| Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
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It's time this holiday movie got its due. Jonathan Bailey just broke my heart. Give Danielle Brooks everything. I'm sorry, who is playing a grandma??? A major announcement.
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An Underrated Holiday Gem |
It's a treat whenever someone posts something on X that gets everyone annoyed, but it's extra fun when there's a special holiday edition of the dragging. (Dear Santa: All I want for Christmas is to not have to refer to that godforsaken site as X anymore. Please, Nick, my buddy. My pal. I beg you.) To be fair, the catalyst for this recent social media discourse is less egregious than it would make you think (and then, after thinking, politely refute). The inciting statement: a tweet—I mean X post, ugh!!!—alleging that "there hasn't been a new Christmas movie good enough to watch every holiday season in over 20 years." As someone who resents the plague of Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix holiday movies that have irrevocably afflicted society's brains, to the point that people have been conditioned to believe there is actual entertainment value in that nonsense, I appreciated this hypothesis. I remember the fun of crowding into the family van as a kid, shivering under blankets until the heat kicked in, driving to the movie theaters, ordering popcorn at the snack bar with giddy excitement, and watching the year's new big holiday movie like it was an event. That we've resigned to these corny, paint-by-number TV movies as our seasonal entertainment depresses me. But then I saw the responses to that initial post, revealing just how many great ones there have been these two decades and was heartened. People mentioned films like Spirited, Tangerine, Jingle Jangle, Christmas With the Kranks, The Night Before, Klaus, and Single All the Way as recent standouts that merit repeat annual viewings. The Holdovers, which is currently in theaters and pegged for a slew of Oscar nominations, will definitely join my roster of "films I will watch on a cold December Sunday, drink one glass of wine too many, and then silently weep." Speaking of movies that make me silently weeping: There's The Family Stone and The Holiday, which both make the list/fit the bill. . I know the original poster was alluding to the fact that watching Elf, Home Alone, The Santa Clause, A Christmas Story, and their ilk are annual traditions akin to decorating the tree, trotting out Mariah Carey, and gossiping a little too much at the holiday office party. Author and podcaster Danny Pellegrino made a shrewd observation in reaction to the post: "Cable made it so '90s kids saw the same things every year. We don't see stuff over and over as much." It's true. Revisiting holiday favorites is much less of a passive pursuit now than it was in the "hey, look at that, The Grinch is on TV!" days, requiring the labor of wanting to see something and seeking out how to watch it. So this, my friends, is a long preamble to what that post about rewatching Christmas films really reminded me of: my dismay that there is one movie, which my family revisits each year, that is always inexplicably missing from the list of classics. On the occasion of yet another social media discussion of the best holiday films, I am here to demand its justice. |
Here it is: Why aren't more people obsessed with The Preacher's Wife? There is a holiday rom-com that stars Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington, features some of Houston's most thrilling on-screen vocal performances, and, for those who care about such things, has religious themes too. Why is this not a film that everyone talks about each Christmas? Directed by Penny Marshall, the 1996 remake of The Bishop's Wife starred Houston at peak WHITNEY HOUSTON!!! fame as Julia, the wife of a preacher (Courteney B. Vance's Henry) at a struggling Baptist church in New York City. The stress of trying—and failing—to keep the church afloat for the community tests their marriage, so Henry prays to God for help. The prayer is answered in the form of Dudley (Washington), an angel as charming and irresistible as, well, an actual angel played by Denzel Washington would be. Henry is skeptical of the interloper, but Julia and their son Hakeem (Darvel Davis, Jr., in a child acting performance that ranks among the all-time most adorable) are smitten—and grateful for the burdens he almost immediately lifts from their lives. Like all great holiday movies, there is something slightly problematic about the film: There is so much chemistry between Houston and Washington that you kind of want the preacher's wife to ditch the reverend husband and fuck the angel. But hey: The holidays need a proper balance of naughty and nice. Houston is luminous, and Washington is so debonair as to practically dazzle through the screen. Loretta Devine and Jenifer Lewis provide uproarious comic relief. (Learning that Lewis was only six years older than Houston when playing her mother in the film is a wild experience.) And then there's the singing. |
There's a moment in the film when Houston sings "I Believe in You and Me" at a jazz club that gives me chills just thinking about it. The vocal gymnastics are so impressive and so impeccable that the ballad has become a standard on singing competitions like American Idol and its descendants. It's one of my favorite musical performances in any movie, not just holiday ones. The way the film incorporates church singing and gospel music is also quite beautiful and rousing. Houston's soft, tender performance of "Who Would Imagine a King" would have the Grinch asking to borrow a Kleenex from Ebeneezer Scrooge. And Houston's roof-raising rendition of "Joy to the World" that's become a holiday radio staple? It debuted in this film. It's such a lovely, fun movie that captures that swirl of hope, melancholy, faith, and the power of community that surrounds the holidays. So while the internet is debating which movies merit yearly revisits, may I offer The Preacher's Wife as one to add to the list? |
An Award-Worthy Performance |
The finale of Fellow Travelers is now streaming, ahead of its Sunday night airing on Showtime—a conclusion to one of the year's best series that is gorgeous, devastating, and cathartic in equal measure. The story of a tortured-yet-beautiful romance between two men over decades, the show waltzed through those emotions throughout the entire season, as Matt Bomer's Hawk and Jonathan Bailey's Tim weather the historical circumstances that prevented their deserved happily ever after. Bomer's nuanced performance as an infatuated, conflicted man is the best work of his career, and, in the emotion-packed finale, Bailey is a revelation. Across multiple timelines, he showcases how intertwined grit, defiance, and joy in spite of darkness are for gay men determined to make their lives mean something in a world that actively works to strip them of dignity. The series spans Hawk and Tim's meet-cute during the Lavender Scare and McCarthyism-led panic of the 1950s through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. The final scene, set at the unveiling of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at the National Mall in D.C. that might as well have been an anvil plummeting straight onto my heart, it shattered me so much. There are two images in the final episode that have seared into my brain since I first watched, tableaus charting the arc of a doomed, yet life-changing relationship. First is Hawk and Tim slow dancing naked in the privacy of a secret apartment and, later, Tim's head nestled on Hawk's chest as they take a post-coital nap—moments of bliss stolen in a society that won't allow them that pleasure. Then there's a mirror of that position decades later, when Hawk climbs into Tim's hospital bed to cradle him, as Tim struggles through a rough night during his last days battling AIDS. |
The power of those moments is amplified by Bailey's performance. In the earlier timeline, his wide, giddy eyes betray a man fully aware of his good fortune to be so madly in love, cognizant of how precarious and fleeting the feeling could be and determined to live in the splendor of it. Later, as he faces death, his resignation to fate is not one of defeat, but a catalyst for clarity. So much of his life was impacted—some might say ruined—by his inability to move on from his connection to Hawk. But in a sensational monologue delivered after Hawk questions how much pain he's caused Tim, Tim corrects the narrative: "I spent most of my life waiting for God to love me. And then I realized the only thing that matters is that I loved God. It's the same with you. I've never loved anyone but you. You were my great, consuming love. Most people don't get one of those. I do. I have no regrets." Bailey's performance of this monologue stunned me. It is spoken with such certainty, an outpouring of a lifetime of emotion funneled into a searing, pointed declaration. He's speaking to not only a complicated romance with his lover, but also on behalf of generations of gay men whose great loves were colored and, it often seemed, marred by the misfortune of the times in which they were kindled. That's the revelation that Tim, through Bailey's delivery, speaks to: There's no misfortune when it comes to love; we may now be aware of the hideousness with which society treated (and still treats) the gay community, but how dare we assume that the love found was any kind of misfortune. I'll be thinking about this episode, that monologue, and Bailey's performance for a long time. Do yourself a favor and watch it. |
A Touching Moment Between Great Actors |
Since we're in the crying mood after that Fellow Travelers episode, allow me to keep the tears flowing by directing you to this video of a Q&A following a recent screening of The Color Purple. (Watch it here.) Reviews for The Color Purple are still under embargo, so I can't say too much. But if you've seen Danielle Brooks, who plays Sofia, on award lists, just know that, my God, does she deserve to be there. |
In this clip, Brooks' co-star Corey Hawkins, who plays her husband Harpo, speaks to the full-circle moment, as the two first met when they were in Julliard together. His speech is a beautiful testimony to his decades of conviction in Brooks' talent, and his belief in celebrating the opportunity she's been owed in an industry that systemically shuns the artistic gifts of Black actors who look like her. Brooks is visibly overwhelmed and emotional in the clip, as she listens to Hawkins. It's easy to understand why. |
You've Got to Be Kidding Me |
It has come to my attention that Melissa Joan Hart, who I grew up watching on Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch and who is not that much older than me, is playing a grandmother in a new Lifetime movie. |
In response, I would like to file criminal charges against Lifetime. I will be suing them for emotional distress. I will be getting the FBI involved, as such an egregious act is clearly an active threat to society, and I will be reporting the network to Homeland Security, as this is absolutely an act of terrorism. The United Nations will also be hearing from me, as this must be some sort of human rights violation. Taylor Swift's silence on this matter is deafening.
The New York Post reports that "fans are livid: 'I feel attacked.'" To which I say: same!
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It's Time to Come Forward |
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I suppose I should settle what's been something of an internet mystery this week. It is I who wrote the third book that Gwyneth Paltrow can't remember, but loved. Once the title comes to her, I'll finally share with you all what the book is so you can read it too. |
More From The Daily Beast's Obsessed |
Everyone's going to have *thoughts* about the new movie American Fiction, so we talked to its director about it. Read more. Robert Pattinson's voice work in the English version of The Boy and the Heron is one of the year's best performances. Read more. The controversy-laden Golden Globes surprised with a solid list of nominations this year, including a few that even made history. Read more. |
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The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: RHONY Legacy: My mothers have finally returned. (Now on Peacock) American Fiction: This movie is the equivalent of a cinematic stick of dynamite. (Now in theaters) Zone of Interest: A chilling, yet brilliant Holocaust drama pegged for major Oscars attention. (Now in theaters)
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| Rebel Moon—Part One: A Child of Fire: It's almost admirable how egregiously this movie rips off the Star Wars franchise. (Thurs. on Netflix) Wonka: A lot of reviewers liked Timothée Chalamet's new Willy Wonka movie. Our critic very much did not. (Now in theaters)
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