Hello and welcome back to the column! My vacation was quite the amazing experience, I have to admit, with an especially invigorating ski vacation and spending a lot of time with some of my favourite people. And I even managed to squeeze in a few choice pop culture morsels in the bargain. Here’s what I thought was particularly noteworthy since the last column.
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Television: Admittedly I’m one episode from the end, but so far Ken Burns’ documentary The Roosevelts: An Intimate History might be my favourite of the director’s American Stories series of films. A seven-part, 14-hour documentary about Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt may be a strange recommendation but I love the way Burns puts together his documentaries. Through a mix of still photographs, archival footage, and talented actors reading excerpts from letters, articles, and other documents, Burns and his writers give viewers a thorough, intimate look at his subject. (The performers this go-round are also particularly good, including Paul Giamatti as Theodore, Edward Herrmann as Franklin, and Meryl Streep as Eleanor.) What has impressed me most about the film is how much I am learning about Eleanor Roosevelt — what a fascinating person she was and an inspiring example she continues to be. Of the three, Eleanor was the Roosevelt I knew the least about, and this documentary is a marvelous way of discovering what made her such a strong and powerful woman. I am also learning quite a bit about Theodore and Franklin, but over the course of six episodes Eleanor has become my favourite Roosevelt. It’s just a brilliant presentation of the lives of three hugely influential figures of the last two centuries and I can’t recommend it strongly enough.
Comics: Unlike most nerds of my generation (give or take five years) I have never played the Turok: Dinosaur Hunter video game. My knowledge of Turok comes from the 1950s Gold Key series; I have the first three volumes of the Turok: Son of Stone Archives hardcover reprints and they are absolutely dated and slightly racist and also fun Native-Americans-fighting-dinosaurs adventure comics. The first four issues of the 2011 Dark Horse relaunch Turok: Son of Stone is a really fitting update to the series and the character. In Jim Shooter’s script I saw homages to the old series’ style of narration through dialogue balloons, and it was really good to see that the strange dimensional disturbance that brought the warrior Turok and his young companion Andar to the land of the dinosaurs wasn’t simply limited to “they fell down a tunnel into a lost world.” Eduardo Francisco’s art and José Villarrubia’s colours, for the most part, are better during action scenes than during quieter moments, as sometimes-heavy inks bog down the figures, but I am willing to overlook a few flaws if I get a readable Turok comic. It’s not groundbreaking comics work but I have a soft spot in my heart for the formidable dinosaur hunter, and it’s a really good introduction to the character for a modern reader.
Books: I generally don’t care much for most Young Adult books, as not only am I an Old Adult now but I find most of the offerings to be either tepid romances or uninspired dystopian adventures that don’t grab my interest. I am, however, a big fan of Teen Feelings, so every once in a while I take a detour into the YA world to test the waters. Over my break I found a book that I found absolutely captivating: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. The book is about two different teenage boys named Will Grayson, each living in two different Chicago suburbs. On one bizarre night, their lives intersect by pure chance, and the rest of their stories are profoundly affected by that encounter. It’s Teen Feelings at its best, full of huge emotional swings and almost-impossible events that lead to life-changing epiphanies for the story’s protagonists. Levithan and Green each take the story of one Will Grayson — I didn’t compare the two because the different writing styles help to establish their respective characters — and when one Will Grayson showed up in the Other Will Grayson’s story the character stayed consistent and strong. There are other fantastic characters as well, including the uber-fabulous Tiny Cooper, a big-boned, openly gay football player and musical theatre triple-threat, who absolutely stole the show and my heart. I don’t know what it says about me that I liked Will Grayson, Will Grayson as much as I did, but I feel this may be a book I revisit again in a few years. It was just that impressive.
Music: I thought 2014 was a great year for music, and one of my favourite discoveries of the last part of December is the video for “NRG” by Duck Sauce. It’s part music video and part bizarre infomercial parody sketch that completely knocked my socks off, thanks to the presence of the fantastic Jon Daly. The first time I saw it I thought, “Well, that was a lot of fun, but there’s no way I’d just listen to the song without the video.” And then I proved myself wrong within a week. Worth a look for that strange intersection of people who like nu-disco and bizarre sketch comedy.
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And that will do things for me this go-round. Until next time, I highly encourage you to watch that Duck Sauce video. It might not change your life the way it did mine, but I think it will make you laugh. I’ll see you in seven days.
