Screen Time

March 2023's recommendation roundup

Clocking in at the hot take factory for Screen Time, your monthly roundup of media recommendations. I don’t pretend to be a tastemaker, I just like to participate.

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I’ve had a lackluster reading month, a lackluster podcast month, and a lackluster movie month, so this March’s roundup feels a little sparse. I am the April fool. Here it goes:

Podcasts

Broken Record with Jason Isbell: As a part-time advocate for labor rights and full-time Scorsese fan, I’m happy Hollywood executives came to the bargaining table in time for Killers of the Flower Moon actors to make the media circuit. As a fan of his music, I loved hearing about Isbell’s first acting gig — what it felt like to be Leonardo di Caprio’s scene partner or to hop on a Zoom call with Martin Scorsese. (Isbell says that he played his character, opportunistic widower Bill Smith, as if he were a guy his dad hated, which feels correct.) The conversation in this episode then pivots to Isbell’s most recent album and his songwriting philosophy. I struggle to share my writing because I’m never sure what anyone else would gain from it, so Isbell’s thoughts on this question feel nothing short of liberating to me. Isbell says the specificity of a piece is what makes it worthwhile, not its perfection or its universal appeal. Thinking about all of the authors I’ve read and made unexpected connections to, it makes sense that doing justice to your own experience is the only way to do justice to others’. Isbell helped me realize that specificity is a gift, not a hindrance.

Hollywood Exiles: This podcast, narrated by Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Oona Chaplin, explores the Red Scare through Chaplin’s own story of exile from the United States. I knew nothing of Chaplin’s career before starting this series – I only heard of his dealings with McCarthyism tangentially after reading up on Katharine Hepburn and Dorothy Parker, both of whom were swept up in midcentury witch hunts. Chaplin’s life proves a fascinating lens through which to learn more about old Hollywood’s political ties and J. Edgar Hoover’s views on American pop culture. Chaplin’s granddaughter also interviews the children of famous Hollywood blacklisted writers like Dalton Trumbo’s daughter Mitzi, who paint a vivid, human picture of the era. Their perspective feels especially prescient right now during heightened anti-Palestinian sentiment on behalf of the liberal establishment. In all, if you’re on the hunt for a series, this one is engrossing and manageable.

Music

As the seasons transition and daylight extends, I’m embarrassed to realize I’m no more emotionally complex than a houseplant. At the risk of sounding corny, I can feel myself blooming in warmer, sunnier weather. The music I listened to this month is similarly phototrophic. “Paperweight” by the Secret Sisters and Waxahatchee’s newest album, which I was pleased to see Katie Crutchfield named after the best flavor of Kona Ice, come to mind. Crutchfield’s songwriting makes me feel so at home in my own contradictions, and she’s forever my favorite artist to roll my windows down and yell to.

Less rootsy, but for some reason I haven’t been able to stop listening to Kaytranada's 99.9%. And Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter is, of course, perfect. “Tyrant” is my favorite track at the moment, but I am dead serious when I say I want her next project to be a full-length art song and aria compilation. She had voice students everywhere shaking in our boots with that “Caro Mio Ben” interlude.

Purser is gonna be famous. (Not to brag, but they did write this absolute banger of a song on my guitar.)

Movies and TV

Devil in a Blue Dress. It’s hard to pick a movie I’m able to watch with my mother without complaint. She prefers movies with high scores on Rotten Tomatoes, but dislikes conflict, violence, and emotional tension, so she’s typically disappointed by whatever reviews-based choice she makes. Devil in a Blue Dress would not exist without conflict, violence, and emotional tension, but somehow my mother ended up liking it. The whole cast is firing on all cylinders — Denzel, obviously, but Don Cheadle stands out too. I always have fun popping in on post-war noir Los Angeles, and I would watch a million more movies featuring these characters.

Anatomy of a Fall. Often, I catch up on movies that I haven’t gotten around to while I’m on an airplane. I watched Anatomy of a Fall on a trip back to Atlanta from Arizona and felt annoyed when we landed because the movie was around the same duration as our flight. I don’t know what about this film compelled me so much. More often than not, I love a slow burn, and this one felt well-paced. The French courtroom is nothing but a diva-off and Messi the dog deserves all the Internet acclaim he’s received. Also, absolutely wild that Sandra Hüller starred both in this and in The Zone of Interest in the same year. Good for you, Sandra Hüller.

Pen15. I feel silly recapping my experience with critically-acclaimed media that I missed during its time in the limelight, but I’m going to do it anyway. Pen15 is painful to watch, as its premise finds adult Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle reliving their 7th grade foibles alongside actual tween actors. It’s doubly layered and self-aware: their characters act convincingly like middle schoolers, but with the benefit of hindsight they gained looking back on their own adolescences. I felt genuinely moved by their characters’ open communication with each other and the vulnerability and grace they extend during some intense moments of personal growth. They’re so open to new experiences, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, but there’s always insight to be gained on the other side of that novelty. Erskine and Konkle treat both the kids and the adults in their orbit with tenderness, which makes the show feel all the more thoughtful. It’s helpful to see the world through fresh eyes to provide perspective on adult life, and Pen15 was an “oh, there is another way to live” moment for me. Maybe that’s not the right takeaway, but for what it’s worth, this series rewired my brain a little bit.

“Look at that horse, look at that horse, look at that horse.” -Beyoncé

Thanks for stopping by — let me know what I should read, watch, or listen to next month!