The comfort of the airplane movie

Is there a calculus about what to watch on an airplane? Perhaps. I never really thought about it much because on the rare occasions I flew, I mostly downloaded movies long on my watchlist (and, over the past six years, I could reasonably knit through). I’ve queued up everything from Logan Lucky and Star Trek Beyond to Annihilation (a rewatch) and The Squid and the Whale while up in the air (I recommend the movie as a whole, but a little awkward on an airplane). On a work trip to Austin, Texas, in December, I watched three episodes of Andor (the Aldhani arc), which were fantastic.

For my recent trip to Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival, I downloaded 11 movies and the back half of Succession season 1 because I’m indecisive and like to overprepare. So, in the end, I only watched three things: Sing Street, The Sea Beast, and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. While I enjoyed all three movies, it’s the final one that might be the platonic ideal of an airplane movie: Something that might not have been a first choice on the ground but offers all the comforts you’d expect from a film whose plot points you can easily guess ahead of time. And did I feel something when Mrs. Harris (Lesley Manville) finally got the Dior dress she traveled to Paris for? I’ll never tell. It’s simply lovely.

I knew that MHGTP was based on a book (which I haven’t read) and that people were moderately excited about it when it came out; I don’t know if that was because of Manville, or the source material, or how MHGTP kinda sounded like a fake movie title and makes me want to add two r’s to “Paris” despite knowing exactly how it’s spelled. Unlike the first two movies, this was an inflight selection, so I was at the mercy of the plane’s wifi working to watch it. (It cut out a few times, but I finished it before landing!)

But Manville is great. It features a haughty Isabelle Huppert and a dapper Jason Isaacs, and it’s heartfelt. There is a dolly zoom on Mrs. Harris when she spots a Dior gown like it’s the love of her life, a camera trick it used more than once and never got old. And all hail Jenny Beavan on those costumes! The woman to my left was watching it over my shoulder (and the captions weren’t working), so I can only imagine what she thought about the movie.

To everyone who found me and my newsletter from my Knives Out sweater post that Rusty Foster shouted out in Today in Tabs a few weeks back, welcome! I’m floored by the reception, and I hope you stick around for the regular programming.

If you’re going to Vogue Knitting Live this weekend in New York, enjoy! I’m stopping by at some point to (probably) buy more yarn that I don’t need and ogle all of the impressive creations on display, and if there’s the possibility we might run into each other, don’t hesitate to say hello!

And a final note: GO BIRDS.

The Knit: Warm Brew Mittens

Pattern: Ravelry / Direct

Yarn: Luminous Brooklyn Solar Sock in Lavender Fields

I haven’t traveled much over the past few years (thanks, COVID), but one of the few perks I’ve found is that, at least on domestic flights, you’re allowed to bring your knitting needles on a plane. I always liked that—even if it always involves some panicking while I pack because I keep thinking the rules changed since the last time I flew—because it gives me something to do while I’m up in the air.

That’s how this pair of gloves started: Something to keep my hands busy during my flights to Utah. The pattern is slightly different than the fingerless gloves I usually make (my go-to pattern requires sport-weight yarn), but as the name implies, this pair looks great when holding a cup of coffee or tea. Well, at least it does on Ravelry because getting that shot on your own is difficult. But hey, I got porgs into this newsletter, so there’s that.

Apart from keeping tabs on which rows I needed to cable, it’s a relatively easy pattern to follow. And the yarn is from a local indie dyer/Brooklyn LYS, and as often as I might typically gravitate toward a brand like Malabrigo, it’s always great to find local yarn that I love, too.

The Flick: Singin’ in the Rain

Streaming: HBO Max

Everyone, including yours truly, has their list of cinema sins: Those movies that, for one reason or another, you never got around to watching. Maybe you did it out of spite. Or you had strict parents/guardians who didn’t let you watch certain things at a young age. You were too young to see it in a theater. Or maybe it wasn’t your thing then, but it is now, so you’re making up for all that lost time.

As I wrote in the work newsletter earlier this week, Titanic is a big one for me. But Singin’ in the Rain is another. I don’t know how I never saw it even though, thanks to my dad’s taste in movies (my mom described him as “an old soul” to a friend of hers when it came up a few weeks ago), I watched a lot of older things when I was younger beyond the Disney classics1.

I didn’t know much about the movie apart from watching the “Good Morning” sequence and Debbie Reynolds’ famous quote about how “Making Singin' in the Rain and childbirth were the two hardest things I've ever done.” But I was mesmerized from nearly the first minute to the point where I got annoyed by the other people in the other room talking or laughing at something else entirely. And to the point where I probably didn’t get much knitting done. If you’ve somehow never seen this masterpiece, watch it immediately.

The only downside—apart from wishing I could watch it again for the first time—is that, with the movie so fresh in my mind when I saw Babylon about a week later, the latter, in some aspects, came off as a poor imitation of Singin’ in the Rain. To the point where it almost feels like this movie should get some writing credit.

What I’m Reading

• Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe: I caught All the Beauty and the Bloodshed—Laura Poitras’ documentary about Nan Goldin and her fight to get the Sackler name removed from every institution and museum it adorns—at the New York Film Festival back in October, and the first thing I did after I left the screening was order a copy of Keefe’s book. ATBATB is incredible and visceral filmmaking (please seek it out if you can!), and Empire of Pain is fantastic supplemental reading that is as engaging and infuriating as advertised. And I’m only just getting to the oxycontin part of the book.

• Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo: I devoured Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy, Six of Crows duology, and King of Scars (the first in the next Grishaverse duology) in the weeks before Netflix debuted Shadow and Bone, but it’s taken until now (just before season 2’s debut) for me to tackle the remaining Grishaverse book. And while I liked most of it—one character’s POV chapters brought the narrative to a grinding halt every time it appeared, imo—I need more of the Crows thread teased at the very end.

• Speaking of childhood touchstones, one of the vital TV shows to unlocking why I am the way I am is Whose Line Is It Anyway? so naturally, I found Vulture’s interview with Colin Mochrie ahead of the show’s final (for now at least) farewell incredibly insightful.

Shameless Plugs

• My Sundance reviews for Run Rabbit Run, Magazine Dreams, and Cat Person are up at the Daily Dot—and I’ll have more reviews published throughout the year.

• I also blurbed five of my favorites from the festival. You can see my complete list of Sundance movies and snapshot reviews at Letterboxd.

• It’s also never too late to revisit 2022’s great streaming selections or recent theatrical releases like The Fabelmans, Women Talking, and M3GAN.

• My colleagues and I put out a big streaming package at the end of December (it’s been a while since I did a Shameless Plug). My piece is about some of the TV shows that aren’t miraculously saved after they are abruptly canceled and how those shows can still foster communities long after the last episode dropped.

• ICYMI, I posted my annual What I’ve Knitted Instagram photoset—where I share many of my WIPs via Instagram Stories—a few weeks back. (I’ve done it every year since 2018 if you want to peek at my progression.)

Knitwear of the Week

Knit: A “latte cream” checkered, jacquard cardigan.

Worn By: Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), the human-lie-detector-turned-modern-day-Columbo, in Poker Face.

Costume Designer: Trayce Gigi Field

I had this slot set aside for a sweater in a movie that wasn’t available to stream until quite recently. But then I caught this beauty in the pilot episode of Poker Face, Rian Johnson’s “howcatchem” throwback starring Natasha Lyonne as a woman whose ability to tell when someone’s lying makes her an unlikely detective. With the other option requiring me to sign up for another streaming service just for the screenshot, it was a no-brainer.

I’m not far into the series—basically, I got to see Lyonne wearing the cardigan, paused it, and wrote this immediately—but it’s a lot of fun so far. Apart from the audacity of Johnson giving us yet another perfect sweater when he had an entire movie full of them, it’s kinda cool that this one time, my attempts to find a photo of Charlie’s cardigan resulted in the internet locating the actual cardigan. Which, if you wear specific sizes (sadly none in mine), is still available.

Want to nominate a 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!