Black Bag. Felt great to see an honest-to-god movie in the theater with a delightfully twisty plot and inspired casting that made me feel as warm and fuzzy as the film’s lighting. Wouldn’t be surprised to find this on my best-of-2025 list.
The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson. Turns out there was a lot of drama leading up to the Civil War…
Lincoln. Rewatched this after finishing The Demon of Unrest as a kind of Civil War bookend. Daniel Day-Lewis’s win for Best Actor might be the most deserving Oscar ever awarded.
The Pitt. Been watching this Max series that’s an unofficial ER reboot and my hat is off to anyone who chooses to become and remain an emergency nurse.
A Complete Unknown. I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool Dylan fan like many white dudes around my age and above, so perhaps that’s why I didn’t fall for this as hard as others, Chalamet’s excellent performance aside.
Parasite. Yes this is dramatic and tragic and twisted and all that, but it’s also so damn funny. “Leave it—free fumigation.” 💀💀💀
Mary Poppins Returns. No one can touch Julie Andrews’ singing voice, but Emily Blunt really nails the other Poppins vibes.
There are two powerful moments in Amazon Prime’s alternate-history “what if Germany and Japan won World War II” show The Man in the High Castle that I think about a lot, especially in relation to current events.
The first is in the sixth episode of season one (“Three Monkeys”). Frank, a laborer who also creates replicas of antique guns for wealthy buyers, is wracked with guilt and resentment after his sister and her kids were murdered by Japan’s secret police while he was being interrogated due to his girlfriend Juliana’s connection with the underground resistance. In distress, he goes to the home of a man named Mark, his sister’s former boss and a fellow closeted Jew who practices in secret with his kids despite Judaism being outlawed.
Mark asks Frank if he’d be OK with them doing a prayer for his sister and her kids. “Losing people is one thing,” Mark says. “Not being allowed to grieve for them, well, that’s another.” He then performs the kaddish, a Jewish mourner’s prayer for the dead, which is intercut with scenes of Juliana’s covert resistance work. In a ramshackle, candlelit apartment, hearing words he doesn’t understand but feels deep in his bones, Frank is finally able mourn his immense loss.
The other moment happens in the following episode (“Truth”), when Frank asks Mark why he chose to have kids despite the danger of being Jewish and continues to risk their lives practicing their faith. Their exchange:
MARK: I don’t plan on dying, Frank. But you can’t live your life in fear. I was back east at the end of the war, in Boston. You had to see it to believe it. Overnight, lynch mobs were murdering Jews because suddenly we were less than human. Those of us who came out in one piece, we buried service weapons underground, well-wrapped in oil, and we vowed revenge. I got a life to lead, got kids to raise. And Hitler and the Nazis—I don’t care how it looks, they won’t last. One thing I realized about my people is we got a different sense of time. These may be dark years, but we’ll survive. We always do. You’ve just got to find something to hold on to.
FRANK: Faith, you mean.
MARK: Yeah, faith.
FRANK: I don’t have any of that.
MARK: Well, what about art? You’re supposed to be an artist. Why are you making fake guns?
FRANK: Because no one wants to buy my art.
MARK: So do it for yourself. Beauty is important, Frank. It gives us hope.
FRANK: I don’t know. I don’t know where it would get me.
MARK: Yeah. Right. You don’t need anybody to keep you down because you got your own little inner fascist right there telling you what you can and cannot do. That’s how you let them win.
I wrote about The Man in the High Castle more generally after it debuted. Though I stopped watching after two seasons, these and other moments stuck with me ever since and resurfaced in my mind recently when I read Eliot Stein’s new book Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive. It’s a travelogue that spotlights artisans and specialists all over the world who have continued practicing their often incredibly arduous crafts, often with great sacrifice, even as modern life has rendered them obsolete.
From the world’s last nightwatchman in Sweden to an Incan rope bridge master in Peru to a rare pasta maker in Sardinia to the makers of first-surface mirrors in India, these dedicated folks have upheld traditions passed down often within a single family for centuries or even longer. How? And why? According to Paola Abraini, the Sardinian grand master of su filindeu pasta:
It’s a matter of principle, of tradition. What I have always said is that as a custodian of this tradition that has been passed down from mother to daughter, I will respect that. My daughters know how much of an undertaking this is for me, but they know how much I love it, so as long as the good Lord gives me health and life, I will continue to make it. I remain hopeful that one of them will one day take it on, but if they can’t, then I will be sad. So many things in this world that once were no longer are.
Stein writes that Abraini’s parting message “felt like a prophecy, a pressing reminder to cherish the beautiful, gentle customs that make the world glimmer while warning us not to blink.”
Guardians in the darkness
Perhaps you can see why learning about these remarkable people brought to mind Mark in The Man in the High Castle, who continued the practices he considered meaningful despite the societal forces allayed against him. He continued to cherish the customs that made his world glimmer and lived out his assertion that beauty is important. Though the traditions documented in the book aren’t outlawed like Judaism in The Man in the High Castle, they require the same dedication to uphold—to hold fast against the entropy of modernity and relentless advance of technology that would try to make them disappear.
The book also helped me reckon with what being a custodian means, which is much more meaningful than my reductive view of it as something akin to a school janitor. Knowing the word custodian comes from the Latin for guardian gives it the weight and nobility it deserves. And here’s the thing: custodians of all kinds keep the world going. Where would we be—what would we be—without the people who handcraft pasta, take out the garbage, clean up messes, build vital bridges, and routinely perform so many more acts of preservation and maintenance and care?
We are all custodians of something or someone, whether in our families, communities, or just our own minds. We must not let the fascists in our government or our inner voice dictate what’s important. Or make us forget that art matters, and that there’s good in this world that’s worth fighting for. (Cue Samwise Gamgee’s speech in Osgiliath.)
Tend to your garden. Make your art. Do not obey in advance. Find something to hold on to and be its custodian in the darkness.
Midnight Mass. Loved this Netflix limited series for the same reason I love Darren Aronofsky’s Noah: it takes literally all the Bible’s very goth elements (“drink my blood”, the terror of angels, etc.) and transposes it into a deeply human modern story.
Didi. This coming-of-age story set in 2008 featuring a teenager only a few years younger than I was at the time, so you know the use of AIM and Motion City Soundtrack songs were a bullseye for me.
Nosferatu. Been knocking off a lot of classic horror blindspots and this 1922 F.W. Murnau silent version definitely qualifies. One favorite intertitle: “The Death Ship has a new captain.” 🤘
Challengers. Just your typical sports movie featuring a throuple of sweaty, smirking scumbags swirling into a sadomasochistic, psychosexual spiral.
Fear Not!: A Christian Appreciation of Horror Movies by Josh Larsen. Strongly respect Josh’s perspective as a critic and Filmspotting host, so amidst my recent foray into horror movies I thought this short book was a helpful primer on the redemptive aspects of the genre.
The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen. Appreciated some historical bits in this but also skimmed over a bunch. Will it inspire me to get back into paper journaling? TBD.
Night of the Living Dead. Some wild swings between “this looks like a terrible student film” and “holy schnikes”. I knew nothing of it besides being considered the godfather of zombie movies, so all the social commentary and 1968 of it all really hit.
The Thing. My first John Carpenter movie and it was, uh, rather horrifying.
The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson. Another brilliant narrative nonfiction saga from Steven Johnson that weaves multiple historical threads together to tell the riveting story of how dynamite, fingerprinting, anarchism, information science and other seemingly disparate forces all conspired to create what would become the modern surveillance state.
BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman. Highly recommend this new book for my fellow parents of boys especially, but also anyone interested and invested in a more wholehearted masculinity.
The Bear season 3. Carmy needs to chill out and call Claire.
Civil War. Alex Garland’s latest and rather (unfortunately) timely dystopian drama shows what would happen if Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation became president instead of Leslie Knope.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. I’d have to do some research on this, but I suspect the five-act structure of this saga could align rather nicely with the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible. Furiosa? More like Mad Moses.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Might be the most ’70s New York City movie ever?
The Arcadian Wild. Heard about this folk/bluegrass trio recently and got immediately obsessed with “Big Sky, MT”.
Scream. Somehow I’d never seen this, though I was familiar enough with it based on its cultural ubiquity. Kinda wish the conclusion was a little tighter so it could be a perfect 90 minutes, but campy fun overall.
White Savior. This 3-part docuseries on Max is a rich text for those of us who grew up in a conservative Christian milieu and went on international missions/service trips.
The Witch. I like this Robert Eggers lite-horror joint for the same reason I liked Darren Aronofsky’s Noah: it takes its Old Testament inspiration and sensibility seriously, fully committing to a weird and very metal religiosity that too often gets sanded down for popular palatability.
Oppenheimer. “Men talking in rooms” is a common theme in a lot of the history books I’ve read, but I didn’t expect it to also work as a big-screen epic from Christopher Nolan. I’ll take it!
The Wager by David Grann. This new book from the Killers of the Flower Moon author makes me very glad I’m not an 18th-century sailor.
Emergency NYC. Stumbled upon this fascinating Netflix docuseries that follows surgeons, ER staff, flight nurses, and other emergency responders as they treat patients and balance their work with their personal lives.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. A great coming of age story, family dramedy, exploration of religion, female-centric story, and year-in-the-life movie all in one.
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. Surprisingly funny and a nice pairing with Are You There, God?
Didn’t think I’d actually watch Netflix’s new 8-part Quarterback miniseries, but I got sucked in. The series follows Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota throughout the 2022 season both on and off the field. I haven’t seen Hard Knocks so I don’t know how it compares in terms of tone or content, but this felt like a comprehensive and revelatory look at the many challenges of being an NFL quarterback.
Being able to follow these men into their personal lives let us see the human side of their commodified, cloistered personas. Fighting through injury. Getting benched. Reckoning with losses and legacy. Subjecting themselves to a brutally physical game then going right home to do bedtime with their young kids. It’s stuff we know happens but don’t see when they’re on a fantasy football roster.
It also provided a stark contrast with another quarterback-centric Netflix documentary I watched while in the midst of it. Johnny Football charts the rise and fall of Johnny Manziel from a high school phenom to high-drafted NFL bust. Manziel’s sudden college stardom masked a lot of problems with his behavior and work ethic—things Manziel now rather candidly owns up to.
Watching his process (or lack thereof) compared to the other Netflix QBs revealed just how rarified the air is for successful NFL players. Mariota and Cousins are statistically rather middling compared to their peers, but compared to Manziel they’re like elite, MVP-level performers. (Like… Patrick Mahomes.)
My relationship to football has changed a lot over the years. I’ve gone from dutiful Packers follower and fantasy league commissioner to barely having watched the playoffs. I enjoy a good game as much as any other sports fan, but I’ve moved past them having any influence on my life. Quarterback scratched the itch of appreciating the game while also learning more about its participants. Whether a second season will remain as illuminating now that the novelty has worn off is TBD.
Reality. Riveting recreation of the arrest of whistleblower Reality Winner, played by Sydney Sweeney. This was my first encounter of Sweeney and was thoroughly impressed. Just released on (HBO) Max.
Queer Eye season 7. A quality hang as usual.
Ted Lasso season 3. Hard to top season 1 but have enjoyed watching this story play out. Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca
Prey. I’ve never seen Predator so this was my first foray into the franchise. Found it to be a riveting, admirably lo-fi thriller, combining the violence of a western with the constant peril of Gravity.
The Art and Science of Arrival by Tanya Lapointe. Gorgeous coffee-table book about Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece.
TheChurch of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton. Got to talk with Shelton about this book and his career.
Confess, Fletch. This was a damn fun time.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. Really creative use of Fox’s memoirs, his TV and movie appearances, and reenactments to tell his life story. He’s also still funny as hell despite the effects of Parkinson’s.
I realized this year that I’ve pretty much stopped watching traditional TV, i.e. shows with 22-ish episodes per season and an undetermined end date.
I’m much more interested in limited series and shows with short seasons—the key being intentional and self-contained ideas from the show and a predictable time commitment from me. Luckily that’s becoming the norm, as what defines a series, a movie, or something else entirely blurs with every new release.
The clear winner of my “television” watching in 2022 is HBO Max, which accounted for 5 out of my 7 picks. Given the corporate and creative upheaval happening there now I assume that won’t be the case moving forward, but I’m grateful for the shows it provided while it could.
That said, here are my favorite shows from 2022 (listed alphabetically):
Bluey (Disney+)
The Last Movie Stars(HBO Max)
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power(Amazon Prime)
One of my Christmas presents was Bluey: The Album on vinyl. My wife got it as a joint present with my son since we’re both big Bluey fans.
The first song on it is an extended version of the theme song I’d never heard before called “Bluey Theme Tune (Instrument Parade)”:
After the standard opening, it continues the theme but gives solo breaks to the different component instruments: first violin, then trumpet, guitar, saxophone, and finally all of them back together before concluding with a reprise of the standard theme.
I love this on many levels. First, it’s just a great song. The part when all the elements recombine (“Everyone!”) is a joy explosion. Kudos to Joff Bush and the other composers involved for their high-level musicianship, which reminds me of Fred Rogers’ insistence on not just doing “kiddie” music for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood because kids deserved great music too.
Second, it sneaks some music theory into a fun and danceable tune by breaking itself down, Song Exploder-style, to show how a song can be comprised of several different instruments.
Which, in a way, represents Bluey in musical miniature. By that I mean the show, like this particular song, isn’t meant to overtly teach anything: it’s just trying to convey the best version of itself and whatever idea it has in each episode. But along the way it manages to communicate sophisticated lessons and everyday truths, all wrapped up in small yet beautiful vessels.
Athena. Come for the gangbusters opening 10 minutes—stay for the tense, heart-pounding drama of Children of Men-meets-The Battle of Algiers in a French apartment complex. (Streaming on Netflix.)
The End of Education by Neil Postman. My third Postman book after Amusing Ourselves to Deathand Technopoly. Would probably rank it below those two but still a barnburner.
The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone by Edward Dolnick. The story of discovering the Rosetta Stone (thanks Napoleon!) and the decades it took to decipher it, thus unlocking the secrets of ancient Egypt to modernity.
The Hunt for Red October. Finally got around to see this. Enjoyed it but still have to give the ’90s submarine action thriller edge to Crimson Tide.
Kiki’s Delivery Service. Been going through the Miyazaki oeuvre with the 3 year old and some, like this one, are first watches for both of us. Love being able to show him animated movies with a completely different pace and style than what he’s used to with Bluey/Curious George/Disney, etc.
The World’s Worst Assistant by Sona Movsessian. Sona is a key part of the success of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast so I’m glad she’s able to cash in on it.
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Story of Life by Lulu Miller. A remarkable memoir/biography hybrid that reminded me of The Feather Thief with its nature/animals obsessives at the center and the ethical dilemmas they encounter (and create).
Barbarian. Despite being a big baby about horror films, I went to see this opening weekend when I came into some unexpected free time. To say it’s surprising in many ways is a gross understatement.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Thus far it’s managing to strike the right balance of serving a global audience, LOTR trilogy fans, and Tolkien nerds. I quit on House of the Dragon after one episode because I’ve had my fill of Game of Thrones content, but I’m all in on this one.
Bluey season 3. Every season of this show (the best on TV) has a handful of episodes that are stone-cold masterpieces, and thus far “Rain” is holding the championship belt.
Nope.With this and Barbarian, it’s been a delightfully horrific summer at the movies.
When we make our art, we are also making our lives. And I’m sure that the reverse is equally true.
That line is from Look & See, the beautiful documentary about the life and work of Wendell Berry.
I think about it often, and I thought about it again recently as I feasted on two pieces of art simultaneously: the limited documentary series The Last Movie Stars on HBO Max and Alissa Wilkinson’s new book Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women.
In sync
Whenever I notice disparate works of art speaking to each other, I call it synchronicity. It’s one of my favorite things to write about because discovering new connections feels both satisfying and alluring.
The Last Movie Stars, which chronicles the lives, careers, and decades-long romance of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, offered a way into this synchronicity not through the series’ content but through its form. As director Ethan Hawke tells the stories of the two subjects, through clever editing he intercuts scenes from Newman’s or Woodward’s movies that speak directly or obliquely to whatever they were going through at the time in their lives.
Examples include contrasting Woodward’s real-life misgivings about being a mother with her performance in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds as an abusive, resentful mother (acting with her real-life daughter!). Or reckoning with Newman’s own struggle with alcoholism using boozy scenes from The Verdict—a performance inspired by director Sidney Lumet imploring Newman to reveal more of himself in it.
Newman touches on this paradigm explicitly during one archival interview used in the series:
Our characters rub off onto the actor. Probably one of the areas of great discontent is that they probably feel, as human beings, they are merely a series of, a collection of old characters that they played. I sometimes get that feeling about myself, that I have become a series of connectives between the parts of the characters that I really like. And I’ve strung them together into kind of a human being.
A salty symbiosis
That idea of one’s work and life feeding each other while building a kind of accretive self echoed in my mind as I read Salty, Wilkinson’s collection of biographical essays spotlighting nine notable 20th century women who comprise her ideal (if hypothetical) dinner party.
Whether they were writers (Hannah Arendt, Octavia Butler, Maya Angelou), artists (Agnes Varda), activists (Ella Baker), or cooks (Enda Lewis, Elizabeth David, Laurie Colwin), all of them used what they learned in their work and lives to inform—and, ideally, improve—the other:
Chef Edna Lewis bringing black Southern cooking to 1960s New York and then beyond with The Taste of Country Cooking
Filmmaker Agnes Varda translating her fascination with the ordinary into cinematic curiosities
Civil-rights activist Ella Baker practicing communal hospitality as a catalyst for social change and empowerment
These women weren’t movie stars like Newman and Woodward, but their lives were still reflected in their work. They too—to toss a metaphorical salad—were pulling from the strung-together assemblage of old characters they played throughout their lives, making meals with the ingredients available to them.
And that’s all we can do, really. Per Wendell Berry, we make our lives and art concurrently, whether we know it or not.
My compliments to Alissa Wilkinson and Ethan Hawke for the meals they’ve created in these works of art, which are infused with moments and lessons from their own lives that made them all the richer.
Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan. An excellent oral history of one of the greatest films ever made. One of the many tidbits: George Miller’s first choice to play Max was Heath Ledger, which I now can’t stop thinking about.
The Northman. A brutal, heavy-metal fever dream from Robert Eggers.
A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Published thirty years ago, its scholarship is out of date and perspective rather flippant, but the writing remains spicy and illuminating.
We Own This City. A sequel of sorts to The Wire that was just as compelling with a much shorter runtime. Gotta hand it to HBO Max, which has accounted for pretty much all of my TV viewing over the last year or so between this, Winning Time, Minx, and Station Eleven.
Top Gun: Maverick. The first Top Gun is kinda bad. This one is not.
The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. I’ve listened to the Office Ladies podcast since the beginning—where much of the book’s content has been covered previously—but still found this enjoyable and informative.
How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. This fits into a nonfiction genre I really enjoy, where the author visits various places/people that connect to the book’s central theme and explores their histories. Smith covers some stuff I was already familiar with but much I wasn’t—including that the Statue of Liberty has shackled feet.
Bluey. A not-small number of times after watching an episode I’ve thought, “Was that one of the greatest episodes of TV ever?” Hot take: the only TV shows a kid needs, really, are this and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood—the yin and yang of instructive, high-quality children’s entertainment.
Picture books aplenty. A few he and I have enjoyed in equal measure lately: Creepy Carrots and Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds, Jazz for Lunch by Jarrett Dapier, and Up the Mountain Path by Marianne Dubuc.
Our Planet. Gave this Planet Earth spinoff on Netflix a whirl with him and he was mesmerized. Nature is so metal.
YouTube. An amazing learning tool. He learns about volcanoes in a book; check out this compilation of eruptions. He starts t-ball class but has never played baseball before; let’s pull up some highlights of a random game.
My recent experience with the Band of Brothers podcast made me realized I’m very much a fan of the modern trend of “official” companion podcasts released alongside limited series by the show’s creators—Watchmen and Station Eleven being two recent examples I enjoyed and appreciated.
These are slightly different beasts from the popular post hoc recap podcasts of long-running sitcoms like Office Ladies and Parks and Recollection (two other favorites). Such pods return to their shows years after they ended and usually require a much bigger time investment, given the protracted length of traditional TV shows.
A notable and early hybrid of these approaches: the Official LOST Podcast, hosted by LOST showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It ran concurrently with the show from 2005-2010 and was probably the first podcast I and many others ever followed. Listening to it meant subscribing via iTunes and then syncing new episodes to my good ol’ click-wheel iPod.
Regardless of the structure, all of these podcasts have the benefit of access to cast, crew, and behind-the-scenes insights you can’t get elsewhere. But you really have to love the original show and the podcast hosts to make them worth your while.
(In that way they’re like modern iterations of DVD commentaries. Which, though eclipsed by the rise of streaming and decline of physical media, are still alive. And long may they live.)
Band of Brothers, the 2001 Tom Hanks-produced HBO miniseries that dramatized the history of Easy Company paratroopers throughout World War II, was a formative viewing experience for me, especially on the heels of Saving Private Ryan.
That was as a youngster interested in history and World War II, and as the grandson of a veteran who lived through similar combat experiences as Easy Company. But I’ve remained a fan of it due to its earned status as an exemplar of history come to life.
Pod of Brothers
Recently I listened to the official HBO podcast series released last fall in honor of the 20th anniversary of the show. With one episode dedicated to each of the original 10 Band of Brothers episodes, the podcast features interviews with crew—like military consultant Dale Dye—and cast, including Donnie Wahlberg (Lt. Carwood Lipton), Frank John Hughes (Sgt. Bill Guarnere), Damien Lewis (Maj. Dick Winters), Scott Grimes (Sgt. Don Malarkey), and Ron Livingston (Capt. Lewis Nixon).
Two themes emerged among all of the performers who were interviewed:
They commiserated about the 10-day military boot camp they endured during pre-production, which, though not the equivalent of true military training, helped forge real camaraderie and ensured an authenticity that’s hard to find in Hollywood versions of warfare.
They spoke in reverent terms about the real-life men they portrayed, and felt an immense responsibility to honor their true experiences within the larger story of Easy Company. Several of them got choked up when talking about the relationships they developed with their real-life counterparts, and all of them said they’d been personally changed for the better.
Getting the Band back together
Inspired by this listening experience, I did a Band of Brothers rewatch thanks to HBO Max.
Of its many marvels, I’m in awe of just how much is squeezed into 10 hours. Such a runtime sounds quite long, but not when you consider everything Easy Company went through on their journey from Georgia’s Camp Toccoa in 1942 to Germany’s Berchtesgaden in May 1945.
Written by a handful of writers—including Tom Hanks and future Boomtown creator Graham Yost (who used Band of Brothers as inspiration)—the series wisely modulates its storytelling pace within and between episodes, which allow for a dynamic range of experiences and perspectives.
So a single episode can span one day (Episode 2, “Day of Days”) or several months (Episode 5, “Crossroads”), and follow one primary perspective (Episode 6, “Bastogne”) or many (Episode 10, “Points”)—all without sacrificing clarity or emotional investment.
Indeed, our investment only grows as we get to know and grow attached to the huge and hugely talented ensemble cast. Winters and Nixon serve as the emotional core, but it’s the literally dozens of other actors who make the show sing.
(Not for nothing, four of the core cast went on to star or feature in my beloved Boomtown: the aforementioned Donnie Wahlberg and Frank John Hughes, plus Neal McDonough [Lt. Buck Compton] and Rick Gomez [Sgt. George Luz].)
Courage over combat
In the podcast interview with Richard Loncraine, director of Episode 2 (“Day of Days”), he reflected on the show’s legacy:
Band of Brothers should be shown to schoolkids, and they might realize [warfare] is not a glamorous, exciting world—it’s where you die. Hopefully when they watch it, what they’re not thinking is ‘Wow, I’d like to have been there.’ If they do, then we all failed.
In this they definitely succeeded, because the series manages to pull off the tricky tightrope act of valorizing the courage of the soldiers without glorifying combat itself.
The combat we do see is rightfully hellish: gruesome wounds, slain comrades, and haunting horrors no one deserves to witness. The nitty-gritty of the front lines in all its awful agony.
How did these men get through it? In Episode 3 (“Carentan”), Lt. Ronald Speirs, played with icy assurance by Matthew Settle, delivers to a frightened private what I imagine to be an essential insight into the psychology of warfare:
We’re all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead.
I’m not sure if all soldiers would agree with this perspective. It’s certainly as fatalistic as you can get.
But when I watch even the dramatized versions of Speirs and Blithe and so many other brave GIs run through machine-gun fire and artillery and other horrible weaponry, when every single move they make could mean a sudden and grisly demise, I can only stand in awe before their resolve in the face of death—however they find it.
Company of heroes
But what ultimately makes Band of Brothers successful, I think, isn’t the verisimilitude of its battle scenes. It’s the emphasis on the titular brotherhood and their everyday heroism, both in and out of combat.
Sometimes that heroism looks like what Hollywood has conditioned us to expect from war movies: carrying a fallen comrade, charging through a storm of gunfire, capturing enemy fortifications.
But sometimes it looks different: caring for someone suffering a shell-shocked breakdown, risking execution to protest a superior’s professional malpractice, offering to take the place of a rundown veteran on a risky nighttime raid.
Though not as sensational as battle, these moments are just as important. And they validate what Tom Hanks said of the show: “This is not a celebration of nostalgia. This is an examination of the human condition.”
When you examine Band of Brothers closely, you’ll see talented craftsmen doing their best to honor the ordinary, real-life humans who were thrust into inhuman, extraordinary conditions. For that, it stands alone.
Love on the Spectrum. Just finished the second season of this heart-warming and instructive Australian reality dating show on Netflix featuring people on the autism spectrum. The delightful dynamic between Michael and his mom should be its own show.
Abbey Road. I previously wrote about encountering the super deluxe remastered edition of Sgt. Pepper’s and, by Jove, it happened again with my favorite Beatles record on a recent drive home. Luscious.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Finally read Miller’s debut novel after loving Circe, and she is now two for two in my book.
The Great British Baking Show. The current season is only the second we’ve seen, the first being last year’s COVID-bubble season. Mr. Almost-3 has started saying “Mmmmm, yummmm” every time the food drawings appear, which is (almost) always correct.
The Green Knight. Thought this was just OK for a large chunk of it, until the ending, which made me want to rewatch it immediately.
Witness for the Prosecution. Similar to The Green Knight, this was fine for a while until the end, when it became great. The acting was a bit over-the-top, even for the 1950s, but Charles Laughton was the tops throughout.
Shiva Baby. Nothing quite like seeing a writer-director absolutely nail the cringey-funny tone required to make this work.
Dune. Started watching as a Dune newbie and finished as a believer. Don’t think I’ll read the books though.
Schmigadoon. Though its story is a little loose at the edges throughout the show’s short six-episode run, the central conceit of a couple getting stuck inside the world of an old-timey musical was a fun journey. Watch out for “Corn Puddin’” because it’s an earworm. More TV musicals please!
Ted Lasso, season 2. Will be curious to see how this season fills out as a whole, but nothing can damper my love of the best show on TV. We really enjoyed the stretch of a couple weeks in July and August when we could watch the latest episodes of this and Schmigadoon as an uplifting and wholesome Friday night double feature.
Crimson Tide. So, this ruled. And made me really miss seeing Gene Hackman in movies.
In the Heights(movie and soundtrack). Seeing this was my first time back in the theater since February 2020, and I’ve had the soundtrack pretty much on repeat since. Favorite little moments: “damn, we only jokin’, stay broke then” and the It’s A Wonderful Life reference.
Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic by Steven Johnson. My favorite author strikes again.
A Quiet Place / A Quiet Place Part II. Being horror-averse I put off the first one for a while, basically until I saw the excellent reviews for Part II and realized they’re not actually horror but more of the “momentarily scary well-made thriller” variety, which I’m down with.
Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West by Cameron Blevins. Shoutout to the post office.
Showbiz Kids. Affecting documentary on HBO Max featuring former child actors talking about their past and present struggles.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. I’ve never listened to the podcast this book is based on, but still enjoyed Green’s unique, earnest, and wry literary voice shining through this collection of essays.
