Watch With Kleenex
The Celine Dion documentary, plus Emmy nominations and Deadpool & Wolverine making history
Let’s not pretend that I’m doing anything this week except sitting in front of my television screen hooked up to Peacock’s “Gold Zone,” streaming the Paris Olympics directly into my veins while googling “bedazzled leotard but as a dress.”1
[Speaking of gymnastics leotards, you can see my review of “Simone Biles Rising” in The Athletic’s July 21st newsletter under the What We’re Watching section!]
The Olympics have been a clock-stopping, ritualized event in my household for my entire life. One of my favorite memories is the time my friend Alyssa’s family came over to watch the Opening Ceremony, and her little brother Anthony ate so many M&Ms he threw up. Now that’s patriotism!!
The Olympics are glorious with their glistening ideal of human capacity, their unapologetic earnestness, their EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS HAPPENING ALL THE TIME attitude. A man spent his whole life training as a surfer just to show up to the Olympics and have a giant wave pull his pants down in front of, let me be clear, the entire world. Incroyable!!
Three of my favorite things in this Olympics so far are:
How they have the gymnasts’ parents hooked up to a heart monitor. Imagine having worked all your life to develop Stoic Dad Face just to have NBC tattle on you like that! J’adore!
Snoop Dogg, who has quickly become the Main Character of the Olympics and is having more fun than a puppy loose in a public park and is, as my friend Laura said, “The figurehead of America.” I love how the other commentators, who haven’t slept a wink in five days, are just constantly saying through gritted teeth, “So glad you’re having a good time, Snoop.”
The TikToks of the Olympic Village. My whole life, the Olympic Village has been this giant question mark made of 300,000 condoms. With social media, we get to see it first-hand, and it’s giving less orgy and more summer camp! This is my favorite TikTok so far: The Oceania countries singing.
My question for you this week: What’s your favorite memory of any Olympic Opening Ceremony? Or the Olympics in general? Did you, like my sister and me, spend hours out on your driveway perfecting imaginary beam routines?? [“Okay, now pretend I just did a triple flip.” “NO *I* DID A TRIPLE FLIP!!!” Etc.]
In the Entertainment News: Box Office & Emmy Nominations
💰 Deadpool & Wolverine made $483.2 million in its opening weekend, which is the eighth-biggest opening of all time and the biggest for an R-rated film ever. I haven’t seen it yet due to, as previously stated, being hooked up to the Olympics 24/7, but I’d love to hear what y’all thought if you’ve seen it. I love the Deadpool franchise, and I think Ryan Reynolds is brilliant at his brand of wise-cracking comedy and I loved the Hot Ones with him and Hugh Jackman.
🏆 The Emmy nominations (TV awards) came out this month, and it’s kind of a weird year, thanks to the strikes. There weren’t as many options as usual, evidenced by the fact The Gilded Age and The Morning Show — two trash shows, one of which I watch religiously, the other of which I just cannot — got so many nominations. But still, we have greatness!
Emmy-nominated shows I’ve recommended (with varying degrees of enthusiasm): Fargo, The Bear, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Crown, Ripley, Only Murders in the Building, Black Mirror, Baby Reindeer, True Detective: Night Country, Mike Birbiglia’s “The Old Man and the Pool,” Alex Edelman’s “Just for Us,” Beckham, The Gilded Age (oops), Slow Horses, 3 Body Problem (meh), Abbott Elementary, Hacks, Reservation Dogs, What We Do in the Shadows, Idris Elba in Hijack, Maya Rudolph in Loot, Fellow Travelers, Bowen Yang in SNL.
I’m especially thrilled about: Reservation Dogs and What We Do in the Shadows finally getting more of the nods they deserve! Also “Fishes” and “Honeydew” from season 2 of The Bear getting directorial nods. [“Fishes” into “Forks” deliver one of the best back-to-back episode sequences of all time.]
A few I have NOT recommended: The Morning Show, Shōgun [Sorry, it was just not for me? Very, as my sister said, “progressive for the 1990s.”], Palm Royale [great cast; didn’t live up for me], Lessons in Chemistry [Just did not rise to the level of me wanting to spend time watching.].
Shows I now want to watch: Fallout and more of Slow Horses, which I’ve seen one season of and loved.
Watching — I Am: Celine Dion (Prime Video)
This year’s Opening Ceremony ranks in my favorites of all time, thanks to the Voice of the Human Soul since the day she was born and also probably from the moment God separated light from darkness: Queen Céline Marie Claudette Dion.
After that performance, I was finally ready to watch her new documentary, which came out last month. Although Celine is sort of like my patron saint if I were Catholic,2 I was too scared to watch it because my mom’s eerily similar diagnosis felt too close. But this week, I did it.
What is it? I Am: Celine Dion is the story of her unmatched generational talent, framed by the devastating diagnosis that threatens to take it all away. We join her in her dark night of the soul and her struggle back to the light.
What I thought. I was moved beyond words. Celine has always been the queen of vulnerability. Here, she is taking that to the utmost. She is letting us in — to a point of stripped-down raw courage that took my breath away. We are there in her house, and she’s in her jammies and no make-up; we’re there with her family, her dog, seeing her at shoots and recording sessions, in home videos, in dark moments after having to cancel shows. But it’s joyful, too. She’s so present and funny and weird and effervescent; it’s like nothing can dim her light. She takes us through her huge warehouse of props and costumes, joking about how she can fit into any shoe if she loves it.
My top takeaway. Of all the people in the world, her life at the top must have been so lonely at times. But she seems to have kept anchored by tying herself to the people she loves: Her husband, her children, her parents and siblings, her band. “This is my greatest foundation,” she says of her early years with 13 siblings (!!!) and two parents who struggled to put food on the table but gave love and attention. “I became who I am,” she says, “because of all these people. If you want to go fast, you go alone. And if you want to go far, go together.”
There’s this moment that’s NOT in the documentary, that happened at a fan event after it came out, that encapsulates what I’m trying to say about how it made me feel. This TikTok shows a clip from the doc and then that separate moment:
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May you always have people in your life who say: “We are here for the tree.” 💜
Reading — Olympics coverage!
Not to be a total company man, but The Athletic has fantastic Olympics coverage. I’ve especially loved reading Dana O’Neil’s writing about the gymnasts. Here are three of her features:
Fred Richard, after lifetime of handstands, is built to burst onto Olympics scene
Simone Biles is back at the Olympics, and no one is telling her what to do anymore
Gold medalist Suni Lee is back at the Olympics. A team doctor helped make it so
That’s all for this week, folks! Let’s hear what you’ve been up to — What are you loving about the Olympics? Did you see any new movies this week? What’s your relationship with Queen Celine? Drop a comment or a heart. :)
Someone explain to me how they can get Swarovski to donate 47,000 crystals for the women’s gymnastics leotards, but we can’t get Casper to send a few mattresses so they can get a good night’s sleep on the most important nights of their lives!??
I know that’s not how it works, but you get it.
Okay, now I'm crying about the tree. 😭😭😭