handle with care’s Person of the Year 2022
handle with care’s Person of the Year 2022
The world’s highest honor!!!
In this week’s handle with care, SZA’s album SOS, Director Taylor Swift returns, and more awards season updates.
In honor of Time Magazine unveiling their Person of the Year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, this week, I thought to myself, “I should do this for handle with care!!”
The prerequisites for my person of the year are simple: be an icon that contributes greatly to pop culture. By the end of the year, you should basically be a household name. There were many great players in culture this year, but there’s one person that really exemplified their status this year:
Florence Pugh, the star of Don’t Worry Darling and the Don’t Worry Darling press tour, was already an icon in the making after Midsommar. She played the world’s best pick me girl, Amy March, in Little Women (When she told Laurie, “You brought my sister back from the dance. I would have never have sprained my ankle. I have lovely small feet, the best in the family.”) The performance earned her an Academy Award nomination in 2020.
Pugh’s “Cooking with Flo” series on her Instagram is a rare look at a celebrity having a hobby that’s just for them. I remember watching her cook in her temporary home in Ireland while she was filming The Wonder. I would literally break my Instagram time limits just to watch Cooking with Flo. This year, she skydived on Running Wild with Bear Grylls, and fought back at critics who were upset over the sheer bodice Valentino gown she wore.
Then there was Don’t Worry Darling, the thriller directed by Olivia Wilde, and the excessive reporting on the controversy surrounding it and her crumbling working relationship with Wilde. Okay, and I’ve done my share of commentary too! She should adopt Miss Flo as an alter ego like Sasha Fierce or Tina Snow. Miss Flo arrives late to the party with an Aperol spritz, looking as unbothered as ever. She’s in on the joke! Not to mention that Miss Flo was a popular Halloween costume this year, and at that point, you’re an undeniably important part of culture.
Pugh is among this generation’s wave of new movie stars, which means she’s just getting started. With upcoming roles like Princess Irulan in the Dune sequel, the lead in her ex Zach Braff’s film A Good Person, and continuing as Yelena Belova in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she will become more widely recognized. She has range, and she’s fearless! It’s an honor to give her this Very Prestigious title.
From short film to feature film
It was announced that Taylor Swift will make her feature film directorial debut with Searchlight Pictures. The singer has already penned an original script, but nothing about the film has been revealed yet.
My theory is that she wrote it during the peak of the pandemic, when she was making folklore and evermore, since those albums tell fictional stories. I was not surprised at all that she went this route, because of how much she enjoys directing her music videos, and her All Too Well short film.
S-O-fucking-S!!!!
After many years of waiting, SZA released her 23-track album, SOS.
Last week, she was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, and she performed “Shirt” and “Blind.” This is already one of my favorite albums of the year! My top five tracks at the moment are “Kill Bill,” “Gone Girl,” “Far,” “Nobody Gets Me,” and “Ghost in the Machine” (which features Phoebe Bridgers).
Health news!
French songstress Céline Dion revealed that she is suffering from stiff-person syndrome, a neurological disease that affects all her muscles. The diagnosis was confirmed after she experienced muscle spasms so severe, she had to postpone her world tour.
Wednesday star Jenna Ortega revealed that she had COVID when she filmed the viral dance she performed on the show. In an interview with NME, she explained that she was given medicine between takes while waiting for the positive test result.
“Yeah, I woke up and – it’s weird, I never get sick and when I do it’s not very bad – I had the body aches. I felt like I’d been hit by a car and that a little goblin had been let loose in my throat and was scratching the walls of my esophagus.”
The Golden Globes “did” “the” “work”
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and NBC are bringing back the ceremony, which will air on Jan. 10, 2023. If you recall, the HFPA was under fire for being a mostly white voting body and a generally corrupted system. They announced in September that they added 103 new voters, and that they are more racially diverse than ever. This week, they announced that comedian Jerrod Carmichael will host the 2023 ceremony.
Nominations will be announced tomorrow morning on the Today show. Variety is predicting love for The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All At Once on the film side, while Abbott Elementary and House of the Dragon will likely earn nominations for TV. I think it would be so insane (in a good way) to see Harry Styles nominated for either Don’t Worry Darling or My Policeman, but there’s a chance. I also hope Julia Roberts and George Clooney are nominated for their roles in Ticket to Paradise, which was a very fun and silly movie!
Speaking of Variety…
The publication revealed their Actors on Actors and Directors on Directors lineups this week.
The 2023 actor lineup includes pairings like Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh, Austin Butler and Janelle Monáe, and Joe Alwyn (Taylor Swift’s boyfriend) and Paul Mescal (Phoebe Bridgers’ boyfriend). What made a lot of people — mainly film bros — mad, however, was Taylor Swift’s inclusion in the Directors on Directors series.
Swift is paired with Martin McDonagh (Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s boyfriend), the director of The Banshees of Inisherin, and she will discuss her All Too Well short film. This, in tandem with the news of her getting studio backing for her debut feature film, is not sitting well with people!
I’m down for whatever she does that’ll make (mostly) men angry. Campaigning for awards is normal; it’s something seasoned directors do all the time. Although Swift is known for her music, going into the film industry is not as deranged as they’re making it out to be. Janelle Monáe, Alana Haim, and Lady Gaga have done it successfully, so what’s the difference?
I’ve been casually viewing the World Cup, which I was a bit unimpressed with in the beginning. There was not very much scoring going on in the group stage. Then I started having games on in the background as I worked, looking up every so often. That was the case when I saw HIM:
Yassine Bounou, or Bono, is the goalkeeper from the Moroccan national team. He got me making note of when Morocco plays so I can see him on TV, like… it’s getting bad you guys. His appeal aside from looking like a Disney prince, is that he speaks English, Spanish, French, and Arabic, and he’s 6’5”.
But perhaps the hottest thing he’s done is his job! He didn’t let a single one of Spain’s goals through during PKs in the round of 16, and he sent Cr*st**no Ron*ldo into early retirement in yesterday’s quarter finals – he’s a humanitarian! Leaving you with my favorite Bono fancam.
Hello, thanks for reading! I’m going to plug a couple of articles I wrote recently, if you don’t mind 😇 Last week for mitú, I wrote up an interview a former colleague did with actress Jillian Mercado, who talked about making the Metaverse inclusive. For The Luna Collective, I interviewed the band Luna Luna (who went viral on TikTok in 2020) about their new song and their homecoming show last weekend in Texas. Okay, enough from me! I’m gonna go paint my nails now, see you next week!
