Culture picks for the long weekend
What to watch, read, and listen to this Memorial Day
Memorial Day is here, marking the unofficial start of summer, at least according to Hollywood. Friday brings the release of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, in which 62-year-old Tom Cruise reprises his role as Ethan Hunt. The film, which has a running time of nearly three hours, debuted at Cannes last week and received a lengthy standing ovation, but can we really trust the judgment of the French when it comes to these things? If you, like me, would rather not spend your holiday weekend with the guy who jumped on Oprah’s couch, here are some alternative options.
📺 Sirens (Netflix)
You will never look at a Lilly Pulitzer dress in the same way after watching this darkly funny limited series from creator Molly Smith-Metzler, the writer-producer behind Maid. Sirens deals with similar themes of gender and class, but offers much more in the way of laughs. It stars Milly Alcock (House of the Dragon) as Simone Dewitt, a hyper-competent young woman who works as an assistant to Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore), the enigmatic wife of a billionaire. Things start to get messy when Simone’s loving but self-destructive older sister, Devon (Meghann Fahy of The White Lotus), turns up at Michaela’s lavish waterfront estate.
A recovering alcoholic who takes care of their ailing father back home in Buffalo, Devon is disturbed by how enmeshed Simone has become in Michaela’s rarified world. Set over Labor Day weekend on an unnamed East Coast island dripping with old money — brace yourself for the pastel prints — Sirens explores the fraught relationship between the sisters and the impact of childhood trauma on their adult lives. In a stacked cast, Fahy is especially brilliant as Devon, and delivers lines like “you’re the second guy I fucked on a boat today” with zing. Lately, we’ve seen a lot of shows about rich people being terrible to each other on oceanfront real estate, but Sirens stands out for its sharp sense of humor and emotional insight. Just five episodes long, it’s also an easy weekend binge.
📚 Cher: The Memoir, Part One
Cher — perhaps you’ve heard of her? The mononymous, multihyphenate star has been a fixture in so many mediums, for so many decades, that it’s easy to forget she started as a mere mortal like the rest of us. In the first volume of her vivid, engaging memoir, the “Believe” singer recalls how little Cherilyn Sarkisian became the pop diva and gay icon known as Cher. Using the salty, straight-shooting voice that has informed so many of her screen performances — and once made her a must-follow on Twitter — Cher paints a fascinating portrait of her chaotic family and Dickensian childhood.
Her mother, Georgia Holt (f.k.a. Jackie Jean Crouch), got pregnant with her at nineteen and, at the last minute, decided to forego an abortion. A dazzling beauty who had small roles in I Love Lucy and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Georgia married seven times. Money and domestic stability were elusive for young Cher, who was even sent to live in a Catholic orphanage as an infant. When she writes that “resilience is in my DNA,” you believe her.
You might also wonder if she inherited her mother’s questionable taste in men. Part One spans both of Cher’s marriages — to the Svengali-like Sonny Bono, eleven years her senior, who treated her more like an indentured servant than a spouse, and to Gregg Allman, who struggled with heroin addiction (as did Cher’s biological father, a small-time scammer who was largely absent from her childhood).
One minor caveat: Part One ends in the late 1970s, before Cher’s pivot into film acting (and dating younger men). So if you’re eager to hear about her romance with “Bagel Boy,” her Oscar-winning turn in Moonstruck, or that time she danced for hundreds of sailors aboard the USS Misouri, you’ll have to wait for the next installment, coming later this year.
🎧 You Must Remember This: The Old Man is Still Alive
A lot of people like true crime podcasts. Others, for some reason, enjoy podcasts hosted by conspiracy theory-prone comedians. Personally, I love a deep dive into the past, especially pop culture history. Karina Longworth has been cranking out the excellent classic Hollywood podcast You Must Remember This for a decade now, with seasons exploring everything from the remarkable (if unsung) career of producer Polly Platt to Charles Manson’s Hollywood connections.
The latest season of YMRT, subtitled “The Old Man is Still Alive,” looks at what happens when the culture moves on from the artists who once formed its vanguard. It tracks the late careers of legendary directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, and John Ford. These celebrated auteurs began making films in the silent or early sound eras and — for better or worse — continued into the ‘60s, ‘70s, and beyond, when Hollywood was in the throes of sweeping change. Longworth draws connections to present-day showbiz, where filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola, who unseated Hollywood’s old guard in the ‘70s, continue to crank out movies in an ever-changing business. And while politics aren’t the focus of this season, it does raise questions about ageism and ego that feel particularly relevant right now.
Please let your fellow Contrarians know how you’re entertaining yourselves this holiday weekend:
Um ... how about a recommendation in the spirit of the original Decoration Day honoring the Union Civil War soldiers who had died? Did I miss something?
Great review, kind of unspectacular choices. I guess everybody will be at the beach and the pool.