A Christmas Sampler for Anyone Wishing to Extend the Holiday Season: Inaugural Version!

Happy Almost New Year, friends!

Last year I had the idea to write a medley of holiday movies in the model of my annual Halloween movies round-up.  I didn't get around to it, but I'm going to try to cram one in this year--admittedly somewhat late for the holidays themselves, but perfectly timed for anyone looking to drag out the season a few more days.  I'm not sure that I'll make this a routine, but I'm nevertheless excited to try it out.

To update the Halloween model, I will use both my typical 1 - 5 rating for overall quality and our brand new sparkling holiday cheer/feel-goodness rating, from 1 - 5 snowflakes, which can be interpreted as follows:

* = Minimal cheer / feel-goodness
*** = Medium cheer / feel-goodness,
akin to a well-seasoned cup of eggnog or nicely marshmallowed mug of hot coco
and a nicely cosy sweater/lap blanket combo
***** = Maximum cheer / feel-goodness,
equivalent to Santa actively depositing presents under your Christmas tree
as delicate snowflakes begin descending from the tender fluffy clouds above
and a choir of precious little children starts singing perfectly tuned carols outside
in the soft light of the candles they carry

So with that, let's dive in!

"Four Christmases" (2008)

Rating: 1   Holiday Cheer Rating: *

As Christmas movies go, this one felt a bit bleak: a self-congratulatingly anti-marriage-and-kids couple makes the rounds of their four families, as they are each the adult children of divorce.  Even if we look past the complete impossibility of fitting four family Christmas celebrations (including at least one church service + nativity performance) in four seemingly completely different locations in only one day to force this premise to work, this film is just too mean-spirited and the characters all not really fleshed out enough to worthy of pondering whether they're redeemable to be worth watching.  So if you're looking for general enjoyment, let alone holiday enjoyment, maybe skip this one.

"National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation" (1989)

Rating: 2   Holiday Cheer Rating: ***

A throw-backy option!  While this isn't exactly the best movie, I appreciated the "Home Alone" (1990)-light energy of the slapstick-y holiday silliness of this movie (with considerably less outright violence).  It kind of made me miss the solidly '80's / early '90's comedy movie aesthetic that required packing in as many silly sight gags and prop-based jokes as humanly possible, when so many of the more recent middling comedies can seem so comedically threadbare by comparison.  Even if "Christmas Vacation" isn't a laugh-out-loud extravaganza of hilarity, you can at least see that the filmmakers are trying to make it as funny as possible.

"A Bad Moms Christmas" (2017)

Rating: 1   Holiday Cheer Rating: **

This is unfortunately yet another Christmas movie I simply did not like, and not just because they cast Justin Hartley as a love interest and I'm solidly #TeamChrishell.  While this movie successfully musters some holiday vibes, the fact that the main distinguishing trait of the trio of core characters (played by Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, and Kathryn Hahn) is that they're wantonly obnoxious in public doesn't exactly make you care that their moms are titularly bad.  But the biggest nail in the coffin of this patently unpleasant movie is that it is one of countless holiday / family movies that actively coach its audience to favor family togetherness at all costs, even in the face of family member behavior that is unrepentantly emotionally abusive, insulting, and boundary-violating.  I was officially done with this film when its emotional turning point occurred not when each of the adult daughters attempted to set boundaries with their "bad moms," but when Mila Kunis was somehow transformed into the bad guy *for* setting that boundary.... on Christmas (cue manipulative lip quiver).  Yeah we officially have too many movies like this.

Alternatively, I would pay plenty of hard-earned money to watch movies about families who are just nice and respectful toward each other and then have wholesome holiday-based adventures together.  Filmmakers PLEASE take note!

"Single All the Way" (2021)

Rating: 4.5   Holiday Cheer Rating: *****

"Single All the Way" is by far the biggest winner of this medley.  It is genuinely sweet, charming, and entertaining, with successfully funny moments and a classic happy holiday movie arc infused with new energy by the will-they-won't-they gay couple at its center.  What makes this film really successful is what makes it the diametric opposite of "A Bad Moms Christmas": while the family has its cute, goofy moments (most clearly expressed through Jennifer Coolidge's Aunt Sandy and Kathy Najimy's overly-enthusiastic blind date arranging, PFLAG-y books about gay people reading mother to Michael Urie's Peter), they are all unconditionally and unabashedly gay-friendly and therefore supportive of Peter and his best friend and hopeful love interest Nick (played with gentle sweetness by Philemon Chambers).  There is not a drop of homophobic or racist squeamishness or tension in the movie, which arguably is exactly what we might want in a cosy, pleasant family-friendly holiday romantic comedy.  

It's clear how much I liked this movie, because as you'll see in our year-end wrap-up, I watched it both at the tail end of last holiday season last January and again this December.  It is truly a delight!

"A Hollywood Christmas" (2022)

Rating: 1   Holiday Cheer Rating: ***

If you're looking for a profoundly low-stakes holiday film with yet another classic romantic holiday movie arc and just enough self-awareness to make it mildly interesting, this is your movie!  Additional perks include Jessika Van's casting as the romantic lead and the ultimate redemption of all of the film's characters, even if they are at first positioned to be too villainous and/or vacuous for it.  It's not good, but it's fine, and it's definitely Christmas-y and there's something to be said for that.

With that, I hope you all enjoy some nice holiday movies and have a wonderful New Year!  Onward!

{Heart}

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! 2022 Edition

Hi team,

I hope you all had a nice holiday last week with enjoyable food and company!

It's time to reflect on the things for which I'm particularly thankful this year.

They are:

• My healthy, loving, sweet animals.
• The abundance and generosity of plants, flowers, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, foxes, deer, and all the living things I can see and enjoy from the windows of my home.
• My home, where I feel peaceful, grounded, content, and safe.
• Finally some degree of relaxation of our pandemic precautions due to multiple vaccines and boosters as well as the relief granted by the passage of time, which has made it possible to:
• See more of our friends and family.
• Travel to celebrate loved ones' weddings.
• Revisit some of our favorite places in our beloved City, with admittedly still a lot to reconnect with, someday.
• Finally enroll our Child in a sweet, cosy, welcoming, positive daycare where he can play with "the other babies."
• Podcasts that deepen my connection to my political identity, simultaneously helping me feel more informed, interested in the outside world, and connected to a community of like-minded people, especially because of the people in my life who also enjoy these podcasts.
• Finally some more time to read for leisure.
• Finally getting to go apple picking again, including taking my Child for the first (and second) time.
• Multiple outlets for support, growth, and recovery.
• Learning more and more what my boundaries are and actually learning how to set and maintain them.
• My clients and the reciprocal, life-enhancing benefits of my work.
• Opportunities to revisit one of our favorite beaches and our community pool, as well as to discover a new delightful beach where we can peddle around on Flintstone-like multi-seater bikes and watch dolphins swim, as well as already having concrete plans to return to our favorite beach next spring.

• Not to mention: Plans, multiple times postponed, to travel abroad this summer that may just actually happen this summer.
• Not to mention: Feeling hope and excitement for the next year instead of despair and dread.
• My Husband and his patience, thoughtfulness, support, creativity, hard work, and love.
• Sharing ever more of the world with my Child, including more music, stories, people, and places.
• My Child's hungry brain, sweet, joyful, and loving temperament, inventive spirit, and wonderful sense of humor, as well as absolutely every single aspect of my Child's existence and being.
• As my Child grows and becomes more of a kid than a baby, getting to introduce and deepen our practices around holidays and family traditions.
• The births of several beloved and eagerly anticipated babies, as well as a few beloved and eagerly anticipated babies to come in the new year.

And, as always:

• Anyone who reads this blog.

I hope you have this many and more things that have made you feel happy and whole this year, and even more ahead.

{Heart}

A Halloween Sampler for All Souls: 2022 Edition!

Hallooo0o0o0o0ooo!!

Happy Halloween, everyone!  It's time for this year's medley of macabre movies!

Due to a variety of factors (including the constantly stressful state of the world) I haven't been in a mood to tolerate a lot of scary content this year, but I nevertheless have a decent array of films to offer you, dear friends, in case you're in the mood to watch something spooky to celebrate this delightful holiday.

As usual, each of the films to follow will be accompanied by the usual 1 - 5 rating scale for overall quality, as well as a scary/intense rating of 1 - 5 exclamation points, to be interpreted as follows:

! = not at all scary

!!!!! = so scary!

This year's films are:

"Nope" (2022)

Rating: 3  Scary Rating: !!!

This year's classic horror movie, care of director Jordan Peele.  As I've already shared, I wasn't as blown away by this movie as I was by his astonishing debut, "Get Out" (2017).  That said, "Nope" definitely presents a fun twist on the alien/monster-y genre, showcases great performances, and offers some good tense moments with one or two jump scares for good measure.  It may not blow you away in the way we know that Peele is capable of, but it's still reasonably fun and scary for Halloween.

"Don't Worry Darling" (2022)

Rating: 5  Scary Rating: !!!!

Having watched this last night I'm admittedly coming in a bit hot but I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO TALKS ANY MORE TRASH ABOUT THIS MOVIE.  

For those of you who have managed to remain blissfully unaware, there has been an over-abundance of gossip-y nonsense around this movie, which has bizarrely and more importantly inaccurately led people to conclude that they know enough about the film to conclude that it won't be good (??).  It's almost like sexism is prompting people to assume that a lady director can't direct competently if there's any extra stuff happening while she's doing her job.  And while this is only Olivia Wilde's second turn at directing, anyone who bothered to watch "Booksmart" (2019) (or who is aware of my feelings about "Booksmart") might be reasonably curious to see for themselves how such a promising directorial voice fares in her sophomore offering, and they might have at least a little faith that she would deliver despite all the background noise.

That preamble aside: I'm hoping to write more extensively on this movie to further and more stridently defend it because IT IS SO GOOD, both simply as a movie but also as riveting tale of feminist horror in the current societal era.  It is consistently tense and increasingly scary, all while providing a commentary on the present-moment conditions of women in society and the forces seeking to entrap and destroy them.  It is extremely well-acted in an immersive, beautifully-constructed artificial world, with little Easter eggs and tells nestled throughout to reward the attentive viewer.  I cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone seeking a headier yet still viscerally scary horror movie this Halloween season.

"Meru" (2015)

Rating: 4  Scary Rating: !!

This year's documentary offering!  While any of the films I commented on when I wrote about "Meru" could to some extent fit the bill for anyone wanting to watch a non-fiction scary movie, this one is probably the most similar to a conventional horror movie structure.  Three friends set out on an adventure for which they are arguably way out of their depth, with extremely high stakes (and altitudes) in a battle against an indifferent and unforgiving landscape.  What could go wrong?

While not scary in the conventional horror movie sense of the term, this movie is nevertheless very stressful and induces some real anxiety on behalf of the climbers risking their lives in pursuit of the summit of a once-in-a-lifetime (if they're lucky) summit.

"Don’t Look Up" (2021)

Rating: 1  Scary Rating: !!!!!

I have also already shared my feelings about "Don't Look Up".  In short--and as evidenced by my rating--I hated it.  But it is precisely the premise I hated so deeply that makes this movie so deeply disturbing.  While theoretically it was supposed to be a societal commentary--actually, a darkly comic social commentary--instead it read to me as simply a deeply upsetting screed against a seemingly unredeemable and intrinsically self-destructive human race.  So if that's your target vibe for a Halloween horror movie, look no further than "Don't Look Up".

"Spencer" (2021)

Rating: 4  Scary Rating: !!!!

Finally, as I've shared with all of you, "Spencer" is a film I suspect was somewhat under-appreciated when it was released and that I did not anticipate to be scary.  Surprisingly, "Spencer" delivers a really satisfying homage to an early 1980s horror classic and uses that foundation to build atop it an unsettling and psychologically unsound haunted royal manor with our heroine trapped inside.  It's moody, atmospheric, and drenched in beautiful foreboding.  If you're wanting a haunted house-feeling movie imbued with royal intrigue, this is for you.

Happy Halloween movie watching!  I hope this holiday provides precisely as much creepy thrill as you wish!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: When "Pandering" Gets Nautical: The New Little Mermaid

Greetings again,

Here's hoping I can fit one more quick post in before the end of the month!

You may have heard that Disney is releasing a new, live action version of its 1989 film "The Little Mermaid".  If you have heard this news, you have very likely heard that the lead role of Ariel will be performed by Halle Bailey, who is a Black actor.  And if you've heard that news, you've probably heard about how some people lost their damn minds--not in a good way--over this development.

Unfortunately there has already been occasion in this blog to write about how problematic and entitled it is for white people to freak out about Black and other PoC people existing in media, and unfortunately this is not the only movie or tv show about which this has happened in very recent memory.  But there are some additional nuances to this particular petty racist tantrum that bear stating out loud.

First, unlike with "Black Panther" where the original source material centered an explicitly Black protagonist, the original "Little Mermaid" movie and its source material did not.  While this fact may seem to lend legitimacy to white viewers crying foul at Ariel being recast, it actually doesn't matter one bit.  Characters can be reimagined, and there is nothing intrinsically white to the character of Ariel, so changing this aspect of her character is fair game.  We're not even going to get into the excruciatingly obvious fact that MERMAIDS ARE NOT REAL AND THEY CAN THEREFORE BE ANY RACE WE WANT.

Second, to people crying foul because they are attached to Ariel as an arguably rare instance of representation for red-haired people (can you hear my eyes rolling from there?), congratulations!  Disney is not erasing the 1989 version of this movie.  If it means that much to someone to see their hair color (and whiteness--because we're not even going to get into the excruciatingly obvious fact that PEOPLE OTHER THAN WHITE PEOPLE CAN AND DO HAVE RED HAIR) represented in film form, they can watch and rewatch that version to their little heart's content.

Relatedly, third, those people claiming, perhaps sincerely, to feeling inspired or empowered by their representation in the form of the animated Ariel are engaging in a kind of callous emotional greediness and selfishness that I sincerely cannot fathom.  The argument is essentially: seeing myself in this character was deeply meaningful and uplifting for me, so I refuse to share that with anyone else who might benefit from seeing themselves in this character.  

Hearing it this way, I don't know how to interpret that argument as anything other than extremely and voraciously self-centered to the point of being both incredibly embarrassing and incredibly cruel.  It's only made worse by having seen, just like with "Black Panther", the exhilarated and thrilled faces of Black children seeing a snippet of Bailey's performance in the recently-released new "Little Mermaid" trailer.

Finally, while I already elaborated on this point in my earlier post on the white people freakouts prompted by "Black Panther", the point very much bears repeating in the form of questions: Why can't, or more pointedly, won't white people see themselves in people who don't look like them?  Do they have an expectation that everyone else see themselves in white characters, therefore it's somehow redundant or unnecessary for non-white characters to exist?  Or is the issue perhaps that entitled white people just don't freaking care about anyone else feeling seen, uplifted, celebrated, or empowered but themselves--that they want all media to be about them?

It strikes me that what we're discussing here is a children's movie.  We expect children to learn that other people are people and therefore to treat others with kindness and respect.  Starting at very young ages, based in this premise, we expect children to share.  Yet many grown-ass adults have managed to get well into their grown-ass adult lives never learning how to do exactly that, to the point that they feel comfortable blasting their racist selfishness all over the internet.

I don't know how to get through to these people.  That may simply not be possible.  But in the meantime, I'm glad that there are ever more depictions of characters from a broader array of humanity so that everyone can have heroes and imagine themselves in their place.

{Heart}

A Bit Nope on "Nope"

Hihi,

Frustratingly, I've managed to leave writing this month's posts until the last conceivable moment, so I'm going to need to be mercilessly brief.

I was excited to watch "Nope" (2022), Jordan Peele's latest film.  

This excitement was of course informed by my deep adoration for "Get Out" (2017), albeit tempered by my comparatively diminished enthusiasm for the extremely inventive yet messy "Us" (2019).  I'll admit I was also somewhat anxious about "Nope" after seeing some indications online that there might be animal mayhem of some kind, but a thorough perusal of doesthedogdie.com helped me feel adequately prepared without overdoing it on potential spoilers.

So I went for it.  And while I'm glad to have watched it, I have to admit I found it pretty underwhelming. 

Starting with the good: the performances were great, the premise was interesting, and the effects were overall really good--although the quality of the set design in some scenes where you get up close and personal with the film's "monster" somewhat undercut its otherwise really cool conceptualization.  There are some little twists and turns in the discovery of the exact nature of the beast that Daniel Kaluuya's OJ and Keke Palmer's Emerald are up against that are creative and intriguing.

Moving on to the less good: "Nope" wasn't a scary movie so much as it was at times stressful or upsetting.  Instead of building to a thrilling, tense conclusion, the film's emotional impact felt really uneven to the point that the movie dragged at times.  Furthermore, while I understand was Peele hoped to accomplish with sequences related to the backstory of Steven Yeun's Jupe, those components landed simultaneously as a bit tacked-on, gratuitous, and at once overly obvious and psychologically incongruous as a way of explaining Jupe's stunning hubris.  (Surely, having previously experienced the damage that can be done by an animal run amok, he all of all people would know better than to play the treacherous role of lion tamer to a mysterious carnivorous intergalactic predator?)

Overall, this film was fine--neither terrible nor excellent.  It was fun and I am satisfied to have checked the box of watching it, but I also hope Peele's next film far exceeds this one.

Summing up my middling response to this movie, I gave "Nope" a 3.

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability x Belated Pride Post: "Fire Island"

Hello again,

I wanted to write a pride post this year despite not getting to it during actual pride month, so here we go!

Let's talk about "Fire Island" (2022)!

Written and starred in by Joel Kim Booster, "Fire Island" deftly updates Pride and Prejudice by transporting it to New York's Fire Island, long regarded as a major gay vacation destination.  While its foundation in that literary allusion grants the film a comfortable narrative arc that many viewers will recognize either from reading the original or from its multiple film adaptations and references, it also delightfully shakes up and updates what could be a tired narrative by centering gay men of color (and Margaret Cho!) at the heart of the story.  The result is as charming and amusing as it is also imbued with a sweet heart plus a little dash of pathos.

This film continues a seemingly robust parade of extremely enjoyable, high quality comedies from Hulu, which makes me excited to see what they might have in store next!

I gave the movie a 4.

{Heart}

Save the Date for "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates"

Hey friends,

I'm mindful of the ongoing slow-down in movie watching and writing this past several months and I'm hoping to start reversing that trend.  While my motivation for both has admittedly flagged recently, this continues to be a precious outlet for me and I'm still very firmly committed to maintaining it.  Happily, I've had some success this month in watching more movies than I have the past three months, and I'm hoping to write a couple of brief (emphasis needed to myself: BRIEF) posts this weekend to compensate for only writing one last month.

So let's talk about a movie I watched recently: "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" (2016).

As you might be able to guess from the title, this is hardly fine cinema.  Precisely because rest has been a major priority for me recently, this was a desirable attribute of the movie, and it delivered what I needed--it was a great, silly escape.  

One of the successes of the film is that it immediately plays with the expectations it sets up at its beginning, where we are greeted with what appears to be a celebratory montage of hijinks concocted by the titular brothers, Mike and Dave (played by Adam Devine and Zac Efron).  We are swiftly disabused of any illusion that these guys are anything other than garbage party bros (in the biological and figurative sense of the term) who manage to ruin the aforementioned party for everyone else, as we learn their family is launching an admittedly somewhat harebrained intervention in advance of the next family event: requiring that Mike and Dave have dates to their sister's upcoming destination wedding, because surely being accompanied by some nice ladies will tame them.  

As yet another little twist, the film then mercifully eludes the tired trope of yet another film about self-involved hedonistic dudes by instead creating a head-to-head competition for who is the most trash: the brothers or their titular wedding dates, Alice and Tatiana (played by Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza).  Many laughs and absurd, relatively low stakes scenarios ensue.

I don't mean to oversell this movie.  It's in the same vein as wedding-themed "Vacation Friends" (2021), but arguably not as successful.  It's certainly not as inventive as "Free Guy" (2021) another comedy I loved earlier this year.  And let's be honest, I'm probably more than a bit influenced by my long-standing love for Aubrey Plaza (and a cameo by Kumail Nanjiani!).  But still, if you're in the mood for a low-stakes and fun little romp through an all-but-ruined-by-ultimately-redeemable-living-messes Hawaiian wedding, this is your film.

I gave it a 4.

{Heart}

Need a Break? Try "Dancing with the Birds"

Hi everyone,

I've slowed down a bit on watching movies lately, unfortunately, but that's in large part because I've been focusing on using my weekends for rest.  That's been a good decision and one that I'm perhaps surprisingly un-conflicted about, although I am nevertheless a bit disappointed that it means I haven't seen as many movies in the last two or three months as I would normally expect to.  The good thing--in addition to *actually* prioritizing feeling rested for maybe the first time in my life?--is that I'm still ahead of my annual movie-watching goal because of how many movies I watched in the first four months of the year, so I don't feel any self-imposed pressure to change what I'm doing at the moment.

All that said, I have watched a movie or two that I'd love to share with you!  Today's treat: a bird-based documentary!

"Dancing with the Birds" (2019) has quickly become a household favorite that my Child watches at least once, sometimes twice, a day.  Narrated with inexhaustible charm by Stephen Fry and paired with an absolutely perfect score that enhances and embraces its subjects, this admittedly not-quite-feature-length (runtime: 51 minutes) documentary profiles several birds of paradise across the world as they try to court a mate.

The footage is absolutely gorgeous, with its (mostly) brightly-colored stars set against lush, verdant jungles where food is plentiful but prospective mates are apparently hard to come by.  Evidently, and lucky for us, this creates the perfect conditions for flamboyantly plumed, artistic, dedicated little birds to go all out in attempting to set themselves apart from their fellow male competitors.

I'm hard pressed to choose a favorite bird from the rich array presented in "Dancing with the Birds", because they each bring something incredibly special and entertaining to the film.  There's the little bird near the beginning with the world's longest head plumes that does a delightfully enthusiastic swinging dance, the somewhat drab yet astonishingly multi-talented bowerbird who closes out his mating display with a zany back-and-forth dance that unfurls a shock of dandelion-yellow feathers on his head, and the inky black sicklebill whose stunning, iridescent blue accent feathers beautifully outline the incredible elongated tear-shape he forms by revealing his unusual shoulder plumes and extending his body, revealing the yellow roof of his mouth as he bobs gently, gracefully to a flying-saucer-sounding score.

This is to say nothing of the absurdly muppet-y bowerbird whose repertoire of mate-attracting moves includes dilating and contracting the pupils of his bright yellow eyes, cocking his head at a 90 degree angle, and attempting to entice his prospective mate with a blue berry clutched in his beak while he does essentially a bird body roll into a series of shuddering wing-flutters.  IT IS SO GOOD.

The movie closes with a surprisingly poignant and moving passage of the most elaborate bird dance of all, comprised of 9 distinct and painstakingly practiced dance moves in a perfectly manicured dancing arena with a specially-appointed perch for lady birds, set to T. Rex's "Cosmic Dancer".  I can't fully articulate why, but I choke up every time.

This is simply a remarkable treasure of a film--gentle yet enthralling and full of affection for the little birds hustling to make a new lady friend.  It is deeply pleasant viewing as it is also educational and sincerely entertaining.

I gave it a 5.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: #DiversifyYourFeed Quintux! (??)

Hello again!

I am writing another antiracist accountability post this month because I did not write one in April, and I've been meaning to make up for that.

So now: EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS!

You will likely remember another of our highlighted favorite TikTokers, Alexis Nelson (aka Blackforager, aka @alexisnikole).  Last September, she was featured in a New York Times article (as well as a bunch of other news coverage at the time and since).  It was so exciting to see such a positive, enthusiastic, and richly informative Black educator gain so much visibility while connecting people back to nature.

Well.

She WON A JAMES BEARD AWARD!!

It's just so nice when nice things happen.  I hope this makes your heart as happy as it made mine.

Congratulations Alexis!!!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: #DiversifyYourFeed Quadrux x Supporting Black-Owned Bookstores Redux

Hello friends,

All of a sudden, I am at a happy stage of writing antiracist accountability posts that they now not only require multiple installments to track positive developments, but the subjects of various accountability posts also continue to commingle!  This is fun in a way I did not anticipate!

Without further ado:

You will remember that I highlighted Mamadou Ndiaye (aka @mndiaye_97) and his excellent animal facts content as one of the (many) reasons that TikTok, when its algorithm is well-trained, is a source of seemingly endless delights.

In April 2021, Ndiaye's content was then featured on @pbsnature's account, which seemed like a very promising sign he was moving up in visibility.

Exciting update as of this month:

He wrote a book!!

It is entitled "100 Animals That Can F*cking End You", and it is available for pre-order now!

...Which brings me to the delightful mash-up of today's post, because this is an excellent opportunity to pre-order this assuredly entertaining and informative book, support an excellent Black content creator and educator, AND support Black-owned bookstores!

An very easy way to do that: Victoria Alexander is an anti-racist equity and justice educator based out of University of Maryland who also has great content on TikTok, including this video explaining a great, easy-to-use resource for purchasing books from people of color-, queer-, and women-owned bookstores instead of relying on Amazon.  She also provides several curated booklists on various antiracist topics.

If you want to use that book-buying resource pre-order Ndiaye's book AND benefit Loyalty Bookstore, one of the Black- (and Queer-) owned bookstores featured in my previous post about buying from Black-owned bookstores, you can use their bookshop.org link by clicking here!  (You can also buy through Ms. Alexander's personal link here, which will give her a small commission and is therefore a nice way to compensate her for her immensely important work!)

Enjoy!  And congratulations Mamadou!!!

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: When Awful Stories Have Happy Endings

Hello again,

Now for a brief antiracist accountability post, which is ever more crucial given that I did not write one last month.

You may remember the awful episode in May 2020 in which white woman extraordinaire Amy Cooper, aka the Central Park Karen, called NYPD to make false allegations against a Black man just trying to enjoy some birdwatching.  While this was unfortunately only one of a dizzying array of examples of white women abusing their immense privilege and thereby risking getting their Black neighbors and fellow citizens killed, it was particularly ugly to watch her concoct her plan to lie to the police out loud to her potential victim, only to then actually have the audacity to carry that plan out.  The man she could have gotten killed through her attempts to mobilize the violence of the state is Christian Cooper (no relation, obviously?).

It was recently announced that Mr. Cooper will be hosting a 6-episode series on National Geographic (available through Disney+) called "Extraordinary Birder".  Mr. Cooper, who has evidently enjoyed birdwatching since he was 10 years old and has a career history that illustrates that he is extraordinary in many ways beyond his birdwatching, will happily now have the opportunity to share his beloved hobby with viewers worldwide.  Mr. Cooper is clearly a treasure, and the fact that he will now have a larger platform on which to share his love of birds is sure to be a huge treat.

One of the unexpected gifts of being home almost constantly during the past 2+ years has been that I have gotten more and more interested in birdwatching.  I installed a bird feeder I can see from the window over the sink in my kitchen, and it's become a daily pleasure to top up the feeder and feel like a modern-day Disney princess as our neighborhood birds immediately descend to get some snacks.  Even better, my Child has been enjoying several excellent board books profiling a variety of native birds and providing audio of their calls, and is now so keenly aware of birds that he can correctly identify them in the wild from their calls alone.  It is such a joy to share this interest with him, and I am so excited to share Mr. Cooper's show with him!

Be sure to tune in with us!

{Heart}

"Julia" Is A Delicious Treat

Hi team,

I am going to do my best to write two very quick entries before the end of the month.

So here we go:

Let's talk about the most recent movie about famous chef and cookbook author, Julia Child: "Julia" (2021).

Despite its relatively short run time, this film was a rich, dense biography of the life and career of a beloved food icon.  It provided insights into Child's childhood and early adulthood, the important relationships that shaped her, and how her earliest experiences in France forever captured her heart and ultimately changed the history of American cooking forever.

While the movie is deeply affectionate toward the woman at its center, it does not shy away from some of the more complicated and at times ugly chapters in her life.  For example, it explores the at times strained and contentious relationship between Child and her co-author, French chef Simone Beck.  It also acknowledges Child's history of overt homophobia, although it also allows her some degree of redemption by highlighting her remarkable about-face after her lawyer and dear friend Bob Johnson, who was gay, died during the AIDS epidemic; she later went on to become an early celebrity voice advocating for awareness, research, and treatment for AIDS.  

Unsurprisingly, one of the most prominent themes throughout the movie is Child's immense impact on the average American home cook.  So much of her life's mission was to reclaim nourishing and delicious cooking for all of humanity--to take "fancy" cooking out of the kitchens of exclusive and elitist restaurants and make it accessible and accomplishable in every home's kitchen.  Hers was a deeply admirable and humanitarian aim to reconnect people with their enjoyment of creating food they can love and be proud of.  It is a wonderful gift to her fellow human beings and an enviable legacy.

With that in mind, I found it particularly rankling with Ruth Reichl, chef and food writer, discussed with some pride how Child eventually lost influence and how the next generation of chefs--presumably Reichl's cohort of food professionals--"elevated" cooking again by emphasizing niche and artisanal ingredients not available to the average family.  It doesn't seem to occur to Reichl that the impact of her generation of chefs is actually to push excellence in cooking backward, again to a point that it is so "fancy", exclusive, and expensive as to be unattainable or intimidating to the average home cook.  It's a strange thing to congratulate oneself and one's colleagues for, especially in the context of this particular film celebrating the inclusivity and general empowerment of Child's cooking legacy.

At its conclusion, this movie is heartwarming and uplifting without being overly saccharine--a true honor to its subject.  I gave it a 5.

{Heart}

Take A Delightful Trip with "Vacation Friends"

Heyo,

Especially after my (thoroughly justified) screed in my previous post, I'd love to offer a little palate cleanser in the form of a quick review of a movie I absolutely loved.

Let's talk about "Vacation Friends" (2021)!

The worst thing about this movie is its completely forgettable title.  It is such a bad title that I may not have even watched this film were it not for Husband's very good judgment to give it a chance.  That damn placeholder-sounding title was almost enough to dissuade me from giving the movie a try, as it makes it sound like this could easily have been a flat and boring chore of a film.  DO NOT BELIEVE ITS LIES.  If you're able to remember the title long enough to actually find and watch the thing, you're in for a sincerely and raucously laugh-out-loud romp.  

"Vacation Friends" is a buddy comedy/wedding crashers hybrid with generous helpings of creativity and heart.  It is carried handily by its core cast of Lil Rel Howery, Yvonne Orji, John Cena, and Meredith Hagner.  

I thought I wasn't familiar with Hagner's work until I was reminded by a perusal of her IMDB page that she was in two really interesting and previously-written-about-on-this-blog movies: "Palm Springs" (2020) and "Ingrid Goes West" (2017).  My only previous exposure to Orji is in a few episodes of the goddamned delightful "A Black Lady Sketch Show" (2019-present).  Both Orji and Hagner are perfect complements to their male counterparts as Emily and Kyla, while also expanding their characters into reasonably fleshed-out human beings (as much as a fully silly ass movie will allow for, anyway).  John Cena's Ron balances absurd impulsivity against goofy yet sincere earnestness, with occasional displays of shocking competence to keep his charmed audience guessing.  As Marcus, the film's proverbial straight man, Howery (recently appreciated in "Free Guy" (2021) and appreciated, albeit less recently, in "Get Out" (2017)) comfortably falls into the ostensible lead role for the film, hopefully lining up his already-busy career for ever more success.

One of the great maneuvers executed by this movie is that, for my brain at least, it played with my expectations for its narrative structure.  Based on the film's trailer, I expected it to start with Emily and Marcus's wedding and perhaps introduce the backstory of their friendship with Kyla and Ron in alternatingly jarring and blurry flashbacks.  Instead, we get to see the friendship from its earliest, not exactly promising moments, only to get maybe a bit irrationally attached to the friendship--just as Ron and Kyla do.

An additional major perk of this movie is that it presents an interracial friendship without being remotely squeamish about the fact that it is about an interracial friendship.  To the contrary, any and all squeamishness stems solely from Ron and Emily's good-heartedly brash bull-in-a-china-shop energy, which Marcus and Emily understandably resist and object to until (spoiler) ultimately opening their hearts to friendships that will endure long beyond a boozy hazy week in Mexico.

Beyond the title, my only other regret for this movie is that Husband and I weren't able to see it in a theater.  Given how much we were laughing at home, I can only happily imagine how much fun it would have been to share in this fun adventure in a theater with a packed house.  I can't tell you how much I hope to be able to enjoy something like that sometime soon.

I gave "Vacation Friends" a 5.  I truly and unabashedly enjoyed the hell out of this movie.  I hope you do too!

{Heart}

Don't Look Up for "Don't Look Up"

Hello everyone,

I'm going to write a quick post about a movie I hated.  Let's talk about "Don't Look Up" (2021).

I'm admittedly a bit behind the buzz about this movie, which was released and much-discussed in December 2021.  But that's by design: I was acquainted with the general premise and flinched at the global context of its release, as it seemed very much too soon (i.e., solidly mid-pandemic / early-omicron surge) to be anything other than triggeringly misery-inducing.  

Now that I have watched it, I can morosely conclude: I was not wrong!  Even months later, it was indeed triggering and misery-inducing!

Seriously?  Fuck this movie.

Do we need it?  Does it have a constructive purpose?  Because honestly, absent affirmative answers to either of these questions, it's impossible for me to see "Don't Look Up" as anything other than a cinematized long-form rant.

A rant at who, exactly?  It's hard to imagine director Adam McKay's audience deserved this screed.  We saw "Vice" (2018).  We saw "The Big Short" (2015).  Presumably, we all more or less agree that big corporations, institutions, and our government are not to be trusted.  We understand how deeply everyday citizens are getting screwed by the grinding gears of a megalomanic executive branch and avaricious corporate overreach.  We almost surely agree, from our excruciating (and, I cannot stress this enough, ONGOING) lived experience, with the general premise that our society is so deeply divided as to be completely non-functional even in the case of a massive, imminent, and unavoidable existential threat.  

So do we need a movie that basically browbeats all of us about how screwed we are?  I'm ever so slightly unconvinced we do!

What exactly is McKay's proposed solution?  That we don't laugh at memes anymore?  That we dispense with all escapism into the lives of celebrities and focus exclusively on our inevitable doom?  That we just kiss and make up with the people who lose their minds at the suggestion that they take basic and minor precautions to protect their neighbors during a pandemic or, I don't know, don't elect an openly sexist racist to the presidency?  

The truth of the matter is that he doesn't propose a solution--to the contrary, he makes us watch as our world is annihilated along with every precious living thing on it.

Sidenote: You know what got me?  The little interstitial of a hummingbird.  I don't know why it was the hummingbird--because I am just as devastated at the idea that every other precious living thing on this planet, every child, every whale, every ant, every tree, could die--but the thought of no more hummingbirds simply brought it all home and destroyed me.  And seriously, what does it accomplish to put that thought in my brain?  Let alone the bleak calculus of what I would do with my time if I knew I only had 6 months and 14 days left?  Why am I thinking about this on a Monday night, Adam McKay?

I understand being mad.  Trust me, I am very mad about the state of our society and how woefully manipulated we've all been into not only hating each other, but more importantly actively working against our common interest, so we don't turn our ire against the ~0.2% of people who benefit from our distraction.  But I am also very mad at this movie for wrapping its knuckles on the foreheads of its audience--for terrorizing us with a horrific "disaster comedy" about the end of everything--without any recourse.  Ultimately, McKay's 2.5 hour-long tantrum of a film isn't accomplishing anything other than cruelty.

So yeah.  Count me as solidly not a fan of this movie.  I gave it a 1.

{Heart}

PS: If you're also apparently really invested in the existence of hummingbirds, here's a charity that feels the same way.

Antiracist Accountability: How to Ally When Everyone Has an Opinion, or The Slap Heard Round the World

Hey team,

By now, you are likely familiar with the incident involving Chris Rock, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith at the Academy Awards last night.  

After witnessing such an emotional moment, either contemporaneously or after the fact, you almost certainly have had a visceral reaction, and you may have a resultant opinion you want to express.  God knows everybody else seems to.

If you are a white person and especially if you consider yourself a white ally, this is an excellent opportunity to thoughtfully consider what your role is in this moment of heated public discourse.

If you're open to my opinion, I suggest taking the following steps:

1) Watch this video.

TikTok: @ladyspeechsankofa

Facebook: @ladyspeech

CW: Completely understandable cursing

2) Check in with yourself and the motivations that inform your opinion.  

If the strength of your urge to police a Black man's behavior is greater than the urge you feel to dismantle the systemic violence that oppresses and murders Black people EVERY DAY, then you are doing racism.  That is an example of what racism looks like.  It looks like being preoccupied with exercising your sense of power and ownership over a Black man's behavior.  It looks like being more uncomfortable with a Black man making his own decisions, which you may or may not understand or agree with, than the harm done by systems that empower and privilege you while harming all Black people.  It looks like minding Black people's business before you mind our own immense amount of business.

Please focus more on your internalized racism than whatever the hell Will Smith did yesterday.

3) Educate yourself.  

Many people are asserting that Chris Rock didn't know about Jada Pinkett Smith's health history, which is the cause of the aspect of her appearance he felt free to ridicule yesterday.

Whether you actually believe that or not is pretty irrelevant, given that the joke is blatantly problematic in several ways (beyond being bizarrely untimely given its reference to a movie from 1997).  His joke was a great (and by that I mean awful) example of punching down, which is a deeply problematic way to use humor.

Let's take stock of the specific ways in which Rock's joke punched down, shall we?  A possibly inexhaustive list:

• It expresses misogynoir: It mocks and objectifies a Black woman.
• It expresses misogynoir specifically about a Black woman's hair: This, in an era in which no one can claim ignorance about the discrimination Black people experience because of their hair.
• It is ableist: It mocks a person for experiencing a chronic medical condition.

Take this opportunity to find at least three people who are directly impacted by misogynoir and/or ableism and have commented on yesterday's events and listen to their opinions with an open and curious heart.

NOTE: I am NOT suggesting that you track down a Black person or a person with a chronic medical condition to ask them to educate you about their lived experience.  In fact, I am stridently discouraging you from doing that.  DO NOT DO THAT.

Instead, there are many people who have already shared their opinions on this subject on various forms of social media and news outlets.  Look there.  And don't only look for opinions that confirm your own.

Consider starting with @ladyspeechsankofa's multiple videos on this subject, as they are excellent.

4) Keep your opinion to yourself.

Our sense of entitlement to share our opinions, even on issues that we can't possibly fully understand and that don't directly impact us and even when those opinions can be deeply harmful, is a glaring example of white privilege.  To choose not to exercise that privilege is a practice that we all need more reps in.  Your work is to educate yourself through listening to others.  And also, finally, to:

5) Encourage other white people to follow steps 1 - 5.

{Heart}

We Should All Feel Free to Watch "Free Guy"

Hi team,

I really wanted to write a post this weekend, so given that I've waited until 11:52 pm to start, I'll have to make it quick.  Which is good, and resolutions consistent!

Let's talk about "Free Guy" (2021)!

I had overall low expectations of this movie, accompanied by fragile hopes that it would be genuinely enjoyable and sincere fears that it would be a boring action-fest.  

To cut right to the chase: I loved it!  

In tone and story, "Free Guy" is essentially a live action version of "The Lego Movie" (2014), which of course contributed significantly to my grateful enjoyment.  I am pretty much constantly on the verge of just rewatching "Lego Movie" lately as I am definitely still in a comfort-watching-my-favorite-reruns-as-coping frame of mind, so having another version of that movie means I have a welcome resource to possibly return to at some later date.

To run down the major highlights:

--Ryan Reynolds is great.  His humor is imbued with self-deprecating charm, and he delivers a Jim Carrey in "Truman Show" (1998)-esque plucky yet doe-eyed performance that makes his titular Guy super endearing.

--Absolutely delightful, silly, inventive humor with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

--Lil Rel Howery delivers a little homage his save-the-day "Get Out" (2017) moment!

--CHANNING TATUM CAMEO.  You know I love that!!  He is such a goddamn delight.

--Far from being boring, because of the integration of video game-y laws of physics, the action sequences have a fun, cartoony energy that also help reveal the rules of this particular virtual world.

--To that point: As with "Lego Movie", I really enjoyed the world-building of the in-game Free City in "Free Guy".  Something about being introduced to the rules of the road in a low-stakes fantasy environment makes my combined creative and checkbox-checking brains very happy.

In conclusion, "Free Guy" is exactly the sweet, fun, high tech escapist carnival ride I needed and wanted it to be.  With all that and more delivered in this freaking delight of a movie, it is perhaps unsurprising that I gave it a 5.

{Heart}

"Spencer": The Royal Horror Movie You Didn't Know You Needed

Hi everyone,

I watched "Spencer" (2021) and I'm excited to write about it.

Going in, I didn't have very clear expectations for this film.  I was intrigued to see Kristen Stewart's transformation into Princess Diana and the trailer looked moody and beautiful, and because I'm all out of episodes of "The Crown" and my favorite fact-checking podcast on maligned women, I was very much game to check out this movie.  To my delight and surprise, it quickly became very clear that the film borrowed extensively aesthetically, thematically, and structurally from Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980).  

The aesthetic similarities struck me first: gauzy lighting and drab pastel palette, occasionally and jarringly disturbed by lurid splashes of red in the plaid of a jacket or the berry gelée topping a set of unnaturally perfect desserts in a massive walk-in refrigerator and inevitably evoking bloodshed and harkening back to The Overlook’s elevators, not to mention the legacy of a colonizing monarchy.  

Looking back, the structural similarities are also impossible to miss.  The film opens, like “The Shining”, on the ominous and lengthy trek into the distant location that hosts the majority of its action.  Also similar to “The Shining”, “Spencer” is set primarily in a remote, cavernous, unnecessarily and purposefully cold, expensive yet austere, and almost certainly haunted estate—groaning under centuries of weighty, sometimes terrifying, history—with grounds so vast they could swallow you whole yet not vast enough that you aren’t always, always being watched, either by ill-intentioned spying royal staff or by the place itself.  

Throw in the thematic elements of a main character’s escalating hallucinatory insanity as a direct consequence of brutal, violent, and all-encompassing isolation from the outside world, and you’ve got yourself quite the homage to a giant of horror films.

All of this is to deeply satisfying effect for those of us who love the old horror classic.  It is a mashup I didn’t expect or know I wanted, and yet it is very easily half the reason I like “Spencer”.

A stark counterpoint to the terror constantly nipping at Diana’s heels and the other half of the reason I liked this film is Diana’s moments with her sons.  Here, you see her grounded even as she’s unmoored.  She is playful, creative, vulnerable yet brave, and in deep, fierce maternal love with her boys.  They are her only true oasis in the vast desert of deprivation and cruelty that is her life as a member of the House of Windsor.

It is this love that brings the film to its conclusion, where just like in “The Shining”, the besieged mother faces down the monsters that would destroy her and flees to the safety of reality with her sons.  

And here is a place where “Spencer” crucially breaks with the horror film it references: when Diana interrupts the royal family’s bird hunt in a bid to spare her children from taking part in the bloodshed, instead of seeking to trap Diana and the boys there on the royal estate with him forevermore Charles sends the boys to their mother’s side.  This moment is heartbreaking as it is also exhilarating, as we see in Charles’s granting permission for the boys to go with Diana that he is granting his wife the right to protect her children that his own mother never exercised for his sake and the freedom to flee that he has been denied.  

While the villain of “Spencer” isn’t as honest or blunt as to wield an axe or risk freezing to death pursuing her, the royal family Diana leaves behind is nevertheless frozen in time, doomed to emptily repeat meaningless rituals like well-dressed automatons and eternally kept apart from the real world.  And unlike in “The Shining”, where the mother and child survive, we know that Diana was ultimately not so lucky.  But at least for a blissful moment of fantasy, we see her soothed by the everyday banality of fast food fried chicken and a tourist’s view of London.

While the film isn't perfect, it really is great--especially for fans of unexpected and component allusions to horror classics.  I gave this movie a 4.

{Heart}