Nostalgia's Curse and the Art of Letting Go

Awards Season Media Roundup

A Warning: This is all vaguely spoiler-y.

I've been working on a summary of 2019 media—multitudinous as it was—for almost a month. For the past 10 years having small kids and a job with lots of travel sent me far afield from my love of excellent TV and film. Today, my kids are watching Dude Perfect while they make crafts (yep, they're a matchless crew), and I'm looking back on a year where I engaged more great film and television and books than I have in years. And I think I'm the better for it.

A cinephile at heart, I missed the second Golden Age of television. No Breaking Bad. No Parks and Recreation. No Sopranos. This year, to make up for lost time, I jumped into it with both feet, kicking off in January with a binge of the first 3 seasons of Game of Thrones in less than a week. From there, it was The Good Place, Friday Night Lights, Schitt's Creek, The Boys, The Politician. Beautiful, tantric, and ridiculous stories that distract, inspire, educate, and draw us into the complex world of the human spirit.

A year that started with GoT ended with Star Wars and was overstuffed in-between produced fascinating trends. Let's start with the obvious: in 2019, we lost the Lannisters, the OG Avengers, and the Skywalkers. Some of these losses were long overdue (I'm looking at you, Palpatine), and some of them rushed beyond recognition (goodbye Iron Throne), but in the end, things ended whether we were ready for them to or not.

The American allergy to endings is in full hay fever. We hate them. We resurrect dead characters again and again. Mostly unnecessarily. (Sith Emperors should stay dead, and Reylo can only bring themselves back to life so many times.) But more than the characters we won't let slip into the great beyond, we have a hard time allowing our stories to reach their codas, demanding a never-ending stream of end-credit scenes.

For my year in review of TV and film, I can't promise an objective list of the best as there is just too much I haven't seen. Instead, I'm celebrating endings and beginnings. Closing the old and tired while and awakening the inspired or undiscovered. All things considered, we need 2020 like a cold shower in summer, but here's some of the best (and worst) of what last year produced.

Dead Sagas (until their zombies are resuscitated for capitalistic gain):

Avengers: 3.5/5 stars They warred infinitely until their game ended, and perhaps we are the better for it. I was an Avengers film fan. Having not been a comics kid, my first introduction to Iron Man was Robert Downey, Jr. Chris Hemsworth is my Thor, Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is the center of the universe. I am not interested in resurrecting the God of Thunder into Queen Amidala, nor do I need Jim Hopper donning a mask as chubby Captain Communist (or whatever this is.) I watched--and generally enjoyed--all 22 films in the Infinity Saga. From the worst, Thor: The Dark World, to the best, Captain America: Winter Soldier. From the unexpectedly fantastic, Guardians of the Galaxy, to the pleasantly distracting, Spiderman: Far From Home. The overstuffed finale of the saga, pinned into a Godfather-esque marathon of Infinity War and Endgame, was technologically inspiring with moments of real pathos. I'm glad I saw them. I loved sitting next to my kids and taking it all in. (Well, not all, because these movies are so extra, that my neurons needed a sedative afterward.) But the truth is, I won't miss them now that they're gone. The Avengers never rose to higher heights than when they were battling Loki for supremacy in New York. The threat of a Thanos, a mad titan whose sole aim is to save the world by destroying it, all felt like excess. In the end, it took me six hours of viewing to do what I wanted to do: say goodbye to Tony and Cap. Until Disney resurrects them to break its box office record for the 9th year running in 2025.

Game of Thrones (4/5) I was late to the Game. Before I get to Season 8, I must say how much I LOVED GoT. It's legitimately some of the best television I've ever seen. Much ink has been spilled about fans disappointments with Season 8. Yes, there were pacing issues. Yes, the showrunners decided to give up on their medieval version of the Sorkin walk-and-talk, trading it in for Michael Bay-style explosion fests and blood baths. I've had six months to think about this, and my initial reaction to the fade to black in Westeros still stands: Danaerus Targaryen was always a villainess who had moments of magnanimity. She was always inspired by her own manifest destiny and was willing to do anything possible to reach her desired ends. And she is still one of the most interesting and complex female characters I’ve seen on television.

“This cycle does not end. It just resets.”

In many ways, there is no just way to end the Song of Ice and Fire. (Which is probably why George R. R. Martin will conveniently never finish the books.) The story of Westeros is circular in nature, it represents the rise and fall of power, the recurrence of narcissists and despots, and the complicity of the faithful in harboring villainry. This cycle does not end. It just resets. By the time the show was nearing its ends, too many fans had bought into the promise that one house was more virtuous than the other, that the Starks somehow deserved the Throne. That unilateral power, if given to the right person, could somehow be legitimized. Like real life, we rushed to believe that absolute power doesn't corrupt, it legitimizes. These are, of course, American dreams. Dreams that the righteous members of our party or the elected representative who prefers our policies will somehow wield relatively unchecked power in a morally superior way. Trying to force the American mythos into the suits of armor and dragon skins, in the end, proved ill-advised.

Westeros was left in the hands of "memory" itself in its closing King, Bran Stark. A not-so-subtle reminder that there are no blank slates, and more often than we realize, our vision of a happy ending is ruled by the past.

Star Wars (1.5/5) If anything represents our unwillingness to let stories finish, JJ Abrams fan-obsessed eye-candy versions of the galaxy far, far away do. The Force Awakens played like a weird parody. Like what would happen if a 5th grader had watched A New Hope 100 times and then was asked to write a science fiction story. Sure the story would be different, but it would be pretty much the same. Abrams confuses a love of story for the sentimentality of being a "fan." A fan loves something for how it makes him feel, not for what it is, and for that reason, JJ is probably the ideal Disney director for Star Wars.

Rise of Skywalker seeks—in a thousand ways—to erase the Last Jedi (an uneven but creatively daring film) and give the Skywalker Saga back to its most toxic fans. Fans who want fewer Asian women in their Star Wars and believe that a 60-year-old Luke questioning the consequences of his imperfect legacy is, in some way, a betrayal of the character. Toxic fandom is quite a "thing" in these genre films, and Rise of Skywalker validates them in all the wrong ways. I can imagine the whiteboard session where they listed all the possible moments that any fan might want in the last Skywalker film and the writers' room where a mix of vodka and amphetamines empowers an attempt to stuff them all in. Saddest of this is the willful rejection of Carrie Fisher's death, taking bland outtakes from her previous footage, green-screening them into new scenes, and somehow believing a dialogue can be built around them. Leia's role in Rise makes absolutely no sense, and you can count me among the many who think it defames not celebrates her legacy to shoehorn her into this film.

There will be no Star Wars film in 2020, and Game of Thrones prequels are dropping like flies. While it seems nothing can stop the train of Marvel films no one asked for, we can perhaps redirect our watching eyeballs to new things, new stories, new ways to question the world as it is. Nostalgic media is toxic because it leads us to believe that repeating the past is the best way to make the future. It implies that the hyper-simplified memory we carry of better days does--in fact--reflect better days. We believe that one more team-up of the old gang, one more exploded planet-killer, will get us on our way. When (speaking of another dead saga resurrecting), our best advice came from the Oracle herself: "I believe in the future, and the only way to get there, is to get there."

The Ending I Loved (but won't actually get):

Stranger Things, Season 3: I got caught up on both Season 2 and 3 of Stranger Things this year, and boy was it fun. I generally hate the horror genre, and Stranger Things can sometimes suffer from cheap meta-references to 1980s' culture. All that aside, the story arc of Season 3 had legit weight to it, the characters went places that challenged them, the losses (both literal and metaphoric) were substantive. The closing scene and what it meant for the Byers family provided a truthful ending. However, rumor has it Netflix intends to continue to make unnecessary seasons well into the future. (Contrary to popular belief, good things never die, they just turn into zombie shadows of their former selves.)

New Things Worth Discovering:

My favorite media experiences (besides Season 2 of Game of Thrones) from 2019 came from new stories with fresh points of view. Here are a few of my favorites from the last 12 months.

Movies:

The Peanut Butter Falcon: I often judge a film by how it feels a week or a month after viewing it. If, like Captain Marvel, I've forgotten the entire plot by the next week, well, you know. If, like this film, I find myself replaying it in my mind, recognizing the nuances and subtexts I missed the first time, longing for a more in-depth second drink, then I know it was something special. Set in the bayou of the Deep South, the story celebrates the friendship of a neer-do-well played by Shia LeBeouf (Shut up, he's excellent in this) and a man with Down Syndrome, brilliantly acted by Zach Gottsagen. Free of sentimentality, Falcon doesn't blush at real suffering, and yet allows us into the subtle ways that beauty and brotherhood are found by even the most unlikely of folks. No one gets what they deserve in the end as they travel toward hard days ahead, but they do it together, and that's a story worth telling over and over.

Knives Out: Clue is one of the greatest movies of all time. (Fight me.) It was my entry into the whodunnit genre and will always hold the gold standard for me. A brilliant ensemble cast, a ridiculous murder mystery, moments of sheer belly laughter. For all its brilliance, it ruined me for the genre, and I've been slow to embrace subsequent iterations. Knives Out, though, is something exceptional. It's twisty, campy, dripping with subtext, and full of brilliant character acting that reminds you why some of these actors have lasted for decades. Daniel Craig is miscast but manages to make the most of his role, tongue firmly planted in cheek. Chris Evans smolders under layers of contempt and self-righteousness, a necessary departure from his golden boy Captain America image. His closing monologue with artisanally displayed rich, white, male fragility was worth the whole ride.

Little Women: Give Greta Gerwig all the awards. I’m completing my 45th draft of this just as the Oscar nominations come out, and I’m all a little beside myself that where stuck with old white guys making murder movies on the Best Directors list again. Little Women is stunning. Warm. Quick-witted. Everything you want to go to the movies for except stuff blowing up, and lord knows we’ve had quite enough of that. It just keeps seeping into my mind and heart on a near-daily basis. I want my sons to marry a Jo or an Amy or a Meg. Or at least know enough to fall in love with one and get rejected. If you see just one acclaimed picture this season, pick this one. It brings us back to timeless material without the white glove treatment. We are forced to see the past through a new perspective, and wonder about how the present could be reconsidered as well. Art doesn’t have to be innovative, but it must avoid fan service at all costs.

Honorable Mentions:

Rocketman, Harriet, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Movies I Still Plan on Getting To:

The Irishman, Judy, The Two Popes, Uncut Gems, Jojo Rabbit, and Parasite

Representative of Much that is Wrong with the World:

Joker

TV:

Fleabag (Season 2): Nothing I watched in 2019 displayed the narcissistic angst and spiritual milieu of our time better and with more humor than Fleabag. The title character and her love interest Hot Priest live as the central twist of a swirling complexity of characters who have to wrestle with their true selves, their demonstrable demons, and the relationships that make up a life. Some have said you can watch Season 2 as a standalone (which I tried), but I think Season 1 offers some valuable context and is phenomenal in its own right. Folks with sensitive stomachs for dark humor or flirtations with sacrilege ought not apply.

Succession (Season 2): Centering on a wealthy, self-involved, power-hungry family who destroys everything they touch, Succession is another show that captures the angst of our moment. The allusions to certain real-life people aren't particularly subtle, but the characters stand on their own. Brian Cox is incredible as patriarch Logan Roy. Still, the real smoldering storytelling happens in the string-pulling schemes between the daughter, Shiv (played by Sarah Snook), the second wife, Marcia (played by Hiam Abbass), and the frenemy, Rhea Jarrell (played by Holly Hunter). In watching Succession, I was reminded over and over that the flight to power is soul-destroying by design, and no one comes out clean. A firm lesson for people of faith in a time where it seems political power is sold as worth any price.

Watchmen: I can't even begin to describe the wonder that was Watchmen. Heightened reality genres (fantasy, sci-fi, superhero, etc.) exist to tell us the truth about our world in ways that sneak past our protestations. They pull us out of anything resembling our frame of reference. Watchmen, borrowing from the strange and wonderful mythology of its source 1988 graphic novel, bring the questions of societal instability, misguided heroism, and the gullibility of the public to the 2019 present. By exposing the durability of racism, the obsession with technological liberation, and nearness of fascism, Watchmen takes us deep into timeless American distortions with unapologetic wit, insight, and an unflinching embrace of the bizarre. I loved every minute.

Honorable Mentions:

The Righteous Gemstones (HBO), The Good Place (NBC/Hulu), The Mandalorian (Disney+), Schitt's Creek (Pop/Netflix)

Series I Still Plan on Getting To But Haven't Yet

When They See Us (Netflix), Fosse/Verdon (FX/Hulu), Chernobyl (HBO), The Crown Season 3 (Netflix)

Media is both revelatory and formative. It makes us and shows us who we are. These days, it's not hard to see that we are all wishing for different days. Rushing back to feelings of from the past, the erotic love of a more titillating life. We are trying to remind the Baby Boomers about Mr. Rogers and the Gen Xers about the innocent hopes of Luke Skywalker under Tatooine's double suns. We want our Avengers to keep avenging without consequence, and for the murderous intents of a young silver-haired queen to really be well-intentioned after all.

We secretly believe that the Byers need the Upside-Down to know who they really are. If our mediated fascinations were the only story, then Fitzgerald had it right, we are borne back ceaselessly into the past.

As 2020 rises, let it not be so. Let's not remake the Lion King again. Read a book from an author you've never heard of. Watch a movie that sounds weird. Feel free to be the person who doesn't know anything about the family sitcom of Wookiees.

Good things and mediocre things and terrible things ended in 2019. And the only way to find new beginnings is to let the end be the end.