Amanda + Sydney, round 2

Last night, Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney stepped out together for the premiere of The Housemaid, today, they’re making press rounds together, stopping by The Today Show. 

Once again, I do not hate Sydney’s outfit, a belted black dress, though I assume she’s cold. I think being actor is 90% pretending you’re not cold. 

 

In contrast, Amanda wore a darling red cape-jacket thing. I don’t know what to call this, fashionistas, please advise. But I do love it and want one for my own. One thing I hate about winter is all the layers, it makes it impossible to move sometimes. I end up feeling like the little boy in A Christmas Story who can’t put his arms down.

https://giphy.com/gifs/filmeditor-christmas-movies-a-story-xUySTEyobsc26zRnuo

 

This garment looks like it offers some range of motion AND an extra layer of warmth. I’m into it. I’m also into The Housemaid, mainly based on A Simple Favor vibes. As a side note, it’s also the last film I’m screening of 2025. I’ve been cramming for weeks as Critics Choice nominations are due today. I’ve already put mine in, and I’ll tell you what, I am shocked how often I nominated Peter Hujar’s Day. I didn’t realize that movie stuck in my memory like it did, until I started entering nominations. 

It stars Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, as the photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz, respectively. It is Ira Sachs’ follow-up to Passengers, and it is a recreation of a transcript recorded by Rosenkrantz in which she interviewed Hujar in minute detail about the incidences of one day in his life. It was for a project she never realized, though she eventually published a book based on their transcript. It’s just two people talking in locations, but goddamn. Apparently it latched onto some corner of my brain. It led the pack among Independent Spirit Award nominations, so I guess I’m not alone in that.

 

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What else happened today…

Erin Doherty turned up at a premiere looking DRAMATIC and FABULOUS. She’s already having a great career, and she will continue to do so, but looking at the photos, I realize that 50 years or so from now, assuming we’re still here and the sun has done nothing nefarious, she’ll have a Dowager Countess-type role in her future. You can just SEE it in her face. Someday she’s going to give a helluva performance as a tiara-wearing c-nt. Like her role in The Crown times a thousand. (Go Fug Yourself)

Jodie Foster calls acting a “cruel job”, and this is why no one should be surprised when Jay Kelly gets a bunch of Oscar nominations. I’ll have a full review tomorrow, but that film is basically for people who work in the industry and see acting as nothing but sacrifice for the pleasurement of the masses. I don’t even disagree with Jodie’s point, especially regarding child actors, I’m just preemptively annoyed that Jay Kelly is going to work on the Academy. (Celebitchy)

The peace you need today: David Byrne’s Tiny Desk concert. Twenty minutes of good music and vibes, the perfect length for a mid-week chill break. (OMG Blog)

Beyoncé brought a lot of attention to the Black history of country music with Cowboy Carter, now meet Esther Phillips, the pioneering country queen from Houston, Texas. A one-time teen idol with multiple #1 R&B hits, she recovered from drug addiction and attempted to make a comeback in the 1960s as a country artist. Here is the tale of “Little” Esther Phillips, an artist ahead of her time, at least in Nashville, but very much symptomatic of the issues plaguing the music industry and America in the 1960s. (Texas Monthly)