The Powers That Be
Lisa Nova (the indomitable Rosa Salazar) comes to L.A. with dreams of turning her experimental horror short film into a feature, but she must reckon with sinister forces, both depressingly real (crooked producers and hired muscle) and supernatural (witchcraft and beings from beyond the veil). Nova seeks to upend her situation and wrestle control of her movie back from a slimy producer Lou Burke (Eric Lange) by hiring the mysterious witch Boro (a delightful and intimidating Catherine Keener) to curse him, but Nova loses control over both situations and her life spirals frighteningly out of control.
This is as vague of a synopsis I can give of Brand New Cherry Flavor (2021), Netflix’s newest horror limited series, without giving revealing the many surprises in it’s eight episodes. It is worth being surprised. So much of the show is just so visually interesting and some of the other elements are just so bizarre and freaky that it’s hard to speak about the concrete things that happen without giving a boatload of context. Someone online compared it to something like Twin Peaks1 in that way and the comparison is apt. Brand New Cherry Flavor comes from a book of the same name, but it is adapted by Lenore Zion and Nick Antosca, the creators of the acclaimed horror anthology show Channel Zero. I only mention this because most I’ve seen of Channel Zero is gorgeous and uncanny gifs of the supernatural sequences and you get a whole lot of that with Brand New Cherry Flavor
What the show seems primarily concerned with is drawing a comparison between the raw deals one is given in the real world and those in fairy tales. The idea of going to L.A. in search of a big break is a bit of a fairy tale dating back to even the 20s. Nova makes a bad deal with Burke and seeks to get vengeance by making a bad deal with Boro. Both wield an incredible amount of power and use their charm and her naivety to get the better end of these Faustian bargains. One results in throwing fresh talent into the Hollywood grinder and the other produces Cronenbergian2 body-horror. It all comes back to control and those in control always want those without control to play by their rules. You have to “pay your dues” and follow their word even if it doesn’t make sense because they hold your future in their hands. Contracts are intentionally confusing and misleading so that its harder for underdogs like Nova to get the upper hand.
The show also leans into the unexplained and, as a result, you’ll find lots of theories online trying to give an explanation, but I’m more in the mindset like watching a David Lynch movie where it’s less about what concretely happens and more of the feeling. Brand New Cherry Flavor gives me a WEIRD feeling and I really dig it.
Brand New Cherry Flavor is available for streaming exclusively on Netflix.
Getting Through It
As I mentioned in my write-up for Bo Burnham’s latest comedy special, Inside, the lockdown last year gave many a the chance to invoke the spirit of the tarot card “The Hermit”. Given the isolation, many not only educated themselves on their society, but looked deep within themselves. Some found that self-reflection to reveal they are someone they didn’t like or had to face their trauma and insecurities head on. Bo Burnham is only one of many who created art about the pressures and emotions that come with the quarantine’s solitude (there is even a new film in theaters this weekend, Together, starring James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan, that follows a married couple’s issues during lockdown), but other than Bo, there was only one other piece of quarantine art I have been interested in, and that is Cecily Strong’s lockdown memoir, This Will All Be Over Soon.
Cecily Strong first appeared on my radar when she gave an incendiary speech at the 2015 White House Correspondents Dinner3. Most people however know her for being on Saturday Night Live since 2012, where she is, in my opinion, very underrated.4
Her memoir, This Will All Be Over Soon, released earlier this month, dwells on feelings she hasn’t really shared in her previous work. It’s structure and short chapters (some even less than a page) gives a really informal and personal feeling to it, like receiving a confessional text from a friend. The book is revealing and some entries feel like things one would only reveal in deep conversation with someone close, but one will find comfort in the candid rawness of these emotions. Her writing style and her vocabulary isn’t complex, but that adds to the personal nature of the text. Feels even more like a “I know this person” than the standard memoir.
Not only does she write about grappling with the struggles of being isolated from everyone she cares about, but also the grief of losing a close family member not long before the pandemic and not having easy access to the support network that would normally make that easier. She finds writing this diary style memoir therapeutic and reflecting on herself encouraging in her healing, but ultimately it is the encouragement that survives despite the pandemic that proves to be the most healing. The simple kind of support you can find by just laying it all out there to someone and them responding with warmth. You feel that warmth here.
This Will All Be Over Soon is on sale now and you can see Cecily Strong on Saturday Night Live and on the Apple TV+ show Schmigidoon! with Keegan Michael Key.
Stray Observations
I’ve been in the process of watching every movie directed by Gore Verbinski. As mentioned in the previous issue, his remake of The Ring (2002) is one of my favorite movies ever and I have a deep appreciation of his last film, A Cure For Wellness (2016), but Verbinski is definitely most famous for directing the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I haven’t seen them since I was small and I have to say, they hold up! Fun action adventure romps with really cool art direction (one thing I’m finding to be a constant in Verbinski’s work). The Pirates movies might be one the last movies to have great iconic movie theme music (Avengers fans, you know I’m right) and Captain Jack Sparrow is probably one of the very few iconic original movie characters of this century (the only other one I can think of is John Wick).
Two posters for upcoming films were revealed this week: a moody dark poster for the Kristen Stewart starring film about Princess Diana, Spencer, and director Pedro Almadovar’s latest matriarchal-focused melodrama, Parallel Mothers (likely got this new poster due to the controversy surrounding the previous really great poster). I love both of these posters and I’m looking forward to both of these movies! I want that Spencer poster on my wall. Check out the posters below:
Transgender representation in media is, historically, few and, if you grew up in the 90s, often very negative, but filmmaker Cressa Beer and film critic Willow Macray, in this conversation published by The AV Club, talk about how they found trans representation within anime. Through explicitly trans characters, gender defying characters, or simply finding cisgendered characters to be a metaphor for their journeys, they explain how they “have to map our own path, and rummage through art for little things to keep…we can craft a quilt of representation, and build a monument to ourselves.” It’s a truly great read that speaks to the importance of good representation and universal themes like that of feeling accepted. It also is a great list of animes to watch.
Some personal news: I’m moving to a new apartment next week! Might make my next issue kinda small or delayed for a week, but I’m excited! It’s a spacious two bedroom with hardwood floors, so exactly what I’ve been searching for.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to like, subscribe, and share if you enjoyed this issue of I Liked It! and email me at nick.dauphin@gmail.com if you have any questions, comments, complaints, or recommendations. Later days!
And that person is critic Lena Wilson, who I mentioned in my brief review for Don’t Breathe 2 last week. She gave a brief and funny review of Brand New Cherry Flavor on her TikTok where she says, “Is this how men feel about Twin Peaks?” Watch it here.
I do not throw the term “Cronenbergian” around lightly. This mini-series has some distressing body-horror that gets somewhat perverted and gross. Hesitate to say more, but it rules that this sort of stuff is being offered up by Netflix.
One joke Cecily Strong made I remember making headlines was about how Obama’s Secret Service was the only law enforcement agency that would get in trouble if a black man got shot. The audience at the time booed her, but I have a feeling given the social climate now, it would’ve gotten a warmer response today.
I could post a dozen SNL skits with Cecily Strong, but I personally love “Love at First Sight”. Because of some on-set issues, they uploaded the dress rehearsal version of the skit, which also had on-set issues. It’s filled with everyone breaking character by laughing and other chaotic mishaps. It’s so silly! Watch below: