The Taylor Swift Manicure That Has Unsettled My Spirit The Friday Post.

When Taylor Swift embraced her football boyfriend after his football victory at the football game last Sunday, I could only think: “Oh my God. Those nails.” They are boxy square nails of medium length, in the color bedazzled vomit or glitter jaundice. They are thick with alternating layers of glitter and polish. (Just a regular glitter polish would have accomplished this, I’m guessing.) I assumed they were press-ons because her Eras tour manicures were Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat nails, or whatever you want to call it when each finger is a different color. (If you’re wondering what specific outfit this matched: none very well.) But that manicure appeared to be her natural nails, short enough so she could play guitar onstage. I posted about the nails to my IG story when I first saw them, because they had unsettled my spirit so thoroughly. Those nails are these shoes; these nails say to me “Bless her heart.” Many people replied that Swift does her nails herself, per the Miss Americana doc. One person replied that Taylor Swift had painted one of her nails, like one single nail, at a party one time. (Swift sent her bodyguard home to fetch her nail kit. Lol.) Some people suggested this was the Brittany Mahomes effect and … Brittany Mahomes can catch a lot of strays, but these nails seem all Swift. There is something fascinating about the way perhaps the most famous non-Julia Roberts white woman in the world¹ chooses to present herself. I’ve seen the theory circulated online (and sometimes in the comment section of this newsletter) that Taylor Swift has to dress like a girl waiting to get picked up from Woodland Hills Mall because approachability is part of her brand. Beyoncé is the impenetrable, divine, musical savant; Ariana has the voice and the curious taste in partners.² Dua Lipa can’t dance but she’s so cool. Onstage at the Eras Tour, sitting at a piano, Taylor Swift talks about being lonely and covered in cat hair. (She is a billionaire.) Travis Kelce and his little SSENSE cart outdress Swift at every opportunity, not that he has to try very hard. But I don’t buy it, the idea that the ugly dress ugly shoes quality of everything she wears is a savvy way to perform her relatability. Lauren Sherman, who writes a dishy Puck newsletter about the fashion business, wrote a very smart newsletter about why it doesn’t make sense for this galactically famous person to have a high fashion contract. “Swift doesn’t need to be the face of a fashion brand: she makes far more money than most actresses, and her image is so carefully controlled that any deal would need to feel exactly right, and at the right price, for her to say yes,” Sherman wrote. “You could argue that her persona, which remains very young despite the fact that she is firmly in her 30s—Christ’s age, to be exact—doesn’t naturally align with any luxury brands, which either choose famous people who match their aesthetic perfectly (Chanel is good at this) or have such a flimsy idea of fashion that they are easy to mold.” I suspect another part of this is that Swift’s demo isn’t likely to significantly move the needle on or create a moment around a luxury good she’d wear, like Katie Holmes wearing that Khaite sweater. What’s more: We’ve seen the “Bejeweled” music video, which Swift directed. (I’m not bringing up the “Karma” video, which she also directed, out of kindness.) I wouldn’t describe that directorial effort as evidence of her being a real visual aesthete or tastemaker.³ I mean … it’s called “Bejeweled” and she walks around a studio space wearing Party City rhinestones. So no: I don’t think the nails are some play at reliability. In a fascinating way, she is local. Maybe a nail kit will one day be her Rhode⁴ or her Rare. If nothing else, can’t wait to see what her Pinterest board has on it for the Usher concert next Sunday (the Super Bowl), an event in which her boyfriend (who is not Usher) will be playing catch with some other guys (who are also not Usher).⁵ What the Paid List Got This Week I wrote about some movies I watched in January (Godzilla Minus One, Postcards from the Edge, The Zone of Interest), and a little bit about my personal life lately. You can read it here: It’s the 349th Day of January HUNTER HARRIS · FEB 1 It’s the 349th Day of January The first movie I watched this year was Postcards from the Edge, Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Carrie Fisher’s book of the same name. I love this movie a stupid amount; I can recite 97% of it by heart. There’s prickly relationship between mother (Shirley MacLaine) and d… Read full story Upgrade to paid God Brings You To It (Boston) to Bring You Through It (Also Boston) Ayo Edebiri is hosting Saturday Night Live tomorrow night, with musical guest Jennifer Affleck dba J.Lo. My first thought was “Amazing!!!!” My second thought was “Matt Damon is plummeting in the famous Bostonian rankings.”⁶ Damon was … fine in Air? Ben Affleck gets to hang out on his wife’s work trip. author Ayo Edebiri on Instagram: “one for grid bc I still can’t believe it” FEBRUARY 3, 2024 The iconic, cross-generational, never-been-done-before Boston link-up that could happen between these two iconic Bostonians, Ayo Edebiri and J.Lo’s husband. Will they talk about Dunkin’ … reloading their CharlieCards … the organizational instability of the Patriots … the power that will come from them saying “Billerica” alone … not that Billerica would come up in conversation, but just imagine it does … That’s all this week! Thank you for reading. Tomorrow morning I’m seeing Oppenheimer again. I’m such a loser; I can’t wait! I cannot stop thinking about the scene where Harry S. Truman (Gary Oldman) glares at Oppenheimer and calls him a nerd with main character syndrome. And one more reminder: Grammys chat Sunday night! Join Hunter Harris’s subscriber chat Available in the Substack app and on web Join chat 1 Okay, fine: My world. 2 Daily I think about Pete Davidson going to Aretha Franklin’s funeral. None of those words are in the Bible. 3 Sherman again: “Her fashion is aspirational to many 14-year-olds, or someone of any age who wishes to look like a senior at Emerson College in 2006.” 4 I just got the cleanser btw and it smells so good, and I usually don’t like anything skincare to be fragranced. 5 Something you may not know about me is that I had to manage my high school football team to get a sports credit I needed to graduate and also to hang out with my best friend and also talk to boys. 6 He’s somewhere below Alessandro Nivola and above CIA operative John Krasinski. Thank you for being a free subscriber to Hung Up! If you like it, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription for even more of it. If you’re new here, here’s an intro and FAQ. You can also find me on Instagram here, on Twitter here, my Tiktok, and I’m also on Bluesky. And if you share on social, please add a link :) © 2024 Hunter Harris 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 ...

Attenzione Sneak: Let’s Talk About the Oscar Nominations

Attenzione Sneak: Let’s Talk About the Oscar Nominations 'Barbie' and 'Oppie' and no 'May December' oh my ... HUNTER HARRIS JAN 24 Hung Up got a redesign! I’ve been working with my friends at Public-Library for the past few weeks on a new look. On the mood board was Sharon Stone in Casino and Solange’s stills for “When I Get Home.” A few years ago, my friend Kyle Buchanan wrote about watching movies on a plane, via someone else’s seat monitor, or over someone’s shoulder. “Time and time again, I’ve tried not to be such a weird eavesdropper, but I just can’t help myself,” he wrote for Vulture in 2017. “When you can’t tell what the characters are saying in someone else’s movie, it creates a curiosity gap that’s so much more enticing than simply firing up that movie to watch it yourself.” I was on a five hour flight the other day without wifi, and only Midnights and a Drake album downloaded on my phone. I watched Barbie with (via?) the woman in 23F, one row in front of me. I was sort of transfixed by it. So much of Barbie has become exhausting to me: the loving of Barbie, the hating of Barbie, the pink, the press tour, the America Ferrera monologue, the how much is this movie really about Ken … I could go on. But there, in the sky somewhere between Atlanta and Raliegh, I could only see a big swing that worked more often than it didn’t. This is a movie about talking dolls who live in Barbieland and a Kensurection! It looks and feels like a big Technicolor musical. There is so much optimistic weirdness to Barbie, as a character, that Margot Robbie really commits to. And in the middle there’s a car commercial and a scene that looks like an ad for antidepressants. Barbie isn’t perfect, but watching it on that flight felt like a magic trick. The “I can’t believe they got away with this!” of it all was enthralling. This One Line From Barbie Plays on a Loop in My Head HUNTER HARRIS · JULY 26, 2023 Read full story Barbie was the headline snub Tuesday morning, when the Oscar nominations were announced. Margot Robbie was shut out of Best Actress (but was nominated as a producer of Barbie), and Greta Gerwig was left off of the Best Director list, only nominated for co-writing the script. (But “I’m Just Ken” and America Ferrera get in? Be so serious right now…) When the nominations were read, Martin Scorsese became the most nominated living director — 10! Gagged them a bit! — and there are more black acting nominees than I can recall in recent memory. But enough about Barbie. I don’t care for Past Lives as much as many of you did — sorry, they needed to kiss — so its Best Picture nomination is an overperformance. Nyad! Nyad! Nyad! I love Annette Bening but my God — what a drag! Nyad is certainly a movie … that exists in the endless data dump of Netflix. I hope the “Lily Gladstone just laid in bed in Killers of the Flower Moon” and the “why didn’t Anna Paquin have any lines in The Irishman” crowds have an amazing time continuing to never understand anything. Not everything has to be big or grueling or garish; you can feel the pain, and paranoia, through every moment of that Gladstone performance, and not once did she feel slight... © 2024 Hunter Harris 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104