What I've Caught Up With, December 2024 Part 2

I managed to do something unpleasant to my knee a few weeks back, which means I wasn’t able to do anything in the gym for a few weeks. I had to give up on Peaky Blinders as my workout show, so instead of finishing it at the end of the year as planned, I’m only about halfway through. I did watch a few shows, though, getting through both seasons of Altered Carbon, finishing Killing Eve, and watching Death and Other Details. This really wanted to be a variation of the Benoit Blanc movies and really wasn’t. I also watched Exploding Kittens on NetFlix. You can (and should) get through it in an afternoon. I’m in the middle of the sixth season of Parks and Rec, and have also started Doom Patrol, which is the right kind of weird.

What I’ve Caught Up With, December 2024 Part 2:
Film: Altered Carbon: Resleeved (2020)

I watched Altered Carbon in December, so it made sense to finish with Altered Carbon: Resleeved, the follow-up movie that is actually a prequel, taking place several hundred years before the series. The film is done as an anime and is in Japanese, and aside from a sort of street cred, I’m not sure why. It’s fast and frenetic, and the animation is really good, but I’m not sure this is a universe that really needed a lot more exploration, and certainly not a prequel. It opens a potential can of worms—knowing what we know from the two seasons of the show, this prequel seems to show that the technology doesn’t really advance over several centuries. The world building doesn’t seem to fit. It’s fine, but hardly necessary, and the show was better.

Film: Black Snake Moan (2006)

Far more than just the “Samuel L. Jackson looking pissed” meme, Black Snake Moan was incredibly controversial when it was released. Town bicycle Rae (Christina Ricci) is severely beaten by the best friend of her boyfriend for snubbing him. Said boyfriend (Justin Timberlake) is off in the army. Rae is found on the side of the road by Lazarus (Jackson), who, trying to clean her up, chains her half-naked to his radiator. Despite all of the prurient overtones (and there are a lot!), this is a story of redemption on multiple levels. While this was shocking for the sex and nudity at the time, these days, it’s more the racism than anything else that feels off.

Film: Carny (1980)

While Carny is (as expected) about carnival workers, it’s really about upsetting age gap relationships. Carnival workers Frankie (a pre-insanity Gary Busey) and Patch (Robbie Robertson of all people) roll into town and do their best to bilk the locals. When they leave, they do so with Donna (Jodie Foster) in tow. Donna has nowhere else to be, but Patch wants her to be more than just a hanger-on; she needs to pull her own weight, whether that’s at the hoochie-coochie tent or running a game on the midway. That the 18-year-old Foster ends up in a relationship with two men twice her age is frankly the worst part of this movie, even more than the aged stripper. It’s fine, but I’m not sure it’s required viewing.

Film: Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (2022)

When people talk about dominant athletes, names like Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan are natural go-tos, but Tony Hawk doesn’t come up nearly enough. Skateboarding as a sport likely wouldn’t exist without the influence, skill, and creative talent of Hawk. Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off traces his career from his humble beginnings to being the most important athlete in his sport, and arguably the most important athlete in new and emerging sports of the last 50 years. For as much as Tony Hawk could be an arrogant bastard, he really comes across as a genuine, real, and interesting person. This documentary only makes me like him more.

Film: Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary (2024)

I’ve liked a lot of music in my lifetime from the popular to the obscure, and I have a surprising knowledge of early punk and 1970s prog-rock, but no band is more central to who I am in my musical tastes than Steely Dan. Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary covers the pseudo-genre of “yacht rock,” or music that rocks, but not too hard. Featuring interviews with Yacht Rock legends like Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins as well as studio musicians, the documentary looks at the music that defined a huge part of a generation. While the whole idea of the genre kind of started as a joke, this music is defining for a lot of people. If you don’t know Steely Dan, start with Can’t Buy a Thrill and listen through Gaucho—there are no bad tracks, just less-good tracks.

Film: Kiss Me, Kate (1953)

William Shakespeare is endless adaptable, and Kiss Me, Kate is evidence that the adaptation is not always going to be one that works for me. Truthfully, the musical parts of this, and when it’s on stage, it really works best. The issue I have with it is that a great deal of the plot takes place behind the scenes, where we have a feuding divorced couple dealing with their feelings for each other and a variety of love triangles going on. If this had just been a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew I would have enjoyed it a great deal more. The cast is a good one, but I don’t like these characters when they’re not on stage.

Film: Bamboozled (2000)

Based on what I’ve seen, Do the Right Thing is Spike Lee’s best movie, Malcolm X is his most important, and Inside Man is his most fun. Bamboozled is his most subversive, though, and because of that, it might be his most interesting. TV executive Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) is told to “Black up” his show suggestions, and in response, he comes up a reinvention of turn of the century minstrel shows. Intended to get him fired, his Black men wearing blackface (Tommy Davidson and Savion Glover) become insanely popular. This is wildly offensive, and it’s intentionally so and brilliant because of it. When Spike Lee gets it right, no one does it better.