To the Grinches Who Didn't Like Wonka...
AND: What I'm watching with my family for the holidays
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and happy Festivus! I am currently quarantining in a family friend’s home down the street from my parents so we can spend Christmas Eve and Christmas all together as long as everyone stays healthy! [With my mom’s stem cell transplant, her immune system is basically like a newborn baby’s. Science is crazy.]
Today, we’re talking less about Christmas movies and more about “Movies to Watch While Visiting Your Family/Friends or Just Hanging Out With Yourself During the Liminal Space That is the Week Between Christmas and New Year’s.”
Plus, a review of the two movies [“Wonka” and “The Boy and the Heron”] that I just watched that I loved.
I’d love to hear what YOU’RE watching, too!
Don’t forget to weigh in!
And, as a reminder, I’m putting together a list of all the best and worst from 2023 — and I’d love to include yours!
What makes your list this year?
What are your “Must-Sees”? The movies and shows that you think everyone HAS to watch, no matter what their usual tastes, because monoculture matters or just because it’s THAT good. I think Barbie and American Symphony fall into this category.
What are your “Personal Faves”? Maybe not everyone should watch it, but you loved it. For me, Succession is an example here. I admit it is not for everyone! But it IS the best.
What are your “Biggest Disappointments”? I would include That Thing That Happened in the First 30 Minutes of Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1.
Gifts of the Internet This Week
Just three things that are bringing me joy and/or obsession on the internet. These could be great conversation-starters if you have the kind of family where conversation lags. [As someone from a family that is basically the family from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I do not relate.]
You are going to be hearing about this cruise. It’s 2024’s Titanic; it’s the new reality TV; it’s what everyone on TikTok is watching rightnowthisverysecond; it’s a collective fever dream that is unfortunately all too real. It’s a nine-month cruise. It’s the Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise [if you want to follow it on TikTok].
I really don’t know how else to explain why I’m talking about this except to just emphasize that nine months is enough time to create a human baby that can live and breathe outside the womb. That nine months is longer than an entire year of college and twice as long as your standard study abroad program. Nine months means if you started the cruise on December 10 [which they did], you would still be on that cruise the following September [which they will!].
You know when you’re watching a horror movie and at the beginning, the Final Girl looks well-fed and happy with that Glossier glow—and then by the end, she’s like a haggard, bloodied, Texas-Chainsaw-Weird-Barbie version of herself?
That’s what’s going to happen to these cruise people; I am sure of it.
🐑 Sean the Sheepman on TikTok.
I watch these border collies in Scotland herd sheep, and something in my brain chemistry rearranges into perfect harmony. People really trash-talk sheep, but all I want is what they have: For one of those border collies to guide me to the right path when I end up confused and in the wrong field.
🗣 ”Pronunciation Manual” on YouTube.
This had me laughing so hard I pulled a new muscle I didn’t know I had. This YouTube account has been around for decades, I guess, and yet EVERYONE failed to tell me about it until THIS MONDAY when my friend Laura showed it to me!?! Sobbing.
What I’m Watching Over the Holiday Break: A List
Because I do not have a sheepdog to herd me in the right direction in life, checklists are my only anchor in a universe of chaos. So, I made a checklist of stuff to watch while visiting family and ignoring Slack messages next week!
These are fun for the whole family (or some of the family, not the youngest children, perhaps):
The Holdovers: My friends Meryl, Emily, and Nat say that it’s just as good as it looks and that it’s NOT corny! I also talked about this in my Winter Movie Guide.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: I cannot wait to watch this with my nine-year-old nephew. I read the first book over a decade ago [I must brag: I read it while on study abroad in Oxford!] [I mean, if you’re going to do that in life and not brag about it, why did you even do it??] [JK, I did it for Learning.]. I don’t remember anything about the book AT ALL, but I am thrilled and delighted to be watching this show with Isaiah!
Wonka: I already watched this and will watch it again with anyone who wants to go. The Sweet Tooth song is a bop.
Hunger Gaaaaames! Now available to rent/buy on your home TV.
The NOT family-friendly movies I will be looking to see are:
Leave the World Behind: I already watched half of this on my flight home, and at the end of the flight, I was NOT. WELL. This put me in an Apocalypse-Panic FUNK. And I can’t wait to finish it. It’s got all the dressing of a really quality film, but somehow, the writing/plot feels like they put a nice dress on a hollow, see-through mannequin frame, as many Netflix movies do. But I’m still here for it, and it was still entertaining! Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali!
All of Us Strangers: The press tour alone with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal is making me feel like a teenage girl with a desperate crush, and that’s a bonafide COMPLIMENT.
Poor Things: I promised myself I would never watch this because it looks like a HORRIFIC time, but now the 89% Audience Score has me wondering if I should do my due diligence? Although, little tip: The Audience Score was over 90% just a few days ago, so it’s clearly dropping as more people watch the movie.
American Fiction: Looks perfect and hilarious.
Saturday Night Live Highlights: Kate McKinnon hosts the Christmas episode
Kate McKinnon came back to her ancestral homestage to host the annual SNL Christmas episode. Honestly, it was disappointing—as the kids say, “mid.” But there were a few I liked!
Highlights: (1) Christmas Awards Cold Open (2) The Monologue (3) North Pole News wasn’t funny this year, but it reminded me how many times Ben and I have rewatched the original sketch with Eddie Murphy (4) Tampon Farm (5) Rich Auntie With No Kids Relaxing During the Holidays [(6) Billie Eilish singing Christmas songs
Watching: Two Family Movies with Very Different Vibes
Last weekend, I went to see two movies about boys with perfectly tousled hair who lose their mothers and embark on a quest to find her in themselves. Each movie engaged completely different parts of my brain. I enjoyed them both and they are so different.
One was the new Studio Ghibli film The Boy and the Heron, and the other was This-Blog’s-Firstborn-Son-Timothée-Hal-Chalamet’s Wonka!
Wonka (in theaters!)
Step aside, Grinches!! Christmas-candy sugary swirly twirly feel-good magic is here! In the words of an NPR podcaster: “Movies are Back!”
I went into Wonka wanting to like it but fully expecting to be disappointed. [A problem for a therapist, I daresay!]
Reader, I was NOT disappointed!! I was thrilled, charmed, surprised, cajoled into grinning from ear to ear several times. I was like an extra in A Muppet Christmas Carol, bouncing along and singing my heart out with the Ghost of Christmas Present.
A couple of notes for your education: Of the five people who went to see it in my group, four did not know it was a musical, and one did not know it was a “prequel.” So just, be prepared: It’s a musical! And a prequel! It’s about a young Willy Wonka before the mental health problems, agoraphobia, and child murders!
But, honestly, it would be better to generally detach it from your idea of “Wonka.” Like, just don’t overthink it. This isn’t a movie for “honoring the canon” or whatever snobby gibberish. It’s just a movie for having fun and smiling a lot. Again: Don’t overthink it!
Someone who IS overthinking it? A Grinch who writes for The New Yorker wrote a piece titled “The Empty Magic of Wonka,” in which he said:
Its convenient wonders just happen to advance its action in ridiculous ways, which serve solely to set up the specific conflicts, resolutions, and set pieces that yield the emotions and the songs that the movie is selling.
Translation: “I hate movies. I hate how the plot plots and the emotions emotion and the children act like children. Yuck!!” This man has clearly never seen a children’s film in his life!? This man came out of the womb as a grouchy 85-year-old! This man’s first name must be Ebenezer.
DO NOT OVERTHINK THIS MOVIE.
That’s all. I hope you all get to go see Wonka with a child in your life who you love.
My final pitch: Olivia Colman is in it.
The Boy and the Heron (in theaters!)
Something for the overthinkers!!
For the people who are too highbrow to enjoy the magic of Wonka — or those of us who contain multitudes and love both art and mass-produced entertainment — I give you The Boy and the Heron.
It’s a movie by the acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and his animation company Studio Ghibli. The Studio Ghibli pantheon is a Who’s Who of your “Art Friend With Impeccable Taste”’s favorite movies of all time: Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, etc. They’re bizarre, fantastical, imaginative masterpieces. They’re more like a spiritual experience than a standard narrative, a purging of the filmmaker’s deepest childhood experiences and emotions.
The Boy and the Heron is also that. It’s the story of a boy living through a war in which his mother is killed. The opening scene had me putting my head in my hands and crying. From there, the film follows the boy to a new home where he meets a mysterious, magical heron that takes him on a dreamlike quest through another world [the land of the dead? kind of?] to find his mother.
It’s the kind of movie where the whole time you’re just thinking: “This came out of a human brain?? Someone imagined THIS, and then they found a way to SHOW IT TO US!?” It’s truly jaw-dropping. Miyazaki is known for including little details in his animation that other directors, in awe, have called “unnecessary gestures.” Something as simple as a character tapping their foot in place — it seems unnecessary to add that extra work and extra detail to the laborious process of animation. Most people don’t go that extra inch. But he adds those elements to give his characters depth and history. It’s truly a joy to watch, a mind-bending journey through someone’s imagination where they are grappling with grief, violence, loss, and healing.
On that note, if you want to watch this, you’ll have a decision to make: Subs or Dubs? It’s a Japanese film, so you can either opt to watch the subtitled version or the dubbed version. The dubbed version has a stellar English-speaking cast that includes Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, and Willem Dafoe. Of course, TRUE art people are going to tell you that you should never watch a dubbed version. “Subs over dubs” is the right way, and I normally agree.
But this time, I went with dubs.
So sue me! I do feel kind of guilty, like I’m admitting I chose a McDonald’s Cheeseburger over a Wagyu steak [In my defense: a McDonald’s Cheeseburger in the voice of Florence Pugh!]. But I had two reasons:
I felt like the emotion would translate better in my native tongue, and I read how they had been really thoughtful about how they cast it. [Like casting Robert Pattinson to do the heron’s voice; it’s a very weird, cranky voice, and the heron is both a trickster, an ally, and a seducer, so they cast a handsome man to play him, both for the original Japanese version and the dubbed one. RPatz did great.]
I didn’t want to waste ANY of my eyeball bandwidth on reading words on the screen. I wanted all my attention to be free to soak in every gorgeous animated visual detail.
This movie isn’t for everyone. It’s very weird and very illogical and very dreamscape. This is for you if you like to watch something beautiful that doesn’t have to make 100% sense. Something that follows dream logic and expresses emotion through visuals but doesn’t necessarily have an exact correlation in the real world for everything you see.
I saw Poor Things. I have thoughts (I don’t recommend lol) We should gab. Cannot wait to see The Boy and The Heron!
Must See’s: The Last of Us, Our Flag Means Death, Succession, John Wick 4, Good Omens, Primo, Silo, The Bear, Warrior, Yellowjackets, Fall of the House of Usher, Blue Eye Samurai, Scavengers Reign, this season of Fargo
Personal Faves: Meg 2, The Trench and DICKS: The Musical
Biggest Disappointments: ‘Murder at the end of the world.” Not as big a disappointment as the O.A., but its up there lol.