"Feelings", Marlou, King Pleasure

New Thing #49 - “You Hurt My Feelings” - The latest from Nicole Holofcener is another slice-of-life piece of white people problems and this might be the simplest, tackling the issue of little white lies that we tell each other to show support. It’s the kind of film that film critics love and most people will find immediately forgettable if not downright boring. And I get it, if you’re a critic and stuck, week after week, watching childish dreck or violent fantasies, something like this feels like a breath of fresh air. But if you’re an everyday person and taking time out of your busy schedule, this isn’t likely to feel like it was worth it. Honestly, even if it was on streaming, you’d probably think “That’s nice” and wish you had chosen something else. This film is basically the follies of the mediocre and that’s probably a good way to describe the film as well.

#50 - Marlou DTLA - I ordered the garlic noodles and made the mistake of adding shrimp for $11 (The dish itself was $19.) The noodles were quite tasty but $11 for five fairly generically seasoned shrimp pushed the dish to an unnecessarily expensive level. The dish and a Diet Coke ran around $45 after tax and tip. And it’s not like you’re paying for the ambiance. Marlou DTLA is a nice but unspectacular hotel restaurant in the O Hotel. Marlou - helmed by former Below Deck chef Marcos - started as a food truck, which feels about right. Maybe the other dishes are better but I can’t say that I’m likely to go back to find out. Marlou wasn’t bad but it failed to make The List.

#51: King Pleasure - Basquiat Exhibit - Maybe the bar was raised too high by the 2pac exhibit but King Pleasure just felt underwhelming to me. At the beginning, it seems like you might get some real insight into Basquiat the person as the first rooms cover his childhood, family, and upbringing but that approach disappears after the opening rooms and after that, it’s pretty much just an exhibit of Basquiat’s work which I must confess doesn’t speak to me. The only insights you really get after that were a map of where he liked to hang out in Los Angeles - mostly bougie spots - and a video of a mentor telling him to invest in himself and always keep one painting from each set he did for himself. I was hoping I might find a new appreciation for the artist but it feels like an exhibit that will interest only those already interested.