We Don’t Deserve Enola Holmes
By: Eric Pierce
Tags: Movies, Television, Gaming, Culture, Film

Our favorite stories from the past few weeks

This is our inaugural newsletter, which is a fancy way of saying we don’t really know what we’re doing yet. Expect the format and frequency to evolve, but in general, each newsletter will highlight recent stories we especially enjoyed.

Because I like to bring order to chaos, I’ve divided this up into three sections: Reviews, For Thought, and For Fun. The titles are (hopefully) explanation enough.

The wealth of quality content published through FanFare in the past month made this a super difficult exercise. I opened a tab for each story I wanted to include, and at one point had nearly 30 tabs open. Literally all the tabs. My CPU fan wouldn’t stop whining (it’s a big baby).

Reviews

I really really enjoyed Enola Holmes. Fresh and fun, it is easily one of the best movies I’ve seen in recent memory (am I the only one struggling to find decent films in the past year?). If you need more convincing, Joshua Beck wrote a wonderful review.

The Devil All the Time is a relentlessly bleak film, which in 2020 is a hard pass for me. But don’t let that stop you from reading the beautiful review Rob Gonsalves wrote (his retrospective on Goodfellas was also great).

The reception to Mulan has been lukewarm at best. Suffice it to say, I’m glad I decided to wait til its free on Disney+. If you’re on the fence, Felix Quiñonez Jr.’s review can help you decide.

Charles Arthur breaks down Apple TV’s Ted Lasso, and finally gives me a reason to dust-off my free year of service.

Dr. Thomas J. West III shines light into a nerdy corner I’d shamefully been unaware of as he reviewed the Netflix fantasy series Disenchantment.

Representation matters. Yaseen Al-Sheikh talks about the struggle of being Muslim in America and the joy of finally seeing himself represented as something other than a terrorist in What Ramy Means to Me.

Everyone was talking about the Cuties controversy; in her review, Christina Dalcher contends the issue is not the film — it’s real life.

For Thought

Eric Pierce reconsidered The Dark Knight and was struck by how familiar the Joker’s chaotic mentality seemed. Turns out The Joker was a Modern Republican.

In Why America Needs To Find Bedford Falls, Drew Sparkman uses the classic Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life to suggest that it is up to everyday Americans to pull us out of our current quagmire.

The Boys has long been on my to-watch list, but Rod T. Faulkner has given me something to consider if I delve into the series, in his moving and personal story about the destruction of black bodies.

Weighing in on the controversy that resurfaces every time a favorite creator is exposed as a bigot, Kayt Ludi asks Can We Cancel People but Keep Their Work?

The Luna argued (convincingly, I might add), that the film Her is less about a man falling in love with his phone, and more about rampant misogyny.

As she always does, Clare Healy goes deep into the meanings and origins of words we casually throw around, and unearths some truths as she breaks down The Many Meanings of Mickey Mouse.

For Fun

Look, I’ve probably seen the Lord of the Rings films at least 30 times (and most of those views were of the extended editions). So I’ve done my time in Middle Earth. And I’ve never once considered who has the best hair. Tessa Andrews brings her trademark wit to answering that question (for more fun, check out her other takes on the films).

Proving the maxim that you can either laugh or cry, Kevin Tash provided 5 presidental parodies better than our present administration.

Eric Pierce answers the question literally nobody was asking: who is the best Star Wars wingman (as in, the kind that helps you get a date).