A Spring Round-Up
Late, as usual
The rumours are true: I am two and a half months late for the “next instalment” I was going to write in February. I know, I know. While I have not been writing here, I have been hard at work on two long-form pieces that both required lots of research (one is published and linked below, the other is still To Be Announced). I also covered Glasgow Film Festival 2024 in March, and have linked some reviews below to films that have recently been released wide in the UK. The festival had a brilliant year, as have I with 2024 cinema so far. Add in busy times at work and in day-to-day life – plus a few other commissions, some trips to the opera, and one trip to the wrestling – and reflecting here has taken a backseat. But life is good! I’m very lucky! And spring, at long last, is here.
With other work ahead, Play It Again! will likely become a bulletin newsletter for the foreseeable, though some bigger ideas are brewing. But catching up on the last few months…
What I’m reading:
The Wager: Grann writes very compelling histories, knowing when to document and when to give some imaginative insight. I wanted something more scandalous, perhaps after watching the first series of The Terror during the pandemic, but that’s not the truth.
Illness as Metaphor: Sontag’s prose is precise and accessible even as her ideas are anything but simplified. Reading in preparation for work on La traviata, one of opera’s quintessential tuberculosis narratives, it is maddening to see the line from tuberculosis chic to heroin chic to every girl’s (person’s?) existence in the early 2000s being subsumed by diet mags and eating disorders.
Beautiful World, Where Are You: Somehow satisfying narrative and emotional arcs despite the fact that I wanted to kill almost every single character multiple times over!
Housekeeping: This one made me feel painfully seen. Seeing the magic and confusion of that odd brand of family unique to rural America – especially those outdoor childhoods – echoed back at you is a trip, especially through Robinson's words that veer between the abstract and realistic. Despite the fact that Robinson teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I’ll be reading more.
Priestdaddy: Funny, smart, silly, and deeply sad. "Voice" might be one of the top five chapters in memoirs, if not all books.
Roadside Picnic: I love novels about ordinary people doing their best under the circumstances; sometimes, those circumstances just happen to be after an alien visit.
Mythologies: I decided to fill in a crucial gap in my uni reading 10 years too late. The wrestling essay is superb. The astrology essay called me out. Barthes remains undefeated.
Brainwyrms: Rumfitt’s follow-up to Tell Me I’m Worthless (one of my top three books of 2022) is NAAAASTY. Like its predecessor, I also read Brainwyrms in a single sitting. It fills you with no hope for society. Fantastic work.
What I’m watching:
Manhunt: my full-length review can be found here, but I was completely and entirely hooked by a show whose history I (vaguely) remember from middle school, when my obsession was American history with sub-focuses on the Revolutionary War and presidential assassinations. It’s a joy watching Tobias Menzies take the lead in his first-ever first-billing, and he undercuts Edwin Stanton’s well-documented legislative aptitude with a movingly warm portrait of someone holding himself and his country together through twelve different shades of rage, grief, and guilt. And while I have not yet seen Masters of the Air, Anthony Boyle is having a hell of a breakout year. His Booth is so horribly ordinary, so full of self-aggrandisement and self-pity. And I recently caught upon Keith Phipps’ Vulture recaps of the show, and I think he is spot on to say that Manhunt works as a countermyth against the story of the “Lost Cause”, one of the most pernicious stains on my home country. This miniseries is full of heart, heft, and anger, and I think more historical shows benefit from such a clearly stated perspective that is not purely information or education. I feel a new American history obsession brewing. (Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation is a must-read for US history buffs; in related news, Caught by Lightning could be great – it will be about President James Garfield’s assassination by Charles J. Guiteau, one of the messiest and maddest entries in US history – but it also could be terrible – it is executive produced by the Game of Thrones men. Time will tell.)
JFK: continuing the theme (what can I say, Sondheim’s Assassins is one of my top 5 musicals), I understand why people have gone and still go collectively mad. The 1970s make sense now. Donald Sutherland’s scene is impeccable. (If you have taken my recommendation to listen to Blowback, the ninth episode of the second series is a superb companion piece.)
Antichrist: …christ (complimentary)
All of the High School Musical films: no notes! The second is among the best movie musicals, and “Fabulous” has what Barbie wishes it did.
Matthias et Maxime: a film that makes you long for house parties and casual socialisation and breaks your heart that the older you get the harder, perhaps more impossible, ths becomes.
Beach Rats: be gay, do crime? Harris Dickinson is a master of accents.
Challengers: for me, the highlight was leaning over to my husband mid-film to make sure he knew that the music supervisor had specifically chosen the Benjamin Britten arrangement of “O Waly Waly”. As soon as the title card placed the big match on my birthday I knew it was over for me! Guadagnino likes his white boys sweaty and big eared! I do not know if the script would have worked without his direction (much like Call Me By Your Name?). Performances are all ace, but the earlier scenes where they are all pals are the special ones – chemistry, what a concept! Really, Challengers reminded me of the hockey subplots in the first 4-5 series of Letterkenny, Canada’s premier export in comedy television shows. Art and Patrick are Reilly and Jonesy if they had more than a single brain cell between them. Tashi is far more complicated than Katy – the latter never had her dreams dashed by a career-ending injury – and therefore gives the film a necessary dramatic / psychological edge that would not fit a hangout sitcom, but the hoops these women make their respective two men jump through are of the same mould. Maybe the sports world is just like this? (Despite my parents’ best wishes, I wouldn’t know.)
Shardlake: four episodes is not really enough for meaningful character development, but there is a lot of fun in a show seemingly aimed at today’s 12-years-olds looking for more Horrible Histories-adjacent content.
The Idea of You: despite the best efforts of its leads, this is utterly juiceless.
Abigail: silly, fun, slight, Dan Stevens knows the assignment!
Gone Girl: my first rewatch since 2014. There is not a single normal person in this goddamn film / novel, with the possible exception of Margo. It is great for vibes but baffling on every other count. Fincher makes the greatest (in every sense of the word) mainstream dramas.
What I have been writing:
Plugging some recent writing out of Glasgow Film Festival! First, the festival commissioned me to write a short feature on Wuthering Heights (1939) to go alongside their anniversary retrospective programming; I explore Merle Oberon’s outsider status in Hollywood as a biracial woman, which mirrors the themes of Brontë’s novel though it does not bear out in this particular adaptation.
Many of the films I saw at GFF have since been or will shortly be released in the UK, including La Chimera (achingly beautiful, already the best of the year), Sometimes I Think About Dying (very sweet!), Io Capitano (rage-inducing, a must-see), Disco Boy (Rogowski’s reign continues; I also spoke to him for the film, a writing career highlight), Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (no one is doing it like Jude), The Teacher’s Lounge (no real staying power, but great in the moment), and Bleeding Love (the only true festival stinker). I also got to interview the director and two of three lead actors of Tummy Monster, yielding my favourite ever quote recorded on tape.
First big piece of the year! In one of my favourite deep dives, I wrote about the twelve best opera scenes on film for VAN Magazine (all my opinion, but I am right!). Writing and researching this one was a dream.
What I recommend:
If you missed this piece making the rounds a few weeks ago: the film and television industry cannot continue in this way – not for the creators, not for audiences. Something has to change, and soon.
As an American working in opera in the UK, and someone as interested in the business side of the arts as the creative side, Anthony Freud’s observations on the operatic life of Wales, Houston, and Chicago is an excellent read.
On a happier note, this exploration of what a music supervisor does and how they create unforgettable musical moments that merge irrevocably with a certain film’s narrative (such as Challengers underscoring Tashi’s epiphany with a Britten-arranged folksong) is a great informative light read.
I had never heard of the author and activist Lillian Smith until a couple weeks ago. This is an old piece from 2016, but I wish more white women did the work she did to unpick and unpack the legacies of violence their comfortable lives were/are built on without denigrating the place itself.