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   A Writer for 'The Bear' and 'Beef' Made The Summer’s Best Thriller
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   Russell’s own experiences in journalism and the music business shaped his debut film,
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                   <em>
                    <a rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;" target="_blank">
                     Read and share this post on the web.
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                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   It may seem like we’re being inundated with cautionary tales about the corrosive allure of celebrity lately, but the just-released
                   <em>
                    Lurker
                   </em>
                   , in theaters now, is a rare worthwhile new entry to the subgenre. Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Alex Russell,
                   <em>
                    Lurker
                   </em>
                   immediately feels like a distinct and specific snapshot of a specific slice of the music industry. The film tracks one fan’s calculated moves to ingratiate himself into the entourage of a decidedly genre-amorphous pretty-boy singer-songwriter—and the increasingly cringe (and eventually, increasingly dangerous) things he’ll do to maintain that proximity and leverage for even more. Buoyed by engrossing performances from Théodore Pellerin as the titular lurker and
                   <em>
                    Saltburn
                   </em>
                   ’s
                   <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;">
                    Archie Madekwe
                   </a>
                   as the object of his obsession, it’s taut, darkly funny, and bound to feel at least vaguely familiar to anyone who’s worked in or around the music industry in the last 10 years.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   That’s because in this case, Russell really lived his raps: before working his way up in television as a staff writer on
                   <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;">
                    <em>
                     Dave
                    </em>
                   </a>
                   ,
                   <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;">
                    <em>
                     Beef
                    </em>
                   </a>
                   and
                   <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;">
                    <em>
                     The Bear
                    </em>
                   </a>
                   —he wrote “Forks,” arguably the series’ high point—Russell spent time in New York music media during the mid 2010s as a writer for publications like Complex and Vice. He also spent time with actual rap entourages like the Atlanta-based Awful Records crew—which is how he became cool with Zack Fox, who has a supporting part in
                   <em>
                    Lurker
                   </em>
                   .
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   Russell and I go back something like 10 years, having been around each other during our respective stints at Complex; after I screened
                   <em>
                    Lurker
                   </em>
                   I caught up with him over Zoom to talk about his journey from freelance writer to feature filmmaker.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <em>
                    <strong>
                     GQ:
                    </strong>
                   </em>
                   <strong>
                    This is our informal catch-up. We haven't had a chance to link. You’re busy making movies.
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <em>
                    Alex Russell:
                   </em>
                   We're grown-ups now.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    This film is about people's parasocial fascinations with celebrities, an idea that feels extremely of the moment. How did you land on it as a concept?
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   I feel like a lot of journalists really understand this movie, because everyone is playing a game of access and boundaries. Everyone: you, even political reporters and stuff, they have to keep it cool with evil leaders so that they can get the interview. I think that everyone is constantly on this boundary of,
                   <em>
                    What is the line where I should be ashamed, or where I’m putting myself out there in the situation too much?
                   </em>
                   <em>
                    Where am I allowed to be, and how can I distinguish myself between the thing that I'm doing, my job, and the environment that I'm in?
                   </em>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   The parasocial thing is obviously very talked-about now, but I wanted to make a movie that really didn't have to take place
                   <em>
                    now
                   </em>
                   , in that a lot of what's happening, it's not necessarily happening on the phone. I think what's very modern is that you could see your favorite artist hanging out in a video, and then if you happened to be around them, you’d know what type of talk to engage in, or how you maybe want to move or what you wouldn't want to say or what you would want to say. And I think the ways that people prepare for interactions are really funny.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   One thing I was thinking about the other day was the idea of “Nice to meet you.” It feels almost archaic because so often when you meet someone now, if they're a friend of a friend, you've probably seen 10 photos of them at least before meeting them.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    And you can already almost game out what the interaction is going to be like.
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   Yeah, and there's a normal version of that that isn't that crazy, and then you could take it to any level of extreme. I mean, even in this movie—it's not
                   <em>
                    as
                   </em>
                   extreme as certain things I've seen happen in real life. What I want people to understand about this movie is there's nothing that happens in it that's outside the realm of possibility or probability. Worse things have happened.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    I’m glad you put it that way, because as I was watching this, thinking about the time you spent with the Awful Records crew, after a while I was like,
                   </strong>
                   <em>
                    <strong>
                     Is this a
                    </strong>
                   </em>
                   <strong>
                    Twilight Zone
                   </strong>
                   <em>
                    <strong>
                     extreme version of what it was like to be in that bubble?
                    </strong>
                   </em>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   I mean, looking back, the Awful era was actually much less like this movie than what the LA scene is. A lot of those Atlanta Awful kids, they were not really paying that much attention to who was in power and who was trying to do what. But I did see certain people come in and out and you watch as the dynamics change, or if one artist is getting big and one artist is falling off or something like that, you can see,
                   <em>
                    Oh, now this person has a music video director around who's doing it for free.
                   </em>
                   But I feel like looking back, that time in my life was very wholesome in a way. And I'm still friends with some of them—I’m obviously still really close with Zack.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   But I think what I really was feeling at that time was this idea that anyone could be anything—especially in our early to mid-twenties, we're still figuring out what we want to do with our creative urges and what it looks like for us to grow up and how we can apply any writing skill that we have. Where is that going to go? Are we better at one version of it than another? And I feel like life and careers have a way of forcing you into a lane eventually, and it's a good thing, because you also see people who try to do everything and it doesn't work or you're spreading yourself too thin.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    Well, it's funny because there's some dark shit in this movie and it goes to some dark places, but if you do step back from it, there is a positive theme, about the boundlessness of creativity, and all the different industries that surround our industry in this Venn-diagram way where you can be anything if you have the drive to be anything.
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   Yeah, I think there is a fundamental relatability to that, and there's an innocence to this kid who's just trying to put himself out there. There was a point where you and I both had to go into a room where some group of people who had the power had the opportunity that we wanted. They had to like us by the end of that interaction, or they had to think that, "Oh, this is a kid we're giving some work to.” So anyone I think can feel that, especially people who went into a field where it wasn't an obvious life track or a school track.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    A field without this obvious ladder and trajectory to climb.
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   Working in media in New York, I'm sure a lot of the steps that you took along the way weren't obvious. There are moves especially to survive that industry, which is so unstable and unhinged and constantly adapting, especially at the time that we got into it.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    I was going to say, with all the handwringing now, even 10 years ago it was nuts. “Pivot to video…”
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   I mean it was already a bit that people were doing at that time and I'm sure we were like, "Damn, I just got here."
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    It's like Tony Soprano: “I came in at the end of something.”
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   Totally. I think about that a lot. There was a Golden Age, and you just missed it.
                   <em>
                    Just
                   </em>
                   missed it. And in Hollywood, it just feels like a bigger ship that's also sinking. But that's also what's so fun about it—you have to figure it out. There was no time where you didn't have to figure it out, but especially now, you have to adapt to whatever's going on and find your way. These fields were never promised to anyone. It's literally a dream job.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    The debut feature is like your debut album, right? It's the thing you've been thinking about your whole life, it's your first impression. So how did you really land on this idea being the one you wanted to really make your first step out there with?
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   I think now, the challenge is to find focus because there are a lot of shiny things that I could do or could spend a lot of time investing creatively in, but back then it was like I would either be unemployed or have one opportunity and I feel like it's going to be harder to do a second movie because it could make it about anything. Whereas doing the first movie, it was really like, "What do I understand? What am I feeling right now?"
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   It was such an exploration of early twenties life of boys and the music world, and obviously I wanted to make that feel like a real movie and feel universal, but I had just the right amount of tether to the material. Maybe I haven't lived through that scene, but I've been in that room. It was also a part of my education in screenwriting, trying to figure out how to write something longer. It was 2020 and I had just gotten into the profession, so I was like, "Can I even write something longer?"
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   And the stakes were super low. The stakes were, can I physically get to page 100 so that I can say I wrote a feature? I think it started out really like,
                   <em>
                    Well, this would be funny
                   </em>
                   , or
                   <em>
                    This is something I've seen that is a character that I think is really rich in potential.
                   </em>
                   So what probably started out was one scene that's in the movie now or some evolution of it was just me writing it almost a sketch.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    Do you remember which scene that was?
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   I think the opening scene I wrote pretty early on. In the store where I was like, "This is how a kid might calculate this interaction." I just found that really funny and I was like, "What if he takes it all the way?" And in a way it's almost like
                   <em>
                    Curb
                   </em>
                   logic, where the story is about a guy who won't let something go or will continue to double down in a way that you think is going to embarrass them. Then you're down the spiral of humiliation, then you can't really go back.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    There are some big cringe moments.
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   I was trying to elevate the cringe to the highest level. That was my north star: what is going to be just so uncomfortable to watch from his perspective? I always talk about K
                   <em>
                    ing of Comedy
                   </em>
                   , because to me, watching that movie, you're not really in his shoes. You're watching him from afar almost objectively. But in my movie, it's like you're feeling his moment-to-moment embarrassment and hopes and dreams in every minute.
                   <em>
                    Is he going to say the right thing? Is he going to be cool? Is he going to fuck it up?
                   </em>
                   I think people can relate to that on a basic level. Then there gets to a point where you're like, "Yeah, I wouldn't personally do that, but I get why he is doing that." I think that there's never a point where people are like, "I don't understand why he's doing this anymore."
                  </p>
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                      Click here to read the full Q&amp;A interview.
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                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    Between the Taps
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0">
                   (
                   <em>
                    A weekly roundup of everything else I consumed since the last Tap In)
                   </em>
                  </p>
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                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    Clipse live at The NOVO
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   Pusha T listening parties and concerts in New York are usually five-star Letterboxd films, so I've been languishing in FOMO here in LA, watching all my friends enjoy everything Clipse has been doing in NYC like Rolf in
                   <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;">
                    that
                    <em>
                     Ed, Edd n Eddy
                    </em>
                    meme
                   </a>
                   . So imagine my pleasant surprise when the LA stop on their tour turned out to be arguably their craziest show yet. Kendrick’s appearance was the headline, of course, and that moment was electric—especially considering "Chains &amp; Whips" is how the Thornton brothers open the show. But I was just as hype to see a live performance of their seminal track
                   <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;">
                    "Virginia,"
                   </a>
                   which they hadn't included in the setlist until now. Hanging around the green room backstage after the show—next to noted Clipse fan Bill Burr(!)—I said as much to Malice, who told me they'd been getting too many complaints on the road about its exclusion, so they felt compelled to give the people what they want. You never know what you're gonna get from LA concert crowds, but Pusha and Malice were locked in, feeding off of a very engaged audience from song one and never letting up. Spotting Lionel Boyce and Yung Taco in the room before the show made me wonder if we were getting a Tyler cameo too, but Clipse didn't need any more guests; they could've given us another 30 minutes (including "EBITA" and at least four more fan favorites from the first two albums) and no one would've complained.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    <em>
                     The Departed
                    </em>
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   The latest addition to Frazier's Aughts Random Rewatches. This is still godbody of course, and I am famously
                   <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #000000;">
                    pro-rat
                   </a>
                   . But this will always hold a special spot in my heart as a key formative filmgoing experience. Back in 2006, my friends and I bought tickets for the Ashton Kutcher-Kevin Costner lifeguard drama
                   <em>
                    The Guardian
                   </em>
                   at our small-town movie theater with plans to walk down the hall and sneak into this. They all got caught by the usher and had to actually sit through that trash fire, but somehow I slipped through and you better believe I left them all for dead and enjoyed what might've been my first Scorsese movie (I can't remember when I watched
                   <em>
                    Goodfellas
                   </em>
                   ) all by myself in an inconspicuous back row seat. I can probably recite every Jack line off top. (Also with every rewatch, you always notice more conspicuous close-ups of James Badge Dale preparing you for the twist at the end, lol.)
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    Magadelena Bay,
                   </strong>
                   <strong>
                    <em>
                     Imaginal Disk
                    </em>
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   This album has crack in it—one of the best of last year, and one of my go-to top-to-bottom listens well into this year.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    Drake v. Kendrick BeefMix (self-made)
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   The ironic thing about Drake's lawsuit is that if it didn't exist, we'd all be reasonably tired of talking about this beef now. "Not Like Us" should have a prime beachside spot on Ubiquity Island by this point. Instead, the more we continue to discuss and uh, litigate, all of this stuff with each new court update, the more the songs stay stuck in my head. ("Euphoria" never left, to be honest, but I digress.) It's to the point where I felt compelled to actually put every song besides "The Heart Part 6" (because, LOL) into a chronological playlist and listen to them like a mixtape that would've been hosted by Kay Slay or Whoo Kid or whoever if this happened 20 years ago. The fact that the "Meet the Grahams" beat drop actually made me laugh out loud says everything about how this beef played out, an outcome no court settlement or Tupac chain can erase.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    <em>
                     Andor
                    </em>
                   </strong>
                   <strong>
                    season 2
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   I fired up
                   <em>
                    Andor
                   </em>
                   season 2's premiere when it dropped, and within 10 minutes I just wanted to rewatch season 1 first. So I did that, then got distracted across the summer, then got a little bored by the start to season 2 because for some reason this excellent show can't help coming out of the gate with two duds before things heat up. But heat up they did, and after tearing through the rest of the season, pardon my lateness as I join the chorus of people calling
                   <em>
                    Andor
                   </em>
                   the greatest
                   <em>
                    Star Wars
                   </em>
                   spin-off ever. Better than the prequels, the sequels, every stand-alone—the Big Three are the original,
                   <em>
                    Empire
                   </em>
                   , and my son
                   <em>
                    Andor
                   </em>
                   . Tony Gilroy just understands and executes the themes George was trying to get at, sometimes better than George himself (imagine if Tony co-wrote the prequels) where most of the directors who come to this sandbox default to deference. (Rian Johnson is a distant second.) Season 2 may not be the perfectly paced and well-oiled machine that the first season is, but you won't find a finer moment in this franchise than the one-two punch of the most insidious plot we've ever seen the Empire orchestrate to Mon Mothma's escape after she calls them out for it. LucasFilm should be throwing anything and everything at Gilroy: a new trilogy, Kathleen Kennedy’s job, whatever he wants.
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0;margin-bottom:16px">
                   <strong>
                    Jay-Z Intros
                   </strong>
                  </p>
                  <p style="margin:0">
                   Another playlist I made this week based off of a prompt I saw floating around on Instagram. Jay-Z album intros are always carefully considered, dynamic, often very cinematic in sound and scope—even his weaker albums boast incredible starts. (A fact he sneakily acknowledged by performing
                   <em>
                    Kingdom Come's
                   </em>
                   "The Prelude" at a show in 2019). “A Million &amp; One Questions/Rhyme No More” from his second album is my pick for No. 1, but I will also accept the more agreed upon intro to
                   <em>
                    The Dynasty.
                   </em>
                   And
                   <em>
                    Blueprint 3's
                   </em>
                   "What We Talkin Bout" would be much more celebrated if it had a better hook than the one Empire of the Sun frontman Luke Steele turned in.
                  </p>
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                    <strong>
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                    </strong>
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