EPISODE 912 THE JUICE IS LOOSE

Also, spoiler: Luke & Leia are brother and sister.

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

Hi and welcome to Pop Culture Spirit Wow. There’s a lot going on in the Wow this week! In addition to today, I’ve got a story coming tomorrow about Providence College; a last little spiritual experience on Wednesday; and an interview with some wonderful actors and human beings on Friday.

Let’s leap in!

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THE WOWND UP

Somehow, in all of the weeks of conspiracy theories and outrage about Princess Kate’s whereabouts, the one thing that no one considered is that Princess Kate might actually be seriously ill.

Meanwhile in New York on Thursday, the Empire Took over the Empire State Building. Yes, I mean that Empire.

I honestly can’t believe that this hasn’t happened before, and also that I somehow missed it. Because wow is it cool.

Also for Christians it’s the beginning of Holy Week, aka How Many Times Do We Have to Go to Church This Week, Ma, Week. I didn’t even know there was an Easter Triduum until the year before I entered the Jesuits. Growing up we went to Mass every Sunday, but with four kids, three or four days of Mass in a row was just not going to happen.

I can remember my first Easter Vigil, at St. Paul’s Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Just being there, watching it all happen was a really special experience. But in more recent years I’ve honestly come to dread it.

Which leads me to a momentary rant that I like to call…

HEY PARISHES, HERE ARE THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO DO TO MAKE THE VIGIL BETTER

1.    Have Programs

The Easter Vigil can include up to a dozen different readings and songs, which can make for a brutal evening. (See: #2) But one thing that I have found that really helps is giving people a program that tells them exactly what is going to happen. It’s easier to handle a long liturgy if you have a road map that lets you know when you are getting close to your destination. I have been at places where they don’t do that, and by the second or third reading you basically feel like you’re in a hostage situation.

2.    Don’t Do all the Readings

I realize that some liturgists will shriek at this, but the fact is, the Easter Vigil’s Liturgy of the Word is just not tenable for many people (and certainly not for families). It’s just too much of the same thing over and over.

You have to think, what is the point here: To simply check all the boxes, or to provide a religious experience that is meaningful? And if it’s the latter (which honey, it should be), you just can’t do all the readings and songs. Even structurally it doesn’t make sense—you have so much important and meaningful stuff to come after the Liturgy of the Word; if you spend too much time here, by the time you get to all that the community is just dead on their feet.

3.     Let Children (and Others) Do the Readings

Probably the greatest Easter Vigil reading I ever heard was a child reading the first reading, the story of creation. It’s just a completely different story when a child tells it. If I was Pope I would insist that a child always do that first reading—it’s that rich of an experience.

And it makes me wonder, what other groups out there that don’t usually get a voice in our parish? What might they bring to this moment? Or to some of the other readings?

The rest of the liturgy is fine. Just fix this, okay?

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TRAILER WOW

I don’t know who decided that this would be scifi/fantasy trailers week, but boy howdy did we get some.

A handy dandy round-up:

The Acolyte

For the first time onscreen, Star Wars is going to go to explore a period that has nothing to do with Skywalkers.

The Acolyte is set 100 years before Phantom Menace, in a period during which there had been no Sith for hundreds of years. It’s basically an origin story for their return.

For the last 5 years the Star Wars High Republic book series has been exploring this age, but those books have been set 100s of years before The Acolyte in some cases. Supposedly there’s just one character transferring from the books, a Jedi named Vernestra Rwoh (who is great).

Showrunner Leslye Headland did the amazing series Russian Doll. She did an interview with the Hollywood Reporter last week where she talked about  hiring one writer for the team who knew nothing about Star Wars­.

Andor creator Tony Gilroy proved that you don’t necessarily have to be a lifelong Star Wars fan to be a great Star Wars storyteller. So I thought you made a wise choice by having a varied writers’ room with fans of different eras and then someone who never flocked to it at all.

I just thought it would be good to have the perspective of a person that had literally never seen Star Wars until she was in the room. And she said to me, “Why do you want me in this room? I’ve never seen Star Wars. I have no idea. I think there’s a dog in it, but I don’t know anything.” And I was like, “First of all, you’re an incredible writer, but that’s why I want you here. I want you to be questioning narrative. I don’t want myself, who’s a lifelong fan, to just be relying on particular references in order to create emotional beats. I want those emotional beats to be earned and checked by someone that isn’t super familiar with it.” 

And it was really funny because she finally watched the Original Trilogy over that Christmas. She watched the Prequels, too, but she kept texting me [about the Original Trilogy] and was like, “Luke and Vader are …” All those things that we’ve known forever were blowing her mind. She was like, “Luke and Leia are brother and sister!? What the fuck!?” She was writing all these things to me, and I just thought it was so funny. So she educated herself in order to be in the room, but it was really fun to have somebody like her to help collaborate.

Headland’s original pitch for the season was Frozen meets Kill Bill. I have no idea what that means, but I’m very much looking forward to seeing it.

House of the Dragon S2

House of the Dragon dropped two trailers this week, one from the point of each of the two families at war.

My main reaction is how little this show feels like Game of Thrones now, with just two sides endlessly battling it out. Hopefully the season itself will complicate that.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

There’s not a lot to this trailer, other than the introduction of Jenny Ortega and little glimpses of Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara. But the ending is wonderful.

Alien: Romulus

It’s been a while since we’ve had an Alien movie (that made any sense), and there’s definitely a freshness here. It feels like a contemporary horror film, just with aliens. (The little ones move so much faster now, too!)

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is kind of getting a reboot. Although it’s actually something like season 14 or so, they’re rebranding it as season one, a classic comic book technique for signaling a fresh start. Ncuti Gatwa’s first eps as the Doctor in the specials last year were really strong. He seemed a much more empathic and healing version of the character than we’ve seen.

But I do note that in the trailer he is asked what has become a familiar, and foreboding, question by his companion Ruby’s mother: Can you promise nothing bad is going to happen to my little girl? He promises nothing will. That never bodes well.

The Penguin

As part of the DC Bat universe that somehow is not a part of James Gunn’s DC relaunch which was supposedly going to be the only version of the DC cinematic universe going forward, but still exists, there’s a new TV show coming about the Penguin. For as horrible and silly as that character can sometimes be…

…in recent years he’s become much more dangerous and mobster in the comics, and the TV version seems set to bring to that light.

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APA-WOW

Judd Apatow did an interview with Vulture’s Jesse David Fox last week about his recent stint as the host for the DGA awards. I thought he some pretty interesting things to say about awards shows.  

What makes a good awards-show host?
The funny thing about an event like that is everyone you’re making fun of is looking right at you. When people host awards shows, sometimes people think the point of it is that it’s a roast of some sort. But I don’t really think that’s the way to do it. For people to show up and then for the host to be like “You’re all pieces of shit” seems like a weird approach. I do feel like you should be celebrating them, even if you slip in a couple of digs at the appropriate targets. Obviously Ricky Gervais was always very funny going hard the other way, but unless you’re a master at threading that needle, it does help to be smart and insightful and be there to say it was a good year.

Do you feel it is useful to be self-deprecating at the beginning of an awards-show monologue?
Yeah, always. The premise of the monologue is always, I’m not as good as any of you. That tends to help. The weird thing is people laugh because they don’t think I am as good as any of those people. That premise would not work if it wasn’t agreed upon. That’s our pact.

You joked about being snubbed for every movie you’ve made. And as you said, you have been asked to host the DGA Awards five times but have never been nominated. Do you feel like in the DGA, comedy directors are seen as a sort of lesser or second class? Like, They are just the clowns that we laugh at, but they’re not one of us.
I’m not sure. I remember I talked to Mike Nichols many years ago about it, and he’s like, “We don’t need awards for comedy. People like our movies, and they watch them over and over again. And all these Oscar movies, no one will ever watch again.” That’s really how I’ve always taken it. If you make a comedy and you have fun with your friends and you get paid, you don’t need those awards when they happen.

… I don’t think any of it is to be taken seriously. When it happens, you’re like, Awards are great! We won an Emmy for The Ben Stiller Show for writing, and that was one of the great nights of my life. But the losses don’t mean as much. Although when we did The Larry Sanders Show, we lost every single year for Best Comedy to Frasier, and it hurt because it was always the same show. Then the Frasier writers would always get onstage, and they would always be so pumped because they won Best Writers in the World, and they never mentioned the other nominees. They never said, like, “Oh, what an honor to be in this category.” It was always just like, “We’re the best! We did it again!”

He had fascinating things to say about a lot of other stuff, too! Check it out.

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OVERHEARD FROM THE THIRD BALCONY

Are intermissions against the law in the state of New York? — Everyone at every show currrently playing on or off-Broadway.

They need to have Gregg Edelman and Chip Zien host the Tonys. — Outside Water for Elephants.

So wait, it’s a show about the moral corruption of capitalism, but halfway through the show they put a bar on the stage and invite everyone go down there to buy drinks?

Their partner (holding drinks): Isn’t it great? — The “pause” at Enemy of the People.

I don’t know who was in charge of table choreography but I hope they get the Tony. — Intermission at Corruption.

Is every show now required to have someone sitting on stage before it starts? — Audience at the first preview of The Outsiders.

Illinoise: A play in 7 lines.

Is it pronounced Illinois or Illinoise?

It’s a joke on how people pronounce the name, get it?

So which one is it?

You know it’s pronounced Illinois.

So then why did they put an “e” on the end?

The Guy Behind Them: …Third base!

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MOMENT OF WOW

See you tomorrow!