If you are a returning reader, thank you!
If this is your first time, I hope you enjoy Highly Transmissible, a free daily newsletter about what to watch during quarantine.
We are all creatures of habit. One of the most jarring things about the beginning of quarantine was the disruption to long-held routines. It wasn’t just commutes that had to change, but our social lives, when and how we exercise, and even small things like whether I get my morning jazz fix via a speaker or headphones (I have recently discovered the wonder of noise canceling headphones). These changes, jarring at first, have begun to calcify into a new set of habits.
While there’s certainly a lot to dislike about the lockdown, daily routines have become a comfort. Despite disrupted sleep and a fugue of video calls, each day has a rhythm, similar to the last. The ability to recreate the same routine day after day is both reassuring and claustrophobic. It’s problematic, in a way. As restrictions begin slowly but surely to relax, new opportunities come into view in the not too distant future. Eventually people will be able to gather again. Restaurants will be truly open. Drive-in movie theaters are already reopening.
Indeed, “reopening” both feels like a distant, impossible to reach utopia and a terrible disruption on the horizon. All of these routines for survival, sanity and productivity that we have developed will be thrown into chaos once more. Things won’t be completely normal again, nor will they be the same as this new normal called lockdown under which we presently live. Once more, we’ll be forced to develop new routines and new ways of being. Once more, we will be forced to power-rank our priorities, tasks and recreation in terms of importance vs. risk. There will be no clear path forward for anyone, and the threat of renewed lockdown will be constant for the foreseeable future.
There’s no solution to this dilemma. Either situation — unending routine or disrupted circumstances — brings its own unique existential dread. It reminds me of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, the two most important hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. By nature, hobbits are not inclined to adventure, or even to venturing off the beaten path. Yet when the wizard Gandalf the Gray presented Frodo and Bilbo with the opportunity to go on a quest (more like foisted the opportunity upon them), they both found that they secretly liked it. The disruption brought its own set of stimuli. Naturally, they missed the shire and their routine lives, yet neither would give up the journey that they embarked upon. Day-by-day, I feel more like a hobbit waiting for a strange knock on the door and a whisper to leave my routine behind. I’m sure it will be here soon.
Today’s Film: Onward (2020)
One of the most immediate consequences of the pandemic lockdown was that a lot of movies that had just hit theaters went basically unseen. Many others have missed their theatrical release dates and gone straight to video-on-demand. Pixar’s Onward is one of these films. It was released shortly before the quarantine began, and despite positive critical reviews, few people saw it in theaters before they closed. Now, however, it has a second life as a new release on Disney+.
Written and directed by Dan Scanlon, Onward is classic Pixar. The world has a lot in common with our own, except for one critical difference: Magic and fantasy creatures are real, although contemporary technology such as cell phones and the internal combustion engine dominates, since most denizens of the world of Onward find it easier that way. To bring this setting to life, Scanlon and his team wove a sweet story that plays on the audience’s heartstrings.
The film’s protagonist is an elf high school student named Ian Lightfoot (voiced by Tom Holland), who finds himself on his 16th birthday without any friends and missing his dad, who died when he was a baby. Ian’s mother Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and well-meaning but slightly oafish older brother Barley (Chris Pratt) try to cheer him up, but fail. However an unusual posthumous birthday present from Ian and Barley’s father — a wizard’s staff — changes things altogether and sends the two brothers on a magical quest of deep import to the family.
Audiences and critics have long suspected (let’s be honest, known) that the Pixar team is full of a bunch of lovable nerds, and Onward is the final proof of this. While it’s certainly accessible to a general audience, much of the humor and plot points in the film derive from the worn tropes of fantasy storytelling and especially Dungeons & Dragons. Case in point, the end credits include a special thanks to Wizards of the Coast for use of the Gelatinous Cube in the film (if you don’t understand the significance of that, don’t worry, the movie’s still pretty funny). Thankfully, Onward avoids becoming parody or pastiche thanks to its constant and deliberate focus on the relationship between the two brothers. Yes, some of the gags may feel like deep cuts from Comic-Con, but the story is a true journey of friendship and family.
Onward is streaming on Disney+.
A quick note: Yesterday’s film Hail Satan? is streaming on Hulu.
Reading List:
The National Film and Sound Archives of Australia has just released newly discovered video footage of the last living Tasmanian Tiger. The 21 seconds of footage from 1935 brings the total video footage of thylacines up to a little over 3 minutes.
Ever wonder how the world of high-end tennis racquet construction has been effected by the quarantine? Well, here you go.
Benjamin Reeves is an award-winning screenwriter, journalist and media consultant based in Brooklyn, New York. Follow him on Twitter @bpreeves or write to him at breeves.writer@gmail.com.