The Brunch round-up: The week and how it made us feel

Vikramaditya Motwane’s movie, CTRL, is about a woman who uses AI to erase her unfaithful partner from her life. Yes, there are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) feels. But it also seems like The Gone Game (2020-2022), which featured all those video-calling scenes. CTRL, despite the title, struggles to hold on to its story. The best thing about it is Ananya Panday, our best Gen Z ambassador.

Shut. UPPP! A new Princess Diaries movie is finally in the works. Fans everywhere are saying they made it happen. But, ahem, you know who manifested it most strongly? We, at Brunch. We featured it in last week’s Listicle on sequels we want. And here it is. Thank you, Universe. Just keep dull Chris Pine out of the story.

Yes, it’s a Nobody Wants This reference. Obvs, we binged the whole thing. Of course, we’re into Adam Brody as the Hot Rabbi. But let’s hear from the real fans of the actor, people who crushed on him all the way back in 2003-2007, when he played Seth Cohen in the OC. It’s the same endearing nerdiness, actual Golden Retriever energy. EVERYBODY wants this.

Mansplaining is annoying. But women going on and on, when they could just spit the facts? That’s She-laboration. The internet credits New York content creator @Tank.Sinatra for the term. Maybe such long explanations wouldn’t be needed if men paid attention in the first place?

Payal Kapadia, whose film All We Imagine As Light won the Cannes Grand Prix in summer, has made it to the Time100 Next 2024 list. Indie filmmakers have it hard to begin with. Kapadia also protested the appointment of actor-turned-politician Gajendra Chauhan as the president of Film and Television Institute of India in 2015. Burn bright! Show them art can win!

Keanu Reeves, aka John Wick himself, made his professional car racing debut last week, at age 60. So what if he finished 25th out of 35? Didn’t you see that he avoided a crash in the first lap? It wasn’t Reeves’s first race. He won the celebrity edition of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in 2009. Suddenly, we’re very into the sport.

My Sunshine is more than a Korean drama. It’s set in Nigeria, with a local cast that speaks fluent Korean, down to the accents and mannerisms. The usual tropes are all there: Romance, friendship, misunderstandings that work out in the end. People are slamming them for aping a foreign culture. We, on the other hand, are here for it. So addictive!

October is special. Apparently, it’s when life throws the most plot twists: New jobs, break-ups, meet-cutes. Conspiracy theorists refer to it as October Theory. It’s probably just the rush of meeting year-end targets and knowing it’s our last chance to get things right before 2025. Either way, we’ve got something to blame for all the drama.