Hello Genius, it's Rec Time!
Dear Wags,
Acrid 2023 is winding down, and we’re busy whipping up the delights you expect — tallies of good stuff, snark about bad stuff, and unerring predictions about the future. But first, let’s pause to admire a putdown:
This is the fourth debate that you would be voted, in the first 20 minutes, as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. So shut up for a little while.
You may know that Chris Christie, who will never be president, dealt that blow to Vivek Ramaswamy, who will never be president, in a Republican primary debate nobody watched. It hardly changes the scary fundamentals of a looming national election, but it was momentarily refreshing.
Stepping back from that sideshow, the end of the year is a fine time to apply the Christie Principle. We are badgered, Ramaswamy-like, by an information ecosystem that rewards blowhards. Now is the perfect time to shut up for a little while, and appreciate what truly matters.
Life is busy and the world is fraught. We are grateful for the time you spare us. This little shelter from blowhards was built for smarties like you. Thanks for making it prosper. And now, more diversions to brighten your week.
Yours Ever,
The Big Swing
Origin (Theaters). Wag Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents was a sprawling, heady book. It posited that America’s race obsessions were a smoke screen for an old, deep global fixation with caste. That investigation of humanity’s addiction to hierarchy won the National Book Award in febrile 2020. Ava Duvernay’s novel approach to Wilkerson’s expansive work is to dramatize it, reinventing the author as a character (Marvelous Aunjanue Ellis) who travels the world, trying to get at “the connective tissue” underlying discrimination. It’s another big idea, helped along by fine performances from Jon Bernthal, Niecey Nash-Betts, and Audra McDonald. If the tapestry doesn’t quite hang together, its ambition is admirable. The public mood may have shifted since Caste’s publication, but this is a bold cinematic experiment from a determined auteur. — M. Little
Pass the Hand Sanitizer
Mr. Monk’s Last Case (Peacock). Post-pandemic, we’re all germophobes like Adrian Monk, who copes with OCD and a grab bag of other neuroses. These days, "everybody’s you,” quips his kid, Molly (Caitlin McGee). “They’re gonna hate it,” he mournfully replies. In fact, Wag Andy Breckman’s sad sack detective (Lord Tony Shalhoub) is adorable. This reunion ambles along nicely — the old gang (Jason Gray-Stanford, Traylor Howard, Hector Elizondo, and Ted Levine) is back to deal with another awful billioniare (James Purefoy) and many murders, but it’s neatly solved in the end. How reassuring old phobias can be. — Sharona Fleming
