Sidebar: F1 Reality Shows, Bad Bunny, and Golden Age of Hollywood Hot Goss

Reality shows, great reads, hot takes, and more.

This is my weekly roundup of links and recommendations. If we talked IRL, I’d likely derail our entire conversation with “Sidebar, have you read | watched | listened | deep dived on this?”

Have you watched?

I watched Ball of Fire (1941), a screwball comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper now streaming on peacock. Stanwyck plays a nightclub singer with mob ties who must hide out in a brownstone where a group of professors live together and work to complete an edition of an encyclopedia. Gary Cooper as a hot nerd is a lot and I ended up doing a deep dive on Barbara Stanwyck and learned there are gay allegations (I’m interested) and she had a not great role in her adopted son’s life. Where’s that movie????

Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Netflix). Every year, I have to get a minor surgical procedure to check up on some health issues (I’m fine). Somehow, it works out that when I do this every year, Netflix drops another season of this show. Needless to say, my wife is not on the F1 journey with me, and even I am not sure why I’m on this journey. This show follows a season from the POV of drivers, managers, and team owners in F1 racing. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on, but I’m genuinely wondering if this is a front for money laundering??? Someone please tap in on this in the comments.

The Next Gen NYC preview dropped, and I will of course be watching. However, a show about the spawn of Bravo stars begs the question: just because you are the child of a housewife, does that make you qualified to lead a show? Knowing how to make plot lines around yourself and put yourself at the center of a circus is definitely a skill, and I’m not convinced these kids have it. We shall see.