Welcome to the New Twitter
Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here today to say goodbye to Twitter. Not really, although in the last week or so, it has started to feel more like a place worth destroying. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Twitter over the last decade, but recently, I felt like I had figured out how to make it work for me. My rules were pretty simple: Don’t try too hard to get attention, only comment on what I cared about, interact with nice people, and ignore mean people. The system worked. I ended up getting more writing opportunities and meeting a lot of cool people who, although we don’t know each other offline, are a meaningful part of my life.
Maybe you’re one of those people! If so, I hope the conversation can continue here. I don’t know if I’m leaving Twitter for good, but that result is starting to feel inevitable. Elon Musk—who to the untrained eye seems to be a very bad, very stupid man—has become the main character there, and that’s not a movie I want to watch. So for now, there’s this. My plan is to try and make this newsletter as close as possible to what it feels like to follow me on Twitter. I’m going to give you a quick, thoughtful opinions on movies and baseball. I’m going to share things that I’ve written or am otherwise involved with. I might occasionally post a personal update.
Last thing before we jump in: If you’re receive this first installment, it’s because you either signed up or were added by me without your consent. If you’re in the latter category, feel free to opt out. No hard feelings. Just lots of soft resentment. And with that….away we go:
The Oscars Have a Host
ABC announced (early this year) that the 2023 Oscars will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. This seems like a good idea. Last year’s ceremony was a disaster—even before the slap—and bringing back a battle-tested host who understands his role is the smart play, even if he does seem to have disdain for fine cinema. The morning after last year’s ceremony, Kimmel went on Bill Simmons’s podcast and explained how he would have handled things had he been the host. It’s a good listen.
For me, this is about changing the conversation. Every year, we hear the same stories about how the Oscars can’t find a host, and about how no one wants the job because the downside of failing is bigger than the upside. None of this is good for the Oscars or for movies. If I were ABC, I’d lock in Kimmel for more than just this one ceremony. Sign him up for five years, and give the Oscars some much-needed consistency. Make it an institution again. Stop drastically reimagining the set every year. Get the same stars to sit in the front two rows every year. Find a new “Jack.” Get all the accoutrements out of the way, and maybe we can focus on the films again.
Recommendations
There are two films in theaters right now that are not only worth your while but have some interesting stuff in common. Tár and The Banshees of Inisherin are about characters who have chosen to devote themselves to their art at the expense of their personal relationships, but they chronicle the fallout in divergent ways. Todd Field’s Tár is a character study of a world-famous conductor (the great Cate Blanchett) who brings about her own downfall through a relentless quest for power and habitual sexual misconduct. Banshees, from director/playwright Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside, Ebbing Missouri), is a dark fable about an Irish fiddle player (the great Brendan Gleeson) who ends his friendship with a sweet simpleton (the great Colin Farrell) because he wants to focus his remaining life on making music, rather than sitting in the pub and drinking Guinness with a goofball.
I liked The Banshees of Inisherin better than Tár (click for my reviews), but both are worth checking out. It’s also interesting to consider them as a pair. It seems clear that these filmmakers are expressing a fascinating ambivalence towards their own pursuits of greatness; the characters in Banshees in particular feel like two sides of the writer’s personality. They feel like the right films at the right time, with so many of us emerging from a pandemic of introspection with new ideas about how we want to spend our lives. Since both of these works were written during shutdown, I can only surmise the filmmakers were having the same thoughts.
I didn’t review it, but I also thought James Gray’s Armageddon Time was just spectacular. It’s a coming-of-age story about a Jewish boy in Queens in 1980, and some of the details feel just ripped from my own childhood. More than that, it interacts in fascinating ways with our moment, not just the anti-Semitism that seems to be encroaching further into the mainstream but particularly its popularity among Black celebrities like Kanye West and Kyrie Irving. Through his true story of a middle-class Jewish boy who befriends and then shockingly fails a Black schoolmate, it made me understand this dynamic a little better. The media is rightly condemning the views promoted by Kanye and Kyrie, but few are asking why they’re so popular in Black communities. Even though it is set 42 years ago (and was made before this latest instance of high-profile anti-Semitism), it asks that question. And maybe even answers it.
A Different Kind of Perfect Game
The World Series was fun this year. Honestly, I always have a good time watching the World Series because my Mets are almost never in it. I was actually relieved when the Mets lost in the first round because it meant I was avoided a month of nervous tension. I can only imagine how awful it must have all been for Phillies fans. If I were one, the manager’s decision to pull Zack Wheeler in that decisive game 6 would haunt me forever.
But my favorite thing that happened in the World Series had nothing to do with the players. No, instead it was the guy behind the plate who achieved something remarkable. Home plate umpire Pat Hoberg called the first “perfect game” in major league history. This means that, according to the people who keep track, he didn’t make a single incorrect ball or strike call. The whole game. It’s the only time that this has happened since they started keeping track, and it just happened to be in the World Series. Unbelievably cool.
Umpires have always gotten a bad rap, but I’m a fan of their work. They make split-second decisions in front of audiences of millions who get to watch and rewatch every play in slow-motion replay to see what they got right and wrong. When they get it wrong, they have to announce it to the crowd and viewing audience. In essence, they’re under just as much scrutiny as the players, except they’re not allowed to show any emotion, and when the players and managers lose their temper over what they perceive as a blown call, the umpire has to just sit there and take it. There are bad umpires out there, but the best ones possess a blend of skill, endurance, and emotional restraint that is just as impressive to me as the players themselves. Despite all this, the league and its fans are counting the days until they can be replaced by robots. On the rare occasion one of them is celebrated for being good at his jobs, you can bet I’m going to share it. Kudos, Pat Hoberg.
What I’ve Got Coming Up
The rest of the year will be about book writing (did I mention I’m writing a book?) and catching up on 2022 movie releases so that I can vote my conscience in the Critics Choice Awards and Washington Area Film Critics Association awards. I’ll also be reviewing a couple of new releases, The Menu and The Fablemans. I’ll link to them in the next newsletter, but if you want to get my takes sooner, just follow me on Twitt-
Just wait for the newsletter.