Slow month for me arts-wise because I spent about half of it travelling, so it’s going to be a slimmer (but no less banger-filled) selection of recommendations this month. If you want a regular curation of Things to Check Out, definitely maybe hit the subscribe button below.
Movies
After the dog days of January and scorched-earth discourse of the awards roundabout, we’re back to talking about cinema the way God intended: Through capsule-length takes about films no one but a specific and weirdly enthusiastic subsection of the Internet cares about. In all seriousness, the day after Oscar night always feels like a sigh of relief. The artificially hermetic movie landscape of red-carpet season is a little bit like Plato’s cave, and March and April is our collective stepping into the light.
In that spirit, the best new movie I’ve seen from this young year—great films coming out in Q1, we’ve missed you!—is Kogonada’s After Yang, a critical darling from last year’s Cannes Film Festival that’s just finally rolling out wide. A soft sci-fi treatise on what humanity and family means in a world where traditional hallmarks are no longer tenable, it is a slow and meditative contemplation of people and the spaces we occupy: How we are shaped like water by the containers we inhabit and the memories we retain. I would call it staggering, but that seems to be at odds with what the film actually wants to accomplish. It is intimate, warm, and welcoming: A generous comfort during an era of grief.
If you’re on the hunt for more raucous fare, there’s certainly space for that in the multiplex these days too. As you may have heard (from this very newsletter, even), The Batman is a robust and fun adaptation, threading the needle between the campy earnestness of the Burton / Schumacher era and the grimy urbanism of Nolan’s trilogy by way of embracing Bruce Wayne’s true goth-kid aesthetic. If you’re looking for gorier thrills, though, look not further than A24’s other big release of the month, X. Ti West’s triumphant return to the horror genre after a decade away is a genre picture with no shortage of both fun kills and surprising heart: A thoughtful meditation on youth and age dressed up in Texas Chainsaw Massacre clothes.
On the classic movies front, I finally filled in a glaring blind spot this month and saw The Wizard of Oz (streaming on HBO Max), a film whose pop-cultural ubiquity belies its intense and delightful weirdness. Like all good fairytales, its light and colorful exterior masks a complex darkness, and its adept juggling of this dual nature is how it’s both an entrenched member of the capital-C Canon and an underground cult (and queer!) classic. Don’t let anyone ever tell you old movies are boring when this old movie has a five-minute song where munchkins celebrate a random woman’s murder. The Wizard of Oz is wild, folks.
Other movies I saw and loved this month…
RW = Rewatch
Broadcast News (1987) - RW
Johnny Guitar (1954)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Music
Instead of venturing out into the great unknown to discover new music this month, I found myself craving something familiar and reassuring, something that reliably rekindles the spark of hope I need to keep going in a world that often feels opposed to hope. During these troubled times, it takes a special sort of artist to consistently elicit the kind of joy I’m looking for: One whose worldview is fundamentally built on a playful and boundless curiosity for the elusive beauty of living.
That’s right: It has to be “Weird” Al Yankovic.
Inspired by this tweet where Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh pays begrudging tribute to his genius, I’ve been revisiting Weird Al’s greatest hits: A delightful collection of gentle and hilarious parodies (although this algorithmically produced playlist lacks his true masterpiece, the 10-minute long epic “Trapped in the Drive-Thru”). Where the Lonely Island (whom I also love and will likely feature at some point) trends towards bawdy, Weird Al accomplishes the same effect through wholesome absurdity, which is a miracle in itself. This man is a goddamn legend, and I’m glad we as a society have begun putting the appropriate amount of respect on his name.
Other songs I discovered and loved this month…
Odds and Ends
It’s March Madness SZN! While I’m of the opinion that NCAA basketball is simply not as aesthetically pleasing a product as NBA or FIBA hoops (and the labor situation is likewise a mess), I do love the heightened stakes and organic narratives that stem from a six-weekend single-elimination extravaganza, but most of all, as an amateur video editor, I love the “One Shining Moment” videos. In particular, I’m a big fan of the 2015 one; the “there will be no undefeated champion” call lives rent-free in my head (sorry, Kentucky fans). It’s even the one with Piccolo Girl!
During a recent trip to Boston, I bought Mathematics for Human Flourishing, a book by mathematician Francis Su. In it, he makes the case for changing the way we view mathematics and teach it to young people, advocating for the discipline’s ability to teach us importance values like grit, play, and an appreciation of beauty. As a former math Olympian who still loves a good contest problem every now and again, demystifying math has always been an endeavor near and dear to my heart, so I appreciated Su putting into words everything me and my fellow ex-mathletes have been saying for a good decade: Math can be fun and even occasionally beautiful.
I’ve also been trying to read more poetry, so I bought a dual-language collection of poems by the Colombian poet Raul Gomez Jattin from a beautiful cafe-book store in Cartagena while I was vacationing there. In a poetic turn of events, I met some very nice fellow travelers from St. Louis through the book on my last day there, as they’d bought the same edition at that very same coffee shop and spotted me reading it. We ended up buying some beers that evening and swapping stories till midnight while perched on the historic walls of the city, looking out at the sea. Brings a smile to my face just remembering it, so I also just wanted to immortalize it here, in my humble newsletter.
I’ll leave y’all with some words from Jattin that I found beautiful:
Life does not give life? Life begets a long whirlwind
of meetings and good-byes? Of evils desired
like love for a being unreachable and beautiful?
And the badly-measured madness of preserving a trace
in the heart of words? Or does life give life?
As long-time readers (all five of y’all) will know, I’ve tried to quit writing many times, but I’ve always come back. Maybe it’s because I too am afflicted with that badly-measured madness of wanting to preserve a trace of life in the heart of words. Either way, thanks for reading.
See y’all in April! I’m thinking of experimenting with using different forms of media beyond the written word, so watch out for some of that.