Content Consumed: Barbie, ABBA, and more
Hey, hey! Happy Friday. We’re hosting a holiday party at our house tomorrow and I still have a black eye from popping champagne into my inner maxilla last weekend so the vibes are very… confusing, but exciting! Just feels good to be in the thick of the holiday season.
Anyways, in today’s edition of Content Consumed…
😈 Rabid for the Barbie trailer
🪩 Narrowing down my ABBA wedding playlist
👁 Book rec: Our Wives Under the Sea
P.S. I’ll be going through my 2022 favorites (books, movies, tv shows, albums, etc.) at the end of the year! Don’t miss it.
Sound the alarm: The Barbie teaser trailer is here!
I apologize in advance for how aggressively I will be covering the new Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and directed by Greta Gerwig, for the next seven months.
But I’m fiending. Frothing at the mouth. This is the shit I live for.
Here’s the trailer. Do your homework. Watch it. Then read on.
Ready?
Okay, first, incredible homage. Comparing Barbie to the 2001: A Space Odyssey’s “The Dawn of Man” sequence? Iconic! Second, is that Helen Mirren narrating? Third, MARGOT!! Oh my god.
Never has anyone ever been so perfectly cast in a role. Margot IS Barbie. Barbie IS Margot.
The little girls tossing their baby dolls aside upon laying eyes on Barbie/Margot? The quick ten seconds that follow—Barbie/Margot waving to other Barbies in their town of Dream Houses, a silly Ken/Ryan fighting sequence, a Barbie government, a bunch of Kens dancing, and that wink from Barbie/Margot? Wow.
And here I thought I was going to have to buy a ticket to Avatar 2 to see this trailer in theaters. Thank you for your service, Greta Gerwig.
What ABBA would you cut?
I’ve had to make a lot of difficult decisions while planning our destination wedding, which is now less than three months away.
The most difficult decision yet? Narrowing down my ABBA song count for our reception playlist.
I’ll get this out of the way first: I’m walking down the aisle to an instrumental version of “Dancing Queen”. So don’t worry! One essential is secured.
Returning to my initial list, we’re faced with cutting these options down:
“Gimme Gimme Gimme”
“Mamma Mia”
“Lay All Your Love On Me”
“Waterloo”
“Take a Chance on Me”
“Voulez-Vous”
“I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do”
“Honey, Honey”
“Does Your Mother Know”
I mean, what would you do? Here’s what I’m thinking. Out of those nine songs (my favorites from ABBA overall, excluding slower songs like “Fernando” because this is about dancing after all), here are the three I’m keeping:
“Gimme Gimme Gimme”
“Mamma Mia”
“Take a Chance on Me”
Am I right? Wrong? Missing any songs from my initial list? Let me know. Thank you in advance.
Book rec: Our Wives Under the Sea
Okay, I was hesitant to even write a review for this incredible masterpiece of fiction. Because I don’t want to spoil a single thing for someone who hasn’t read it yet. So let me say this:
This novel will haunt me for a long, long time and is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year.
I’ve rarely, if ever, seen grief positioned like this, and the two timelines attached to the two characters were seamless. I felt, in the end, so understanding of (and attachment to) both Miri and Leah — which of course made the ending that much more devastating and painful, yet satisfying and expected. So beautifully written, such a well-crafted plot, and captivating characters.
This author certainly knows how to create a genre-defying atmosphere, blending horror with romance with almost sci-fi. I’m neither a horror nor sci-fi fan, so that should say something about how much of a poetic crossover this novel is.
Still, twelve hours later, I’m sitting here in awe, still soaking it in.
Read Our Wives Under the Sea. Read it now. Cry. Absorb it. Feel it all.
And that’s it for today! Thanks for reading. Soon, I’ll be going through my 2022 favorites: books, movies, tv shows, albums, and more. Stay tuned!
Love,
Casey
P.S. Two big stories you might have missed this week:
- My White Lotus finale recap/review
- My album review of SZA’s S.O.S.
👉🏼 Get more content over on the Content Consumed Instagram.
👉🏼 Find out what I’m reading at my Goodreads profile.
