Mailbag for May 31, 2024
Jenny Nicholson is a video essay star, what is an A-Lister, Ben Affleck's on-set focus and gendered expectations, Angelina Jolie's 'Without Blood' (or a date), Karla Sofía Gascón’s fight, and more
Dear Squawkers,
The time has come to talk about Jenny Nicholson’s epic four-hour video essay about Disney’s now-defunct Star Wars’ themed Galactic Starcruiser Hotel. The video is entitled “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel”, and it’s been dominating online pop culture spaces for the last two weeks.
I have recommended long YouTube videos before, such as Mike’s Mic’s “unhinged” recaps of TV shows, and inevitably people are like, I can’t watch HOURS of that, I have a life! Yes, we all have lives, that is the curse of existence. Also, how quickly did you binge Bridgerton? People will literally binge hours of TV shows and balk at a long video essay. I do not get it!
I bring up Jenny Nicholson because 1) this was her first public video in a year, and 2) she CRUSHED it. Jenny Nicholson is the best kind of video essayist—I refuse to call her a YouTuber because that puts her on the same level as people who manipulate their children for clout, and what she does takes skill, creativity, and technical capability, and harms no one in the process. I do not give a hot shit about 80% of what she talks about, chiefly theme parks, but she is so engaging, so well researched, her thoughts so clear and concisely articulated, and presented in internet-friendly numbered lists, that I will watch anything she puts out.
A nearly four-hour video about a depressing fantasy theme park in Utah? Fascinating. Eighty minutes on pop culture-themed church plays? Compelling investigative journalism. Two and a half hours on The Vampire Diaries? I’m never going to watch it, please explain it to me. Her movie reviews—what initially brought me to her channel—are just as good, her deconstruction of Dear Evan Hansen is legendary. And if you’re looking for something shorter, she blows up Hallmark Channel’s fake female friendships in less than 20 minutes.
But the Star Wars hotel video is something else entirely. Perhaps it’s how you can FEEL her disappointment, how much she WANTED to have fun, how hard she TRIED to engage with the concept, and how at every turn, Disney failed her. But it’s also how she hammers home her point without ever belaboring it: Disney cut corners, and the experience suffered. Nicholson details the whole history of the Galactic Starcruiser concept, from early announcements and concept art to the depressing reality of the hotel itself. She covers the gap between intention and execution and illustrates how corporate cost-cutting undermined the whole project (Galactic Starcruiser has this in common with Evermore park).
It's an extremely well-done video essay, performed and edited beautifully, but also written very well. The actual scripting that goes into these videos is often overlooked, perhaps because so many video essays are meant to look off the cuff. Nicholson herself often films from her bedroom. Video essays are a new medium, and sometimes they get lumped in with the overall “YouTuber” or “influencer” labels, and while video essayists can certainly be both of those things, the effort, thought, and creativity that goes into these videos can be exceptional, and we should recognize it when someone’s work goes above and beyond.
That’s what Jenny Nicholson did with her Galactic Starcruiser video. She went above and beyond, dropping $6,000 of her own dollars to, in the end, detail what killed the concept hotel. And whether or not you care about Disney, or Star Wars, or hotels, it’s fascinating, and entertaining unto itself. If you haven’t already seen it, give Jenny’s video a try, or at the very least, watch her dismantle Dear Even Hansen, it is truly one of the best pieces of recent film criticism. Embrace long Youtube videos!
Onto the mailbag…
Question from Patty: Simple question --define A-list.
Sarah’s answer:
I don’t think it is a simple question! Because everyone’s answer is probably a little bit different, but to me, A-list denotes a SUPER DUPER famous person. Like, a capital letter Movie Star is about box office and motivating people to go see movies in theaters. But A-listers, to me, aren’t necessarily Movie Stars. Like people don’t really go see Jennifer Lopez movies, but she’s one of the most famous, recognizable women in the world, she co-chaired the Met Gala, she gets invited everywhere, etc etc. To me A-list is like if you held up a person’s photo on the street, most people would know who they are. That top tier of famous people that everyone knows, who can show up at an event, even or maybe especially for something they’re not directly involved with and stop traffic. But your definition might be different!
Question from MCarmona: Question about the Affleck situation. We don't know what's really going on but having the whole world focused on you, it's impacting his family life, sure, but also at work. He's in the middle of shooting a film, how do the producers or the powers to be deal with this? These kind of distractions/issues must be a liability, right? Your star is out of focus, troubled in his private life, can't imagine he's delivering his best performance ever (or maybe yes, it was a downer of a movie...) Anyway, I'd love to be a fly in the wall at Artist's Equity HQ rn and very curious about Sarah's insights.
Lainey’s Answer:
I don’t know that we can say that Ben Affleck is out of focus on set and not delivering his best performance. Oftentimes, and not just with celebrities, people can focus more at work when things aren’t going well at home because it’s a welcome escape from having to deal with your personal issues. I say this from my experience having observed performances in my adjacent industry on broadcast television.
Please correct me or point me to the source, but I don’t recall any reporting on the negative side related to Ben Affleck on the set of The Accountant 2. And I feel pretty confident in saying that his “distractions/issues” are NOT being seen as a liability. I’m laying out those two thoughts back-to-back because my point is this: if Ben Affleck were a woman? The answers to those questions might be different. If he were a woman, I’d not be surprised to see reporting on performance as a result of going through a divorce. If he were a woman, yes, there would more likely be whispers about whether or not she was a liability…even though “drama”, as we know, is not strictly a woman’s domain. But of course, there are all kinds of assumptions, across cultures, that women are not as good as compartmentalising drama as men. Which is why I appreciate your question so much, because clearly you don’t fall into that conditioning.
Another reason I appreciate your question is that it gives us an opportunity to discuss the difference in perception and attitude about men and women at work, period, but for our purposes as it pertains to Hollywood. A couple of years ago, during his crazy ass defamation trial against Amber Heard, Johnny Depp’s former longtime agent, Tracey Jacobs, testified in court about their relationship and his behaviour. She represented him for 30 years until he fired her in 2016.
Jacobs testified that over the last 10 years of her representation of him, Depp would habitually show up late to set. He ultimately got a reputation that made it harder to get jobs for him, she said. “Initially crews loved him,” she said. “He was always so great with the crew. But crews don’t love sitting around for hours and hours and hours waiting for the star to show up.”
You know what the key word is there? It’s “ultimately”. Because it was a fucking DECADE – a DECADE of habitual lateness! How many women can get away with habitual lateness before there are consequences? Would it take a DECADE?!
Brie Larson recently talked about shooting Captain Marvel and how the costume restricted her from peeing and how she had to figure out how to be able to pee efficiently.
“I can’t stand when people have to wait for me to go to the bathroom, so I’d have to time it out.”
This is a bodily function, it’s not a professional deficiency. And yet here she is, stressing about peeing because she doesn’t want to inconvenience people. But over on the other side of the spectrum there’s fucking Jared Leto, who was so “in character” on the set of Morbius he developed an artistic disability and walked and hobbled on crutches to the bathroom every time he had to go, holding up production for 45 MINUTES. Even though the man can walk perfectly fine. In fact HE SCALED THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING LAST YEAR TO PROMOTE HIS TOUR.
I am shouting about this because it’s enraging! An actor who puts on and takes off a disability – just act! It’s your job! You don’t have to suffer for real! – because he’s so “committed” to the role at the expense of his colleagues; that’s a whole crew waiting around while he fake-limped his way to the facilities to urinate. And what they ended up doing was putting him in a wheelchair – which he HAD TO APPROVE – in order to cut down on the time.
Jared Leto is not being called a liability. At least not in the industry. Those crew members, however, might have a few choice words for him. And still. Still, there’s probably no hesitation to cast that motherfucker in whatever project is coming next because even if he is a pain in the ass with distractions or whatever, they’ll say it’s worth for his talent.
Imagine if Jennifer Lopez put on an artistic disability and held up the set for almost an hour every time she had to pee? Oh, we’d hear about it. TikTok would be all over it. So, to go back to Ben Affleck – he definitely isn’t hurting reputationally on set over this marriage gossip. If anything, they’re blaming it on her.
Question from Molly: Question for Sarah - What is going on with Angelina Jolie's film Without Blood? Is there a release date? I feel like it wrapped filming in late 2022 so wasn't impacted by the actors’ strike?
Sarah’s answer:
Angelina Jolie’s fifth feature as a director is Without Blood, an adaptation of Alessandro Baricco’s novel. It was announced in early summer of 2022, and started filming in late summer 2022. It is penciled in for release later this year, BUT so is Angelina’s film with Pablo Larraín, Maria, the biopic of Maria Callas. And both films come from the same production company/distributor, Fremantle, with whom Angelina is in a three-year production deal.
I think the quiet around Without Blood is as simple as figuring out when to release these two movies without cannibalizing each other. Maria has already been tapped for a debut at Venice—where George Clooney and Brad Pitt are also expected to premiere Wolfs—so it could work out that we don’t see Without Blood this year, if Angelina and Fremantle decide to throw everything behind Maria. If they were coming from separate distributors, we might see them overlap, but I doubt a single distributor would want to weaken their own lineup like that, especially if 1) they think Without Blood is good and will sell, and 2) they can boost that sell by marketing Without Blood on the back of an awards season run by Angelina. Maria is supposedly great. Can’t wait to see it, hope it comes to TIFF.
Question from Amanda B (in the Cannes thread posted on Tuesday): I loved [Karla Sofía] Gascón's speech so fucking much. So many times I feel like people have to gracefully, gently propitiate, please, see we are here and harmless but Gascón said fuck you, we reject your hate, and we will fight fiercely for our respect. I was so moved I was crying with her!
Lainey’s Answer:
I chose this comment to include in the mailbag today because there’s an update. And it’s not a great one. Karla Sofía Gascón’s speech WAS emotional and defiant, and soon after she won the Best Actress Award at Cannes, something happened that underscored why she was so defiant.
A French politician currently campaigning for election (I’m not naming them because we do not need to platform this person any more than they have been platformed), posted a transphobic message on Twitter about Karla’s win. Six 2SLGBTQ+ groups subsequently filed a complaint and Karla has joined their lawsuit.
“Speaking to Variety, Etienne Deshoulières, the lawyer who represents both Gascón and the LGBTQ organizations, said Gascón took legal action against [that politician] to give weight to the joint complaint filed by the six activist groups and make it possible for [that politician] to be condemned.
[That politician] could be sentenced to a one-year imprisonment and fined €30,000 if she’s found guilty of transphobic insult; and €3,750 if she’s charged with “sexist insult due to one’s gender identity.” The legal notion of “sexist insult” was extended to protect transgender people in April 2023, said Deshoulières, who specializes in defending the rights of transgender people and co-wrote the book “Droits et libertés des personnes transgenres.”
He said he took the initiative of contacting Gascón after a first complaint had been filed by the LGBTQ orgs. She was “very friendly and understood immediately what was at stake.”
“You could tell from her speech that she had endured a lot of discrimination and she had predicted that her win would stir transphobic comments on social media today and tomorrow,” Deshoulières continued.”
As you said, Karla promised to “fight fiercely for our respect” and she really is fighting fiercely, literally.
Another Question from MCarmona: Q for Sarah- we've discussed the movie theatre experience, consensus seems to be that it's a hassle instead of something enjoyable. Have you ever talked about this with Hollywood insiders? What's their professional opinion, the inside goss? They have a product and the middle men is failing them (thus making their business unprofitable)*. Besides "tickets are too expensive" I mean, they can't be so short-sighted. Buying theatres now that is allowed? Can any legacy studio afford it or is that only an option to the Amazon's of this world?
*let's say I had a chic fashion line, if Nordstrom would position my product a forgotten corner, I'd fight tooth and nail to have it back to a level where the broadest public can see/buy my product. Going for the outlet channel (streamers in this case) is more like an alternative revenue channel, but never the main goal, right? It's an industry after all, it benefits everyone if the public can access your product easily and conveniently. Rant over 😅
Sarah’s answer:
I don’t know how “Hollywood insider” the people who run movie theaters really are, but I have, indeed, talked to some about the movie-going experience, usually while killing time in line at TIFF. I love talking to independent theater programmers about what films they’re trying to secure for their audiences, it says a lot about what cinephiles are leaving the house to see
With chains like AMC, Cinemark, etc, it’s not like they don’t know that going to the theater sucks. Like they’re fully aware their seats are falling apart, the bathrooms are dirty, the projector bulbs are burning out, and so on. I’ve met a few who have obviously hardened themselves against criticism, probably after dealing with lots of customer complaints. And I’ve met some who genuinely love movies and want to provide the best experience and just don’t have the resources to fix everything that needs fixing. The margins on movie theaters are bad. AMC, for instance, is burdened by debt and despite hits like Taylor Swift’s concert film and Dune, they don’t have the resources to ensure all 895 of their theaters are monuments to cinema.
As for studios buying theaters, yes, they can do that now, but I don’t think anyone has the money at present. Debt is everywhere! Netflix has bought some legacy theaters like the Paris in New York City and the Egyptian in LA (one of my FAVORITE places to see a movie). But no one has stepped up and bought an entire chain yet. It’ll happen eventually, though, and I maintain it will probably be Disney who does it, to create mini-theme parks where they can have costumed characters appear before screenings for photo ops and deck the places out in their various movie themes. That sounds like a nightmare to me, but if and when it does happen, you can bet I will watch every second of Jenny Nicholson’s four-hour breakdown of the experience.
And that’s it for this week’s mailbag! As always, thanks for hanging out with us in this ephemeral digital space, the support really does mean so much, and I have loved watching the community growing here at The Squawk.
See you next week, same squawk time, same squawk channel,
Sarah & Lainey
I almost feel like A-Listers are their own category apart from Legends and Superstars, because they often inhabit specialized or rarified little worlds that large subsets of people enjoy, but they haven't necessarily infiltrated the monoculture. More than movie stars, I'm thinking of athletes, classical musicians, fashion designers, and artists who are gigantic in some parts of the world and only really famous in others.
The first example I can think of is Kylie Minogue, who is like GOD-tier famous in Oz, and in the States, she's still a very, very famous person with a few hits, but she's not on the same level. I would personally say that she's A-List on every continent, but in her home country she's worshipped. She's waaaaay more than merely A-List, just like I feel Madonna surpasses that label by a stretch.
And I think the definition largely hinges on generational perception. And maybe some admitted self-centeredness. My A-Listers are people like Julia, Angie, Salma, Sandra, Uma - i.e., all of the Gen-Xers who've aged (or not, in Salma's case) alongside me. :-)
But then there are Legends, and that's another category. Julie Andrews, Madonna, Mick Jagger, and Stevie Wonder are the first ones to come to mind. I think Beyonce hit that point about a decade ago. People who are *that* famous are in their own pantheon (Princess Di, if she were still alive, would be there). It their career longevity, but also the fact that I feel most people around the world with sporadic access to media outlets could nod their head in recognition, and maybe even name them.
ANYHOO, I wouldn't *personally* call Jenna Ortega an A-Lister, but that's because she hasn't saturated enough of my pop culture-rabid world yet. Two or three years ago, I wouldn't have said that about Timothee Chalamet, but I'll sure as shit say it today. Zendaya? Welcome to a lifetime of superstardom, chief.
I'm so happy to see Jenny Nicholson mentioned here!! I got sucked into her channel during the lockdowns, and I felt it was a smaller niche corner of the internet that no one I know ever talks about. She is one of the few people out there who can LOVE something and still objectively critique it, while still being balanced. I was subscribed to her Patreon for a few years, and followed her journey with the Star Wars hotel pretty closely -- she underplays it but she is actually a GIANT Start Wars fan. She was on a YouTube series called the Millennial Falcon... and she WORKED at Disney parks for several years.
If you're looking for an entry point, Dear Evan Hasen and the Hallmark channel video are 10/10. Edited to add -- so is the Bronycon video! A deep dive into the My Little Pony fandom, super fascinating and very very engaging.