Content Consumed: Scooter Braun, Saltburn, Ben Affleck, and Vampire Diaries
Hey hi! How’s your August treating you? In today’s edition of Content Consumed, we’re talking about…
👀 Scooter Braun gossip—or a lack of it
🎥 Stoked for the Saltburn twisted gothic
💘 Overanalyzing Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s bromance
🩸 It’s almost Vampire Diaries season
🧸 Book review: Close to Home, a traumatic tale from Belfast
Will the Scooter Braun story actually be salacious?
Scooter Braun, manager to the stars, is no longer working with most of his clients—Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, J Balvin, and more. Some are saying there’s a juicy story about to come out, some sort of classic entertainment industry exposé.
However, it’s probably more boring and logical than that.
Some of the clients left Braun’s firm months ago. The two most important, Bieber and Grande, are technically still under contract but trying to negotiate their exit, according to Bloomberg.
The probable reality is that Braun just doesn’t want to manage anymore. He’s rich enough that he doesn’t want to keep playing babysitter to multimillionaire artists. Great talent representatives need to actually want to work with their talent—and Braun’s moving into the business world. Buying up labels like Big Machine, funding film and TV projects. He made a little Elon-esque quip about it on X/Twitter and hasn’t commented further.
But hey… I’d love a good bit of gossip if it exists.
A first look at fall’s anticipated ‘Saltburn’
Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi. Desire, obsession, dark academia, wealth, and sex in the English countryside. Saltburn is guaranteed to be a freaky English Gothic film. The darkly comedic drama centers on a group of rich Oxford students who escape to a lush estate for the summer.
In Vanity Fair’s First Look piece, Saltburn writer and director Emerald Fennell dives right in: “The thing is, we’re all disgusting perverts, aren’t we?”
An excerpt from the VF feature:
Felix (Elordi) invites him to his family’s sprawling estate, where Oliver (Keoghan) meets a twisted bunch of characters who say and do things that will make you squirm — but Fennell is betting big on the fact that these dark moments will be relatable in their humanity.
“If it feels real, if it feels like something you really might do alone in the grips of desire, then it doesn’t feel too much for me,” Fennell tells Vanity Fair. “For that completely overwhelming carnal desire to take hold, there has to be an element of revulsion, there has to be an element of transgression.”
I’m stoked to see Keoghan in such a high-profile leading-man role, and I hope Elordi hits his marks. Two very handsome actors and a tempting plot… it’d be difficult for this to not be an absorbing movie.
EDIT: The trailer just dropped! It’s gooood. Watch it here.
Thread of the week: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s relationship
Mind if I just drop this here?
It’s almost Vampire Diaries season
I haven’t watched The Vampire Diaries since high school…
…and that’s about to change.
Before I can, I gotta finish Sex and the City. And I’m working f*cking hard at it. I’m finally trudging through season 5. Then I’ve got season 6, two movies, and then two seasons of And Just Like That.
You know what? Actually, realistically, I can’t let all that SATC content dominate my viewing schedule.
I love a good seasonal show, and Vampire Diaries just feels like a fall show. Just close your eyes and picture Elena in that graveyard in the first episode… whew. Feel that?
Also, I’ve seen a few tweets this week reminding me that not only is Vampire Diaries extremely camp, but it’s also pretty good?!
Book review: Close to Home by Michael Magee
Yes, I read another book about The Troubles and their lasting impact on Northern Ireland. This time, I read a novel from the perspective of an educated twenty-something who’s returned home to Belfast to a recession and familiar traumas. Can he dig himself out of a hole—again and again and again?
Much of Close to Home by Michael Magee wrestles with blame. Who is to blame for our main character’s repeated falls into drugs and unemployment? Is it his older brother Anthony’s addictions and crippling PTSD that heavily influence our main character’s own decisions? Is it his father, who abused Anthony? Is it his father’s prison guards in the ‘80s, who tortured him? Is it the entire culture of paramilitary violence that ruled Northern Ireland for decades?
The modern novelization of The Troubles really helped me further understand the system of silence that dominated (and really, still dominates) families, friends, and neighborhoods in Belfast. Men were told not to speak about their traumas; women tried to laugh off their traumas. The current generation—this book is set in 2013—hasn’t escaped it, even if the physical violence of the late 20th century has subsided. Men still lash out at their wives and children, addiction runs rampant through communities dealing with continuous mental health crises, and women still sob behind closed doors. Because it’s a place where you’re supposed to say nothing.
Our main character tries so, so hard to find stability. It often feels like everyone around him is encouraging failure. At many points, we the reader also find ourselves losing hope. But by mending important relationships and seeking out better opportunities, our main character ends the story on a hopeful note.
And that’s it for this edition of Content Consumed! I love you! Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Casey
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