TV Review: Doctor Who “Joy to the World” 2024 Christmas Special is More about Loneliness than Just your Everyday Time Lord

Greig here, reporting for Stones of Erasmus! I’ve just caught the Doctor Who Christmas special, “Joy to the World,” now streaming on Disney+. Featuring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, and Nicola Couglan as the Doctor's newest companion, Joy—the episode delivers a heartfelt holiday romp that deftly balances time-warp shenanigans, cozy Yuletide feelings, and profound meditations on loneliness. Below is a spoiler-filled review, pieced together from my own viewing and reflections—as well as tidbits you’ll see mirrored in fan discussions online. Let’s hop into the TARDIS and go!

"Ham and cheese toastie and a pumpkin latte?" Yes. Please!
Image Credit: Disney+

Plot Summary: A Time Hotel and a Bomb-Star

Premise. Fresh off the heartbreak of losing Ruby Sunday in last season’s final episode (“Empire of Death”), the Doctor finds himself wandering solo once again. This time, though, his path leads him to a futuristic “Time Hotel,” where it’s Christmas every moment—simultaneously. Patrons pop in and out of doorways leading to any Christmas from any time or place, which makes for a whimsical, if slightly disorienting, holiday getaway.

Loneliness and Joy. The Doctor’s search for a companion is a well-trodden theme—think back to the Ninth Doctor meeting Rose Tyler at the start of the show’s 2005 revival. Eccleston's Doctor was a sad-sack sort of a guy. Or, even Matt Smith's Doctor, before he meets Amelia Pond. In “Joy to the World,” the Doctor’s latest potential friend is Joy, a hotel guest who reveals a painful past: she was unable to see her mother in her final hours during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of the special, Joy becomes entangled in the machinations of the Villengard Corporation, who have concocted a threat so preposterous only Doctor Who could pull it off—a bomb made from an incubating star, hidden inside a dinosaur.

Holiday Hijinks. The central comedic—and cosmic—conceit sees the Doctor sneaking through the Time Hotel’s ever-shifting corridors, inadvertently stumbling onto the Orient Express, engaging in Rube Goldberg–style escapades, and saving the day with a mixture of scientific know-how and plenty of empathy. Ultimately, the star that could have detonated as a cosmic bomb instead hearkens back to the Star of Bethlehem—tying together the show’s Christian allusions with the Doctor’s timeless message of hope.

Themes & Analysis: Solitude, Star of Bethlehem, and Home

Alone at Christmas. Tying in real-world statistics about those who spend Christmas alone, “Joy to the World” shines a light on the Doctor’s enduring isolation. The script cleverly parallels the Doctor’s solitary existence with Joy’s own journey: both are searching for connection, but they shy away from it out of hurt or regret. Watching them bond—when the Doctor reveals he spent a year waiting for a Time Hotel doorway to reopen—grounds this Christmas special in surprisingly raw emotion.

The Doctor on the Psychology of Hotel Rooms: 

I just spent a year in a hotel room that you chose. Do you know what you can tell about a person from the hotel room that they choose?. . . . So you see, a house, that's a . . . that's a disguise. It's a fortress. You can . . . you can hide yourself away with pictures and flowers and tables. But a hotel room? That's you without make-up. It's what you think you need. It's what you are willing to accept. Not a selfie that you posed for, more like catching yourself in the mirror. What's your mirror telling you . . . .?

Finding Home in a Hotel Room. One of the most poignant lines (which I reprinted above for convenience sake) addresses what it means to choose a particular hotel room as “home.” A house can mask who we are, but a hotel room is a quick choice that often reveals our unfiltered wants and emotional states. Joy’s reasons for picking a dull, almost drab room speak volumes about her sorrow—and the Doctor’s year-long stay there symbolizes how stepping into someone else’s space can illuminate both their pain and your own.

A Yuletide Miracle. The biblical references are more than window dressing. The Star of Bethlehem (and Saint Augustine’s idea that it was created as a miraculous sign) resonates with the show’s whimsical claim: perhaps each one of us has the capacity to “shine” like a star, or be guided by someone else’s light. This is typical Doctor Who: whether it’s a tyrannosaur swallowing a star-bomb or a grief-stricken companion longing for closure, the show always circles back to the miracle and fragility of being human.

Final Thoughts: A Whimsical, Welcoming Christmas Tale

While “Joy to the World” crams in a dizzying array of plot threads—part Victorian train chase, part apocalyptic star-bomb standoff—its real triumph is the Doctor’s renewed sense of empathy. Even if the pacing feels rushed at times, the episode’s emotional center holds firm: we see a lonely alien traveler and an ordinary human, both caught in cosmic chaos yet strangely united by the universal longing to not be alone during the holidays.

Where the story truly succeeds is in reminding us that each person’s inner life is worth exploring. Whether it’s a fleeting cameo on a train or a quiet conversation about grief, every encounter has the potential to transform. And what better day than Christmas—when so many people struggle with isolation—to give audiences an allegory about love, hope, and the star shining in each of us?

“Joy to the World” might not be the Doctor Who holiday special you were looking for (fact-checkers note that it’s helmed more by the Disney-peeps, and is not solely BBC property), but in the realm of imaginative Christmas adventures, it’s a cozy gem. And if you’ve found yourself alone this holiday, let the Doctor’s foray into the Time Hotel remind you: you’re okay, and connection is always a possibility—even in the strangest of places or the simplest of gestures.

Stray Observations

• The Doctor speaks in his usual timey-wimey, scientific manner in most episodes (think, "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow"), and in this episode, "mavity" is back, with the Doctor quipping something about rotational gravity. If you know, you know.
• Steven Moffat wrote "Joy to the World," and it shows—it's a smart move on Russell T. Davies's part. As showrunner, he isn't shy about including past writers while staying true to the show's vision. 
• I loved the nod to last season’s episode “Boom”—with ticking bombs, collateral damage, and the sentient consciousness heroes—Villengard's victims—(RIP Trev, and the Silurian). 
• I appreciated the nuanced portrayal of Anita Benn, the Sandrighman Hotel proprietor, played by Stephanie de Whalley. Her character's understanding of Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor resonates with the queer audience; in a poignant moment, she empathizes with the Doctor, noting that neither of them has a boyfriend. 
• Additionally, the woman the Doctor encounters reading Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express—Sylvia Trench, portrayed by Niamh Marie Smith—was revealed to be writing a letter to her girlfriend. I wished she had more screen time.

Happy holidays, fellow Whovians, and may your own hotel room—literal or metaphorical—feel a little less lonely this season.

—Greig,

Stones of Erasmus

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Book Review: The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts

Here lies a book review on the non-fiction tome The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts.
     I read the Gutenberg Elegies in 2006 back when books were still being read in print (har har). The statistics were grim for the written word, but new studies indicate that the written word may be back but will reading survive in the long run? The eReader phenomenon had not yet hit critical mass even a few years ago, but we had been facing a problem at the library: students were not coming into the library. But, hits on the library web site had increased. Students had stopped coming to the library and had instead started doing all their research on the internet; they were checking the library's catalog online, using databases online (an awesome tool, by the way).
Fast-Food Restaurant Library
     Students were not using the library to come and stay: we had become more of a fast-food restaurant: come and buy and go. I was working at the time with a colleague, B., and she was telling me how she predicted back in the 90s that book would eventually be replaced by flexible devices that would allow readers to peruse books as if they were "print." I laughed at the time, even though Sony had come out with eBook readers, and so had a few other companies - but these clunkers were expensive and not amenable to a large selection. So, I read Sven Birkert's book, which is a philosophical musing on reading, words, language, and the art of the medium. At the time I was very nostalgic for books - even though books had not yet left the party. I could not imagine a life without physical books: the smell, the binding. the print, the presence of an actual book. But, then, as time went on, and Google announced its Books service, Amazon announced its Kindle, and now Apple, the iPad, I have come to realize that it is not "books" per se that we should be championing but READING. 
     Will I read my child Where the Wild Things Are from an electronic device or from a book? Maybe both? What about WRITING. Or both: reading and writing. It is one thing to elegize on the loss of the book, but as Birkerts points out, it is a sadder thing to lament the loss of reading. Will the fast production of eBooks toss out reading? Probably not. Will blogs eliminate writing? Probably not? I think the divide is not necessarily due to books versus digital media, but rather, a divide between permanence and impermanence. Books represent permanence. Working in a library you come to know this especially when a patron comes in looking for a book he or she once read: they, panic-stricken, come to the circulation desk, "Where is the book I read twenty years ago?! It is not here. I remember it was right there," they say, pointing to a space in the library that is now reserved for computer terminals. Books are supposed to be permanent; they are supposed to be dogeared, yes, but they must persist; Sometimes people are not too happy to discover their book had been relegated to the basement, replaced by a PC - and some people even lament when their favorite book has donned a new cover art. The gods must be crazy. If the book is not to be found, a worker would have to be sent to request for the book at another location, have it sent by courier, and voilá here was the book, albeit a different jacket cover than they had remembered, but so what. Or better yet: let us say the book had been discarded?! If it had been tossed to the Friends of the Library book sale? What then? What if I had said, "Well, you can read the book on our eReader? Or you can print the entire book on a printer? Or, well, we have to inter-library loan that book from Fresno." The patron would have been unhappy. Maybe furious. We want our physical books like we want our web pages: now, and at this very moment. We want permanence but we want our permanent print like want our Safari to load: instantaneously. I am frustrated that people are so nostalgic for the superficial when they should rather be proactive for the right reasons. It is one thing to lament the loss of the physical book, but I find people are not putting their money where their hearts are. Is this an elegy for the book, or is it rather, an elegy for intellectual curiosity? What scares me more is not the loss of the physical book, but something deeper and scarier: the loss of critical thinking. If the book is only meant to be a fetish for nostalgia, then, it defeats the purpose. Books will be around for a while. Sure. As long as reading = pleasure. But, there will also be Kindles, etc., right alongside of them. What I worry about is access to new and interesting stories, information, words, language, pleasure. Will there be egalitarian places where people can read? Not everyone can afford a Kindle (and for that matter, not everyone can afford a book). Will libraries be places with free access to Google Books and usage of eBook readers? Google states once they open their databases of copyright and out of print in-copyright books by subscription, public libraries will be granted a terminal with free access. 
     What if I want to read the Chronicles of Narnia at home but cannot afford the twenty bucks? In America, access to reading is taken for granted. We forget that it is a mark of a democratic society that champions unmediated, free access to knowledge. Will there continue to be places where people can write out their thoughts (like here on Blogger, which infamously deletes blogs for no apparent reason). Will proprietary devices create an elite upper class? I think impermanence is what we are scared of. We are afraid the loss of the book is the loss of civilization as we know it. What scares me more than anything is the middle-class person who says: "I don't have time to read" when there are people who really cannot afford to read. That scares me more than, "I want an iPad." Or, when I give students a list of books to read, and one of them says, "None of these stories interests me." But, then again, what am I hoping for? Have things really changed? Are people reading less in 2010 as they did in 1956? As they did in 1888? Actually, people are reading more, just not in print. But, the strange paradox is the advent of choice: I am sure today there are so many options to choose from when it comes to reading: just look at the number of books published every year; the number of news blogs, websites, etc. But, is every class of society given the opportunity to read? Who are the people reading more? The next thing to gage is writing. Are Americans writing more? Now, it may come back to permanence and impermanence. Is it the loss of something we are afraid of? If it is, what is that something? That's what I want to know. I will not sing an elegy for the book, but I may begin to sing an elegy for thought. If we are reading more, what are we reading, and if we are writing more, what are we writing. 
Start Memorizing a Book Like the Book People in Fahrenheit 451
     Should I do a Fahrenheit 451 and start memorizing my favorite book or should I go out and buy an iPad? Maybe, I should do both. But, what I think should be done is this: people need to ensure that reading is always made available to everyone in society. Budgets for information centers, books in braille, one book one city programs, writing workshops, poetry circles, lending libraries, etc., should not be cut. I lived in a posh city where citizens voted to not approve the library budget? What were they thinking? People said they just buy their books. They don't need a library. As we speed into the information age, we cannot make the mistake of denying reading to the masses just because books are like an iTunes song: 99 cents.

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Paul Reubens as Pee-Wee Herman: A Journey of Unapologetic Joy and Playfulness

Explore the joyful world of Pee-Wee Herman, brought to life by the legendary Paul Reubens. A nostalgic journey of unapologetic playfulness and iconic laughter.

Paul Reubens plays "Pee-Wee Herman" in Tim Burton's iconic 1985 film.

When I was a child, waking up early on Saturdays meant one thing: watching Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Little did I know that my love for this whimsical character, portrayed by the legendary Paul Reubens, would become a defining aspect of my childhood and leave an everlasting mark on my life.

At first, my parents might have thought my fascination with Pee-Wee was just a typical childhood obsession with colorful and silly television shows. After all, Pee-Wee's Playhouse was a delightful series featuring anthropomorphic household items like talking sofas and a witty globe. What could be more harmless?

However, my family's concerns started when I began to imitate Pee-Wee incessantly. I talked like him, walked like him, and found myself endlessly inspired by his exuberant personality: "La-la-la-la-la."  At times, I even found myself quoting his iconic lines, such as the famous exclamation about not messing with someone's dots. And I would say stuff like, "Knock! Knock! Who's there?" and "I know you are, but what am I?" I had fully embraced Pee-Wee's persona and couldn't help but express it, even in public places like the Piggly-Wiggly during grocery shopping trips.

While my mother, father, and older brother were not entirely pleased (and my younger brother just shrugged his shoulders) with my Pee-Wee imitations outside the comfort of our home, I felt a connection with the character that went beyond surface-level entertainment. Pee-Wee represented something deeper to me - a sense of jouissance, wild abandon, and the desire to be extraordinary and unapologetically unique.

When Pee-Wee's Big Adventure hit the big screens, I was six years old and already in my element, loving to show off and talk endlessly about my favorite things. Interestingly, my other passion at the time was listening to Christian singer Sandy Patti, which might have seemed like an odd combination for a young child. Nevertheless, my love for Pee-Wee and Sandy Patti knew no bounds.

The movie itself was a dream come true. I adored the Rube Goldberg contraption that prepared a simple bowl of cereal and fed the dog in the opening scene. And of course, who could forget Pee-Wee's beloved bike? I yearned for a life like his, filled with color, joy, and a happy home.

Looking back on those memories now, I realize that Pee-Wee was more than just a character to me. He represented a fantasy, a glimpse into an intriguing and liberating life. In my young mind, Pee-Wee embodied the essence of what I thought a happy and carefree life might look like - a single man, riding his bike, surrounded by a vibrant and accepting community. But most importantly, he cherished what mattered most to him - his beloved bike.

As the news of Paul Reubens' passing on July 30th, 2023, reached the world, I couldn't help but feel a profound sense of gratitude for the joy he brought to countless lives, including mine. The iconic laugh that resonated with so many of us will forever remain etched in our hearts.

Pee-Wee's Laugh: Which I Imitated Incessantly Until My Parents Forbade Me to Laugh Like Him. 

So here's to you, Mr. Reubens. Thank you for sharing the gift of Pee-Wee Herman with the world. Your unapologetic embrace of joy and playfulness touched the lives of many, including a little boy who found solace and happiness in your exuberant character. Heh heh heh!

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Stones of Erasmus Television Review — Doctor Who: Flux, "Village of the Angels"

In this post, I write about the fourth episode of Doctor Who: Flux, "Village of the Angels," that aired on BBC America tonight.

Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!

I suppose you are a fan of the Doctor? Right? The Doctor is amazing! One of the best shows in the history of television! In any case, you might have noticed that when the Doctor is in a pickle — such as in tonight's episode, "Village of the Angels," — they can get out of anything. Shouts a few lines about reversing the energy of something or other —  as the following fantastic supercut from DoctorGeek illustrates:

How do you sum up the British Sci-Fi television series Doctor Who in a few sentences? 

The Doctor is a Time-Traveling Alien

The Doctor is an alien time-traveler who travels in a broken time machine that has been begrudgingly stuck in the shape of a British police box. The Doctor almost always has an earthling companion, and he (or she) has a penchant for the human beings of planet earth. The show is at its heart a story about saving the heart of humanity — seen through the perspective of someone who is not us — but who is madly in love with us, silly, stupid, harmful humans. In tonight's episode, part four of a Dr. Who mini-series entitled The Flux, the Doctor meets a devastating bind; by saving the life of a human, she falls into a trap. And viewers were left on the edge of their seats with quite a crazy twist.

Jodi Whitaker's Doctor Finds out More About Her Past — At a Cost

The Doctor is about to find out more about her past — more about the past that even pre-dates the narrative history of the show itself, the past the Doctor lived before they were our Doctor! The show has toyed with this idea for a dozen episodes so far, with the big reveal in Season Thirteen that the Doctor is not indigenous to the race of the Time Lord — the race they thought they were — but a "Timeless Child," whose regeneration properties the Time Lords retrofitted to their own purposes. 

And much of the Doctor's deep past on Gallifrey was wiped out from their mind — and what we know of the Doctor, as television viewers might be just a glimpse of a cosmic history of a character who already seems larger than life — so I have to say I am excited for the next two episodes of the show.

Can the Doctor Escape the Weeping Angels and the Division?

Will The Doctor be able to get out of this pickle? How will her friends get out of their pickle? Last season ended with the Doctor imprisoned by the Judoon and Jack Harkness came to the rescue — but I am not so sure the Doctor is going to escape Weeping Angels so easily. And then there is the Division. Who are they? And how much will they reveal about the Doctor's past? 

Are you a fan? 

Let me know your thoughts on tonight's episode in the comments.

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Short Film Review: Reckless (2013)

The Short Film "Reckless" - 2013 (22 minutes, in Norwegian with English subtitles)

The 2013 Norwegian short film "Reckless" is the work of director Bjørn Erik Pihlmann Sørensen and writer Einar Sverdrup. I saw the film in 2013 and passed it off as a public service announcement about the need to rein in irresponsible teenagers. But as you will notice as I write about the movie, my views have changed a bit since I last saw it. To give you a brief rundown, the movie is about a teenage girl who has to babysit her younger child-age brother - and through a series of related events tragedy strikes. I thought maybe the movie was funded by parents who want their adolescent-aged kids to take better care of their siblings. However, I recently watched it again and the short made me think more about what message it is trying to convey. I haven't read much about the movie online nor have I talked to anyone else I know who has seen it. I am going to take a critical plunge and articulate in a flat-footed way what I think the movie might be suggesting about adolescence, sexuality, and responsibility. It's also a movie about the absence of authority.

Review of Frederick Wiseman's "High School" (1969) and Jean-François Caissy's La Marche à Suivre (2014)

I am a teacher, so I am familiar with the strained relationship students sometimes have with authority. And most teachers - especially the best ones - are in tune with this tension between youth and adult, between power, and submission, obedience, and freedom. However, taking a psychological view, High School is also an exciting time where teenagers are becoming self-reflective, and the adults in the room have a front row seat to their pupils' on-going development. I use the word becoming on purpose. Adolescence is a messy progress.

La Marche à Suivre (2014)

High School (1969)

Book Review: Absolute Brightness by James Lecesne

Absolute Brightness is a young adult novel.  

Absolute Brightness
by James Lecesne

Paperback, 352 pages

Published May 31st, 2016 by Feiwel & Friend
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I am reviewing the gay YA novel, Absolute Brightness by James Lecesne.

The Amazing Life of Leonard Pelkey
In the late 90s, James Lecesne raised awareness about gay teen suicide. He wrote a novella that was adapted into a short film about a precocious boy who feels rejected by his family and attempts suicide - only to be rattled back to his senses by a cute candy striper at the hospital. This was back in 1998. Trevor lives. Almost as a counterpoint, in Absolute Brightness (2016),* James Lecesne tells the story of a teenager, Leonard Pelkey, who is murdered in Neptune, New Jersey. 

Leonard is characterized as a nice, talkative fourteen-year-old boy. When he first arrives at his aunt's house - to move in - he is met with derision by his cousin, Phoebe, who is also the narrator of the story. Leonard seems oblivious to the fact that Phoebe does not take to lightly to his fashion decisions - pink and lime-green capri pants and a "too small T-shirt." However, for Phoebe, Leonard was "way too different." And it is this aversion to difference that Lecesne grapples with in this book.

Leonard has all the Packaging of a Gay Stereotype
While he is never outright labeled as gay, Leonard carries all the packaging of the gay male effeminate stereotype. He is characterized, in the novel, like Dorothy - "more the type to be heading toward a place like Oz, as in The Wizard of." He never gets there. And the novel turns directions.

A Monster Calls (2016) - Movie Review

A boy learns to face his fears (© Focus Features)

Wanna see a movie that gives us a twenty-first-century version of a Grimm's fairy tale?

In the book Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim lays out a psychological argument that fairy tales are useful in helping young children understand adult fears. Fairy tales are couched in childlike verse, but beneath the surface lies deeper, troubling psychological truths.

For example, why is every stepmother in fairy tales evil? Well, according to Bettelheim it is because it is all about the fear children have that our parents don't love us. But. This is too much to bear for the children, so the storyteller replaces this fear with a substitute - the stepmother.

In J.A. Bayona's fantasy flick, A Monster Calls, the logic works similarly. However, the metaphor is not as thickly veiled. There are no evil stepmothers; but, there is a strident grandmother (Sigourney Weaver).

The story, based on a novel of the same name by Patrick Ness, centers on a young boy named Conor (played sensitively by Louis MacDougall), a waifish boy attuned to the visual arts but prone to being bullied at school. He is dealing with the impending tragedy of his mother's death. 

While his family seemingly falls apart all around him, Conor falls deeper and deeper into a sullen depression. In one scene, he destroys his grandmother's sitting room, tearing the furniture apart. The boy is distraught and anger is an easy anodyne.

In order to help Conor deal with the reality of his grief, every night around midnight an anthropomorphic yew tree monster voiced by Liam Neeson) uproots itself from a nearby cemetery to dole out three fairy tales to the lad. The tales - à la Bettelheim - are meant to help the young boy deal with the very real fear of his mother's death.

That's all fine and dandy. There are lots of films and books that help children deal with the reality of death - take My Girl and Bridge to Terabithia as potent examples.

A Monster Calls is a little different because the plots rend open a deeper and more destructive fear. The inevitable death of Conor's mother also triggers within Conor a kind of death drive. The yew tree monster's stories are meant to help the boy realize his own wish to die and to counteract this drive with a life-giving "yes" living.

So it's intense material. I won't go into the content of the tales - but suffice it to say the film's visuals are stunning and I think the movie succeeds in driving home its central psychological thesis.

I am not one to censor films; however, I would caution against viewing this film with young children. I think the deeper themes of destruction and not-so-subtle hints about suicidal ideation should give parents pause. However, if parents know the content of the film deals with these themes, it could prove to be an enriching experience for both child and adult.

If Bettelheim is right, then fairy tales are meant to ease the more horrific facts of life - death, murder, suicide, decay, entropy, and estimated taxes - and, thus; films just may be our twenty-first-century version of sixteenth-century Grimm's fairy tales.

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A Monster Calls (2016)

Focus Features

Directed by J.A. Bayonna

Starring Sigourney Weaver, Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones, and Lewis McaDougall

Written by Patrick Ness (Screenplay) and based on his book.

Theater of the Absurd Charlie Rose Style

Charlie Rose supercut

In 2013 I saw this video at an exhibition on supercuts at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens — adjacent to the old style Astoria film studios where Law and Order and Sesame Street have been brought to life.
Anyway. A supercut is a kind of new media -- someone gets an idea like "What if I cut out everything in news media clippings of Donald Trump speaking except for when he utters "China"? You get the idea. Or a supercut of just blah blah blahs from across cinematic history. I posted that one on this blog. I must be obsessed with supercuts. I have wanted to create my own but never had the tenacity nor have I yet lighted upon a good idea.

This supercut from the Charlie Rose show was imagined as "if written by Samuel Beckett." By just paring down an episode on technology to a few buzzwords and phrases the creator has managed to create a nonsensical interview with Charlie Rose and himself. Here it is.

True story: I now utter "Google" nonsensically in public places. Thank you very much.

"Charlie Rose" by Samuel Beckett from Andrew Filippone Jr. on Vimeo.

Media Credit: Andrew Filippone, Jr.

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Movie Review: A Taste of Honey (1961)

Jo (Rita Tushingham) in A Taste of Honey (1961)

I've always been a sucker for kitchen sink drama. Maybe I was first smitten by Streetcar Named Desire, the Louisiana-Southern version of the genre — and I have always had a penchant for working-class stories.
Fantastic! It's both queer and interracial!
Director Tony Richardson's A Taste for Honey (1961) is a fantastic! addition to the tradition — it boasts both a gay character (Oh My!) and interracial romance (Oh Gee!). And I am pretty sure the Smith's song "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" shares an aesthetic family resemblance. The plot offers nothing new in terms of what we're used to seeing on the big screen, and maybe I have seen enough movies from the 1960s to think that A Taste For Honey does not capture my attention because of its capacity to take on controversial topics. Charles Silver likened the protagonist Jo to Antoine Doinel from Truffaut's auteurist masterpiece. And while I did see the film first in Silver's Auteurist History of Film exhibition at MoMA (full disclosure), I tend to agree with this assessment. Tony Richardson's adaptation of Shelagh Delaney's play takes full advantage of Jo's (Rita Tushingham) soulful eyes beaten down by the soft ideology of work (which is why I say the song resembles the Smith's song). Could she have been a poet? The movie ends on an ambiguous note. Jo, replete with child, welcomes in her ousted mother Helen (Dora Bryan) inadvertently saying goodbye to Geoffrey (Murray Melvin), the titular gay boy. The ending shot of the little boy giving Jo the sparkler is touching, and I wondered at the movie's close if Geoffrey would return to be a gay uncle or if Jimmy (Paul Danquah) would ever show up again.

Mother Daughter Sister Lover

The movie leaves us with the question of Helen and Jo's fate. The mother and daughter pair share a strained intimacy, and we're left to wonder what it would be like if Jo had been able to move on without her. In an earlier scene, Helen bathes in the tub and tells her daughter she is now a married woman (which we suspect is probably her sixteenth proposal). The scene shows the relationship between the two women, while comfortable standing in the bathroom while her mother bathes (a form of intimacy), it is apparent that Helen will never be able to give the maternal care that Jo deserves. And when Jo becomes pregnant, and her mother has run off to live with her new husband Peter (a drunk), Jo cobbles together her own version of family with Geoffrey and fantasizes about her "dark prince" Jimmy. I liked the movie's careful way of showing us Jo with Jimmy, her first love, then Jo rebuffed by Helen, and then Jo thinking that she might be able to build something authentic with Geoffrey. It becomes clear that the Jo and Geoffrey story was a substitute for something else. For Jo, it was a desire to be cared for, and maybe for Geoffrey, it was a need to be accepted. He was kicked out of his own apartment for sleeping with a man (was it rent controlled?) and when he moves in with Jo, he quickly takes on the role of the mother figure, even obtaining a fake baby to help Jo learn the rudimentary skills of motherhood. It's not surprising Jo throws the baby to the ground, and while we can probably guess the source of Jo's anger, we also realize (and maybe she does too) that motherhood will be foisted upon her no matter if she wants it or not and this pattern has had a long history, not only with her mother but a powerful narrative that tells women that motherhood is natural and should be accepted. Helen is loathe to tell Jo of her biological father, except that they share the same eyes, and he was a simple man. This codes for Jo that her father was a half-wit, and her mother, even though she may have loved her father for an afternoon, the relationship did not sustain a family.

End of Innocence

The movie is bookended with images of childhood innocence, the first with Jo playing sport on the school playground, and the soundtrack of children singing "The big ship sails on the alley, alley, oh!" The movie ends with the same song, and we are lighted upon Jo's face one last time. Jo throughout the movie vacillates between child and scared adult. Rita Tushingham plays Jo with zest and innocence — for example: in an earlier scene where she pantomimes her teacher, and remarkably scared and curious when she feels her baby kick inside of her belly (and remember, this movie was made long before Ellen Page and Jennifer Garner had their moment in Juno). If Charles Silver is right, we can compare the two endings. In the Truffaut film, Antoine is captured in a still shot on the beach which I still think is the most affective ending in cinematic history. We know Antoine's story because Truffaut regales us with many more sequels to follow. For Jo, we are left to imagine her story. And this I think is satisfactory.

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IMDb link: A Taste of Honey

Dir: Tony Richardson

1961

Greig's Best Movies of 2013

To add to the glut of "best of" 2013 lists compiled this time of year, here's my authoritative round-up (not!) of the best movies. In my humble opinion.

1.) Blue Jasmine
Cate Blanchett is tragically diaphanous in Woody Allen's newest cinematic addition.

2.) The Bling Ring
Sofia Copola shows us the beauty of the Los Angeles hills and a vicarious glimpse into the celebrity rich through the lens of the children who rob them.

3.) Mud
You may remember Tye Sheridan in The Tree of Life. He gets his chance to shine in this coming of age tale set in Louisiana.

4.) Lore
A Nazi family try to escape capture at the end of World War II in this drama directed by Cate Shortland.

5.) West of Memphis
Damien Echols, one of the falsely accused "West Memphis Three," gets his chance to tell his story in this revealing documentary directed by Amy Berg.

6.) Gravity
I spent more time looking at the spiraling Earth than the actors, but this movie is cosmic and terrifying.

7.) Her
Spike Jonze is one of my favorite directors. Her adds to my admiration. I've been waiting for a movie about computer love for a long time. It's finally here.

8.) The Spectacular Now
This understated movie ends differently than the novel it's based on, but I thought the two young actors were superb in their vulnerability.

9.) Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
Sam Fleischner allows us to follow a young autistic boy who runs away from his home in Far Rockaway to travel the New York City subway alone right before Hurricane Sandy crashes on shore.

10.) Prisoners

Two girls go missing and the result is an irrational rupture of both desperation to find the truth (Jake Gyllenhaal's performance of a local detective) and insane vigilante justice (Hugh Jackman, who plays the father of one of the missing girls).

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Greig's Best Books Read in 2013

Taking my cue from Stephen King in the “Best of” issue of Entertainment Weekly and my High School librarian Margot Polley who every year lists her favorite books, I do the same for my favorite books read in 2013. Note I do not list books necessarily published in 2013, but books I read. This year I read a little bit of everything, so instead of listing books by categories, I decided to just list six memorable books that I thought were awesome. My criteria for selection was whether or not the book was fun to read. If you want to make your own list, go ahead. So here goes …

1. Big Brother by Lionel Shriver

The best novel I read this year. Shriver delivers in her latest diatribe-cum-novel on the healthy eating craze. Pandora Halfdanarson's brother Edison comes to live with her and he's 336 pounds -- a shock to the sister and her nuclear family. The novel glitters with cute tidbits like jabs on healthy eating -- none of the meals Pandora's health crazed husband cooks up are appealing. I love Shriver's nice touches like Pandora's line of talking dolls she sells online that say mean things for people you love. It's standard Shriver replete with an impressive vocabulary and insight into sibling relationships. 

2. Truffaut/Hitchcock by François Truffaut (an interview with Alfred Hitchcock)

The best cinema book I read. Two venerable directors talk about cinema in this classic interview conducted by the French New Wave director Truffaut and stringent auteur Hitchcock. Less on biography and more on form and execution, this book is a fascinating read for cinephiles. I personally love both Truffaut and Hitchcock and I came away with the conclusion that Truffaut makes moves born from his exacting emotional intuition and Hitchcock is the total opposite. Truffaut quizzes Hitchcock on each and every film he ever made and the result is a trip through film history and a rare chance to experience two great movie masters talk shop.  

3. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

The grossest book I ever read. I will never think about digestion the same ever again. I hear Mary Roach is famous for writing about taboo subjects like cadavers and stuff, and so I wanted to read her. Do you know why a dog throws up his food? He enjoyed the meal. Did you know that food, as it goes from your mouth to your stomach, is called a bolus? The book is chock full of AMAZING facts about eating and everything that goes with, from the mouth to the rectum. Mary Roach is funny and informative and she has the most clever footnotes ever contrived by an author. The book is not a list of facts about the digestive system. It's more of a series of encounters with scientists who are trying to innovate on everything from saliva to taste buds. 

4. Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt

The best philosophy book I read this year was written by a journalist. Holt asks everyone who will listen the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" This simple question is actually a doozy. Why does the universe exist at all? The universe could just as easily never have existed. I remember in College my Metaphysics professor spent weeks discussing it and I got a dose of it in reading Heidegger. This book does not require philosophical expertise and I think it is a good way to get into philosophy. 

5. The End of Alice by A.M. Homes

Every year I gobble up books written by the same author and this year the winner was A.M. Homes. The End of Alice is about Chappy, a murderer pedophile in Sing Sing who has an epistolary romance with an unnamed teenage girl who is obsessed with a young boy (who likes to collect his scabs and eat 'em). The novel reminds me of Joyce Carol Oates's fictional Dahmeresque novel Zombie. Homes wrote a postscript to the novel called Appendix A: An Elaboration on the Novel The End of Alice that I have yet to read.

6. The Last Pictures by Trevor Paglen

There is a certain class of artificial satellites flung into Earth's orbit that is far enough away to stay within Earth's gravitational field but will never either fall back to earth or drift off into interstellar space. They are, say, stuck. Paglen conceived and implemented a way to preserve human memory indefinitely, even after we are all gone. Attaching a small silicon disk etched with curated black and white photographs, Paglen aims to eternally archive humanity's sojourn on the blue planet. The idea is inspired by NASA's "Golden Record" project for the Voyager spacecraft, but less humanistic. The idea is that even after humans are extinct there will still be these "last pictures," a small testament to our shenanigans. Most of the photographs, like a bunch of wasps affixed with what looks like a jet pack, are only meaningful once you read the liner notes, but I like how Paglen tries to capture us in our foibles and shortcomings.

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