The Oscars Race Is Heating Up
And My Faves Are Winning 💅
As I proclaimed in my last dispatch: Adrienators, we are so fucking back!
Apparently manifestation works, because Adrien Brody and Kieran Culkin are 2025 Oscars frontrunners. That’s right — two of my favorite weird-looking guys could, and likely will, score little gold men this awards season. I’m shocked that Kieran’s in contention because, well, he doesn’t do lots of movies. He works selectively, and has made clear that fatherhood’s now his number-one priority (which: respect, and many industry men could take notes). Jesse Eisenberg, who wrote and directed A Real Pain, could barely get him to commit to the project. But Kieran acquiesced, and has been drawing raves for his portrayal of Benji, a sensitive-but-also-caustic stoner who accompanies his uptight, socially awkward cousin (played by Eisenberg) on a travel tour of Poland. Apparently I related to this character a little too hard, because by the end of film, I still hadn’t quite put together that he’s homeless (or at least housing insecure), a drifter-type, who has nowhere in particular to be. I guess the idea of just chilling at the airport, people watching with no sense of urgency or obligations to fulfill, resonated with me for reasons I will not look into. I caught A Real Pain opening weekend at Village East by Angelika, and I recommend it if you’d enjoy a talk-y, deeply evocative character study that’s equal parts comedy and drama. Kieran’s performance, needless to say, is fantastic.
The prospect of Adrien Brody securing another Best Actor statue is shocking because, well, I didn’t think we’d ever get back here. To be a longtime Adrien fan is to have suffered myriad indignities. There was the SNL debacle. The tacky Hello! spread. InAPPropriate Comedy. Becoming better known for forcibly kissing Halle Berry than almost anything else. For a while, we couldn’t see the light at the end of the rapidly shrinking professional tunnel. Slowly, things started to shift. Thanks to a spate of prestige TV roles and significant supporting turns in buzzy, bold features like 2022’s Blonde, it became much less embarrassing to identify as a Fan™. Now, our boy’s name is back in the conversation, having achieved a kind of Brody-ssaince that’s reminded the public of his range and taste for ambitious, outré projects. I’m seeing The Brutalist tomorrow night — which clocks in at 3 hours and 35 minutes and includes an intermission — and will be treated to an introduction from Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold and Mr. Brody himself. I’m ready to scream, cry and throw up. I’m ready to be dazzled. I’m ready to service my boyfriend afterwards sexually for sitting through an epic historical drama about a fictional architect and Holocaust survivor (I kid; he’s so down). More than anything, I’m ready to watch a master at work.
Housekeeping
Due to my prolonged Substack absence, I have some housekeeping to do. Firstly, I’d like to remember Kenny DeForest, who passed away one year and one week ago today (as I’m writing this, 12/20/24).
I wrote about Kenny’s untimely death last year and the profound impact he’d had on people while alive. I wasn’t the only one. I can genuinely say that the New York scene is less warm, less generous and less funny without him. Some of Kenny’s closest friends threw a memorial show at The Gutter in Brooklyn last Saturday. I wanted to do something to honor his memory, but the thought of crying in a room full of comedians made me queasy (not that it hasn’t happened before). Instead, I did a friend a favor and volunteered my time as a mentor to Write Girl, a nonprofit that equips teen girls and femmes to express themselves through creative writing. We hopped on Zoom to discuss comedy writing and conduct an exercise about the Rule of 3 as part of a larger workshop. This opportunity to be of service was something I really needed, and it came at the perfect time. Miss you, Kenny.
Secondly, and much less importantly, I want to follow up on the mystery of DeedDa. Last March, Jane Pratt prepared to launch her newest media venture: the inexplicably named DeedDa, a site intended to publish confessional writing alongside e-commerce content. I signed up for the mailing list. I started following its various social media accounts. Then…nothing. DeedDa never materialized. I was tortured for months by inordinate curiosity, wondering: what the hell happened to DeedDa? My fixation landed me in good company. Then this September, a Times profile of Pratt gave us the most up to date information we now have re: the DeedDa situation: “She’s had plenty of false starts, too, including a short-lived talk show and her most recent project, DeeDa, a marketing and e-commerce site that never fully got off the ground.” Um, duh? I’m hanging on by a thread, and the only thing tethering me to this earth is recognizing that somewhere out there is a dangerously underpaid media underling who knows exactly what went down, and may be willing to share. If you are that person, please contact me immediately for drinks and gossip.
Shameless Self-Promotion
Last week, the Boston Globe named Driving in Circles, the solo musical I Associate Directed earlier this year, one of the city’s top ten theater productions of 2024. I have to shout out Jay Eddy (writer/composer/performer) and Sam Plattus (director), together known as the EPs, for absolutely killing it and bringing me into the fold. Rarely have I felt so creatively invigorated. If you’re curious, here’s the original Globe review (a rave). And if you’d like to co-produce an Off-Broadway production of Driving as a nonprofit partner or a commercial partner, please let me know. Some rather specific appeals in this one, no?
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Expect one more post from me before the year’s end. Until then: bye!