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It's October! Let's do comfort watches for the whole family!
Happy October! In NYC, we had a week solid of cold and rainy weather that put me into quite a Sufjan Stevens mood. But I do believe much of the United States is still, in the vernacular, hot as hell!
On the home front, after a lot of setbacks, my mom got enough stem cells to proceed with her stem cell transplant, which is absolutely the hugest [a word?] relief. She officially checks into the hospital for it this week, and I’ll be back there again in a matter of days. You can follow her journey on CaringBridge if you’d like.
Thus, this week — while we await the coziness of autumn weather to set in, and the new life of stem cells — I’m sharing a few recent comfort watches and one comfort read. Because that’s all your girl can handle in her life right now!
Not to ask about the weather, but let’s take a straw poll: Has Fall arrived in your region of the world yet?
A Sidetrack About Sports (again)
🏈 Sports Story #1
Fall is the season in which Taylor Swift comes into her full power each year — something that someone forgot to notify the football bros about, and they are UPSET!
Why they’re upset: Taylor Swift was at the Chiefs game again this weekend and this time, she brought her entire squad! Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Antoni from Queer Eye, Hugh Jackman, and, of course, her ex-boyfriend’s almost-ex-wife Sophie Turner! That’s like enough people to start a basketball team!
This is the energy of a woman who either: A) is madly in love or, B) needs a full-on squad(ron) to be her buffer in this brilliant but temporary alliance. You tell me! [JK it’s obviously the latter. Have you never heard of the Marriage of State, a glorious tradition of the rich and powerful? Mutually beneficial, my darlings!]
You can read all my thoughts about The Situationship from last week’s post. I just hope everyone is having fun! Also I’m kind of already over it…
⛳️ Sports Story #2
The Golf Men went full Mean Girls this week! It was the Ryder Cup, a rare TEAM golf event that pits the USA against Europe. The US lost big-time when it came down to actual points; but when it came to dignity? We all lost! These golfers were so petty! They stormed about the greens in rage! They had locker room drama and then denied it! They protested that everyone really, honestly, truly, no lie, absolutely 100% was just happy to be there, no bad blood here! They talked about courage and character and then screamed at each other in parking lots! They had to be physically restrained!
A mess. It makes me wonder why I was so relatively well-behaved my whole life.
I think what fascinates me most about golf drama is that it’s all enacted with the veneer of “polite society.” There’s a lot of pearl-clutching, even on the part of the commentators, who acted appalled that there could be any sordid gossip about the noble and heroic players — and then went on to incessantly pick apart every detail of every petty altercation. A bit pharisaical, I dare say!
Also fascinated by the awkwardness of the individual athlete being corralled into a team sport. They do not know where to put these feelings of shared responsibility!
Anyways, sports is drama, and I’m here for all of it because it shows we’re all just the same people trying to get through life.
Three Comfort Movies (safe for the whole family!)
I spent a good bit of last month in a hospital with Mom and Dad, and I did not think a whole lot about pop culture. Here’s the thing about hospitals and pop culture:
Hospitals are absolutely EVERYWHERE in pop culture — TV shows, Academy Award-winning films, SNL sketches, questionable Halloween costumes, the album art for Green Day’s third studio album, Enema of the State, etc., etc.
But pop culture in a hospital? Nowhere to be found!
Pop culture and hospitals are the ultimate tale of unrequited love. Like, pop culture is so obsessed with hospitals, and hospitals are Mariah Carey saying of J Lo, “I don’t know her.” Pop culture is Jay Gatsby throwing Daisy-themed parties for the whole neighborhood, and hospitals are Daisy Buchanan peacing out like, “I got my own cash, babe.” [But instead of “cash,” it’s just Daytime Television.]
To be fair to hospitals: They do have a lot going on!
All that to say, my parents are regularly entering the Pop Culture Desert these days, so we worked out a Pop Culture Trojan Horse: i.e., downloaded a ton of shows [recommended by Y’ALL!] on Dad’s iPad, set up Mom’s TikTok, and figured out streaming subscriptions [also based on recommendations!].
And most importantly, we gave ourselves a strict “No Sad TV” rule! Instead, we stuck to comfort watches — safe, cozy, feel-good films for the whole family. Remember Feature Films for Families? Like that, except, like, good.
Here are three we really enjoyed.
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
Three days after watching this, my dad was still occasionally commenting, apropos of nothing, “That dress movie was so good.”
It’s a movie about a LITERAL DRESS, and it still had my dad in a (loving) chokehold!
Thanks to Lesley Manville, this movie isn’t merely a bedazzled confection — it’s more like a bedazzled confection with a nice substantial snack in the middle. An Almond Joy! [Those are my favorite candies, screw the haters!]
It’s the story of a widowed house cleaner in post-WWII England who falls in love with a Christian Dior dress and decides she MUST go to Paris and buy one. If you’ve guessed that not only is she changed along the way—but she changes the House of Dior itself—you are correct!
It’s SO sweet and SO pretty and SO worth a watch.
Jerry & Marge Go Large
This was so unexpected. I had never heard of it, but my friend Kayla’s dad recommended it when I told him we were looking for family-friendly, happy content.
As do most things with Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening, it delivered!
It’s based on a true story about a middle-aged couple in Michigan who once outsmarted the lottery. As you can imagine, hijinks, good feelings, silly plot devices, and generosity ensue — along with a stunningly heartfelt reflection on parenting, empathy, and what makes us human.
Rainn Wilson is also in it! It’s silly and sweet and a good time.
AIR
Ben and I went to see this movie opening week in theaters, and when we walked out, I said, “Why can’t all movies just be entertaining like that!”
I hate to say it, but Ben Affleck just knows how to make an entertaining movie. And Matt Damon and Viola Davis know how to act! Period!
This is the story of the early(ish) Nike days and how they put themselves on the basketball map by taking a huge risk on a somewhat untested talent: Michael Jordan.
Crisp, smart, funny, vibey, occasionally inspirational [mostly Viola]. Must-watch.
Plus: A Comfort Read. “Congratulations, the Best is Over” by R. Eric Thomas
You know when you find someone doing what you want to do but like a thousand times better? I introduce you to author R. Eric Thomas. He is so damn funny in exactly the ways I want to be! Why can’t I, a straight white girl from Baton Rouge, write just like this gay black man from Baltimore?? I do not know! [Narrator: She did know.]
Anyways, he’s an absolute delight, and the book made me laugh out loud and cry. I immediately followed all of his internet accounts and bought his other book, and now have Dickinson [for which he also wrote] queued up on AppleTV+.
It has scrumptious little sentences like this one describing a pre-hike visit to REI with his fiance, who is a big outdoorsy guy:
“He bought me some cargo pants that unzip at the knee to become shorts, because it was going to be hot going up and cold going down but apparently 1997 the whole time.”
LOL! I love dragging the outdoorsy folks!
Hannah! Your mention of Sufjan Stevens at the start is apt because he is IN THE HOSPITAL, and will be for a good while! (He has Guillain-Barré, and wrote eloquently about this on Instagram.) Sufjan in the hospital might not herald the entry of overarching pop culture into the hospital, but there's a sense of solidarity, no? <3