The Nerdery Movie Night #251: May December and Flaming Hot Cheese Dust Popcorn

We welcome in 2025 by both referencing Single White Female and managing not to mention that America is fucking doomed. Good luck, everyone!

Flaming Hot Cheese Dust Popcorn

Dave: I’ve had May December on my list since it came out, but it’s been awhile since we had a Friday night where we had time for a two hour movie. I’ll admit this was an odd choice. I was tempted to call it a slow burn, but it was more like embers that just kept smoldering: an entire film that is an echo of a story that happened years ago, offscreen (the film is essentially the aftermath of the Mary Kay Letourneau saga of the 1990s). It’s a tough thing to pull off, and while I’m not sure it was 100% successful, it was amazing to watch, mostly to watch the odd All About Eve/Single White Female relationship between Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore. Portman’s subtle mimicking of Moore’s physical actions and voice along with her slow seep into her life sustain the movie, with an admirable, staid performance by Charles Melton as Moore’s husband. The pace was glacial and the storytelling was intentionally fractured, but I’m just not sure it added up to an amazing film in the end (️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

Flaming. Hot. Cheese. Dust. This popcorn certainly lived up to its name. The “dust” managed to choke us both while we ate; this is a popcorn best eaten while holding your breath unless you’re fond of getting peppers in your nasal cavities. Once I got the consumption technique down, it wasn’t a bad popcorn. All told, though the best part was the salty, crispy cheese. (️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Joe: First and foremost, Julianne Moore can polish any turd, but in this film, it's Natalie Portman's world and we're all just living in it. For those of you unfamiliar with Todd Haynes movie, the proceedings may a bit much. So let me set it up for the uninitiated: it's Todd Haynes film. There are going to be artistic flourishes: intentionally over-the-top camera angles, musical interludes that lean heavily into Obvious Symbolism, and melodrama that makes a telenovela seem tame. In the case of May December, though, these dalliances often veered into the Too Much, Todd! TOO! MUCH! Zone. This is a messy (oftentimes silly) movie that relies heavily on the principal performances. To that end, how. the. fuck. did Natalie Portman not get an Oscar nod? She buries herself full tilt into the insanity, and the scenes where she absorbs Moore's every mannerism are ba.na.na.s. Seriously. It's Single White Female levels of absorption. If only the whole had been equal to the sum of its parts. (⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2)

My beloved Ride or Die sent me this recipe, and it's safe to say it is very spicy. Sure, I tweaked the recipe a bit by substituting the parmesan cheese for a Mexican Spice blend, but everything else remained true to the source material. There is a lot of flavor in the final product, to the point of competition. Like any equally matched battle, there is no true winner. But in this case, the winner is the person eating it. It's hot, flavorful, and delicious. My Spidey-sense tells me Dave didn't like it much, but me? (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Popcorn from: Allyson Beth Jenkins, by way of some fancy chefs at Jūn

May December on IMDb.