Lent check-in: Do I miss this?

Musing on my temporary break from criticism. Also, “Severance,” “X-Men” and more.

It’s been about two and a half weeks since I began my self-imposed hiatus on this newsletter. Given that it’s a Lent-adjacent break, I am allowing myself to write on Sundays, so I thought I’d check in about how it’s going and share some things on my mind.

This has been the longest break I’ve taken from writing in ages; I think even when my kids were born, I was back at screenings after a few weeks or reviewing something I’d watched at home. Since I started this newsletter in late 2020, it’s been a constant, and for the last few years I’ve prided myself on sticking to a rhythm of at least three posts a week. It’s not just something I do; it’s a major part of who I am.

Which is why this break has been fascinating, refreshing and hard. I don’t talk to a lot of people about my day job – I like what I do and where I work, but it’s a job. Writing about movies, albeit largely as an unpaid side gig/hobby, is part of my identity. I’ve tried to walk away from it in the past, but I keep being drawn back, finding something to say. It is a calling, and I’ve long since accepted that and continue to reckon with what that means.

So taking a lengthy break has caused a disruption in my routine. My evenings are largely free. I’m attending a Lenten small group, but I’m trying to keep the rest of my time unstructured, free to catch up with friends, relax or tend to other projects. And that’s been nice. The break coincided with the start of Daylight Saving Time, and the longer days and break from added stressors has allowed the days to feel longer and more leisurely. I’m not coming home from work feeling like there’s something else I need to do, my stress level is down and I’m thinking more clearly. While I’m free to watch whatever I want without the obligation to write about it, I’ve actually not watched many movies at all. I haven’t gone to the theater since mid-February, and I’ve only watched four movies at home since starting this – one was for the podcast Perry and I do, but the rest were all movies with kids.

A few weeks ago, I was taking a walk and I realized I wasn’t really missing the movies at all. I took in the fresh air and pondered whether there was a future that saw me walking away from movie writing to pursue other projects or just hang up the side jobs. It was a bittersweet thought, but at the time I was at peace with the idea of potentially ending this. I found a coffee shop, read and enjoyed having nothing to do or create in my free time.

This week, however, my perspective changed. I missed writing. I missed being part of the conversation. I missed arguing with my fellow critics about the latest movies. But mostly, what I missed was having a way to talk about deeper issues through a medium I care about. As our nation continues to plunge ahead in uncertainty and fear grips a lot of people, a feeling of helplessness can set in. Should we protest, vote, call our senators? The answer is yes to a lot of that. But much of what needs to change must be done at the core level of how we view others and whether we’re willing and able to engage our empathy.

In perilous times, when our souls are most at hazard, we need our stories. Humor can cut down barriers. Fiction can help us step into the shoes of others. I’ll never get tired of preaching Roger Ebert’s maxim that movies are “machines that generate empathy.” Even as a Christian who loves the Bible and needs a good weekly sermon, I think we need stories to shake our hearts up, gain a new perspective and exercise our empathetic imagination. The arts help us better understand our world and our shared humanity; and the work of cultural commentators is necessary in drawing others into the conversation and creating a place where we can be moved and changed together.

I went from a position of feeling like I was okay walking away from this – likely the result of simply needing a break – to spending a few hours spitballing some things I’d like to implement after the break to make this conversation more intentional and effective. Over the next few weeks, I’ll probably take more time to think about that and consider what this space looks like when I return (maybe as early as late April; most likely early May). My big questions are how I can do this better but also in a way that doesn’t cause me to burn out or isolate myself from loved ones. There’s going to be some prayer and introspection needed. But I’m really excited about building on the work I’ve done before to turn this into a place for conversation and growth. I hope you’ll be part of it.

Now, before I go, some brief thoughts about some pop culture.

• Friday night, my wife sat and watched the Severance season finale. I won’t go into spoilers for those who haven’t seen it, but it was a wild and weird culmination to a wild and weird season. This second season was intriguing but flawed – much like the first season. When it latched onto an idea to explore and spent time exploring the philosophical dilemmas – often through some weird plot developments – it was some of the most exciting TV I’ve seen in ages. Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Chery, Tramell Tillman and John Turturro are all doing outstanding work. That kept it watchable even when, at times, the pacing stuttered or some tangents fell flat (the episode centered on Patricia Arquette’s character was a snooze). But even when Severance faltered, it was usually a result of taking big swings that didn’t work or having ideas that were too big for the team to fully get their arms around. I’ll always applaud that, even when it doesn’t work. Comparisons to Lost, a show I loved, were plentiful and deserved. I think Lost did a better job at handling the emotions of its characters, but Severance is more adept at wrestling with its philosophical quandaries and seems more confident about its endgame. It’s not perfect TV, but it is great TV.

• Another example of great TV is The Pitt, which I’ve written about before. But the Max medical drama delivered one of the most gripping and exhilarating episodes of the year with this week’s mass casualty episode. One of my favorite “genres” of movies or TV involves just watching people who are good at their job do their job well, and this nail-biting 40 minutes, in which the ER staff dealt with a flood of victims from a local mass shooter event, gave every cast member a moment to shine. Where shows like Severance are gripping because of their ability to slowly build a mystery they explore over the course of the season, I love that The Pitt feels like a throwback in its episodic approach despite its serialized structure, and is just content to be thrilling, compulsively watchable TV.

• Friday night, my son wanted to watch a movie. He’s 13, and so I’m starting to go through some older titles that he might like that perhaps I hadn’t seen in awhile. He’s a bit curious about Wolverine – but not allowed to watch Deadpool and Wolverine – so I thought we’d start going through Fox’s X-Men movies. We watched 2000’s X-Men, which I hadn’t seen in ages. Watching it in the age of superhero glut was an interesting experience. On one hand, you can feel the age of the modern comic book movie being born. At this point, you didn’t have much more than the Batman movies to go off, and there’s a sense that Brian Singer and Fox were wrestling with how much they could get away with. There are the infamous black leather suits (and the dig at yellow spandex, which now is a superhero movie mainstay) and there are a few moments undercut by quips because you could tell the studio wasn’t sure how much audiences would take seriously. Plus, remember when glowing white lights were the only threat in these movies? But where it counts, X-Men works. I don’t know if there’s been better superhero casting – Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen are all iconic, even if I wish James Marsden was given more to do than make Scott Summers a douchebag. And remember when these movies used to be about something more than pelting audiences with Easter eggs? X-Men is one of our great comic book allegories and can continually be turned to as a metaphor for racism, homophobia or whatever the tension of the day is (I wouldn’t be surprised if future movies use it as an allegory for trans rights or the plight of immigrants). So refreshing in light of how so many movies are just setups for future franchises.

• A week ago, I also showed my kids The Princess Bride. We’d watched it at the beginning of the pandemic, but they were too young at that point for it to really take. We watched it together while my wife was out and…man, that movie just plays. I spent several years struggling with what people liked about it, hesitant to embrace it because I didn’t really see anything more than a pleasant movie. But, in the end, that’s why this movie is so beloved. It’s a delight, and every member of the cast and crew is having a blast telling this story and bringing these characters to life. It’s laugh-out-loud funny without being cynical or undercutting its romantic and heroic streaks. It’s silly and magical at the same time. It’s a great movie.

And that’s where I’ll leave it for this week. If time allows, we’ll do this again next Sunday.

– Chris