Hollywood Theatre:

Yes, Also saw “The Phoenician Scheme,” though not here.