Sentimental Values

And Other Nice Things

If I said I was making it one of my New Year’s resolutions to be more consistent with these, would you believe me? Anyway…

Reading

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates - An honest, thorough, and beautiful memoir-meets-social-commentary in the form of a letter to Coates’s son. This is a father passing along his experiences with the social construct of race, providing historical context and personal pain, in hopes of preparing and guiding his son through life as a black man in America. Coates has seen too much to ever be overly sentimental or even “hopeful,” but his love and compassion for his child and what he wants for him always shines through.

The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty - I was shocked to learn that this Pulitzer Prize winner was published in 1972 because it feels so in line with the Southern Gothic themes that I associate more with the first half of the twentieth century. Maybe not so much “gothic” - is Southern “Hot Topic” Gothic a thing? - but definitely focused on themes of death and grief and the contradictions of the “genteel” South. Laurel must return to her Mississippi hometown when her father undergoes what should be a routine surgery. Surrounded by her father’s new younger, more audacious wife and the supportive yet judgmental townsfolk from her youth, Laurel must grapple with her experiences with loss and the memories that shape her relationship with her father, her late mother, and this place she comes from. This is all told in a spare, melancholic style that I really love.

Watching

Sentimental Value - A bittersweet, charming film about family relationships and connection that I found very welcome in a season of intense and violent stories. Stellan Skarsgård plays a film director and estranged father who reunites with his two adult daughters when he wants one of them, a fairly successful theater and television actress played by Renate Reinsve, to star in his next movie. Skarsgård and Reinsve are both detached in their own ways and clash because they are so similar, shaped by childhood traumas and now using their art as the means to reach out to others and express themselves. We even find out that the role that Skarsgård’s character wants Reinsve to play is based on his own mother. Elle Fanning is great as an American movie star, recruited essentially to help the film get financed, who is much more than she seems. The heart of the movie is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as Skarsgård’s other daughter, who had acted in one of his films as a child, citing it as the one time she really had his attention. Now a wife and mother, uninterested in show business and focused on building the kind of stable family she never had, she’s frustrated at first by her father’s attempts to recruit the family for his project, but through her own generosity and understanding, she realizes that this film is his way of connecting. The family’s longtime Oslo home is a crucial character in the film, and director Joachim Trier is the master of opening scene “brief histories” that can capture lifetimes in mere minutes, showing just how much this house has meant to generations of this family.

Jay Kelly (Netflix) - So funny to talk about this next, because it’s kind of like American Sentimental Value. They’re not exactly, but the new Noah Baumbach film is about someone in the entertainment industry looking back on their life and wondering if the sacrifices they made along the way, especially in family relationships, were worth it or if the damage was irreparable. In this case, it’s George Clooney playing an aging movie star (what a stretch!) facing his shortfalls as a father and friend while preparing to receive a lifetime achievement award. This isn’t groundbreaking or anything, but I found it a pleasant watch. So I enjoy watching Clooney being charming and contemplative in beautiful locales. Sue me! Adam Sandler plays his devoted manager with such a sweet sadness as he too looks back and wonders if their partnership has meant more to him than it has to Clooney. Billy Crudup gets one scene as an old acting class buddy of Clooney’s, and he nearly steals the whole movie when he goes method on reading a restaurant menu. Again, we need nice things right now.

Wicked: For Good - I had a good time! End of review. But seriously, folks, I think you really just have to know what you’re getting into here. If you want a film with a complete story that can stand alone without seeing the previous film, this ain’t it. Most of the criticism of the plot that I’ve seen is really just criticism of the plot of the musical Wicked, and you know what? Fair. I saw the show on stage twice probably 15-20 years ago, and I really just retained the incredible songs, so that’s what I’m here for. Unfortunately, the two new original songs written for the film don’t meet that level of quality. A lot of the conflict and escalation - the Elphaba and Glinda “fight,” the Elphaba and Fiyero romance - feels very rushed, but at the end of the day, I got to hear Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande perform modern classic “For Good” beautifully and got a little teary. Not going to say I’ve been changed for good, but I wouldn’t say I’ve been change for worse. So there’s that.

Merrily We Roll Along - I’m so glad that this incredible production of the Stephen Sondheim musical was filmed for the screen so that it can live on forever and so that I could see it again (#humblebrag). Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe are perfection as the “old friends” in this show that chronicles the life of a friendship in reverse, starting at the relationship’s end and slowly moving back through 20 years of changes and choices, until we see how all three first met as young, wide-eyed artists in New York City. The show’s Broadway director Maria Friedman directs this filmed version as well, and a few times she goes a little overboard using the new tools at her disposal, particularly the close-up. The opening of the show onstage features the wonderful ensemble, who acts as a chorus and kind of conscience between the moments of time in the play, filling out the whole stage as they sing the opening number. But Friedman doesn’t even show this, instead focusing on an extreme close-up of Groff as he enters. She eases up on this technique over time or it’s not as noticeable as the show goes on, but just because you can do close-ups in this new medium, doesn’t mean you have to, especially if it cuts off this great stage picture you already created. Even with that quibble, the energy and emotion of the Broadway show still come through completely on the big screen.

Wake Up Dead Man (Netflix) - I was lucky enough to see the third installment of the Knives Out franchise on the big screen, and that probably helped give it an advantage as my favorite of the sequels over Glass Onion, which I was only able to watch on Netflix, but I also just found the overall story and themes more compelling. I’m always going to be in the bag for Daniel Craig’s performance as private detective Benoit Blanc, so it’s really a question of whether the cast and story around him works for me. I found this mystery of the “unsolvable” murder of a Catholic priest (played by Josh Brolin) in a tight-knit parish more straightforward than the Glass Onion plot and easier to follow. Josh O’Connor stars as a young priest with a shady past, who also happens to be the murdered priest’s successor and the number one suspect. O’Connor carries most of the movie until Benoit Blanc strolls in (very Columbo structure going on here, which I enjoy), and he’s compelling solo but even more fun when he and Craig team up. The rest of the ensemble is a bit of a mixed bag. Brolin (capping off a great year between this and Weapons) is perfectly sinister and self-righteous. Glenn Close is a having a ball going full “Cloris Leachman in a Mel Brooks movie,” and I had a ball watching her! Andrew Scott, a very fine actor, seems both underused and miscast as a once-successful genre author now hoping to appeal to a more conservative crowd, but his methods and motivations are weak. Everyone else is doing their best. It’s a surprisingly uncynical film about faith. There’s one scene in the middle of the film where O’Connor must pause the excitement of the investigation when he is reminded of his true calling and responsibility as a man of God that is genuinely moving. It’s weird that I’m really responding to things that are nice and genuine right now, huh?

The Chair Company (HBO Max) - Well, taking a break from nice and genuine - this show is just dumb insanity. Tim Robinson is the co-creator and star of this twisted comedy about a man who suffers one public indignity and then spirals completely out of control. After giving a company-wide presentation, Robinson returns to his seat on the dais, only for his office chair to completely collapse underneath him. Unable to let this humiliation stand, he tries to file a complaint with the chair manufacturer, but the more he learns about “the chair company” the more convinced he is of their involvement in a wide-reaching conspiracy. What I love about Robinson and his writing partner Zach Kanin’s style is that as crazy as Robinson’s character is, everyone around him also weird. It’s not completely “cringe” because it’s one guy doing too much in a normal world. Yes, he goes overboard sometimes, and you want him to get a grip and drop this whole investigation, but his coworkers and family all have eccentricities of their own that almost blind them to how far gone he is. Just very dumb and fun.

Listening

Rosalía, LUX - Rosalía, I have to apologize. I was not familiar with your game. I had seen Rosalía maybe once before on SNL performing more of a dance/hip-hop type song, so imagine my surprise when I started her latest album and was met with classical, operatic pop. Across multiple genres and languages, she provides a powerful, beautiful change of pace from what’s been on the charts lately.

The Mountain Goats, Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan - Honestly, I have to listen to this album a few more times to get the full effect of the storytelling happening here. The album’s been described as a “full-on musical,” telling the story of a shipwrecked crew. I did pick up on the musical elements, though, when I quickly identified Lin-Manuel Miranda as a background vocalist on several songs. There’s some great orchestrations and instrumental sections here that made this another unconventional recent favorite. Really love “Cold at Night” and the title track.