EPISODE 548: The Adventures of Bloop Flyboy
I feel like I've been asking "What Child is This?" this whole year.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
As I write you tonight I’m looking out on Los Angeles, dark and still in the night, just one little dot of a plane in the sky. The gentle pastels of my Christmas lights drape around the bookshelf near where I sit, and they lend everything a cinematic dreamy quality. It reminds me somehow of the tent Jude Law built for his daughters in The Holiday, and also of the lighting throughout in Eyes Wide Shut, one of the most unusual Christmas movies ever.
I noticed this week I seem to be gathering around myself lots of things similar to the lights. I’m starting the Harry Potter books again, and watching the new season of HBO’s Golden Compass series. And I continue on my quest to watch all the Christmas movies. This week was A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, Peter’s Friends, Eyes Wide and Holiday. And I seem to want to be outside more, feeling both the heat of the sun and the chill of the night on my face.
I have the sense in doing these somewhat random things that I’m somehow opening myself up to whatever Christmas might want to be for me this year. I have no idea what that is, but I do have the sense that even with all the isolation and slowdown of the world we’re living in the holiday could still very well blow by me if I’m not careful. In its own way Christmas is really such a delicate flower.
If you’re looking for something to nourish your own Christmas spirits, here’s a couple articles I’ve been reading about some of the Christmas movies I’ve been watching, and a couple Christmas songs to go with them:
An interview with one of the kids who play Jude Law’s daughters in The Holiday. (I loved that movie far more than I expected to. Eli Wallach is a beautiful human being, and he and Kate Winslet together are just so unexpected.)
A short essay from an Eyes Wide Shut obsessive about why it is the perfect Christmas movie for 2020. (Any time I get to watch a Stanley Kubrick movie I feel so much better about reality, even though his films are often so dark. Few filmmakers paint with such depth and beauty.)
The secret origin story of A Christmas Story, which I hadn’t seen in about 35 years. It feels like it’s from a much simpler time not only of growing up but of making movies.
An interview with Aubrey Plaza, who absolutely steals Happiest Season from her co-stars, and plays one of the most normal, well-adjusted queer characters I’ve seen in a long time.
Some really sweet facts about Miracle on 34th Street, including that Natalie Wood, age 8 at the time, actually thought Edward Gwenn was Santa Claus for the entirety of the filming. When he showed up at the wrap party without a beard for the first time she had literally no idea what to do.
And while it isn’t about Christmas, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which just dropped on Netflix, is such an outstanding film I couldn’t go without recommending it and this piece on it from The New Yorker.
I don’t know how much you know about astrology, but suffice to say tonight, December 21st, is an event of unique significance, one connected in the past not only with the Renaissance but maybe Jesus’ birth. So keep your eyes on the stars tonight….
I haven’t said anything about The Mandalorian. One of the things I’ve been working on today, in fact, is a piece about the show.
This season has done some really bold things in relation to the bigger Star Wars universe. And it has pretty much pulled them all off too, which is impressive.
I have to say – and I’m going to spoil a VERY BIG SOMETHING from the finale now, so if you have not watched and plan to, you should DEFINITELY NOT READ THIS –
—What thrills me most about the finale is that its portrayal of --
AGAIN, THIS IS GOING TO BE A SPOILER, SO, YOU KNOW, STOP NOW -–
-- Bloop Flyboy (I’m trying, you guys) seems very much in keeping with the things he has to say for himself in The Last Jedi. In Mandalorian he never introduces himself, never tries to set Mando at ease. He just shows up, kicks ass and takes the child.
It’s a portrayal very much in keeping with the Jedi in the prequels, which is for me a huge warning sign that this is maybe not all going to go so well, and I love that.
Also, hat tip to friend of the newsletter Ken Anselment, who alerted me to this amazing side by side comparison of that last scene with Vader’s big scene in Rogue One. It is fantastic.
Thanks to all of you for your continued support of this newsletter. I’ve been doing it for five years now, and so many of you have been so faithful to it (and so kind).
I am going to go on break starting today for a month. I may get crazy around New Year’s or Election Day and surprise you, but I won’t be back to the weekly schedule until January 24th.
Don’t hesitate to reach out and say hello in the meantime. I may be slow in getting back to you, but I read everything, and I really am grateful for you and this community.
As strange as this year’s holidays may be, I hope that this time affords you some chance for peace and quiet and contemplation of your own. We may be separated physically from our families, but maybe that means this year is a chance for other parts of our experience of the holidays to go a little deeper.
Wishing that for you.
Also: We love you Moms!