The Courtney Barnett Songs and 'Summer' Movies That Got Us Through the Week

Courtney Barnett is up to something good: releasing an ambient instrumental album called End of the Day, featuring music she wrote for a 2021 doc about herself called Anonymous Club. The album isn’t out ’til September, but a few guitar-heavy singles are here—pulsing, etherial, and moody as fuck. In other words, the kind of music I will be listening to as I take walks around my neighborhood, hoping I look like I’m deep in brilliant thought; a soundtrack to alone time, if you will. (I think other people use ambient music to clear their minds? How? Couldn’t be me.)

Hard to believe this is the same rocker who rapidly spat out tricky lyrics on the extraordinary 2015 album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, but then again, this new stuff is great music for just sitting. —Sarah Rense

The Summer I Turned Pretty, which returns for Season 2 on Amazon Prime this Friday, is quintessential summer watching. The show’s name, which has the word “summer” in it, is reason enough to give it a watch, but as the AV Club notes, it’s also one of the most authentic on-screen reflections of teen angst and coming of age. For those who missed Season 1—which I vehemently recommend—the teen drama follows the story of Asian-American teen Belly’s summer love triangle with two boys (Conrad and Jeremiah) she’s spent every summer vacationing with. Their latest summer, portrayed in Season 1, is complicated by Belly’s ~maturing~, spurring all kinds of romantic and sexual tension in their families’ beach house—all while Conrad and Jeremiah’s mother has secretly been grappling with her cancer diagnosis. I’ve yet to watch Season 2, as it came out just hours ago, but suffice to say, I know how I’ll be spending my weekend. If you haven’t yet watched Season 1, I heartily recommend it; Season 2 will be right there waiting for you when you inevitably binge it all in two days’ time. —Kylie Cheung

To risk being too meta for this particular post, I always appreciate when my colleagues recommend things to me; I can’t tell you how many TV shows I’ve watched or songs I’ve listened to thanks to these recurring slideshows. This week, Jezebel published the best movies with “summer” in the title, and I immediately put the ones I hadn’t seen onto my proverbial Letterboxd queue. (Is that how Letterboxd works? Actually, don’t respond, I don’t care.)

Some I am very familiar with—the Wet Hot American Summer extended universe is one of my favorite franchises (if it can be called that)—but some I had only ever heard the title of, including a queer bildungsroman-esque movie starring a young Emily Blunt?? Anyway, I highly recommend reading through this list and choosing a few for yourself this lazy (rainy) summer weekend. —Nora Biette-Timmons

This miniseries about Phyllis Schlafly’s war against the Equal Rights Amendment premiered in April 2020, and for six weeks, was the only thing I looked forward to while I quarantined alone in my Brooklyn apartment. It was nominated for a slew of awards, including 10 Emmys, and features a truly outstanding All-Star cast, and yet, I’m constantly learning that not a lot of people watched it, let alone even heard of it.

I rewatched it for maybe the 15th time a couple of weeks ago, and it was as enjoyable and infuriating as the first time. If you don’t know much about Schlafly (who was credited with helping Donald Trump get elected in 2016 and is played by a phenomenal Cate Blanchett), this series shows you exactly how she went from Illinois housewife to conservative firebrand...but through a nuanced lens that, despite the damage Schlafly’s movement has done, shows her as someone who was merely fighting like hell to have a place and a voice within the deeply sexist, patriarchal structures that oppress us all. She just fought on the side of saying sexism doesn’t exist anymore in order to get the approval of the men around her. As Bella Abzug (played by Margo Martindale) says at one point, Phyllis might have been “the most liberated woman in America.”

With Elizabeth Banks as Jill Ruckelshaus, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinen, Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm, and about a dozen more stars, Mrs. America is just...so fucking good. Inspiring and infuriating, sobering and eye-opening, I honestly might rewatch it for the 16th time this weekend. —Lauren Tousignant

Willa Paskin’s New York Times interview with Greta Gerwig also serves as a preview for much of the film, doing two very different but intertwined things—which, perhaps not coincidentally, is what Gerwig said she was trying to do with the movie: “I’m doing the thing and subverting the thing.” How possible that is becomes the locus of Paskin’s piece. There are so many competing forces at play with Barbie—Gerwig’s earnestly held but inexplicable belief that Barbie is a spiritual journey, even as Mattel leadership goes on the record saying the goal of this movie is to sell more toys, for example—that I remain extremely curious to learn what my own reaction is going to be. Paskin’s story explores these arguments in a thoughtful way, and I highly recommend it for anyone else who may be a bit skeptical of the whole point of this movie. —NBT