That is not a good sweater

Last week, Meg Ryan posted a photo of herself with Billy Crystal on Instagram. They were both wearing sweaters—hers a tasteful black number, his a white Aran—and seated on a loveseat. The photo teased that they were “reuniting for something iconic,” a nod to their main collaboration, Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron’s 1989 rom-com masterpiece When Harry Met Sally.

What the reunion entailed remained a mystery until Wednesday, but for someone who’s worked in media for over a decade, the timing was absolutely suspect. To follow a rule of thumb that feels true, even if there isn’t a name for it: If an outlandish product is announced within the last two weeks of March, it’s probably a shitty corporate-themed April Fools’ Day prank. And if a celebrity is teasing the announcement of a new project or reunion with their co-star from a much-beloved show or movie in late January, nine times out of 10, it’s a shitty Super Bowl commercial.

And lo and behold, for Crystal and Ryan, it held. Or rather, it Held-mann’d. (I’ll walk myself out.)

This ad has everything: A New York City staple¹ ; delicious-looking pastrami; a recreation of an iconic scene that pales in comparison; a potential case of deli-themed sacrilege² ; and little of the warmth, joy, and humor of the scene’s original context. Thanks to the power of nostalgia, the tête-à-tête turned very public fake orgasm display is now also about mayonnaise. And instead of an older woman played by Reiner’s mother Estelle telling the server, “I’ll have what she’s having,” it’s Sydney Sweeney, who starred in Anyone But You, the 2023 rom-com/Much Ado About Nothing Modern AU that made a buttload of money at the box office.

The ad will probably get some chuckles from people watching Super Bowl LIX for the Eagles (Go Birds!) and Chiefs, the commercials, Kendrick Lamar's performance, or some combination of the three before being almost entirely forgotten by the end of the week. It’s strange enough to be old enough that I’m the primary target audience for the entertainment industry’s Nostalgia Industrial Complex. And I don’t like it, especially in an ad I didn’t find funny at all.

But I want to focus, for a second, on Crystal’s Aran. Harry Burns never actually wears a white cable-knit sweater to Katz’s, lest he gets mustard on it from his pastrami on rye (and that scene becomes entirely too powerful). He saves the Aran for home while donning a grayish-blue and brown geometric number to Katz’s that feels very ‘80s without overpowering Ryan.

Longtime Knit(ting) Flicks subscribers might remember that Harry’s white Aran was this newsletter’s very first selection for Knitwear of the Week back in 2022. It’s chunky, it looks luscious—no matter what material the yarn is made of—and it seems like it would actually keep its wearer warm; you can really grip those cables. Unfortunately, according to Crystal, the original sweater was lost to the bastions of time and/or UCLA’s theater department. But sweaters off the rack don’t look like that anymore, so people will tell you when your knit doesn’t compare to the magic costume designer Gloria Gresham pulled off.

It’s what happened to Crystal when he “recreated” Harry’s cable-adorned crouch for his 75th birthday in 2023 and when actor Ben Schwartz paid homage to it in a Time Out New York photoshoot. Schwartz even invited the comparisons when he posted a photo from that profile right next to Crystal’s Harry.

“The quality of sweaters has declined so greatly in the last twenty years that I think it genuinely necessitates a national conversation,” the comedian Ellory Smith tweeted³ at the time.

It’s no secret that sweater quality has declined in recent years—enough so that even Schwartz’s sweater, which The Atlantic estimated to have cost around $400, can still look cheap. Between fast fashion and cost-cutting measures like the use of synthetic fabric and textiles, lower wages and worsening conditions, and trade regulations, most of today’s sweaters just won’t cut it; even the pricier ones on the market are made with cheap materials, not designed to last. Quality doesn’t come cheap, especially if you want to say “Fuck it” and knit yourself a chunky, wooly sweater.

Crystal’s updated take on the Harry Burns sweater in Hellmann’s Super Bowl ad, which appears to be the same sweater from his birthday post, likely cost a pretty penny. But it doesn’t matter because it still pales to the original. The white Aran is meant to invoke the film’s most famous knit in a movie chock full of them, but it looks so lifeless in comparison. Sure, there are honeycomb cables that attempt to give it shape, but they’re flat.

Super Bowl ad slots are going for as much as $8 million this year, and I can only guess how much Ryan and Crystal were paid to appear in the ad. But it’s the lesson that corporate entities will never learn: If you’re gonna pay homage to a stone-cold classic by more or less remaking it, you better make sure it measures up. Or people will tear it to shreds.

And yes, that includes the damn sweater.

Some life updates and a new home

Hello there! It’s, uh, certainly been a while! I didn’t exactly mean to take a six-month break from this newsletter. But as they say, life got in the way.

I did some freelancing and applied to hundreds of jobs to no avail (seriously, wtf is up with this job market?!) and am burned out to hell. I packed up my entire life and moved to another borough. I traveled to California to meet my partner’s family and to New Jersey to introduce him to mine. I ate so many latkes while celebrating my first proper Hanukkah. I watched some of the best things that came out this year—and some of the worst. I saw some Great Movie Sweaters. I assembled several pieces of furniture with my bare hands. I also made two cowls, two pairs of fingerless gloves, and a shawl in the span of 10 weeks, which fucked up my wrists for a while. I frogged⁴ a project for the first time, which was doing nothing but frustrating me for months on end, and I have yet to cast on another.

Oh, and I moved my newsletter to a new platform. That’s a new one!

Honestly, I’ve been contemplating taking Knit(ting) Flicks off of Substack for a while. One of the main reasons I didn’t until now was that it involved a lot of work to transfer everything over and correct all of the backlinks, and I was already exhausted from my main job of job hunting. (I also would eventually like to turn on the paid tier for this newsletter, and while I can’t control a lot of the shitty things going on in the world right now, I can control what I support and who gets what money I have by toggling that option; you can easily find why that’s the case.) From what I can tell, all of my posts and my subscriber list were imported without any issue; the one exception is a brief post detailing a then-new feature not available here. But let me know if you run into any issues with the backlog.

I’ve got some ideas about what I want to put out here in the next few weeks/months. I might try changing up the main newsletter format (but that’s a future Michelle problem). I want to post more regularly to clear out the Knitwear-related Post-It note on my laptop and do more one-off posts. My annual Year in Knitting Instagram post (my profile is private now, but request/message me that you came from here if you want in). And I also want to post a Q&A I did months ago that got lost in the fray of the aforementioned hiatus (transcribing sucks, I hate it).

But let me open the floor to you. What would you be interested in seeing in this new iteration of Knit(ting) Flicks? And if you were open to paying for this newsletter, what would you want behind the paywall? Feel free to email me or leave a comment under the post.

(Also, please subscribe if you’re seeing this elsewhere!)

What I’m Reading

• Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America by Talia Lavin: A harrowing read by any measure.

• The Measure by Nikki Erlick: I technically haven’t started this one, but the concept reminds me a bit of The Big Door Prize on Apple TV+. Highly recommended by a book club friend.

Shameless Plugs

• I made my debut over at Go Magazine this month on the 10th anniversary of Korrasami and the shaky future of queer rep in children’s animation after Disney led the pack in self-censorship.

• Because it’s been like six months since my last update, I do have a couple of straggling House of the Dragon posts from the Daily Beast: One on the Muppet that is Oscar Tully and another on the insufferable Game of Thrones callback in the season 2 finale.

• Going leaping off of that, I made another appearance on my friend Jocelyn’s podcast to talk about the HOTD season 2 finale!

Knitwear of the Week

Knit: A fitted dark blue ribbed pullover that’s perfect for the office.

Worn By: Helly R. (Britt Lower), Lumen’s newest employee who desperately wants to quit her job (even though her outie won’t let her) in Severance season 1.

Costume Designer: Sarah Edwards

I have a confession to make: I loved Severance when the first season came out on Apple TV+ in 2022, but I’ve been putting off starting season 2. Essentially, it’s been three years since then. I barely remember what happened, and I haven’t had the time to rewatch it or speed through a recap video or podcast. According to Severance creator Dan Erickson, it was due to a slow and methodical shooting schedule, but then the dual WGA and SAG strikes shutting down production in 2023 made the delay even longer.

The costumes were always striking with their stark and bright colors amid Lumen’s severe backdrop. But they came back to the forefront after my friend Lauren, who was in the middle of a rewatch to prep for reviewing and covering season 2, alerted⁵ me to Lower’s appearance on The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott. She joined Stiller and Scott to chat about “In Perpetuity” (season 1, episode 3) and had this to say about Helly’s costumes:

Helly was always impeccably dressed, but knowing that her outie supports hand-knit perfection? Maybe she isn’t as evil after all? (Although…that probably doesn’t absolve her, sob.)

Want to nominate your own Knitwear of the Week?

I’m now offering you a chance to nominate your favorite piece of cinematic knitwear. I’ve got more information about what I’m looking for here. So, if you’ve got one, send an email over to [email protected] with your pick!

And if you want to directly support my work, you can leave me a tip on Ko-Fi!

1  Is Katz’s Deli a tourist trap? Yes. But is it also absolutely worth the hassle for the best pastrami on rye I’ve had in this city to date? Also yes.

2  According to Hellmann’s, which published a recipe online, Ryan is eating a turkey sandwich in the ad; it’s also the same sandwich Sally Albright (Ryan’s character) had in When Harry Met Sally. This is slightly more acceptable than if Crystal put mayonnaise on his pastrami on rye; there’s currently no evidence that he did such a thing.

3  I’m never gonna call it X or stop calling those things tweets, btw. Get out of here.

4  A knitting term for when you undo a project and is playing off of “rip it, rip it,” the action of pulling the yarn to unravel your work. Yes, fiber arts are full of puns.

5  Lauren is a great friend for many reasons, the least of which is that she knows my brand well enough to send me anything knitwear-related.