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      ‘A Sherlock Carol’ Review: Crime-Solving on Christmas Eve

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      Mark Shanahan remixes Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens into a clever, crowd-pleasing holiday comedy that happens also to be a murder mystery.It’s been three years since the grim tussle on the cliff above Reichenbach Falls, where the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty plunged to his death.But for Sherlock Holmes, the demise of his nemesis has proved unmooring. In London, lawlessness continues apace, yet the great detective has given up the fight. Adrift in ennui, he no longer bothers to ensnare the city’s evildoers. His faithful Dr. Watson, eager to get the band back together, can’t even entice Holmes to come to his house for Christmas.“There is no greater fool than one who shouts ‘Happy Christmas!’ in a city throughout which the foulest of mankind lurks ’round every corner,” Holmes growls. “I’ll thank you to leave me alone, Watson.”Bit of a Grinch, isn’t he. Bit of a Scrooge, even. In “A Sherlock Carol,” Mark Shanahan’s arch charmer of a holiday mash-up, Holmes — not Dickens’s Scrooge — is the one who is “solitary as an oyster.”At New World Stages, Shanahan directs a cast of six, wonderfully led by the Broadway veterans Drew McVety as Holmes and Thom Sesma as Scrooge. Remixing Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens, this is a clever, crowd-pleasing holiday comedy that happens also to be a murder mystery.It isn’t aiming for sumptuous elegance, like Matthew Warchus’s large-cast, high-design production of Jack Thorne’s “A Christmas Carol,” seen two seasons ago on Broadway. This is a simpler, streamlined affair looking for — and, crucially, finding — silly, festive fun.On Christmas Eve 1894, the grumpish Holmes is haunted by a spirit: Moriarty, whose presence he feels stalking him everywhere.And the beatific, reformed Scrooge? Found dead that very day by a doctor who believes there was foul play. A fan of Watson’s stories, the doctor entreats Holmes to investigate — and is thrilled when the uncannily observant detective, while refusing his appeal, says he’s known everything about him since the moment he walked in.McVety on the case.Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMadePartisans of “A Christmas Carol” get a sweet thrill as well when Holmes, too arrogant to resist, gives a quick rundown of his intel on this stranger: He was poor in early childhood, illness shadowed his first years of life, the dead man was his benefactor. In an instant, we recognize the doctor — Tiny Tim, all grown up and doing well.After he tells Holmes that a famous diamond had been on its way to Scrooge, who recently received a death threat, the detective relents and takes the case.“The game is afoot,” he says, suddenly saucy, tossing one end of his scarf around a shoulder.And off we go into a sprightly escape of a play with a fine, much-doubling ensemble and a design team trailing reams of Broadway credits: Anna Louizos, set; Linda Cho, costumes; Rui Rita, lighting; John Gromada, music and sound; Charles G. LaPointe, hair and wigs. This production is in very good hands, and so are we.There is a curious shortage lately of plays to make us laugh, let alone to tickle both children and adults. For admirers of Doyle and Dickens, here’s one.A Sherlock CarolThrough Jan. 2 at New World Stages, Manhattan; 212-239-6200, asherlockcarol.com. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. More

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      in Music

      Kiki and Herb Will Be Back Where They Belong for Christmas

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      Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman have resurrected their Christmas act for “a big, old chosen family reunion.”Kiki and Herb, the glamorous and harrowing cabaret duo created by Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman, never performed as reliably as the Radio City Rockettes. But for a while in the early 2000s, no Christmas felt complete without them — especially if you are the kind of person who prefers a belt of Canadian Club to eggnog.In those days, Bond played Kiki as an elderly “boozy chanteusie,” with Mellman as Herb, her childhood friend and put-upon accompanist. In fright drag, with age makeup crisscrossing her face, Bond’s Kiki would stalk through the crowd like a bloodthirsty elf, savaging holiday carols and performing medleys that intermixed “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” with “Suicide Is Painless.”“It seemed like a gift to an audience that wouldn’t necessarily be going home for Christmas, wouldn’t necessarily have the best relationship with their family,” Mellman said recently. Their shows wrapped that present in spilled drinks and smeared mascara.Kiki and Herb played their last holiday show, “Kiki & Herb: The Second Coming,” in 2007. Bond and Mellman dissolved their artistic partnership not long after. Mellman continued in the cabaret scene and performed with the band the Julie Ruin. Bond wrote new music and evolved as a visual artist. They didn’t speak for years. After reuniting at a memorial for their friend José Esteban Muñoz, they performed together again, in a show called “Seeking Asylum!,” at the Public Theater in 2016. And now, they have resurrected their Christmas act for what Bond calls, “a big, old chosen family reunion.”Beginning Tuesday, Mellman and Bond will debut “Kiki & Herb: SLEIGH at BAM,” for five performances. Studded with fan favorites — Tori Amos’s “Crucify,” Belle and Sebastian’s “Fox in the Snow” — the show will include new numbers, like Brandi Carlile’s “The Joke.” (During the duo’s last hiatus, Mellman built a file of 300 potential new songs.)On a recent weekday afternoon, Mellman and Bond met at a coffee shop in Brooklyn to chat about reclaiming Christmas and how their characters might spend the holiday. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.It’s been 14 years since your last holiday show. Why restart the tradition now?JUSTIN VIVIAN BOND Before the pandemic, Kenny found this footage of our 1999 show at Flamingo East. I had a meeting with David Binder [the artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music] to propose recreating it. He goes, “You should do a Kiki and Herb Christmas show.” They never take the good idea, I thought at the time. But then history happened, and I was feeling pretty sad last Christmas. As I started looking at what we could do as things opened up again, David sent me another email. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to get together with everybody for Christmas.This set list is mostly familiar material, right?KENNY MELLMAN It’s a question of when you go to see your favorite band and they play none of the songs you want to hear. We skirted that for years, but I felt it’d be nice to give people a Christmas present this year of being like, here. Have it.BOND We’re unpacking all the broken ornaments.How were Kiki and Herb birthed into the world?BOND I created the character of Kiki during the AIDS crisis. I was a young person in my 20s, a street activist. I felt like saying all the things I wanted to say as myself would sound too strident, too earnest. To have this boozed up old person who had done it all, seen it all, I could say anything as this character.MELLMAN All the glitz and craziness and insanity and surrealism lends it a gravitas that it would not have if you just said it in a very straight way.BOND I brought elements of people I really knew into Kiki — very intimidating, very smart women who had just gotten a [expletive] hand dealt, who somehow became these amazing creatures. So that was always there. Herb was based on this guy who worked in a piano bar that we performed at sometimes, this single guy who would drink tequila and had a picture of his cat on the piano.MELLMAN He would drink tequila and just start crying.How has the act changed over the years?MELLMAN We started this as a kind of street theater inside a bar [in San Francisco]. We were both super young, going to queer clubs, protesting every night. Coming to New York — a different atmosphere, a different queer scene — it became less like, Oh, we have to be screaming at the end of the world.BOND We started performing Kiki and Herb here in January of ’95, and ’95 was the year that the cocktail [the antiretroviral therapy for H.I.V.] came and started making lives last longer. So, it became different.MELLMAN We stopped doing mushrooms. So that changed it.BOND It’s New York, we’d better raise our game, we’d better stop doing mushrooms.What was it like to move through adulthood performing these characters?BOND That’s part of why I had to stop. I just felt like I didn’t know fully who I was. I always feel like I’m a disappointment. Because I know that people love that character so much. And I’m not that character. I remember, I thought, maybe if I just did a reality show, and I just lived as that character, people would like me more and I wouldn’t be so lonely.MELLMAN Back in the day, we were doing late-night shows, and then going out even later because we wanted to hang out with all these amazing people. There was no balance.BOND Last year when I was doing streaming performances from my house, I discovered that after 30 years in the business, that I never did a show where I didn’t go out and greet the public afterward. That’s probably why I don’t have any intimacy in my life.But as wild as the act could be, as grotesque as it could be, it was also about love.MELLMAN Like no matter what Kiki does Herb will be there. I find that really lovely and something to aspire to in a weird way. As much as a real psychological expose of that relationship would probably be horrifying, at the base of it is this incredible love for each other that transcends everything.It’s the idea that what if someone saw you at you’re just absolutely worst —MELLMAN And would still be there.So do the shows reach for a kind of emotional truth?MELLMAN Oh, for sure. There was always an emotional center to the act, because it came from a place of survival. I was recently just picturing what San Francisco was like when we created this. I wrote a poem that had the line, “The freshly dead are walking the streets.” That’s what it felt like.BOND Also it goes back to the people that I based the character on, who I had so much love for and who I felt were judged so harshly. My whole drive was to be this very unlovable character, whom people could not help but just love.How do you think Kiki and Herb would be spending this holiday?BOND Probably like us when we were young — meeting at some dive bar and playing pinball and drinking all day. Which sounds nice to me actually.MELLMAN They’d be like, I heard there’s a free buffet.BOND Right? Bottomless cocktails and free buffet at Christmas.MELLMAN Perfect. More

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      in Movies

      ‘’Twas the Fight Before Christmas’ Review: A Not-So-Silent Night

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      This documentary recounts how an Idaho man filed a discrimination lawsuit after his neighbors refused to let him host an annual Christmas light extravaganza.If your holiday dinner table sees some heated arguments this year, just be glad if it doesn’t result in an actual melee, with armed standoffs in front of a blow-up Santa Claus.That’s how bad things get in “’Twas the Fight Before Christmas,” an Apple Original documentary that recounts how Jeremy Morris, an attorney from Idaho, sued his neighborhood homeowners association, claiming religious discrimination after it refused to let him host his annual Christmas light extravaganza.Directed by Becky Read, the film feels at first like a mundane depiction of a neighborhood squabble, giving play-by-play accounts of the stern letters sent back and forth between Morris and the West Hayden Estates Homeowners’ Association. But once Morris decks his house with over 200,000 Christmas lights and orders a camel — yes, a live camel — to his front yard despite warnings not to do so, the stakes quickly escalate.Morris, who eats up the screen in his on-camera interviews, has the tenacity of both a well-trained lawyer and a zealot, positioning himself as a “miracle worker” unable to fully practice his Christian faith even as he makes life difficult for those around him. Read also interviews many of the West Hayden Estates residents, who participate in soft re-enactments of the events that help bring the absurdity of the conflict to light.By the time the legal battle reaches its conclusion (for now), the film is more than ready to hint at the greater political implications of Morris’s actions, with the attorney voicing his desire to run for senator. One can’t help but wonder if Morris has already calculated the number of Christmas lights needed to cover the White House.’Twas the Fight Before ChristmasNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      Meet the People Who Can’t Bring You ‘Messiah’ This Year

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMeet the People Who Can’t Bring You ‘Messiah’ This YearListen as nine performers guide you through the emotional arc of Handel’s classic, from comfort to grief to jubilation.Dec. 23, 2020, 11:46 a.m. ETEvery year, Handel’s “Messiah” is a communal ritual — a glittering parade of recitatives, arias and choruses that binds listeners and performers together in a story of promise, betrayal and redemption.But not this year. In 2020 the oratorio, if you listen to it at all, will be by necessity a private matter. And many artists for whom it is a beloved (and remunerative) staple remain almost entirely out of work.In this context, the emotional arc of “Messiah” — from comfort to grief to eventual relief — can feel more powerful than ever. Here, listen along as seven singers and two conductors offer a behind-the-music guide through the work.Brian Giebler, tenor: ‘Comfort ye’When you step up to the stage at the beginning of “Messiah,” every eye in the room turns to you. For the next three minutes you have complete command over everyone’s emotions.“Comfort ye” is my moment to take everyone’s anxiety, and pause for a second to reflect on why we’re here. You come after the overture, which is this almost chaotic moment, like everybody bustling about trying to get presents, or running to Carnegie Hall after a busy day of work. And then the beginning of “Comfort ye” is so solemn.What I’m after is a sense of calm. It’s all about long lines. Baroque ornamentation is fun, but here, it’s about taking time and not doing anything too flashy.Luthien Brackett, mezzo-soprano: ‘O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion’It’s a bubbling up of excitement, this secret you can’t wait to tell.It starts with exuberant champagne bubbles in the strings, and by the time you’re ready to sing you almost can’t contain your excitement. It’s like you’re addressing a friend who’s been grieving and maybe has been home alone for a while, and you come over and say, OK, get your coat on, we’re going to have a great time: “Get thee up into the high mountains!”There’s healing, as well. Those exuberant string notes with that wonderful contrast between the high and the low feel like a weight is being lifted. You have this energy you didn’t know you possessed. The aria goes straight into a chorus and everybody joins in.Joélle Harvey, soprano: ‘Rejoice greatly’The soprano performs in the Handel and Haydn Society’s 2020 version of “Messiah.”CreditCredit…Handel and Haydn SocietyThe music sounds like skipping through a meadow. I don’t know how you can say the words “rejoice greatly” without smiling. But the challenge is how to make the joy last so it doesn’t feel false or overdone. In the da capo section — on the words “Shout! Shout!” — instead of letting them get louder, I now make it more internal. Something to rev yourself up.Straight from the beginning, the phrases expand with each iteration. And the melismatic passages are exciting, almost like a game. Once you’re past the technical part of it, it’s very easy to find the playfulness in this aria. The da capo is ecstatic, with ornaments on top of ornaments.Reginald Mobley, countertenor: ‘He was despised’With its limited range and simple placement of notes, this is a piece that needs more than a park and bark. This is an aria that needs more than a big-haired Texan soprano spinning some tone for an expanse of quite a bit of an hour. You as the artist are the conduit: You have to be a prism for this incredibly heavy emotion that sets the stage for the Passion portion of “Messiah.”If you speed up the “A” section and slow down the “B” section — which usually sounds like a cavalry charge — then you can hear the flagellation, you hear Christ being tortured. My job is to transmit the personal horror and shame of being responsible.In 2014 I was singing the aria in Kansas City. This was the year of the Ferguson riots following the killing of Michael Brown. As I was singing, I thought of him and all the others who have been murdered by an unjust system. I thought, I get to be a survivor and tell the story of my brothers, my sisters, who were scorned and shamed and spited and spat upon. And I have to carry that shame: of what Americans should feel allowing the system to go on as long as it has.Joe Miller, conductor: ‘All we like sheep’What Handel is good at doing is creating amazing emotional contrast. At the very end of this piece is the crux of humanity: The iniquity of everyone is going to be laid on this one person. Up until then you have this comedy of sheep turning around and running away — I always think of an English sheepdog trying to round everyone up — and all of a sudden it comes down to this very profound moment.In the runs, everyone in the choir gets to weave and turn away. And then people sing “Everyone to his own way” over and over, and it’s all on one note, like everyone running into a fence and not knowing what to do.Jonathan Woody, bass-baritone: ‘Why do the nations so furiously rage together’I performed “Messiah” in Kansas City in December 2016. The recent election was on everyone’s mind. In between the dress rehearsal and the concert I read about a politician who, speaking about the Obamas, said something about Michelle returning to the Serengeti to live as a man. I read it on my phone and it broke my heart. In performance that day, what I was really doing was asking the people in the audience: Why do we hate each other, mistrust each other, dehumanize each other?I look around the world that we live in where we continue to treat people terribly. When Handel sets these rage arias, I get the sense that he understood that also. The world he lived in was not any less tumultuous than the one we live in today. I hear it in the music, in the intensity of the string figures, those 16th notes. I hear that angst.Kent Tritle, conductor: ‘Hallelujah’So much of the magic is the sheer jubilation that Handel conjures. The “Hallelujah” chorus sets out a firm, memorable exposition and then takes us to what is a short but extremely touching section about transformation. Then, through a sequence of sequentially rising pedal points on the words “King of kings,” he creates a sense of uplift, followed by a compaction of “Hallelujahs” as they barrel toward that cliff’s edge before the final absolute affirmation. It’s an incredible structure.When everyone in the hall rises from their seats it’s an amazing moment. You feel the energy shift in the house. And I see the glow on the faces of the choir as though they are a mirror reflecting what the audience is doing. Because of that choreographic moment, you get the sense that we are really on the same level. It’s magical and hair-raising.Jolle Greenleaf, soprano: ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’I see this as an opportunity to share a message of hope and love during a season when it’s getting darker, when people are looking for meaningful connections and ways to manage their emotions through the holidays. I try to look out at the audience and make as many personal connections with the people there so that they can feel that there truly is hope, that I’m a vessel for that hope.The tune feels very expansive. It just glides in a way that you can add ornaments to it. Those ornaments help create the gold filigree that you would see in a tapestry. Of course there is acknowledgment of darkness: “Though worms destroy this body.” I was 35 when I was diagnosed with cancer. It made everything related to death feel more fresh and raw and scary. But there’s power in reclaiming that and singing about hope despite that fear.Dashon Burton, bass-baritone: ‘The trumpet shall sound’This aria is about awe in every possible form. There’s the reverent awe of someone shocked into paying attention, hearing this mystery that says that no matter who you are, you are going to be raised after death, and no matter what trials you’ve gone through, you will have everlasting life.And then it’s the amazing sense of awe you get from hearing a rare trumpet solo. I just love that sense of grandeur: Even though it is a triumphant piece there is such mystery and quietude.The “B” section is a moment for reflection. As if shocked by this awesome presence, you need to take a moment: What have I just experienced? It’s a joy to sing those lines in one breath, to heighten the drama and really cinch these incredibly long phrases together. And to come back to the “A” section, now highly ornamented with all the regalia of your own vocal prowess and the entire emotional experience of having gone through this story. Not only to see, but to share. It’s the greatest moment onstage to be able to say to the audience: This is for you and this is with you.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Television

      Zosia Mamet’s Week: Log Cabin Living

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRecently ViewedZosia Mamet’s Week: Log Cabin LivingThe former “Girls” star, who played a mordantly comic lawyer in “The Flight Attendant,” spends her days at the barn and her nights with David Sedaris and Meryl Streep.Zosia Mamet, who stars in “The Flight Attendant,” with her horse, Ten: “She’s the love of my life (don’t tell my husband) so just being with her makes me happy.”Credit…Heather Sten for The New York TimesDec. 22, 2020, 10:40 a.m. ETWhen Zosia Mamet auditioned for “The Flight Attendant,” Kaley Cuoco unexpectedly booped her on the nose. Mamet reacted by swatting her hand away, and a relationship was born.“We had this immediate chemistry,” said Mamet, who is best known as the “Girls” naïf, Shoshanna Shapiro, “and the scene, just like lava, flowed out of us.”In “The Flight Attendant,” the zingy thriller on HBO Max that just finished its first season, Cuoco plays the booze-swilling Cassie Bowden, who picks up a passenger on a flight then wakes up in Bangkok with his dead body in bed beside her — and no memory of the night before. Mamet is her best friend, Annie Mouradian, a stony-faced lawyer who keeps the F.B.I. at bay using skills she cultivated while representing mob wives.At the moment, Mamet is nesting in New York’s Hudson Valley, with her husband, the actor Evan Jonigkeit, and their dog, Moose. But she more or less lives at the horse stables down the road, doling out snuggles and peppermints to her thoroughbred, Ten. In a Zoom interview from her 1920s Sears catalog cabin, with a log wall behind her, Mamet talked about life in and out of the riding ring, and her seasonal affliction. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Thursday MorningWoke up at 8. I’m a big-time sleeper. My husband says I could sleep through anything. But I wanted to get up early to give Moose a good long walk. First things, first: coffee, made in a French press with a big chunk of oat milk. I used to be quite picky about the brand of coffee, and I’m not anymore. I know this is a controversial point for snobby coffee drinkers, but we love a flavored coffee in our house, like a hazelnut or a vanilla.Mamet is nesting with her husband, the actor Evan Jonigkeit, in the Hudson Valley. Credit…Heather Sten for The New York TimesThursday AfternoonThe barn is about a 25-minute drive from our house so I normally either do NPR, Howard Stern, music or a podcast. I love a good podcast. Today was the new Whitney Cummings with Alison Brie. I didn’t get past the opening but that alone was killing me. They were talking about the frustration with stores putting stickers on things that you can’t get off, and it leaves this horrible residue. The struggle is real.My horse, Ten, sadly has a boo-boo in her front right foot, so she’s currently on what’s called stall rest, which is basically the equivalent of bed rest for a human. I’ve been gone for almost a month, and she’s developed this very sweet silly habit of trying to nibble on every part of me. Yesterday it was my beanie. Today it was the arms of my jacket. But she’s the love of my life (don’t tell my husband) so just being with her makes me happy.Evan is still in Pittsburgh shooting a new Netflix show called “Archive 81,” so we chatted on my drive home. We like to stay as much a unit as possible. I went out there for three weeks, and then I came home a little bit earlier than him because I wanted to be with Ten. The minute I found out she got hurt, he was like, “If you need to go home, I’ll understand.”Thursday EveningMy best friend, Emma, claims that I was an elf in a previous life. I do all the Christmas shopping for both of our families and all of our friends, so I’m currently set up in our living room surrounded by presents, my Christmas 2020 Excel spreadsheet, wrapping paper, scissors, ribbon, tape. All the essentials. I listened to Alabama Shakes. Evan proposed to “I Found You,” and sometimes when I miss him, I put them on.I’m in bed with a hot water bottle because I’m 90 and watching “The Queen’s Gambit.” I’m trying to savor it because I just think it’s so good. No, I have not learned chess. A card game like rummy, that’s my jam. Chess is too much for my brain to handle.I have a book problem, and there is a stack on my bedside probably 10 books high. I’m currently halfway deep into the latest David Sedaris, “The Best of Me,” and loving every second. I adore him. I’ve read almost all of his books and also listened to a lot of them on tape. His writing is so wonderful to begin with, but then when you hear him reading his writing, it just elevates it to the next level.Friday MorningEvan is the one that got me into the routine of putting music on first thing in the morning. It sets the tone for the day. Whitney Cummings mentioned the Lone Bellow the other day on her podcast, and I hadn’t listened to them in forever, so that’s what was on this morning.Spotify very kindly made me a 2020 playlist of the things I’d listened to most, so I put that on my drive to the barn. It was cold but sunny, so it was more of a sing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs-with-the-window-slightly-down than listen-to-a-podcast kind of day. A few faves on the playlist: Red Hearse, Lucy Dacus, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Phoebe Bridgers. Portugal. The Man is also on there; Nathaniel Rateliff, who came out with a solo album this year that’s super beautiful and lovely. Oh, there’s this great album that I love called “Trio.” It’s Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Sometimes when I’m cleaning the house, I’ll listen to it on repeat because their harmonies sound like angels.“My husband is like, ‘How do you spend six hours at the barn?’”Credit…Heather Sten for The New York TimesFriday AfternoonI got to the barn and first had to say hi to Tenny because she’s my princess unicorn, so she needs treats and kisses. Then I got to ride a Polly Pocket-size pony named Snickers. I had my lesson with my amazing trainer Vanessa. I got to ride one of our barn’s trusty steeds named Junior, who gave me a run for my money.My husband is like, “How do you spend six hours at the barn?” Well, we have to untack the horse. When we jump them, we wash their legs and spray them with liniment that keeps their legs healthy. Then we clean all of our tack. It’s part of the process that I love just as much as the riding — the care of the horse, the care of my tack.I stopped at Michaels because I needed a wreath hanger for our door. In middle and high school, there are horseback riding teams called [Interscholastic Equestrian Association], and there’s a whole show circuit. Our barn has one, and each year they take old horse shoes and paint them red, blue, green, silver or gold, and they make wreaths and sell them to raise money for the I.E.A. team. So I got one.Friday EveningI spent a little time decorating. I love Christmas more than anything. My maternal grandmother had this way of making Christmas exceptionally magical. There were all of these traditions, and the house was full of smells and sounds and lights. We always decorated the tree together. I’ve been enamored with magic since I was little, and what is more magical than Christmas? I’m the person who will sit on the stairs with all the other lights off at night and just watch the tree.I finally realized I was starving so I went with tacos. I listened to Phoebe Bridgers’s new holiday album, which is heartbreaking and gorgeous and sadly only four songs, so I had it on repeat for a bit. Then I put on “The Prom,” which was delightful, while wrapping presents. Elf duties.Saturday AfternoonI love Marc Maron’s podcast, and a friend recommended his episode with Glenn Close, so I finished that up on the way to the barn. What an epic human. What a crazy life. I had no idea she was in a cult!There are a few podcasts I’m obsessed with. I love “You Must Remember This,” which is all about old Hollywood. On the drive to Pittsburgh, I listened to “Dr. Death.” Oh my God, it’s crazy and fascinating. It’s about this surgeon who keeps botching all of these spine surgeries, but everyone’s too afraid to report him to the medical board. So he just keeps moving from hospital to hospital and paralyzing people. It’s very dark, but it was a six-hour drive, so it kept me entertained.Saturday EveningI’m about to start wrapping more presents while watching “Let Them All Talk.” Then it’s a pit stop for some of my banana bread that is my favorite thing ever. It’s gluten- and dairy-free with like five ingredients and yes, I know — Covid/lockdown/banana bread — but I’ve been making this literally for years. So please, no judgment.Sunday MorningWe were having a barn-decorating contest at the farm today so I decorated Ten’s stall with a unicorn theme. I didn’t win, but it’s just an honor to be nominated or whatever.Sunday AfternoonAfter the judging for the stall-decorating contest, we all gave our secret Santa gifts. Then I took down Ten’s decorations because she almost ingested a 10-foot-long piece of tinsel.Sunday EveningI headed home to wrap more gifts and hang with Moose. I really want to watch “PEN15,” but Evan and I watch that together so I can’t. So perhaps an old movie, possibly “Death Becomes Her.” I just realized that there seems to be a Meryl Streep theme going on here. Listen, I love me some Meryl — I mean, who doesn’t — but I definitely didn’t do that on purpose. Although what says, “It’s the holidays!” more than Meryl Streep? So I guess that’s it: I’m just in a very Meryl Christmas mood.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Movies

      Can We Talk About the Mom in ‘A Christmas Story’?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCan We Talk About the Mom in ‘A Christmas Story’?The woman hasn’t had a hot meal in 15 years and she’s always cooped up at home. 2020 is the year to give this character from a classic holiday movie her due.Melinda Dillon, center, plays Mother Parker in “A Christmas Story.”Credit…MGMDec. 21, 2020, 7:00 a.m. ETIt’s been tough to watch movies in 2020 and not project our frustrations and anxieties onto the screen. Maybe the extravagant wedding sequence in “The Godfather” suddenly felt garish compared to all of this year’s Zoom “I Dos.” Or maybe you put on “Elf” to pass some quarantine time, and the crowded mall scenes launched you into a cold sweat, because everyone is inside and no one is wearing a mask.When I watched the classic “A Christmas Story” recently for the 20th time (at least), my pandemic-weary brain zeroed in on something I’d never really noticed. I looked past the cute kids and the leg lamp and the famous tongue-stuck-on-the-pole scene, and became laser focused on the mom. One look at her disheveled hair and shabby robe and exasperated stare and I thought: This woman is a damn hero.“A Christmas Story,” which TBS has played on a loop every holiday season for over a decade, takes place in early 1940s Indiana, and follows a young boy named Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) who desperately wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, even though his mom (Melinda Dillon, referred to as “Mother” in the credits), says his dream gift is too dangerous. That’s pretty much the plot, but the director Bob Clark and the writer Jean Shepherd somehow created an oddball, timeless Christmas movie that manages to be both darkly comic and sweet. Every year I’ve watched this movie assuming Ralphie is the protagonist. Now I’m not so sure.Peter Billingsley in “A Christmas Story.”Credit…MGMWhen we meet Mother, she’s frazzled, serving food and wearing dowdy clothes that look like rags next to her husband’s comparatively haute couture suit. While The Old Man (Darren McGavin) reads the paper or grumbles about the faulty furnace, Mother cooks, cleans, wrestles the kids into their gigantic snow suits and frets about everyone’s well-being, even though no one frets about hers.Normally I wouldn’t find her plight so enthralling, but on this viewing, as soon as her husband and kids left for the day, I desperately wanted to know what this woman did with her alone time. She wasn’t juggling home school and work during a global crisis, so did she just keep on cleaning? Maybe she mixed herself a clandestine Tom Collins and took a bubble bath. Where were the scenes of her celebrating her freedom by dancing through an empty house, like Jill Clayburgh in “An Unmarried Woman”? Was I projecting?Something tells me she was not sipping cocktails and pirouetting from room to room.Instead, we see Mother serving up cabbage and meatloaf, which practically makes her a saint in my book. I’ve occasionally handed my toddler son Goldfish and some grapes for dinner over the past year (toddlers are picky!), so at least her uninspired meals are home cooked. We also see her washing Ralphie’s mouth out with a huge bar of red soap after he says “the queen mother of dirty words.” My son said his first curse word this year also, only he’s 3-years-old instead of 9 like Ralphie. Rather than stuffing soap in his mouth, I looked away to hide my laughter and to avoid giving the word any attention. Mother didn’t have the luxury of reading fancy books by child psychologists instructing her about what to do when kids curse. What she did have was a big bar of soap.Mother might not get treated like a superstar, but Dillon received top billing in “A Christmas Story.” She came to the film with a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” plus two Academy Award nominations, for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Absence of Malice.” Dillon started out as the first coat check girl at the improv theater The Second City in Chicago, but when her career quickly took off, she was overwhelmed by the prospect of fame. She turned her energy away from acting and toward marriage and kids. The role of real-life suburban mom quickly lost its allure, though.“I got buried alive,” Ms. Dillon said of her stay-at-home stint in a 1976 interview with The Times. She went back to work.Reading that, it’s hard not to imagine that Ms. Dillon brought some of those feelings to the role of a woman who, as Ralphie says early on in the movie, “hadn’t had a hot meal for herself in 15 years.”She’s not just a meatloaf baking pushover, though. Mother has mastered the art of outsmarting her husband. She uses stealth tactics to convince him not to turn on the hideous leg lamp he won in a contest, like suggesting he keep it off so they don’t waste electricity (this qualifies as a stealth tactic in my eyes). She later not-so-subtly asserts her authority by destroying the leg lamp in a fit of rage. I cheered her on with every off-camera smash. Deprived of hot meals and cooped up at home, she needs this.From left, Ian Petrella, Billingsley, Dillon and Darren McGavin.Credit…MGMAt the end of “A Christmas Story,” Ralphie and Randy tear open their many presents, and The Old Man opens a gift from Mother, a shiny blue bowling ball. As I watched her observe her husband and son’s delight around the Christmas tree, I noticed that she was holding something that could either be a gold spatula or a fly swatter. I hoped that whatever her gift was, it was not either of those things. Suddenly, on the umpteenth viewing of this movie, I needed to know if this woman, the saint of the film, got a Christmas present.Frantic Google searches combining “mother” “Christmas Story” “gift” and “spatula” yielded nothing, so I emailed A Christmas Story House & Museum in Cleveland, the site of the actual house from the movie, hoping for answers.“Who cares what the mom gets for Christmas,” replied the museum’s owner Brian Jones. Turns out he was joking, but still. “No one has ever asked me that in nearly two decades in the business,” he wrote.According to Jones, Mother is indeed holding a fly swatter. If she gets any presents, we never see them. Is her Christmas gift the fact that her husband and sons are all happy and fulfilled? Where is her reward for multitasking and keeping everyone fed and clothed and protected from blizzards, all while sacrificing her own time and energy to make yet another cabbage stew? They could have at least given her a card!From now on, when I watch the end of “A Christmas Story,” I won’t be focused on Ralphie’s BB gun or Old Man Parker’s bowling ball. I’ll be rooting for the mom, and imagining a deleted scene where she kicks up her feet, has that Tom Collins and gets a quiet moment all to herself.Dina Gachman is an Austin-based writer and the author of “Brokenomics.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      14 Largely Skeptical, Somewhat Unconventional Holiday Songs

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Playlist14 Largely Skeptical, Somewhat Unconventional Holiday SongsHear tracks by U.S. Girls, 100 gecs, Big Freedia and more.Meghan Remy of U.S. Girls sings about consumerism and the climate crisis on “Santa Stay Home.”Credit…Victor Llorente for The New York TimesJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Dec. 18, 2020Updated 4:41 p.m. ETEvery Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.U.S. Girls featuring Rich Morel, ‘Santa Stay Home’[embedded content]If you’ve been searching for a Christmas carol that addresses rampant consumerism, the climate crisis, and even the strange mass-tradition of cutting down oxygen-giving pine trees only to throw them in the trash after a few weeks — have U.S. Girls got a song for you! “With both poles melting and the seasons blending,” the frontwoman Meghan Remy sings, “hurry up, slow down.” What saves the song from being too grinchy, though, is its toe-tapping beat and catchy melody, carrying on the U.S. Girls tradition of writing sweet-sounding songs about bitter truths. LINDSAY ZOLADZTayla Parx, ‘Ain’t a Lonely Christmas Song’“Ain’t A Lonely Christmas Song,” a festive offering from the hit songwriter and frequent Ariana Grande collaborator Tayla Parx, begins with humorous anti-sentimentality and Parx crooning, “I’m used to being at the family function showing up with liquor and myself.” But this year is different: “Since you came along, this ain’t a lonely Christmas song,” she sings on the chorus, the whole arrangement suddenly becoming merry and bright. ZOLADZTony Trischka, ‘Christmas Cheer (This Weary Year)’The bluegrass banjo player Tony Trischka wrote “Christmas Cheer (This Weary Year)” years ago for a song cycle about the Civil War, with lyrics envisioning soldiers during a holiday cease-fire: “Let us still our guns and dry our tears, friends and foe alike.” This quarantine year gives new resonance to its chorus: “Christmas cheer this weary year, not like the last you know/Hopefully by the next we’ll be united with our families back home.” The guitarist Michael Daves sings the lead vocal accompanied by virtuosic picking, with a coda of elegant string-band counterpoint. JON PARELESSam Smith, ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’Sam Smith promises comfort, safety and happiness in “The Lighthouse Keeper,” a modern hymn that summons a cappella harmonies, a string section and subdued timpani. As Smith vows, “Don’t resist the rain and storm/I’ll never leave you lost at sea,” the cadence hints at “Good King Wenceslas”; perhaps that’s why they included the lines about “Hoping you’ll be home for Christmas time” for a song that offers far more than a seasonal visit. PARELESFinneas, ‘Another Year’Finneas’s Christmas song is decidedly secular: “I don’t believe that Jesus Christ was born to save me/That’s an awful lot of pressure for a baby,” he croons over cozy parlor-piano chords. Instead, it’s a seasonal love song, oddly tinged with uncertainty and pessimism; he proclaims his love, but adds, “I hope it lasts another year.” PARELESgirl in red, ‘Two Queens in a King Sized Bed’The holiday offering from Marie Ulven — who records as girl in red — sprinkles the dusty reverb of indie rock with enough saccharine chords to make you mindful it’s December without distracting from the song’s true purpose. That would be love, which she gently sings about with lyrics that merge the damp desperation of intense attraction with the wry lingo of holiday capitalism:I don’t have a lot to giveBut I would give you everythingAll my time is yours to spendLet me wrap you in with my skinJON CARAMANICAAlessia Cara, ‘Make It to Christmas (Stripped)’Alessia Cara released “Make It to Christmas” last year as a Phil Spector-style buildup, with drums kicking in for the chorus. Her “stripped” remake brings out the song’s underlying despair. She knows her romance is falling apart, but she just can’t bear the thought of being single during the holiday: “Don’t have me spending it alone/This time of year is precious,” she begs. The arrangement isn’t that stripped — she still has massed strings, chimes and choirlike backup vocals — but without the drums to propel her, hope fades. PARELESJulia Jacklin, ‘Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now’“Last Christmas at my auntie’s house, I tried so hard to make my uncle shut his mouth,” sings the wryly observant Australian singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin. But her holiday single “Baby Jesus Is Nobody’s Baby Now” is something much more affecting than a collection of Yuletide punch lines about family dysfunction: It’s a musical short story as vivid and specific as any on her excellent 2019 album “Crushing.” Out of materials as simple as a quietly strummed chord progression and her hushed but evocative voice, Jacklin weaves something as unique and haunting as a spider web. ZOLADZMandy Moore, ‘How Could This Be Christmas?’Slowly swaying, wistful and sweet, “How Could This Be Christmas?” is a vintage-style missing-someone-at-Christmas song. Written by Mandy Moore with her husband, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, and Mike Viola from the Candy Butchers, it has piano triplets for a 1950s feel, and a vocal leap up to the word “Christmas” that sounds daring and forlorn each time she makes it. PARELESVíctor Manuelle, ‘Ya Se Ven Las Bombillitas’“Ya Se Ven las Bombillitas” (“The Lights Can Already Be Seen”) is the latest single released from Victor Manuelle’s 2019 Christmas album, “Memorias de Navidad,” which was just nominated for a Grammy. In upbeat salsa, punctuated by horns and laced by runs on the guitar-like cuatro, Manuelle sings about maintaining traditions through generations: both Christmas decorations and the vintage salsa style he upholds. PARELESCorey Porche & Paul ‘Bird’ Edwards, ‘Papa Nwèl Ap Vini o Vilaj’[embedded content]The guitarist Chas Justus gathered top musicians from Louisiana bayou country to make “Joyeux Noël, Bon Chrismeusse,” an EP of Cajun and zydeco arrangements of familiar Christmas songs translated into Cajun and Louisiana Creole. “Papa Nwèl Ap Vini o Vilaj” turns “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” into a genial zydeco shuffle, with accordion tootling and rub board ratcheting away. PARELESBig Freedia featuring Flo Milli, ‘Better Be’Call it sitcom bounce music: Big Freedia takes a bawdy spin on gift receiving on this song from a new seasonal EP, “Big Freedia’s Smokin’ Santa Christmas,” joined by the tart-talking rapper Flo Milli. CARAMANICA100 gecs, ‘Sympathy 4 the Grinch’When your music sounds like a bunch of addled tweens’ playtime, making holiday music likely comes naturally. The chirpy kitchensinkcore maximalists 100 gecs’s seasonal entry, “Sympathy 4 the Grinch,” is all about what Santa failed to bring, and the price he must pay for that transgression. It is the highest compliment to say it sounds like a foulmouthed outtake from an Alvin & the Chipmunks Christmas album. CARAMANICAPup and Charly Bliss, ‘It’s Christmas and I ___ Miss You’This wickedly catchy, obscenity-laced collaboration from the indie-rock bands Charly Bliss and Pup certainly captures the feeling of late-2020 exasperation: The Charly Bliss frontwoman Eva Hendricks is “crying on the couch to ‘Elf’ alone,” while Pup’s Stefan Babcock suggests, “We should call it, because this whole year’s been [expletive] anyway.” The video, though, is unexpectedly poignant: Amid clips of the band members recording their parts of the song remotely is archival footage from tours gone by and taken for granted, in much less socially distanced times. It’s a stirring holiday ode to missing your bandmates, or maybe just your friends. ZOLADZAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Better Than Besties: Why Gay Holiday Films Matter

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyReporter’s NotebookBetter Than Besties: Why Gay Holiday Films MatterThis season’s movies with queer characters may be a largely chaste affair, but their comforting formulas also tell L.G.B.T.Q. viewers that they are seen.Heath (Juan Pablo Di Pace), left, and Wyatt (Peter Porte) get romantic in “Dashing in December,” on the Paramount Network. Credit…Paramount NetworkDec. 18, 2020, 12:59 p.m. ETI gasped so loudly, it sounded like Judy Garland had shown up at my Christmas party.It happened during “Dashing in December,” a new holiday film on the Paramount Network about two men who fall in love on a ranch. I involuntarily inhaled as Wyatt, a stuffy venture capitalist, locked lips with Heath, the sweetheart ranch hand. Watching it made me feel like Santa put me at the top of his nice list.I’m gay. I kiss men. Never at a ranch, once at a Denny’s. But there was something so surprisingly renegade about the movie’s smooch. Leading men just don’t kiss each other in the conservative fraternity of holiday TV movies.They do now. As I recently reported, this year there are six new holiday-themed films with gay and lesbian leading characters, including “Happiest Season” (Hulu), “The Christmas House” (Hallmark Channel) and “The Christmas Setup” (Lifetime). In this chaste genre, that’s a milestone.Nia Fairweather thinks so, too. She plays an Afro-Latina woman of fluid sexuality in the new indie “A New York Christmas Wedding,” now on Netflix.“There’s a list — a list — where there never was a list,” Fairweather said. “That lets us know this year has been different.”This change is significant for me, a holiday movie fan whose biggest gay Christmas memory is George Michael gazing lovingly at Andrew Ridgeley on the cover of the Wham! album “Last Christmas.” But as I reported the article, I wondered if I was overstating the arrival of a New Queer Christmas Cinema. Will we look back on horrible 2020 — as I think we will — as the year that finally gayed up Christmas movies?I called up holiday movie aficionados to ask: Is this a big deal?Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis in “Happiest Season” on Hulu.Credit…Hulu, via Associated Press“This is a big deal,” replied Joanna Wilson, the author of several books about Christmastime entertainment. “Queer people have been bosses and co-workers and siblings of the main characters. Being the central romance is very exciting and comes not a moment too soon.”Blake Lee, who stars with his husband, Ben Lewis, in “The Christmas Setup,” framed it as an answer to a chaotic 2020.“We are four years into a presidency that has attacked the L.G.B.T.Q. community and projected hate,” Lee said. “I feel like these writers with these stories were like, now’s the time.”What holiday films provide — nostalgia, predictable formulas and an escape from real-world adversities like Covid-19, bankruptcy, bigotry — can be especially comforting to queer people, said Michael Varrati, the screenwriter of several holiday films, including the new “Christmas With a Crown.”“Movie Christmas is a lot different than real Christmas,” Varrati said. “Not everybody has a great relationship with their family or has pristine memories of yesteryear.” In holiday movies, he added, queer people “get to live in the Christmas they always wanted or didn’t get to have.”Jake Helgren told me he wrote and directed “Dashing in December” as an Americana romance and a “love letter to the ending” he wanted in “Brokeback Mountain.” Lawrence Humphreys, the film’s production designer, said the set was a teary mess as he and other crew members, straight and gay, watched the leading men kiss.“We knew what we created was something beautiful,” said Humphreys, who has worked on several Christmas films. “It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever been a part of and the one I’m most proud of.”L.G.B.T.Q. holiday entertainment has roots in the days when the word “queer” landed with a punch to the face. Performers surreptitiously conveyed stereotypical gayness — through winks, camp, sass, frippery — that was evident to in-the-know audiences but sailed over others’ heads. Liberace’s television show featured a Christmas episode in 1954. Paul Lynde starred in “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” a 1977 ABC special. That same year, “All in the Family” ran groundbreaking Christmastime episodes about the murder of Edith Bunker’s friend Beverly LaSalle, who refers to herself as a transvestite. (She was played by Lori Shannon, the drag stage name of Don McLean.)L.G.B.T.Q. characters are now regulars on holiday-themed TV. But until this year, queer leads in holiday movies were few, relegated to low-budget indies like “Too Cool for Christmas” (2004), which was also released in a straight version, and “Make the Yuletide Gay” (2009). Supporting queer characters were mostly on the sidelines and white. That changed this year, as actors of color took on leading roles, including Fairweather, who is Afro-Caribbean, and Juan Pablo Di Pace, the Latino actor who plays Heath in “Dashing in December.” Transgender characters and actors are still rare, though.Ben Lewis, left, and Blake Lee in “The Christmas Setup” on Lifetime.Credit…Albert Camicioli/LifetimeSo is sex. Couples of all orientations rarely get heavier than a kiss in mainstream holiday fare. “Dashing in December” is a little more sexually adventurous, and by adventurous I mean a scene in which Wyatt, in just underwear, encounters a wet Heath in a towel. By the chaste standards of holiday rom-coms, “Dashing in December” is “Cruising.”And yet — it’s not. What you won’t see in these new films are activists, leathermen, butches or foul-mouthed drag queens. That’s not the Lifetime or Hallmark brand, so that’s no shock. But that’s what happens with assimilation. If gay people want straight people to believe our love deserves a holiday movie, don’t be surprised when straight people expect that movie to look like theirs.To counter the new gay sweetness, I binged renegade holiday movies about queer people who are raunchy, vulgar, camp, deranged. Or as BenDeLaCreme, the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star, put it: “the beautiful, bizarre things that queer people exposed themselves to when they had to search harder.” BenDeLaCreme is doing her part with a saucy new holiday special on Hulu with the “Drag Race” Season 5 winner Jinkx Monsoon.Whatever the opposite of “The Christmas House” is, I watched it. There was “Naked City: A Killer Christmas” (1998), a Peter Bogdanovich film that used the fear of an Andrew Cunanan-style gay serial killer in service of a lurid thriller. On Amazon, the ensemble dramedy “Some of My Best Friends Are …” (1971) was set on Christmas Eve at a bustling Greenwich Village gay bar, featuring moving performances from Rue McClanahan and Candy Darling. (This paper called it “a very sad gay movie.”)The value in these films — as grim and mirthless as they may seem — is that they paved the way for “Happiest Season.” They are historical benchmarks showing that L.G.B.T.Q. performers and creators made Christmas entertainment because — surprise! — they loved Christmas, despite the Scrooges who said they didn’t belong there.My binge ended with “Letters to Satan Claus,” a new horror satire on Syfy about a girl who misspells her letter to St. Nick and instead summons the Angel of Death. Featuring a same-sex subplot, a trans actor (Xavier Lopez) and a nonbinary Santa creature, it’s Christmas counterprogramming at its queerest.Yet Mike Zara, who wrote the film, seemed perfectly Hallmark as he talked about what inspired the story.“It’s about finding joy through tragedy and darkness,” he said. “That sounds corny, but I wanted to talk about all the scars we carry with us. We can embrace them but also not live in that darkness forever.”Sounds like a New Year’s resolution to me.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More