Monthly Roundup Vol. 33

I watched a lot of movies and I went on vacation!

Jun 19, 2026

First, a note: monthly roundups are exactly what they sound like. They’re monthly, and they’re where I roundup everything I’ve been watching, reading, listening to, etc. If Dakota Johnson has been up to anything (and she often has), I will share my thoughts on that as well. I also use these posts as a chance to share more personal stuff and/or talk about the embarrassing situations I get into on a daily basis.

Usually these posts are for paid subscribers, but every once in awhile I put out a free one. I guess this is me saying, “Look at what you’re missing!!” but in, you know, a chill, non-confrontational, welcoming manner. My goal with these posts, as with the entire newsletter, is to help you find some new things to watch and read that will give you something to think about/make your life marginally brighter.

As a reminder, paid subscribers also get weekly joys posts (which are just my opportunity to use this newsletter as a personal blog because I am a child of Livejournal/Blogspot, and by “child” I mean “I was in college when I used those platforms”) and various other posts, like this Waiting for Tom Hanks epilogue and this explanation of why I took a little publishing break.

Last year I lowered the annual subscription price to $45 because I know things are expensive and I personally have had to reduce the number of subscriptions I have. If you’re interested, I want it to be semi-affordable to support me and this newsletter. You can also subscribe monthly for $5.

Okay, that’s it! On with the show. This month we’re talking about the movies I rage-quit, a very fun domestic thriller, an AIDS documentary that made me sob, the Rod Stewart song I can’t get out of my head, and my recent vacation.

Books

I watched way more than I read this month, so this section is a little sparse! Please don’t think less of me.

Read Between the Lies by Jesse Q. Sutanto. I read this one in maybe 24 hours? I was consumed by the need to find out what was going on. On another note, I am SO intrigued by the concept of Mindy’s Book Studio. It’s not a book club like Reese Witherspoon, but it’s also seemingly not an imprint like Sarah Jessica Parker has, either. But maybe it is? It’s through Amazon, and I think she puts her stamp of approval on a book and includes a letter at the beginning. Anyway, I spend a lot of time thinking about this kind of thing, wondering how she chooses her books, what level of involvement she has with acquisitions, whether the authors meet Mindy herself, etc. I want to know the behind the scenes stuff! Libary.

Famesick by Lena Dunham. I know I talk a big game about not just reading and writing about the most popular books you see all over the place, but here I am writing about Famesick. Well, sorry. It was a great book, and especially great on audio. One thing that struck me was that Lena Dunham seemed really willing to own up to all her mistakes, which not all celebrities do in a memoir. She was also very honest, which makes for a great read. Don’t even write a memoir if you’re not gonna name names, I say. Judd Apatow came out looking great (love to see it). Libby.

Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker. Great book alert! If I was in charge, people would be talking about this book as much as they’re talking about Yesteryear (I haven’t read Yesteryear so this isn’t shade, just me wishing I controlled culture). It’s a domestic abuse thriller a la Sleeping with the Enemy, but not that plot at all. Basically it’s about a woman named Clove who lives in California with her husband and two kids. She has a “perfect” life where she’s put herself in secret credit card debt by buying too many prairie style dresses and expensive smoothies at the fancy grocery store. As someone who loves to buy expensive smoothies and mostly refrains, I feel very “there but for the grace of God go I” about this. She’s overwhelmed by having two young kids so she’s mostly not working and also she’s dealing with post-weaning anxiety. But here’s where it gets wild: Clove isn’t her real name. Once upon a time, she escaped an abusive family situation in Hawaii and started her whole life over. Not even her husband knows about her past! But her mom, currently in prison, finds out she’s alive and contacts her, threatening to ruin the entire life Clove has built. It was all very thrilling but also funny and a really moving depiction of the dynamic in an abusive family. And I just loved Clove. Yeah, she did some wild things but she had to work hard to start over…just like Julia Roberts secretly learning to swim as an adult in Sleeping with the Enemy! I know it seems like I gave you so much information about the book here, but this is only scratching the surface. I loved it and I couldn’t stop reading it. Highly recommended! Personal library.

Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger. I don’t want to say much about this because it doesn’t come out until later this year, butI did read the much-anticipated sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife. I loved The Time Traveler’s Wife, and I even loved her next book Her Fearful Symmetry, which was like a gothic cemetery story? I don’t remember, but I read it when it came out. Anyway, this book is so different that it kinda blew my mind. VERY hard to talk about or explain but let me know if you read it. E-arc.

Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian. A romance novel that reminded me why I love romance! It’s about costars who work on a space show (think Star Trek, although they do refer to it as “Twin Peaks in space” which helped me contextualize it) and they hate each other…or do they?? This is Cat Sebastian’s first contemporary and it was very very fun. E-arc.

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. You need to know: I am not a fantasy girlie. I’m sure this is obvious by most of my reading and watching choices. Cat told me to read this one and I started it on vacation. I’m only halfway through because I had to stop to read some things for work but I do plan on finishing it! There aren’t too many descriptions so that part is fine (usually the roughest part of fantasy for me). I will report back!! What if I get obsessed and read the entire series? Libby.

Don’t Call it Art by Austin Kleon. A new Austin Kleon book! I was so looking forward to this one and I think it might be my new favorite of his. It’s all about what we can learn about creativity from kids, whether we have them or not (I do have one, in case you weren’t aware). Basically, it’s about having fun, taking things less seriously, etc. and that was exactly what I needed to hear right now. Purchased this month.

Movies

While You Were Sleeping. I watched this one with my family on my birthday weekend and they loved it! A really great rom-com for kids because it’s funny and sweet without being explicit. I don’t really need to say anything about this movie because you already know. Bill Pulllman and his reversible jacket are the blueprint. Disney+.

Fargo. I turned 40 and I was like, “I can’t believe I haven’t seen Fargo yet.” Is this my midlife crisis? Feeling bad that I haven’t seen more Coen brothers films? It was such a fun watch, even if my secret shame is that I never fully vibe with a Coen movie. HBOMax.

The Mastermind. Can I say something that will sound like I’m being deliberately obtuse? I didn’t think this movie was that slow. I mean, yes, sure, there is a minutes-long scene of Josh O’Connor climbing up and down a ladder. But stuff is happening pretty constantly and it just didn’t seem that slow to me! I found it all very exciting and then dread-inducing. Just following a character who repeatedly makes bad, self-absorbed decisions…also, I legally must tell you it’s FILMED IN OHIO! Filmmakers love to use Cincinnati as a stand in for older cities. No one can do this in Columbus because they knock all the old buildings down to build ugly, expensive condos. MUBI.

Where the Wild Things Are. A family movie night pick and I definitely feel like my kid was vibing with Max’s big feelings. I love that this movie doesn’t focus too much on story or giving you a huge amount of backstory. My biggest problem with family films: WAY too much plot, too much backstory, clearly spelling out all character motivations like we’re stupid. This movie doesn’t do this. It is, however, actually pretty slow. But you know I didn’t mind! Kanopy.

The Sheep Detectives. I haven’t heard such universal praise and word of mouth for a movie in a long time. People in all areas of my life were raving about The Sheep Detectives, and I think that shows we’re hungry for a murder mystery we can take our kids to. There are almost NEVER kid-appropriate movies that aren’t explicitly made for children, so this was such a sweet relief. My son really loved this one and we both got a little emotional! I love Molly Gordon. In the theater.

Petite Maman. This was one of those times where I started watching a movie and then my kid came in and wanted to watch it with me. Which is great, because it’s extremely kid-appropriate and also it’s French. One thing I’m grateful for is that my kid has never minded subtitles/foreign films and so I like to make sure he keeps watching them. This is a beautiful film that’s probably one of my favorites I’ve seen all year. It’s about childhood, sadness, and all the stuff I love. Basically, a little girl’s grandmother dies, and when she goes back to clean out the grandmother’s house with her parents, she ends up meeting her mother as a child. So it’s sort of a fantasy, sort of a time travel film, but not in a way where you have to understand what’s happening. It’s much more concerned with feeling. It’s also just gorgeous to look at with lots of trees, leaves, etc. It made me want to have a Celine Sciamma summer. There’s a bonus feature on the Criterion DVD that has Celine talking to Joachim Trier and I really recommend it! My DVD collection.

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. I’ve mentioned this before, but we weren’t a Pee-wee house because my mom didn’t like him. So Pee-wee isn’t nostalgic to me at all, but I just love this movie so much. It understands something crucial: a kids’ film should be 90% jokes, 10% plot. “Pee-wee has to go on a journey to get his bike and a bunch of stuff happens” is, actually, the exact amount of plot I would like. My kid had seen this before but it was several years ago, and it was Hollis’s first watch! A big movie night hit for everyone. Library DVD.

Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. Criterion has an LGBTQ collection up right now for Pride month, and I’d always been curious about the AIDS quilt so I threw this on. Well, it ended up being an emotional experience that consumed most of my thoughts for days. What a beautiful and generous film! It’s about five people who died of AIDS in the 1980s, and their stories are told by their surviving loved ones. Three are gay men, one is an IV drug user, and one is a boy with hemophilia. Two of the men’s partners are also ill with AIDS and died soon after the movie was made. To say that it’s sad is the biggest understatement. It’s absolutely heartbreaking, but I think if you’re someone who was born around the time the AIDS crisis was at its peak, it can be easy to not fully grasp the scope of the disease. I was in elementary school in the 90s so it was definitely something we talked and learned about, but I think we mostly watched a movie about Ryan White and called it a day. Seeing these personal stories is affecting in a way that raw statistics could never be. It’s narrated by Dustin Hoffman and the haunting music was made by Bobby Mcferrin. I cried a lot, but I really, really recommend watching this one if you haven’t seen it yet. Criterion Channel, but it’s also on Kanopy and Hoopla.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. Switching gears in a major way, here’s a big movie I didn’t like very much! It had me channeling Rog.

I came into this with a lot of goodwill because I love The Mandalorian the show. I love Grogu. I love the whole concept, and I am not a Star Wars girlie (I mean, sure, I know almost every detail about the extended universe but that’s because of my family). I just think the show has such a creative concept that exists separately from Star Wars lore, and it’s very fun.

This movie was not fun. It also wasn’t creative. It required the viewer to care a lot about Rotta the Hutt (???), a buff Hutt voiced by Jeremy Allen White. At no point was I interested or intrigued. Nothing happened. In lieu of character development, we had about 15 fight scenes. Jokes? The movie can’t offer those, but it can offer repeated quotes from the show. The only part I liked was when Grogu had to rally and take care of Mando. I also liked the Anzellans a lot. But other than that I was like…what is happening…why does Sigourney Weaver have to say these lines…where is Amy Sedaris…(falling asleep). I truly cannot believe this was their final draft. Like, I just can’t believe this is the movie they landed on for the first Star Wars movie in years. The highest rated Letterboxd review says “It’s impossible to spoil this film because nothing interesting or important happens.” Lol, and also accurate. Sorry to be so negative. In the theater.

But let’s keep the negativity train rolling, I guess, because here are my DNFs of the month:

-As a Pavement fan and a Joe Keery appreciator, I thought for sure I’d like Pavements. Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a severe allergy to Alex Ross Perry :( This film’s entire gimmick (and I love a meta gimmick) seemed to be trying to make the viewer feel stupid? Truly hated this so much I had to turn it off. MUBI.

-So our senior dog, Merlin, hates thunder storms. He paces around and tries to hide behind things and crawls into our laps (he’s 80 pounds). It was 3 AM and he was trying to hide under my pillow, so I took him downstairs in hopes that he would calm down/stop climbing on and off the bed. Hollis magically stayed asleep through this whole thing. I was like, “I’m wide awake and a dog is pawing at me, might as well watch something!” so I started Wuthering Heights (Emerald Fennell version). The opening scene was so ugly and nasty (all brown, guy getting hanged) that I got actually angry. A large part of this was just that I was tired and it was 3 AM, but I was like, “THIS stupid movie!” I’m still mad that it exists.

I already wrote at length about the emotional journey I went on with Hal & Harper. Will even one person please watch Hal & Harper? So far I haven’t been able to influence a single soul. Perhaps because you need to get MUBI and then cry a lot. But don’t you want to see Mark Ruffalo give one of the performances of his career? I’ll keep trying! MUBI.

Music

We’ve been listening to a lot of female country singers (Stella Lefty, Ella Langley). When left to my own devices, all I want to listen to is Mac DeMarco. Hollis still listens to almost exclusively Australian female singers and sometimes that drives me crazy, but lately he’s gotten into Momma and that’s a sweet relief. They don’t even appear to be Australian so how he heard about them is anyone’s guess.

Recently I heard Rod Stewart’s Some Guys Have All the Luck on the radio and….you guys…have you listened to this track off his 1984 album Camouflage lately?

I think this might be a perfect song. He’s so good at enunciating and he sings/speaks so slowly. When I hear this song, I dance just like he does in the video.
My favorite lyric is "I called you collect/You didn’t accept/You had nothing to say.” Probably because Rod has a bad attitude! This entire song is full of self-pity! I love it so much and I hope my family is ready to hear it 15 times in a row.

Dakota Johnson Beat

Not a ton of news lately, although she did sell her old house (the one with the controversial limes). However, this popped up. A couple weeks old, but big if true.

🚨FRANZEN ALERT!🚨

I don’t think we’ve had a Franzen Alert for the entirety of this newsletter. There was the series news about The Corrections, but I’ll believe that when I see it. But this—THIS!—is actual writing. A Franzen short story was in the fiction issue of The New Yorker, and I feel lucky/known that multiple people reached out to tell me. The New Yorker very clearly states that it’s an excerpt from a “novel in progress”—like, they are so quick to make sure we (I) know that the book is not done! Well, frankly, I’m getting worried. My two pop culture hopes this year were a new Harry Styles and the second in the Franzen trilogy, and it looks like I’m only getting one of those.

Now, have I actually read the story in question? Well, I acquired the issue but I’m saving it for when I finish some work. The lady’s keeping a Franzen story/excerpt to read, as a treat.

Related: should we do Franzen Fall again? Purity is the only “big” Franzen I haven’t read, and it might be fun. I really enjoy the readalongs, but they also feel like such an exercise in narcissism that I’m hesitant to do another until John Irving January.

I went on vacation!

The rumors are true…I left the state of Ohio (to go to an adjacent state). My family and I went to Traverse City, Michigan and we had the BEST time. I’m here to be an evangelist for the Traverse City Great Wolf Lodge, which is where we stayed. If you have kids who like water, it’s an ideal spot. This is the second time we’ve stayed at a place that’s explicitly catered to children (the first being Legoland NY), and it’s such a weird experience. But in a good way! It’s like you’re in another world, one where the children rule.

Mainly we were staying in the area to check out Sleeping Bear Dunes, which is not a national park but instead a national lakeshore (okay). We climbed the big dune!

We also hung out in Empire and Glen Arbor. We ate cherry-flavored everything. Look how cute this bookstore is!

We put our feet in the lake!

The boys did a run here, while I took a walk and ate a pastry.

Great Wolf Lodge was giving enough Great Northern vibes that I could sometimes pretend I was in Twin Peaks, with fewer Norwegians and a lot less murder/no overwhelming sense of dread.

They took the woodsy theme really seriously.

We went to Michigan a lot when I was a kid, but never this specific part so it was a real treat to see something new! We had such a nice, relaxed time hiking and walking around town, and then a less relaxed time going down a terrifying water slide.

That’s it for this week! I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber so you can get one of these emails every month. They’re always so much fun to write.

As always, I’d love to hear what you’ve been into lately. Or if you’ve been to Traverse City. Or if you want to read Purity in the fall. Or even if you bought Dakota Johnson’s favorite sneakers! Until next week…