I’m creating my movie best-of lists retroactively. See all of them.
We’re now over 20 years away from the films in question. This means my impressions of the ones I haven’t rewatched somewhat recently are encased in metaphorical amber, for better or worse. It also means I wouldn’t have seen a good number of them until years after they came out, which will grow only truer the farther I go back.
Regardless, this year’s crop is quite top-heavy, with some all-time keepers landing in my top 4. Contrast those with some all-time stinkers (hello Corky Romano and Pearl Harbor) and it adds up to a notable year at the movies.
On to the list…
1. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Had to go with my heart on this one, my favorite and the best of the trilogy. (The #1 Trilly.) I’d only vaguely heard of the original books before seeing the trailer on TV. Once I did see the movie in theaters (probably more than once) I was hooked, reading the whole trilogy before Two Towers came out the following year. Because of that familiarity I had with the subsequent films, I especially treasure this one (and its Mt. Rushmore-worthy original score) for the pure cinematic experience it bestowed upon me like a gift from Galadriel. (See more LOTR posts.)
2. Memento
Making this #2 was an agonizing decision. Really, Fellowship of the Ring is 1a and Memento is 1b—a dynamic head-and-heart cinematic dyad with vastly different styles yet equally excellent stories and execution. It was my first encounter with Christopher Nolan, Guy Pearce, and the unique thrill of getting my mind blown by a film. (Note: this is listed as a 2000 film on the internet, but that’s when it premiered at a film festival and I only consider a film’s wide release date to be its official one.)
3. Ocean’s Eleven
One of the most rewatchable movies ever.
4. Zoolander
One of the most quotable movies ever.
5. Enemy at the Gates
This was one of a handful of war movies released around this time—along with Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot, and We Were Soldiers to name a few—that helped to define that genre for me, for better or worse. And this is definitely one of the better ones thanks to the performances by Jude Law, Ed Harris, and Rachel Weisz.
6. The Royal Tenenbaums
Peak Wes Anderson in the best way.
7. Escanaba in Da Moonlight
Written and directed by Jeff Daniels, a Michigan native, this small and delightful indie focuses on the peculiarities of hunting culture in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Read my review.
8. Black Hawk Down
Add this one to my aforementioned “war movie canon” as well.
9. Monsters, Inc.
Even second-tier Pixar like this is still first-rate compared to animated movies in general.
10. The Mummy Returns
What a year for Rachel Weisz! If Dagmara Dominczyk in The Count of Monte Cristo was my 2002 cinematic crush, Weisz in this swashbuckling (if kinda silly) sequel was my 2001 one—and not just because she’s a librarian.
With that in mind, here are the books from 2021 that stuck with me.
10. The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All by Josh Ritter
Josh Ritter, creator of one of my favorite albums of all time, dropped his second novel this year and it was quite good. I read the audiobook, which was narrated by Ritter (and probably shouldn’t have been [professional musicians ≠ professional narrators]). But I still enjoyed the narrative voice of the main character, reminiscing about his time in the lumberjack era of early 20th century Idaho.
Choice quote:
Memory comes in to fill the spaces of whatever isn’t there. … Memory has a way of growing things, of improving them. The hardships get harder, the good times get better, and the whole damn arc of a life takes on a mystic glow that only memory can give it.
9. Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature by Angus Fletcher
I can certainly understand the criticisms of this book, which examines literature through a utilitarian/scientific lens that can come across as reductive. But since books are technology (which Fletcher defines as “any human-made thing that helps to solve a problem”), then it’s perfectly legitimate and even necessary to explore them as such. Examples include the catharsis of Greek tragedies helping to purge fear (while mimicking the benefits of modern EMDR therapy) and riddles activating information-seeking neurons that trigger dopamine hits. The author’s appearance on Brené Brown’s podcast is a good introduction to what you can expect.
Choice quote:
Literature was a narrative-emotional technology that helped our ancestors cope with the psychological challenges posed by human biology. It was an invention for overcoming the doubt and the pain of just being us.
8. The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
This was a late-year read after Malcolm Gladwell raved about it in his newsletter. Figured it was worth a try as I rarely read mysteries or thrillers. Indeed it was fun to go on the ride of a novelist who comes upon another writer’s plot, harnesses it into mega-fame, then deals with the fallout. As with movies, I didn’t try to figure out the ending as I went, so when the twist arrived it felt earned and as if it were there the whole time.
Choice quote:
Once you were in possession of an actual idea, you owed it a debt for having chosen you, and not some other writer, and you paid that debt by getting down to work, not just as a journeyman fabricator of sentences but as an unshrinking artist ready to make painful, time-consuming, even self-flagellating mistakes.
7. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
This collection of essays originated as a popular podcast by the author, which “reviews facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale.” Topics include “humanity’s temporal range”, Canada geese, Indianapolis, and many other things you didn’t realize could make for viable essays. Green’s earnest, wending style and keen observational approach makes for very pleasant reading.
Choice quote:
All I can say is that sometimes when the world is between day and night, I’m stopped cold by its splendor, and I feel my absurd smallness. You’d think that would be sad, but it isn’t. It only makes me grateful.
6. Bewilderment by Richard Powers
After I gave up on Powers’ massive The Overstory, I was glad for a shorter story to glom onto. This one, set in my hometown of Madison, follows a recently widowed astrobiologist professor struggling to raise his perspicacious but troubled nine-year-old amidst increasing political, professional, and climatological turmoil. How do you look for life in the stars when it’s under threat on earth?
Choice quote:
Life is something we need to stop correcting. My boy was a pocket universe I could never hope to fathom. Every one of us is an experiment, and we don’t even know what the experiment is testing.
5. In the Heights: Finding Home by Lin-Manuel Miranda
For me 2021 was already the Year of Lin-Manuel Miranda due to his music in In the Heights, Vivo, and Encanto, and direction of tick, tick… BOOM! And yet I still managed to sneak in this book documenting the journey of Miranda’s first musical to the stage and screen (now in my top 10 of 2021), complete with Miranda’s characteristically vivacious libretto annotations.
Choice quote:
The rush of the final Usnavi section stays with me always, and my prevailing memory of performing it is the faces in the front row of the Rodgers Theatre: our $20 section, often filled with young people seeing their first musical on Broadway. I lock eyes with them, night after night, and as their eyes fill with tears, so do mine. I’m delivering these words, but I’m also trying to tell them: I’m home, and Usnavi’s home, and in this time you’ve chosen to spend with us, so are you. Welcome home.
4. Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon by Malcolm Gladwell
Available only as an audiobook, this “audio biography” centers around hours of conversations between Simon and Gladwell about the genius musician’s life and career. It’s less a book and more a limited podcast series, which now seems like the only right way to do a music biography. Made me appreciate Simon’s work anew. (Review)
Choice quote:
Taste is the combination of memory and judgment.
3. Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West by Cameron Blevins
Learned a lot from this history, which is primarily for 19th century American history nerds but is still refreshingly accessible and peppered with illustrative graphs throughout. (Review)
Choice quote:
Despite the popular ‘Wild West’ narrative of self-reliant cowboys and pioneers, the real history of the region is one of big government: public land and national parks, farming subsidies and grazing permits, military bases and defense contracts. Arguably no other part of the United States has been so profoundly shaped by ‘the state’.
2. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
An approachably philosophical exploration of the wily, incorrigible thing called time and humanity’s dysfunctional relationship with it. It’s like a self-help book that deconstructs the need for self-help books. (Review)
Choice quote:
If you can hold your attention, however briefly or occasionally, on the sheer astonishingness of being, and on what a small amount of that being you get—you may experience a palpable shift in how it feels to be here, right now, alive in the flow of time.
1. The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller
I’d never have heard of this one, let alone picked it up and read it, if it weren’t for a tip from my mother-in-law. This fictional cradle-to-grave memoir follows the misadventures of a caustic early-20th-century Swedish man who, disfigured in a mining accident, retreats to an Arctic archipelago for a self-imposed exile, only to almost accidentally collect a motley crew of friends (human and canine) and reconnect with family in surprising ways. Miller’s exceptionally crafted narrative voice and eye for harsh natural beauty made this a rewarding read.
Choice quote:
For now, take stock of yourself. This is the chance you waxed about so long ago. Listen for the voice that speaks when all others go silent. Be alone—be entirely alone. I am not saying you will find anything of worth there—certainly no cosmic truth—but maybe you will begin to feel as pared down, efficient and clean as a freshly whittled stick.
In 2021 I only saw three movies in theaters, which is two more than I saw in 2020. A personal historic low, it probably goes without saying. But ultimately I’m just grateful to be able to watch great movies, whether at the theater, on a streaming service, or with a library Blu-ray.
To that end, here are the 2021 movies that stuck with me.
10. Shiva Baby
This indie comedy had me cringing but also grinning at its fairly astounding tonal tightrope act, which follows a sardonic young Jewish woman navigating family, friends, and lovers during a shiva. Such a singular, confident debut from 26-year-old (!) filmmaker Emma Seligman.
9. C’mon C’mon
I was split on Mike Mills’s last two features: 2017’s 20th Century Women was as middling as 2010’s Beginners was marvelous. This feels like a return to form, with Joaquin Phoenix as a radio journalist caring for his estranged sister’s nine-year-old son during her absence. It’s a closely observed, touching, and tumultuous portrait of surrogate parenting, and echoes this line from the Richard Powers novel Bewilderment: “Nine is the age of great turning. Maybe humanity was a nine-year-old, not yet grown up, not a little kid anymore. Seemingly in control, but always on the verge of rage.”
8. Pig
Yet another self-assured directorial debut, this one from Michael Sarnoski about a reclusive former chef (Nicholas Cage) who embarks on an illuminating quest to recover his abducted truffle-hunting pig. It’s become pat to laud Cage for the roles in which he really Gets Serious (in contrast to the Go Crazy ones), but it’s nevertheless refreshing when he does tap into his innate performative greatness. And he does here to a quietly magnificent level.
7. In the Heights
With all due respect toSpielberg’s West Side Story, this was the superior NYC-set movie musical of 2021. Better songs, far better talent and chemistry among the leads, and a better overall story that nods to tradition while dancing to its own beats. The mark of a good musical: whenever I listened to the soundtrack (which was often), the songs would earworm me for days. Also recommend In the Heights: Finding Home, the book by Lin-Manuel Miranda and his collaborators about bringing the stage and film versions to life.
6. Passing
This directorial debut from actress Rebecca Hall kinda knocked me out. Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson star as two African American women and reacquainted friends in 1920s New York City, one of whom is “passing” as white. Facade cracks of many kinds abound, and the film uses the fullest of its rather short runtime and black-and-white cinematography to pack a dizzying amount of portent through them.
5. The Green Knight
I went into this wholly ignorant of the source material but was eventually won over by the haunting filmmaking (by David Lowery, whose A Ghost Story was one of my favorites of 2017) and mesmerizing performances—specifically Dev Patel, whom I hadn’t seen since Slumdog Millionaire (meh). Ultimately it was the film’s perfect ending (maybe the best of the year?) that transformed a pretty good experience into something I knew I’d have to revisit.
4. Dune
Similar to The Green Knight, I went into this as a complete Dune newbie and emerged a fan, both of the world the film created and how Denis Villenueve went about it. Compared to Villenueve’s previous film Blade Runner 2049, which was pretty but alienating, Dune is gorgeous (in a deadly way) and mesmerizing—so much so I had to watch it twice in pretty quick succession. Not sure I’ll actually dive into the novels though.
3. Procession
This Netflix documentary features a group of men who were molested by Catholic priests as boys using drama therapy as a way to overcome their long-festering trauma, by making (non-graphic) short films dramatizing their experiences. Despite (or maybe because of) the heavy subject matter, it’s a really beautiful portrait of a brotherhood formed by shared anguish as these men help each other get through their emotional journeys together.
2. The Rescue
An extraordinary documentary from National Geographic (available on Disney+) about the 2018 Thailand cave rescue, which I remember happening at the time but hitherto knew very little about. Combining arresting firsthand footage with talking heads by the amateur British/Australian cave divers recruited for the job, the filmmakers expertly show how the massive operation’s inspiring cross-cultural cooperation and logistical creativity led to a near-impossible outcome. (I mean, just read the details of the actual rescue for a taste of how preposterous it was.) It felt a little like Arrival meets My Octopus Teacher—two other top-10 films for 2016 and 2020 respectively. Other dramatized versions of the story are coming, but be sure to watch this.
1. The Beatles: Get Back
This nearly 8-hour documentary from Peter Jackson telling the story of the Beatles’ January 1969 recording sessions spoke to me on many levels. As a former drummer in a rock band, I recognized the tedium, tension, and creative thrills that hours upon hours in the studio can engender. As someone interested in the creative process, I relished watching even certified geniuses inch their way from nothing to serenading London from a rooftop in less than a month. And as a huge Beatles fan, I treasured being able to spend so much quality time with the lads from Liverpool as they worked through a difficult period together. This film feels like a miracle, and I’m glad to have witnessed it. (Watched on Disney+, which is the wrong fit for this project. Even if it introduces a younger audience to The Beatles, the long runtime will put off just as many potential fans.)
With the day off from work, I spent the morning traipsing around our snowy yard with Little Man. He introduced me to his snowman (above), we threw snowballs at trees, and rolled down the small hill in our backyard. Lots more snow is on the way, apparently, so we’ll be out there shoveling again soon to welcome the new year.
I don’t have an overarching thesis of my 2021. In most ways it was just like last year: COVID, living with a rambunctious and hilarious toddler, and doing the little things of living every day. Sometimes that’s all you can and should do: shovel snow when you have to, and roll down a hill when you can.
A few highlights:
Celebrated 15 years of blogging!
Read 31 books and watched 57 movies
Got to see Little Man:
get potty trained
attend a (chaotic, barely structured) park district soccer class for 2-3 year olds
take swimming lessons and learn how to play in the public pool
encounter the fauna of Brookfield Zoo and the flora of the Botanic Garden
share endless hours of ball play in our dining room with the Okee Dokee Brothers in the background
Finally wrote about my undying love for the TV show Boomtown, not once but twice
Watched some good TV: Ted Lasso, Schmigadoon, Bluey, Love on the Spectrum, The Great British Baking Show, The Underground Railroad, The Good Lord Bird, and currently Station Eleven
Added these cheap used DVDs/Blu-rays to my collection: Jaws, WALL-E, The Count of Monte Cristo, Red River, Apollo 13, Columbus, The Death of Stalin, Jurassic Park, Knives Out, Paterson, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
My Better The Beatles series rolls on with the ultimate selection of the best from Rubber Soul and Revolver. I ended up with a clean eight from each, combined here into Revolver Soul:
Good Day Sunshine
Taxman
Drive My Car
Eleanor Rigby
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
Yellow Submarine
Michelle
You Won’t See Me
Here, There And Everywhere
I’m Only Sleeping
Nowhere Man
Girl
I’m Looking Through You
In My Life
For No One
And Your Bird Can Sing
That’s right, the song one listicle ranked as the very worst Beatles song (not going to link to it because it’s ipso facto garbage due to that ranking) is now at the head of the line, despite “Taxman” being one of the best first tracks ever.
The departed from Rubber Soul: “The Word”, “Think For Yourself”, “If I Needed Someone”, “What Goes On”, “Wait”, and “Run For Your Life”. Not sad about these.
The departed from Revolver: “Love You To”, “She Said She Said”, “I Want To Tell You”, “Doctor Robert”, “Got To Get You Into My Life”, and “Tomorrow Never Knows”. Sorry to get rid of both Harrison joints, but I’m just not into the sitar.
I’m creating my annual movie lists retroactively. See all of them.
Looking at the full list of 2002 releases brought up lots of random memories:
going to Changing Lanes and Signs in the theater with my dad
seeing the original teaser trailer for Spider-Man on TV in fall 2001 that featured the World Trade Center towers
watching The Hours in a high school English class twice as an exercise in close-reading a film
rewatching The Hot Chick enough times with my sisters to have the “boys are cheats and liars” chant memorized
Ah, to be young again. This year also saw me transition from middle school to high school. My friend Tim and I were deep into making stop-motion and live-action short films using the LEGO Studios Steven Spielberg MovieMaker Set camera and software. Titles included Doctor Dreadful, The Penington Estate, and Dino Dan—all esteemed Oscar-worthy pictures.
One day I’ll excavate the DVDs full of these heavily pixelated treasures. Until then, on to the list…
1. Minority Report
This was one film, in addition to the LOTR trilogy, that really hooked me into the power and possibilities of film.
2. Catch Me If You Can
Only five years after Titanic made Leonardo DiCaprio a global sensation, this and Gangs of New York (released the same week) confirmed him as a sensational actor as well.
3. Signs
Man, the jump-scares of the aliens on the roof and in the Brazilian street got me real good in the theater. Though The Sixth Sense is great and Unbreakable is his best, this is peak Shyamalan.
4. In America
I’m glad I saw this later on, in college, when I was able to appreciate just how marvelous it is.
Thanks to the late Michael Constantine, aka Gus, for several iconic catchphrases from this movie that I still deploy occasionally, including “put some Windex on it” and “so there you go”.
7. The Ring
This movie is sort of Patient Zero for my dualistic relationship with horror films: I don’t like willingly subjecting myself to horrific content that will disturb my mind and sleep, but I also greatly appreciate supremely crafted suspense films.
8. The Count of Monte Cristo
I’ll admit to not having rewatched this in a while, but my enduring impression is that it is, as Roger Ebert wrote, “the kind of adventure picture the studios churned out in the Golden Age—so traditional it almost feels new.” I also had a crush on Dagmara Domińczyk as Mercédès.
9. Jackass: The Movie
This and subsequent Jackass movies are in my Mount Rushmore of making me cry-laugh.
10. The Bourne Identity
Sure, it inspired too many mediocre shaky-cam knockoffs, but there ain’t nothin’ like Matt Damon and Clive Owen facing off in the countryside.
I’m two-thirds of the way through The Beatles: Get Back, the 8-hour documentary on Disney+. It inspired me to add another installment of my Better The Beatles series, wherein I trim the fat from their discography to create super albums of only their best stuff. (Previously: Sgt. Pepper’s Magical Mystery Tour, The (Single) White Album, and Ram McCartney.)
Since both Abbey Road and Let It Be contain songs created during the same period, here’s my track listing for a hypothetical Let It AbBey Road:
Get Back
Come Together
Two Of Us
Something
Dig A Pony
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
Oh! Darling
I’ve Got A Feeling
Octopus’s Garden
Let It Be
Here Comes The Sun
Because
For You Blue
You Never Give Me Your Money
Polythene Pam
She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight
The End
The omissions from Abbey Road weren’t terribly tough: “Sun King”, “Mean Mr. Mustard”, and “Her Majesty” are slights, and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is too long.
Similarly, it was pretty easy to remove “One After 909”, “I Me Mine”, “Dig It”, and “Maggie Mae” from Let It Be because they aren’t good. “Across The Universe” and “The Long And Winding Road” are good, I guess, but also tonal outliers from the rest.
Library books galore. Between my work library and the two public libraries close to home, we’ve established a pretty regular rotation of titles old and new. Recent hits include The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak and Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons by Sara Levine.
Bluey. The first-ever clip I saw of Bluey was the claw game and it made me literally LOL. The best kids TV show, period.
“Dem Bones”. He really got into spooky season this year. He’s especially obsessed with all things bones and skeletons, so this old traditional was and remains a hit.
Pixar movies. Approaching 3 years old, he’s enjoyed and (mostly) stuck with the Disney/Pixar movies we’ve tried with him so far. My guess at his ranking (starting with the most loved): WALL-E, Moana, Luca, Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, Coco. Still not sure how far back in the Disney canon I want to bring him even as he gets older. There’s a lot of good stuff—though I would say that as a Millennial, wouldn’t I?—but in general Pixar is higher quality and a lot less dicey.
The Okee Dokee Brothers. Specifically “Haul Away Joe” and “Jamboree” and a few other songs on seemingly infinite rotation. Good thing I love them too.
These factoids aren’t good for much except trivia nights and some Jeopardy! categories, but they fascinate me nevertheless—and illustrate that history is a lot richer than just a boring list of dates in a textbook.
A few tidbits I’ve gathered:
James Buchanan is the only bachelor president
Woodrow Wilson was the first president since John Adams to deliver his State of the Union address before Congress in person
Herbert Hoover was the first president to have a phone on his desk
Theodore Roosevelt chased down boat thieves for 36 hours straight in the Dakota Territory while also reading Anna Karenina
Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel
The only two 20th century presidents not to golf while in office: Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter (heroes)
Per Thomas Jefferson’s utopian vision of self-government, the University of Virginia (which Jefferson founded) had no president until 1904
To avoid attending the Republican National Convention in summer 1928, Calvin Coolidge stayed in northern Wisconsin and fished on the Brule River; Herbert Hoover visited and they fished together
James Polk’s first client as a lawyer in 1820 was his father for public fighting; he secured his release for a $1 fine
George Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention but, perhaps unsurprisingly, spoke only once
James Madison technically had two birthdates due to the change from Julian to Gregorian calendar systems
As an 8 year old, John Quincy Adams personally witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill
John Tyler was in 1844 the first president to decline to seek a second term
William McKinley and Rutherford B. Hayes served in the same Ohio regiment during the Civil War
Hayes’ wife Lucy hosted the first White House Easter Egg Roll in 1878 after Congress banned it at Capitol
Harry Truman was the first vice president to have Secret Service protection, and the first president to invite his successor (Eisenhower) to the White House post-election
Ever since reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s excellent Abraham Lincoln biography Team of Rivals years ago, I’ve been fascinated by the lives and times of U.S. presidents. So much so that I made a goal to read a substantive biography of every U.S. president.
This goal isn’t motivated by politics. If anything the legislative minutiae, policy discussions, and battlefield play-by-plays are usually the dullest parts of these books. I’m simply fascinated by the peculiar power of the presidency and the stories of the men who have wielded it—even if (and when) they don’t live up to our twenty-first century expectations.
Any biography I read will teach me something, regardless of the likeability of the subject or overall quality of the book. But the best of them combine compelling prose, insightful commentary, and strong storytelling that fairly recount the person’s life while contextualizing and sometimes criticizing their decisions or behavior.
With 19 down out of 45 currently, I’m nearing halfway through this literary mission, so I thought it would be a good time to check in with what I’ve read so far.
I’ve mostly stayed away from more recent presidents, preferring books that have at least a little historical distance from their subjects. (Outside of George Bush Sr., the most recent president I’ve tackled is Harry Truman.) I also endeavor to only read meaty, single-volume biographies that make this expedition feel substantive and worthwhile (if slightly masochistic).
All that said, here are a few titles that have stood out thus far, in no particular order.
For a long time the only things I knew about Hayes were that his heavily disputed 1876 election ended the Reconstruction era in the former Confederacy, and that he was one of those forgotten presidents between Lincoln and Roosevelt with cool facial hair. But I soon learned that Hayes was a lawyer who became an abolitionist and defended escaped slaves, a brigadier general in the Civil War who was shot in the arm in the Battle of South Mountain yet still led his men to victory, and a post-presidency education reform advocate who helped found Ohio State University. Not bad for a forgotten one-term president.
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
This is the first (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) book in a trilogy about Teddy Roosevelt, who might be the most impressive president we’ve ever had. It chronicles the crowded years of his pre-presidency life, which began as a sickly yet bright child who by 25 became a best-selling author and bull-headed New York legislator, then continued as a young widower who served as a Dakota sheriff, New York City police commissioner, Navy secretary, Army colonel, and New York governor, all before becoming president at 42. Energetic, fun-loving, and extremely intelligent, Roosevelt is a biographer’s dream and one of my history crushes.
John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Lifeby Paul Nagel
From birth, John Quincy Adams lived within a shadow. His father, John, the legendary Founding Father and fiery orator, pushed John Quincy hard in his studies and inspired him to greatness. But the greatness JQA achieved—e.g. speaking multiple languages, serving as George Washington’s minister to the Netherlands at age 26—always seemed to forestall his desire to live a quiet, scholarly life away from politics and his father’s prodding. Historian Paul Nagel captures all of this in addition to Adams’ unimpressive term as president and surprising final act as an ardent abolitionist congressman. (Another bit of trivia: He was probably the only person to have known both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln personally.)
The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy
The standard photo-op of a new president standing cordially with all of his living predecessors is common, but that wasn’t always so. Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman created the so-called “former presidents club” in the 1950s, and since then the relationships formed behind the scenes between members have often been surprising (like with rivals-turned-best-friends George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton) and sometimes subversive (like when Richard Nixon deliberately sabotaged Lyndon Johnson’s peace talks in Vietnam to aid his own 1968 campaign). The book is a fascinating account of how the private and public lives in “the world’s most exclusive fraternity” have interweaved throughout modern political history.
Other favorites:
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (the for-me OG!)
John Adams by David McCullough (sets the standard for POTUS biography greatness)
I’m creating my annual movie lists retroactively. See all of them.
We’re now deep into an era that was, at least for me, dominated by DVDs. I seemed to get a new one or two every birthday and Christmas, and rented aplenty from Family Video or Blockbuster. My movie collection has changed a lot since then, but I’ve never stopped collecting physical media.
On top of more frequent moviegoing as a freshman going on sophomore, I also started paying more attention to the Oscars. Part of this was printing out a ballot to track the guesses of my friends and classmates. My claim to infamy: being the only person to predict an upset Best Picture win for Lost in Translation—this in the year of the 11-win sweep by Return of the King. I was glad to be wrong.
On to the list.
1. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
My friend and fellow LOTR nerd Tim and I were in the same high school chemistry class, and we spent the entire fall semester counting down the days until this movie premiered. All the haters who complain about the multiple endings are fools of a Took. See also: my Top 5 Lord of the Rings moments and other appreciations.
2. Finding Nemo
Not unlike the LOTR trilogy, this film—#6 in my Pixar rankings—is a journey. I haven’t watched it since becoming a father, so I wonder if and how my feelings about it will change with a rewatch.
I don’t think I’d seen many con movies at the time, so this one made a strong impression. Nic Cage is the perfect balance of quirk and cool, and Sam Rockwell shines as usual in a wiry supporting role.
5. Kill Bill Vol. 1
Hard to decide whether I like Vol. 1 or Vol. 2 more, though the fact that Vol. 2 didn’t crack my 2004 list perhaps makes the case for me.
6. Ghosts of the Abyss
Sought out this documentary during my recent Titanic kick. It follows James Cameron and the crew of his deep-sea diving expedition in 2001 to explore the remains of the Titanic shipwreck. Haunting, beautiful stuff, in a way that’s different from Cameron’s other Titanic movie.
7. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
A rollicking and only occasionally ridiculous adventure, and the rare adaptation success that Hollywood has been chasing and failing to reproduce ever since.
8. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
This seems to have acquired a reputation as an under-appreciated masterpiece. It’s quite good, and I’d definitely watch a sequel, but I’ll leave it at that.
9. A Mighty Wind
Third-rate Christopher Guest joint (literally—after Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show) with a five-star soundtrack.
10. Runaway Jury
The idea of a gun manufacturer being held criminally liable for a mass shooting seems quaint these days. Not quaint: Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman going mano a mano. I miss Gene Hackman in movies.
I have a pretty good handle on my Christmas/winter movie canon. But fall? Not so much. That’s what inspired me to consider the movies I return to during autumn, or seek out when I want that Mr. Autumn Man feeling on screen regardless of the season.
To qualify, they have to take place primarily within, embody the spirit of, and have the look and feel of autumn. Somy beloved Little Women (both the 1994 and 2019 renditions) don’t quite make the cut given their year-round plots. Nor do other movies that are widely considered fall movies but I either haven’t seen (Hocus Pocus, Practical Magic) or care enough about (When Harry Met Sally).
Here, listed alphabetically, is what I landed on, along with some of their appealingly autumnal attributes.
Coco
Dia de Los Muertos. The spookiness. The cemetery.
Knives Out
The foliage. The sweaters and coats. The gothic architecture.
October Sky
The title of the movie. The overcast. The mournful spirit. The gorgeous music. The light jackets and flannel. (This is really #1.)
Remember the Titans
The nighttime football. The new-school-year vibes.
The Village
The cloaks. The chilly nights. The aphyllus trees. The forest walks.
“Memory comes in to fill the spaces of whatever isn’t there. … Memory has a way of growing things, of improving them. The hardships get harder, the good times get better, and the whole damn arc of a life takes on a mystic glow that only memory can give it.” – Josh Ritter, The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All
“The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.” – J.A. Baker, The Peregrine
“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” – Paul Batalden
“From the first human handprint on a cave wall, we’re part of something continuous. We don’t really die.” – The Dig
“Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.” – Justice Robert Jackson
“There’s an eternity behind us and there’s an eternity ahead. This little speck right here at the center, that’s our lives.” – The Good Lord Bird (TV show)
“Help people to trust the compass, not the map.” – Susan David
I’m creating my annual movie lists retroactively. See all of them.
As a freshman/sophomore in high school, this year provided me several memorable theater experiences, including the last great M. Night Shyamalan movie, some surprisingly excellent sequels, and a romance that inspired one of my very first blog posts.
But chief among these theatrical outings were Anchorman and Dodgeball. Both were instrumental to the development of my comedic sensibility (for better or worse), having hit me and my peers at the exact right age for maximum effect and quotability. A shocking amount of lines remain lodged in my subconscious to this day, just waiting to be deployed—much to my wife’s puzzlement or annoyance.
I can’t defend everything about them. A recent rewatch of Dodgeball confirmed just how much of its comedy wouldn’t survive into today. But dammit, if “We’re better than you, and we know it!” and “I immediately regret this decision!” and countless other references are wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
On to the list…
1. Before Sunset
The Before series is one of four trilogies I own on DVD, the others being Back to the Future, Die Hard (4 and 5 don’t count), and Lord of the Rings. Unlike with those series, this second movie is the best of the trilogy.
2. The Incredibles
This is at #3 in my Pixar rankings, behind WALL-E and Toy Story. Such a beautiful, exhilarating vision from Brad Bird.
3. Shaun of the Dead
I think about this film essay on Edgar Wright’s visual comedy a lot. While my opinions vary on his films, there’s no denying his filmmaking prowess, which is nearly Wes Anderson-esque in its distinctness.
4. The Village
The last great M. Night Shyamalan movie. I know the twist is divisive, but it worked for me, as did the gorgeous James Newton Howard score, the crackling chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix and Bryce Dallas Howard, and the murderers row of character actors.
5. Anchorman
Within Pewit’s Nest gorge in Baraboo, Wisconsin, you can wade down Skillet Creek and jump off small cliffs into pools within the creek. I was there several years ago with a few people when I clambered up one of these cliffs and, right before jumping, delivered Ron Burgundy’s poolside monologue to those nearby, punctuated with a cannonball into the water just like in the movie. To my chagrin, no one understood the reference and therefore probably considered me a disturbed weirdo. I should have capped it with “Don’t act like you’re not impressed…”
6. Collateral
Tom Cruise needs to play more villains.
7. Miracle
Not all live-action Disney sports movies work, but this one just straight-up does. And like most good sports movies, you don’t need to know much about the sport.
8. Ocean’s Twelve
Saw this with a group of friends, and we decided to get dressed up for a fancy night at the movies just to emulate the suaveness of the cast. This is usually ranked last in the trilogy, but it’s not far behind Thirteen.
9. Friday Night Lights
The show was good, but this was great. My introduction to the music of Explosions in the Sky.
10. I, Robot
This holds up, not only as sci-fi dystopian action but as a Will Smith vehicle during his late prime.
I won’t do this quite as often as Media of the Moment, but I think it’s interesting to check in every once in a while with my podcast lineup and habits, since they do change over time for various reasons.
What hasn’t changed since my last dispatch: I listen to too many podcasts, and/but I’m still quick to skip episodes as desired.
What has changed: I’ve transitioned to Spotify (free version), and I listen at 1.5x speed.
I’m not super happy about the first one, but once four of my regular listens went Spotify-exclusive I decided to bite the bullet for the sake of a unified podcast listening experience, however frustrating it can be. There’s still one holdout stranded in Apple Podcasts because Spotify doesn’t allow for adding podcasts by custom URL, but otherwise that’s where I live.
Wedding season has got me thinking about what I learned from my own experience putting together a wedding six years ago. Here’s what I got.
Pick four things to really care about.
Wedding planning is chock-full of choices, but you can’t care about everything equally unless you want to have a mental breakdown. Pick four things that really matter to you and invest some thought/time/money into making them happen. For my wife it was a good photographer (see below) and good flowers, and for me it was enjoying the time with our friends and having a fun reception. Everything else we tried to keep in perspective. (You will fail at this. Just try.)
Invest in a good photographer.
We considered and met with a few photographers before landing on the final choice, who also did our engagement shoot. Outside of the venue, this was probably the single biggest expense but what we got were exceptional photos that captured the whole experience beautifully and remain treasured artifacts from the day.
Do the receiving line leading into the reception.
Don’t go around to each table during the reception assuming you’ll get to talk to everyone. You’ll get stuck in chitchat, waste valuable party time, and won’t even talk to everyone. If your venue and schedule can swing it, do the receiving line leading into the reception so everyone gets face-time and then it’s out of the way.
Have a buffer day between wedding and honeymoon.
I do not understand the people who fly out the night of their wedding or even the next day. Not only did we have a bunch of stuff to bring back from the venue to our place, we also had to repack for the honeymoon and have some time to decompress and process the incredible day we’d had. You’ll appreciate that transition time before heading off onto the next adventure.
Pick the rightspouse.
This will make everything easier and much more enjoyable.
I started making annual top-10 movie lists in 2007, so I’ve been going backwards from there to create lists for each year retroactively. See all my best-of lists.
I really enjoyed kicking off my back-in-time film rankings series with the 2006 slate.
Most of my indelible memories from this moviegoing year involved the late, lamented Westgate Cinema, a rundown strip mall theater in Madison that showed the arthouse flicks I was really getting into at this time as a high school junior and senior. I saw several of my top 10 films there.
Looking at the box office from that year reveals a now-familiar dominance of franchises, though only one superhero movie. The only two original concepts represented in the top 10 were Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Hitch—one of which made my own top 10 and the other just missed out.
As for the Oscars, the bit that sticks out (besides the surprising-but-not-really Best Picture triumph of Crash over Brokeback Mountain) was host Jon Stewart’s quip after Three 6 Mafia won Best Original Song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from Hustle & Flow: “For those of you who are keeping score at home, I just want to make something very clear: Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars; Three 6 Mafia, one.”
On to the list…
1. Brokeback Mountain
True story: when I started teaching myself how to play guitar around this time, the first two songs I learned were “Blackbird” by The Beatles and “The Wings” from the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain score by Gustavo Santaolalla. Partially because they happened to share a similar riff (and, I realize only now, theme: “Take these broken wings and learn to fly…”), but also because they’re both gorgeously evocative in their own ways.
2. Good Night, And Good Luck
There’s a cozy intimacy this film accomplishes that sets it apart from other star-studded period dramas. Maybe it’s the smooth-jazz score, the black-and-white, or the short runtime. Or maybe it’s the contrast of big issues—freedom of speech, the power of the press—being teased out through small conversations in unassuming rooms.
3. Grizzly Man
I’ve seen and enjoyed many Werner Herzog documentaries, but this one still reigns supreme.
4. Batman Begins
Ah, the halcyon days of when a gritty superhero reboot was a novel concept.
5. A History of Violence
The fight in the diner. The stairway sex scene. The final shot.
6. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Let’s save the discussion about the cancelability of mid-2000s comedies for the 2004 list (Anchorman, Dodgeball) and say for now that this felt like a sea change at the time, not only for the humor but also for the ultimately positive portrayal of virginity.
7. The New World
I remember going to see this with some friends who were expecting something closer to Pocahontas than the slow, meandering, meditative epic this actually is. Needless to say they didn’t like it, but I did.
8. Walk the Line
At my high school, seniors were allowed to make a big raucous commotion between classes on their last day of school to celebrate graduating. My contribution to this day was hoisting my boombox above my head and playing this movie’s soundtrack on repeat while I walked the halls.
9. Four Brothers
An underrated winter movie, crime movie, family drama, and ensemble piece, with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s truly chilling turn as the sadistic, fur-spangled crime boss Victor Sweet as a bonus.
10. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
We now know how Brangelina would turn out, but at the time the chemistry of Pitt and Jolie was as incandescent as this movie’s alchemy of action, humor, and romance.
Honorable mentions: Broken Flowers, Fever Pitch, Hitch, In Her Shoes, Just Friends, King Kong, The Squid and the Whale, War of the Worlds
My annual top-10 movie lists begin in 2007, so I thought it would be fun to start going backwards from there and create lists for each year retroactively.
First up is 2006, which is now 15 years ago and a notable year for me in several ways: it’s when I graduated high school, went on tour with my band (RIP Ice Cap Fortune), entered college, and started this blog.
I also have a lot of movie-related memories from that year, including:
seeing Brick at my beloved Hilldale Theatre in Madison not long before it closed permanently
going to my first and last midnight screening (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest)
suffering through some truly awful movies (X-Men: The Last Stand, Superman Returns, Lady in the Water)
But the abiding memory from 2006 was the day I saw five movies in a row.
My mediocre movie marathon
This may be a common occurrence for film festival-goers or professional critics, but for me it was something I did just to see if I could pull it off—both as a tactical feat of avoiding detection by the theater staff and as a moviegoing stunt.
I walked into Marcus Point Cinema in Madison, WI, for a 12pm showing and reemerged into the darkness just before midnight (paying for only one ticket—yes, I was a teenage scofflaw). It’s not the best lineup, but here’s what I saw:
The Pursuit of Happyness
Rocky Balboa
The Nativity Story (an unplanned addition but it fit perfectly between other showings, and my mom joined me with some contraband McDonald’s)
Blood Diamond
The Good Shepherd (my dad joined me for this one)
I never did this again and would not recommend it. By Blood Diamond my eyes were getting blurry and my butt hurt, so I don’t think I could fully appreciate that or The Good Shepherd. But it was bucket list cross-off and gave me a story to tell on my blog 15 years later.
Anyway, on to the list…
Top 10 of 2006
I suspect this won’t continue to be the case as I move back in time, but I saw almost all of the films in my top 10 in theaters at the time. By then I was an ardent cinephile with a job and a car, so I was able to see a lot of movies. And there were a lot of great ones. Here are my favorites:
Honorable mentions: The Prestige, Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, Idiocracy, Half Nelson, United 93, Marie Antoinette, Shut Up and Sing, Monster House, Old Joy, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Mission: Impossible III
After writing my paean to Boomtown, the cry of the masses rang out from sea to shining sea with a resounding message: “More Boomtown content!!!”
I live to serve.
During my latest rewatch, I took note of the moments that have stuck with me in the almost 20 years since the series debuted. I considered including them in that post but figured I’d give them some space of their own.
This list is, of course, inexhaustive. Though I’d derive much pleasure from an episode-by-episode review of the show, I also want people to read this blog.
There will be spoilers. I include quotes from each moment, but they’re best experienced through the original show in the provided YouTube links.
“I don’t have any prayers, but I do have a story.”
(Episode 1, “Pilot”)
In a scene that bookends the episode, a man is dumping the ashes of his grandson into the Los Angeles River with detectives Joel and Bobby “Fearless” by his side. He asks if either of them have a prayer. “I’m fresh out,” says Joel, for reasons we’ll learn later. But Fearless offers a story—the first of many times he’s good for a wise and timely one—and tells what serves as a riverside eulogy:
There was this wave, way out on the ocean. And he was just racing along having a great time—and just sunlight glinting, spray just flying—until one day he looked ahead, and he saw wave after wave in front of him crashing on the beach, and he got scared. And this older wave in front of him said, “I know exactly what your problem is. You’ve been having so much fun being a wave, that you forgot you’re really just part of the ocean.”
It’s a fitting preamble to a show that follows the perspective of several waves, so to speak, and watches how they blend into a narrative ocean.
“Don’t help the police.”
(Episode 2, “Possession”)
The husband of a dancer at a private club is dead and the cops are questioning the business owner, who refuses to reveal his clientele. Enter Neal McDonough as the razor-sharp deputy district attorney David McNorris in a two-minute scene that sets up so much about him: his charisma, his love of boxing, his tortured relationship with his father, his ruthless cunning. He begins on the ropes, lying to his wife on the phone about his whereabouts, but then comes out swinging—literally and figuratively:
*David punches a wall*
So the favor I’m gonna ask is really quite simple. Don’t help the police. Don’t tell them who was at your party last night. Don’t help them stop a guy from killing his wife. Just don’t. ‘Cause let me tell ya, I’m not in a good mood today, and there is nothing I’d rather do than beat that supercilious look off of your face. You get me?
Needless to say, he got him.
“I just don’t understand how you can let someone go.”
(Episode 11, “Monster’s Brawl”)
Sam Anderson (a.k.a. Bernard from LOST) shines in a guest spot as Scott Dawson, the father of a homeless addict named Bradley who’d been mistakenly considered killed. After talking about his wayward son’s struggles with sobriety and having to let him go emotionally, he overhears Joel wonder aloud how a parent could let their child go and confronts him in an exchange that touches on the joys and anguish of parenthood:
BERNARD: Do you have any children?
JOEL: A boy.
– How old?
– Eight.
– Magic age. You can play catch but you can still chase him and tickle him. You ever just watch him? Without him knowing—just watch him, the back of his head, his hair. You look at that and you just can’t believe it because you never thought you could love somebody so much, or be so loved. OK, now jump forward 20 years, and that same little perfect boy is now a hopeless drunk. You have tried everything you can think of to help him and nothing works. And every time the phone rings you think, This is it, he’s dead. And then one day the call does come, and you come down to a police station and you look at a jacket and you think, My boy died in that jacket. Can you imagine how that feels, detective?
– No sir, I can’t.
– Well, try. You go home to your wife and your little boy, and you try to imagine exactly that.
In another great moment at the end of the episode, Joel shares with Fearless that his wife Kelly, suffering from postpartum depression, had tried to kill herself after their baby died mysteriously (more on this later), which is why Scott’s words had struck him so deeply:
For Bradley’s dad, it’s coming home, hearing the phone ring, and thinking it’s going to be news that his son’s dead. But for me it’s coming home, finding a knife out in the kitchen, thinking I’m going to see Kelly in all that blood again.
Dark, for sure, but also a reminder that people’s motivations and inner battles are often unknowable.
“Will Andrea Little be covering this story?”
(Episode 15, “Storm Watch”)
Officer Ray Heckler is often portrayed as just an affable chatterbox, but he’s also sneakily smart and a reservoir of veteran savvy. That comes in handy during this riveting two-episode arc (along with Episode 14, “Execution”) where a dirty cop in the LAPD facilitates the killing of three fellow officers, and suspects abound. Ray is already tainted by a corruption investigation involving his ex-partner, and McNorris tries to use that as leverage against him to spill on his fellow cops. But Ray has some leverage of his own:
RAY: Oh, I’ll talk. I just gotta ask you a question first. Will Andrea Little be covering this story?
DAVID: How would I know that?
– If she is, I suppose she’ll be banging out the first draft over there at Fulham’s on Eighth. She’s got a back booth reserved there. She’s there all the time—it’s where she writes her stories. And sometimes she’s joined by this guy. Between swapping spit with him and knocking back the Jamesons, it’s a wonder she ever gets anything done. So you do what you gotta do.
– Nice try, Ray. FYI, though, in the future, if you’re going to blackmail someone, make sure you have a little leverage. My marriage is over.
– Oh no, I wouldn’t think of bringing up a tawdry little subject like sex. I’m talking politics! I’m talking about a deputy district attorney wrapping up with a crusading reporter who’s supposed to be covering his office. Not exactly going to help your credibility in certain circles, is it?
Not only does his maneuver keep McNorris at bay, he also got information earlier in the scene that he uses to identify the crooked cop. It’s one of many times in the show that Ray cracks a case, pleasantly surprising his colleagues and viewers.
“You knew it wasn’t my brother.”
(Episode 16, “Fearless”)
In a mirror version of the previous Joel/Fearless scene, Fearless is now the one confessing a secret shame to his partner in an episode that follows his personal reckoning with being a sexual abuse survivor. He was able to track down his abuser and get an opportunity to exact the vengeance he’s long sought, but decides against it. Then Joel arrives:
FEARLESS: I didn’t do it.
JOEL: I know.
– But what if I had?
– You wouldn’t do that.
– But what if I had?
– It’s not who you are.
– But what if I had?
– I brought a shovel. You’re my partner, Fearless. Of all the people I’ve met, I’ve never respected anyone as much as I respect you. If you’d have done it, then he’d have deserved it.
– You knew it wasn’t my brother.
– You knew my wife didn’t break our shower door.
This is an amazing exchange for several reasons. Joel shows up for Fearless in a crucial moment, ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of his colleague and brother-in-arms. Then they mutually confess to the fictions they’d perpetuated with each other out of fear (even for “Fearless”): that it was Fearless’s brother who was sexually abused and that Kelly’s arm cuts were from accidentally breaking the shower door.
Later on, Fearless talks to his lover about the triggering event that set him off on his painful journey:
It was in the store. There was a father walking with his son. And out of the blue he just bent over and kissed the top of his head. I knew it was innocent, but I couldn’t help but have a moment of suspicion. I mean, I’m cursing myself that I should even question this loving gesture. I guess I’m still a prisoner of something that happened a long time ago.
As someone who loves being affectionate with my son all day, every day, I can only grieve for the people whose instinctual response to such a loving gesture would be poisoned by their traumatic history.
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
(Episode 17, “Blackout”)
Andrea and David began the series in an affair, but by now they’ve drifted so far apart that Andrea is grasping at David while he descends toward rock bottom as a philandering, self-destructive, and reckless alcoholic. With experience as the daughter of an alcoholic and as a savvy reporter, Andrea cuts through David’s bullshit:
ANDREA: David, you don’t have to do this alone. There are people that can help.
DAVID: See, now therein lies the problem. The lie.
– What lie?
– That somehow we’re not alone, that we’ll be somehow there for each other.
– And what’s the truth, David?
– The truth is that we’re born alone and we’re gonna die alone. And sometimes there are these sweet little moments that we have this illusion that we’re connected.
– You just don’t get it, do you? It’s all right there in front of you and you can’t even reach for it. All we have is each other, David. That connection. All the rest—the careers, the homes, the cars, the money—that’s the illusion.
– Can you really see me unfolding chairs in a church basement singing “Kumbaya” with a bunch of drunks?
– No, you’re right. You’re so much better off going on like this…
Season 1 does find David in a better place, heading off to rehab with a newfound humility and gratefulness. (Again, haven’t seen season 2, so don’t know if that stuck…)
“You haven’t read this? You should have.”
(Episode 18, “Lost Child”)
This is the payoff the entire season was building toward, at least in Joel’s arc. He and Kelly are at their psychiatrist’s office after Joel gets tangled in an investigation on the mysterious death of their infant child Emma. They requested a second coroner’s report but haven’t read it, not wanting to confront the awful possibility that Kelly might have inadvertently caused the death while having a bad reaction to sleeping pills.
Joel and Kelly finally lay it out to each other: she thinks she somehow killed the baby; he knows she didn’t because he was watching her that night instead of the baby. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist has been reading the report and delivers the news:
You haven’t read this? You should have. According to this, Emma had a brain aneurysm. It was bound to go off—then, or in grade school, or as a young mother with three children herself. There was nothing you could have done, even if she was in your arms. Your little girl got dealt a bad card, and so did you.
This moment is so cathartic—for Joel and Kelly, but also the viewer, who’s been piecing together this story arc throughout the season. The fact that they’d avoided reading the report out of a fear for what it could reveal illustrates the power of guilt to forestall any attempts at healing and finding closure.
