Rotten Tomatoes by Sophie Haigney and Olivia Kan-Sperling

Every month, we search dozens of soon-to-be-published books, to get great ideas and writing for Overview’site. Often we are surprised by certain paragraphs or sentences from the kitchen that pile up on our counters and spill onto our shelves. We sometimes share them with each other on Slack, and we thought, in return, we might share them with you. Here are some we found this month.

—Sophie Haigney, web editor, and Olivia Kan-Sperling, assistant editor

From AS Hamrah Last Week in End Times Cinema (Semiotext), daily bulletin of film news:

April 28, 2024

Selling value of Deadpool & Wolverine is that it doesn’t require any “Marvel homework.”

WBD and Amazon “perhaps unknowingly” used North Korean companies to work on animation for two of their TV series

Studios have started hiring directors based on the Rotten Tomatoes scores of their latest films

Kalshi, a financial exchange and predictive markets company, offers betting products on Rotten Tomatoes scores. “Now anyone can make money being a film critic,” is how they sell it

WBD CEO David Zaslav’s salary of $49.7 million is more than the entire operating budget of WBD’s Turner Classic Movies, a flagship channel in American film history

Rather than reporting subscriber counts, Netflix will use a new metric they are calling “Fandom,” which is based on how many people watched a trailer or portion of a trailer on their platform. “Over six billion views every month,” they claim, as if that means anything

Comedian-Not frozen director Jerry Seinfeld said “the movie business is over,” replaced by “depression, malaise, confusion—disorientation.” This short and not untrue statement earned him ridicule on social media

Jean-Luc Godard’s final film, Scenariocompleted the day before his death, would debut at Cannes, then be distributed and sold by NFT company Roadstead

Rapper-director Kanye West launches adult entertainment studio, Yeezy Porn

Writer-director Aaron Sorkin is planning an anti-disinformation film J6 which is also a sequel Social networking

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom star Chris Pratt and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger, the book’s authors The Gift of Forgiveness: Inspirational Stories from Those Who Have Overcome the Unforgivablehas torn down the architecturally significant modernist Zimmerman House in Brentwood, built in 1950. The couple bought the home for $12.5 million and will replace it with a 15,000-square-foot “modern farmhouse” style home

A saggy, older, deflated appearance is characteristic of the emaciation now known in Hollywood as the “Ozempic face,” after the name of a prescription weight-loss drug widely prescribed in Los Angeles. Using too much too quickly will result in an endemic zombie-like appearance, with sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks

Everything Changes writer-director David Mamet insists his two actor daughters, Zosia and Clara, are not nepo babies, as learning on set earned them big spots. “They haven’t benefited from any type of privilege,” he said

Writer-director-actor Ben Stiller announced that he was surprised that no one liked it Zoolander 2. The comedy sequel came out in 2016

Lucasfilm has partnered with a dairy company to make and sell Star Wars Blue Milk. Previously only available at Disney theme parks, this liquid food product will be sold in grocery stores and through DoorDash

A tram derailed at Universal Studios Hollywood because it passed the Jurassic Park exhibit too quickly. Fifteen were injured, some seriously. California Highway Patrol Investigation.

From the novel Anika Jade Levy Flat Earth (Spouting):

Do you two want to go for a walk? Wow #I asked.

What about our cell phones? France asked.

Dry bag, said Boy #2.

Do you know how many debutantes die in jet ski accidents every year? I said.

“You two don’t look like you’re coming to the Mayflower,” said Boy #1.

Frances happened to come from a prominent Southern family, I told them.

I have to go to a gallery opening. Can you take us to Lower Manhattan? France asked.

And they agree.

Boy #1 pulls his jet ski up, making himself perpendicular to the rocky shore.

Boy number 2 knelt down so Frances could take his hand and step on his knee.

I took off my low heels and put them in my purse. I reached out to grab Boy #1’s toned arm.
Then the boys pointed their jet skis towards the city.

Zin’s novel Plantation (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux):

Notes for a novel: He is a man who likes women who don’t have children, but now, two of the women he loves have children, while a third wants to have children. My hands were always with me, their hands held me, even now when he was tired and we were reading in bed, Pom would slide his hands up the neck of my blouse, his lips moving. Even George felt relaxed as he sat so close to me. Sometimes, late at night, he would come in when he came home from school and sleep with me. Tell me, I said. Listen, Mama, you’re not listening, Louie complained. I remember asking you if Valeria planned to leave her husband, and you said irritably, I don’t know, shaking your head. This is not the question I want to ask now. One afternoon when it was time for you to leave, I pulled your pink-and-white striped shirt off the chair and put it on. I am freezing. But I’ve been eyeing that dress for a long time, and wanted my bare skin in it. For a small guy, you have broad shoulders, and the shirt was big on me.

From About Volume Calculations (Book III) (New Direction), translated by Barbara J. Haveland, the third installment in Solvej Balle’s time loop trilogy:

I shop sporadically. I went in and out of the house. I pulled the box of supplies out from under my bed and found supplies I didn’t remember buying. I grabbed cans from the kitchen, leeks from the garden, and onions from the barn, buying leftovers on the short trip to town. My day is chaotic, full of uncertainty. I climbed out the window or quietly slipped out the door. I rushed to the side of the house as Thomas came down the stairs. Within seconds, I was out of sight.