John Travolta is the poster child for the up-and-down swings a Hollywood career can take. A huge star at a very young age, he’s been written off numerous times as the quality of his movies dipped — then made just as many comebacks with boffo box office and Oscar nominations. But it’s now been 15 years since he had a certified hit and probably 10 since he made anything you’ve even heard of, with the possible exception of “Gotti,” mostly starring in low-budget straight-to-video schlock.

This morning I finished reading YOUNG QUEENS: THREE RENAISSANCE WOMEN AND THE PRICE OF POWER (Bloomsbury/Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2023). Authored by my dear friend and writing think-tank buddy Leah Redmond Chang and weighing in at over 400 pages before the notes, this book is as compelling and as gorgeous a read as it is long.  With the suspense of a Jason Bourne novel (or movie) but with teen- and tween-sized protagonists wielding quills instead of Kalashnikovs, turning curtsies not cartwheels, with platform-soled, backless silk chapins on their little feet (Elisabeth de Valois came to love Spanish footwear), the book is a poignant, immersive, and altogether magnificent re-telling of the intertwined lives of three women who became the very young queens of France, Spain, and Scotland.

I am for sure Luca Guadagnino pilled, but after watching Challengers, I felt reborn. There is so many things I would like to say right now, but my awareness of a digital footprint is telling me to pull it together. Instead, we’re going to get to the job at hand and discuss the costumes. As you all know, this is a Jonathan Anderson stan account, so when I found out he was doing the costumes for the movie, I knew we’d be in for a treat— and a treat it was!

Happy, happy (early) Valentine’s Day! I love Valentine’s Day because it’s a holiday somewhat in the middle🤞of what is an exceedingly long winter here in Wisconsin, and also because it’s relatively low-stakes, and also also because it celebrates love, and that’s something I can always get behind even if “Hallmark made it up.” (Truly: who cares?) Books for Valentine’s Day are a bonus, but they’re a pretty good bonus, if you ask me.

The Nut Graf: The six Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott Westerns that are leaving the Criterion Channel in a few days (but are still available elsewhere) are A-level B movies: Taut, mature, intensely satisfying. There’s a ton of great stuff leaving The Criterion Channel on October 31 – all the movies in the Jean Harlow festival, the John Huston spotlight, and especially the cycle of six Randolph Scott Westerns directed by Budd Boetticher from 1956 to 1960 and collectively known as “the Ranown Westerns” after the name of Scott’s production company (which in turn came from the first three letters of the star’s name and the last three of co-producer Harry Joe Brown’s).