Hello friends!

This might be one of the last times I address you as something so generic. I’m going to run a poll next week to determine what the new Premiere Party reader’ moniker should be. Many of you have already sent in suggestions, but there is still time to do so: [email protected]. And a reminder: I’d also love any questions you might have about the state of entertainment—or the state of anything, really. I want to do a mailbag post in the coming weeks, but I can’t do that if my mailbag is empty. 

I hope you’ve all had productive weeks, doing your duty to your corporation or to your government or to your family, working proudly toward our great shared future. This week, I talked about The Social Reckoning on the Critical Darlings podcast. I wrote a bit about the staggering documentary NAZA. And on Sunday evening, I’ll have a review of the Broadway revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities (with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ed Harris) in The Hollywood Reporter. 

Before then, though, I have many items to discuss with you—and some items I can’t discuss. We’re in the thick of the fall release calendar, and thus it’s impossible to see everything. I have yet to see Whalefall, I’m afraid, and thus will be delayed in my thoughts on the movie about guy from Dash & Lily getting stuck inside a whale. I hope to see that film in the next few days and will report back once I have. I also haven’t seen Street Fighter, the documentary about me and my sister arguing over who gets to be Chun-Li. I had high hopes for that one, based on the surprisingly fun first trailer, but apparently it’s bad. Oh well.

I did watch a little of Crystal Lake, the new Friday the 13th prequel series (what a sentence; Drew Barrymore should write it on her Donnie Darko chalkboard), but mostly found it to be a tortured cliché of Peak TV world-building. So, I won’t be writing more about that. 

There are some titles I have already covered and want to bring back to your attention. Spanish epic La Bola Negra, one of two Great Gay Hopes of the Oscar season, is now in theaters ahead of its Netflix release in December. The Cannes best director winner and Toronto People’s Choice victor is one of my favorite movies of the year, a sweeping and gloriously ornate period drama about love and art and war. Some folks have been sniffy about the movie—perhaps finding its high style too turgid, its romantic entanglements unpersuasive—but I suspect that at least some of you will fall for it as hard as I did. And I think it would be a treat to see it on the big screen, to maximize your viewing experience but also to encourage Netflix to do more of these proper theatrical releases. The company has seemingly turned a crucial corner on that matter recently, so let’s help ensure that this exciting sea change is not short-lived. 

Speaking of Netflix, you may hop onto the platform at some point this weekend and see that there’s a new movie on there called Sacrifice, starring Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Salma Hayek-Pinault. You might read the description, or watch the trailer, and think to yourself, “This looks interesting.” By all means press play if you’re curious, but if you’re on the fence, I think your time might be better spent elsewhere. The movie really didn’t work for me, though there are some undeniably striking visual and aural moments conjured up by director Romain Gavras. 

If you happen to be in New York City in the next week and are in the mood for a one-act play, the based-on-a-transcript conversation piece Kramer/Fauci is at St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO until October 24. I saw the show on Tuesday night and was quite taken by the performances, particularly Thomas Jay Ryan as playwright and activist Larry Kramer. (Will Brill is also quite good as Anthony Fauci.) The play essentially reenacts a 1993 C-SPAN debate about AIDS policy in the United States, and is both a fascinating document of that time and a telling bit of foreshadowing of what was to come. There’s some abstraction in Daniel Fish’s direction that I don’t fully understand, but I nonetheless left the theater feeling charged and enlightened. Afterward, you could enjoy a nice dinner at the reliable ABC Kitchens right next door and have a chat about history, disease, and bubble machines. (You’ll understand that last part once you see it.) That’s a pretty good evening, I think. 

Okay, let’s get to two longer recommendations.