Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
In today’s Medium Cool, I am looking for input on topics for future Medium Cool posts.
Other than that, talk about whatever culture-related stuff you want!
War for Ukraine Day 760: Russia Bombards Ukrainian Civilian Targets Again!
Baud
There’s more culture to discuss?
TBone
Is this too serious? The Jan. 6, 2025 Project has published:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00027162241234174
West of the Rockies
Has there been a time-travel books and shows and movies post yet?
Scout211
I thought we nominated a bunch of new topics for Medium Cool a few months ago. There were many topics suggested and there were lots of really interesting ones.
Here it is. Lots of good ideas.
piratedan
I’ll toss some ideas and will let the jackaltariat discuss their worthiness
Worst movie you ever paid to see?
favorite non-US TV show?
worst required reading material by your school?
first artist of the opposite gender whose music you bought
coolest hobby that you’d be interested in trying
most overrated TV show that you couldn’t fathom how it got popular
your go-to comfort movie
TBone
@TBone: I haven’t yet had a chance to read all of the articles but here are the search results for anyone interested:
https://journals.sagepub.com/action/doSearch?AllField=The+January+6th%2C+2025%2C+Project&SeriesKey=anna&content=articlesChapters&SeriesKey=anna
BellaPea
One interesting topic I thought about was television mini-series: which ones were the best, which were forgettable, any that were awful. We are currently watching the new version of Shogun and it is AMAZING how much better it is than the one in the 1980s–beautifully crafted, intelligent, and far more sensitive in its depiction of Japanese culture in the 17th century. I also love Outlander and am enjoying Apple TV’s new Manhunt series.
Brachiator
Some Agatha Christie related news.
Manyakitty
@BellaPea: I loved Outlander when it started, but each season edges closer to torture ‘pron’ and is increasingly difficult to watch. Do you find that, or is it just me?
Mr. Prosser
Have we ever talked about music? I like most genres, Classical, Jazz, Blues R&B/Funk and the Beatles. We could discuss worst or most hated and best and most loved in any category.
Suzanne
I suggested once before….. what is some work that you like that is offensive, for whatever reason, yet you love it anyway?
Baud
@Suzanne:
Probably anything by Mel Brooks.
Melancholy Jaques
Random thoughts.
Can we separate the art from the artist? Should we?
Everyone with a laptop or a cell phone now has access to culture from all over the world and from just about any time since the invention of writing. What are the long-term effects? How can anyone determine what is good and what is not? Who gets to decide?
Given the way tech has made everything available for little or no cost, how can artists – that is, musicians, writers, poets, painters, sculptors, etc. – make a living?
West of the Rockies
@piratedan:
Required reading books I hated the most? On my way to an MA in English lit, I loathed The Stranger and As I Lay Dying. I was 20, and neither spoke to me or the world I knew
Excellent suggestions, Dread Pirate Dan.
Rachel bakes
Comics? Print, graphic novels, web comics?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud:
The Critic
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne: Straight Outta Compton, one of the best rap albums of all time, yet arguably offensive
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@West of the Rockies:
OMG, I had to read both of those as well, I was 18. It’s amazing I ever took another English class much less the shitload I subsequently took w/o actually triple-majoring in it.
Steve in the ATL
@West of the Rockies: my favorite IMDB review was of a time travel movie. The reviewer panned it, explaining “that’s not how time travel works!”
raven
@Steve in the ATL: How bout them Dawgs???
Suzanne
@Steve in the ATL: Absolutely.
I was listening to “99 Problems” the other day while I was running, and God, I love that song. And yet! There is much offensive about it!
WaterGirl
@West of the Rockies: I don’t think we have done that yet. And if we have, and we have already forgotten it, that makes it fair game. :-)
zhena gogolia
@West of the Rockies: I hate both of those too. Ask Omnes about As I Lay Dying.
(I like other Faulkner)
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Are you calling me a slacker? :-)
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: NotMax had a bunch of good suggestions in that thread, as I recall.
Chetan Murthy
@Melancholy Jaques:
I was just thinking about this, as I read some tweets in Adam’s Ukraine update. Ukrainians of a certain age (basically, 40ish-and-younger) and with a certain level of education …. can tweet as if they’re living in a big East Coast city. And it’s something I notice among people of that demographic all over the world: there’s a certain convergence of some part of the world’s culture to something like American popular culture, because of social networks.
When I was a kid, our parents took us to India to see the family (1979). When we left, Star Wars was all the rage. When we arrived in Bangalore, it was Black Belt Jones (don’t ask me what it was, I didn’t see it). Surely there’s some of that still today, but a whole lot less, b/c of the homogenizing effect of social media and the Internet.
Manyakitty
@zhena gogolia: “My mother is a fish.”
Steve in the ATL
@raven: gotdam hippie!
RIP Ranger Russ. Nice tribute to him from you the other day.
West of the Rockies
@zhena gogolia:
I was afraid I’d be alone here on AILD. Glad I’m not. Omnes isn’t a fan either, eh?
prostratedragon
@Suzanne: The Nairobi Trio. I won’t argue with anyone finding it to be an off-center racial slur. And yet, …
For illustrative purposes only, with apologies.
Scout211
I always like reading about everyone’s “aha” moment that was triggered by something in popular culture.
A book you read, a movie or documentary, music, live performance, television program, etc. How did it change your life, help you understand something, bring you peace, or change your thoughts or perspective or bring you meaning. Or just surprised you about the world.
I especially like reading about “aha” moments from our childhood and teens.
Ex: Reading The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank was an aha moment for me when I read it for the first time when I was young, probably a tween at the time. It was a world view that I had never been exposed to before. It gave me a larger understanding of the world.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
How about a series on Gore Vidal’s books? I consider ‘Julian’ one of the best-written pieces ever.
Or a series on historical novels/series? Colleen McCollough’s massive Rome series is one that comes to mind but there are tons of others.
Games, how about online game platforms? One thing that The Plague Years ushered in for me was using one platform to play old board games with people I’ve known since 1979. Has it stuck? It has for us.
Or books that were considered classic/must reads back in the day and how they hold up. ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ should still be a must read.
Or, a deep dive into the writing, background and development of the “Little House” books. Laura’s crackpot glibertarian daughter is considered one of the founding intellectual lights of the modern movement and there’s a ton of detail about the two women, the writing/editing process, etc. I have the published iteration of Laura’s original material, there are several bios on Rose, etc.
NotMax
Good/bad theme songs.
Books/music you’ve loaned out and never gotten back you wish you still had.
Most uncomfortable/disturbing/shocking scene/dialogue in a movie, play or TV show.
Miscast or out of their depth roles for actors.
Memories of mondegreens.
The first book and/or record bought with your own money.
schrodingers_cat
Have any jackals watched The
TortureReport on Prime?Starfish
@Manyakitty: I quit watching this many seasons ago.
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne: and, for completely different reasons, the blues classic reinterpreted for rock fans by Ten Years After, “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”, is creepy as hell.
Brachiator
@Melancholy Jaques:
A variation on this theme. For the first time in history, we can go back to the start of some art forms and actually see what was produced. We can, for example, go back and watch almost any movie created since the beginning of cinema. We don’t have to depend solely on reviews, biographies or historians to know what the early Charlie Chaplin comedies were like. We can watch the film career of Marlon Brando from “A Streetcar Named Desire” to “Apocalypse Now.”
Similarly with respect to a great deal of recorded music, we don’t have to wonder how Charlie Parker or the early Beatles sounded. We can just play the music.
Does this enrich our understanding of classical and popular culture? Does it matter at all?
CaseyL
@piratedan: I like those topics! Any one would make for a lively discussion.
Speaking of books/movies/other stuff you paid for but wound up hating, let me mention a strange phenomenon I’ve noticed and participated in myself:
We love good books/movies/etc., and we do like to talk about them. But it seems to me, what really makes us light up and talk a lot about are the stinkers.
I saw a play at Ashland, some few decades ago, called “Blood Wedding,” a play by Garcia Lorca. Lorca was a revered playwright/poet in Spain – and a martyr, murdered by the fascists at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
I have not read his work, for which I do apologize. I have no idea if the original play comes across as turgid, absurd and laughably bad as the Ashland production.
I think they were going for period authenticity, which meant the actors didn’t speak their lines so much as they declaimed them at high volume, while striking very stylized poses. There was a Greek Chorus, which explained what was going on throughout the play, including during scenes of dialog and action. There were two intermissions of very 1930s style modern dance, where oiled half-naked woodsmen danced a metaphor of love and death (and Death herself joined them, wielding a scythe to their axes).
The second time the stage cleared for the dancers, one of the people I was with muttered, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me” loudly enough to be heard by a few nearby rows – and set off a wave of giggles.
It was really bad. We never did figure out if the source material was to blame, or that specific production. Maybe being faithful to the theatrical and acting conventions of the time wasn’t a good idea? Would modernizing it a tad have helped? But I can tell you, we all dined out for years talking about that play, and I still enjoy bringing it up. Like now.
We saw many other plays while there, which were excellent. We applauded and appreciated them, praised the acting, the staging, the production choices. But we did not devote anywhere near the same amount of discussion time to the plays we liked as we did to the one that had us absolutely gobsmacked by shock and dismay.
Scout211
LOL. I would never!
In fact, you work so hard and have so many irons in the fire, I thought it may have just slipped your mind with all the stuff you have to do to keep the hamsters running on this here almost top 10,000 blog. 😉
NotMax
Thread needs some mood music.
Moonlight Sonata, with a beat.
;)
Starfish
@Chetan Murthy:
One thing I really enjoy is finding rap in various languages.
dmsilev
@Steve in the ATL: I absolutely hated ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’, though not because of the made-up mechanisms of time travel. It was more that by about halfway through the book I wanted both protagonists to die in a fire.
Scamp Dog
@piratedan: Worst movie I paid to see? Starship Troopers, no contest. Somehow it managed to grab incidents from the novel to make a movie that more or less contradicted the source material. Yes, I get that the movie is a satire of fascism, but then write your own damn movie and name it something else.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: I have used this ability to a do deep dive in the Hindi cinema archives of many different lyricists. I rediscovered Shailendra who passed away years before I was born.
Geminid
Travel and Nature documentaries?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax:
I was skimming down and misread that as Memories of Mammograms. Even for NotMax, that was unexpected.
FastEdD
Wolves of Glendale really make me laugh. They are NSFW and so way over the top so that you really can’t take them seriously. Try “Loud Ass Car” on YouTube. “Should have spent my money on therapy but instead I got TINTED WINDOWS.”
Manyakitty
@Starfish: for that reason? I’m a completist by compulsion, but I’m not sure I have another half-season in me.
Melancholy Jaques
@piratedan:
Worst movie you ever paid to see?
Howard the Duck
favorite non-US TV show?
Shetland
worst required reading material by your school?
My high school? Silas Marner
first artist of the opposite gender whose music you bought
Does Jefferson Airplane count as female? If not, Carly Simon.
coolest hobby that you’d be interested in trying
Woodworking
most overrated TV show that you couldn’t fathom how it got popular
Probably haven’t watched enough TV shows to know a good answer, but I find every reality show to be appalling. Especially the dating ones.
your go-to comfort movie
Just about any with Paul Newman
Scout211
I think that topic was discussed before in Medium Cool or maybe it was a side topic. I commented that the worst movie I paid for (and walked out of) was Moonstruck. There were many objections to that in the commentariat. LOL
West of the Rockies
@Geminid:
For a mix of those two, Burns’ doc on our National Parks was good, especially the Muir stuff. “He drank tea brewed with the needles so he could be more Sequoiacal. “
Chetan Murthy
@Scout211: I had two “aha” moments:
2. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ columns in The Atlantic: I’m embarrassed to say that until I read his work in the noughties, I wasn’t really woke. Sure I subscribed to all the requisite beliefs, voted the right way, but didn’t actually believe in my heart of hearts. Coates’ work changed that for me. He woke me.
Starfish
@Manyakitty: I think we quit because the daughter’s annoying husband was very annoying.
West of the Rockies
@Scout211:
I loathed Punch Drunk Love (Sandler).
gwangung
@CaseyL: I’ve seen a couple versions of that play, neither of which were quite as bad as you described, so I guess it was the production. (Though an infamous local reviewer slagged one production for “incomprehensibly dropping into Spanish periodically”—it was advertised as a bilingual production).
Starfish
@Suzanne:
The Pete Davidson skit riffing on “I’m Just Ken” from the Barbie movie
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
There’s such a thing as carrying attempts to keep abreast of things too far.
:)
zhena gogolia
@Melancholy Jaques: OMG, you reminded me of Howard the Duck.
Steve in the ATL
@Melancholy Jaques:
Will be hard to top those two! I have always loved reading but I always suspected those that hated it felt that way because they were forced to rad things like Silas Marner.
gwangung
@Melancholy Jaques:
They don’t, really. Society values artists so little that it’s expected that their products are free, hence the popularity of Napster when digital music started up. And don’t get me started about how art was so valued during the pandemic…but people are loathe to pay for it.
Manyakitty
@Starfish: yeah, that doesn’t get any better.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Not worth the price of admission but appreciated that someone had rooted around the studio lot and came up with the plaster cast of the footprint from Forbidden Planet The blink-and-you-miss-it scene where that appeared made me snicker.
Geminid
@West of the Rockies: There sure are plenty of these documentaries. There’d be something for almost everyone.
Myself, I could really get going on a thread about Civil War books. Some other people would, but probably not very many. Same with Western novels, movies and TV shows.
NotMax
@Melancholy Jaques:
You’ve obviously never had the mispleasure of watching John Goldfarb, Please Come Home.
Cast of luminaries, all slumming it.
villiageidiocy
@West of the Rockies:
Is that the one where he’s a stalker – followed a woman to Hawaii? God I hated it and the entire premise. Put me off anything Sandler. Or was it another Sandler movie? I can’t find the reference to it anywhere, but whichever one it was left me wondering why anyone thought it was a comedy and not a really bad drama.
rekoob
In an earlier thread, many were thinking about where they were at major history events in the last 60 years or so. I’ve been enjoying the various “decade” series produced over the years by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Mark Herzog. I’ll link to the original series on Wikipedia, since it describes all the others:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixties_(miniseries)
They also produced a special edition on 1968, which I found helpful in putting that year into context. I remember asking my father about that year in 1988, and he noted that as an Army Reservist at the time (JAG Corps), he was instructed (ordered?) to take his sidearm home with him. We never saw it, of course, since it was locked in the trunk of his car.
Steve in the ATL
@Geminid: evergreen reply: Shelby Foote was an asshole!
villiageidiocy
movie: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. A number of the scenes. I have to say I liked the movie but couldn’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone. The reality of the brutality was more disturbing than many violent movies I’ve seen.
dnfree
As far as suggestions, I’ve been thinking of suggesting this. The Atlantic magazine just came up with a list of 136 great American novels. There are certainly some I expect and hope to see on the list, but also some I did not expect, including science fiction. Might be interesting to see what people think of the list, if there’s anything that doesn’t belong, recommendations among the books, etc.
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/03/best-books-american-fiction/677479/
NotMax
@Geminid
Quite interesting documentary, The Real African Queen. Well worth (IMHO) the investment of 50 minutes.
(Was a bit of a bear to track down a place it is currently available in toto.)
dnfree
Books other people apparently loved but I did not? The last time this came up I was halfway through “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store”. I did not like it and I blamed Obama for putting it on his recommendation list, because it hadn’t sounded like something I’d enjoy but Obama seemed like a thoughtful guy. Spoiler alert—it didn’t get better. If anything, it got worse. Cardboard cut-out characters and a forced plot.
CaseyL
@gwangung: Really? I should try to see it again sometime.
West of the Rockies
@villiageidiocy:
That was the one. Apparently it’s well-regarded by critics.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
With opening day a few days away, a discussion of the best baseball films. Alternatively or additionally a list of the best sports movies.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Manyakitty: I know exactly what you mean. The first season has an episode I had to fast forward through. Ugh. Other than that, the first season was great, and so was the second season, and the the third when Clare and Jamie were reunited, and then it really turned into a soap opera, and I am so tired of Clare not listening to the room and causing all kinds of problems, and in short, I don’t watch Outlander any more, despite how hot Sam is.
Brachiator
@rekoob:
Even though I was a pre-teen, this felt like a pivotal time in history. So much going on all over the world.
A video clip of the Chicago Convention, 1968. “The Whole World is Watching.”
Amazingly, because we have since had military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, I note that I was recently talking to some young people who were unaware that there had been a strong anti-war movement in the US.
MountainBoy
@NotMax:
“Most uncomfortable/disturbing/shocking scene/dialogue in a movie, play or TV show.”
The flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz….
Brachiator
@Brachiator:
I meant to add a little something to my recent post.
I remember someone handing me a special late afternoon extra edition of the LA Times with the headline, “Nixon Resigns” at the top. A group of us went out and celebrated.
There was a strange feeling of relief at the bars we visited. Something in the air. We wondered if this was the craziest possible moment in American politics.
Little did we know.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
I know everyone is entitled to free speech, but I have a problem with a lot of artists (especially writers), who write beloved books, and then turn out to be assholes of one flavor or another. Does knowing their dark side ruin the (previously) beloved books for you? I’m thinking in particular (off the top of my head) of J.K. Rowling. Also actors like Susan Sarandon. It used to be a lot easier to love a book and not know anything about the author which would ruin the experience.
Chris
@Scout211:
Wasn’t sure what to say here until this comment reminded me:
@Geminid:
The Killer Angels. Read it as a teenager in the mid-2000s right around the time I was starting my conservative-to-liberal transition. I’m sure it would have problematic aspects if I reread it today, and it’s probably still too generous to the Southern officer class in a lot of ways. But it was the first time I’d ever seen the cause for the Civil War spelled out ideologically, in a way that wasn’t just abolitionist but patriotic, while at the same time being more meaningful than just “well, we don’t want some of our states to break off because then the country would be smaller and that would make us sad,” and it’s been a big influence on my view of the Civil War and all the culture wars that come from it.
The book, through the eyes of both Chamberlain (the Union colonel who’s the main character or the closest thing to one) and Fremantle (the British observer in the C.S. Army), associates the Confederacy not just with slavery, but with the values of Old Europe, the obsession with tradition, with class, with breeding, and above all with bloodlines. The difference is that Fremantle thinks it’s a wonderful thing and even fantasizes about the Confederacy rejoining the British Empire after independence, while Chamberlain is horrified by it, thinks it’s a betrayal of the American Revolution, and sees himself as on a crusade to stamp it out and stop aristocracy from returning to America. As his friend Kilrain puts it, they’re fighting for “a country where the past cannot hold a man in chains.”
It manages the trick of being truer to the 1860s than a lot of what’s been written about it (it is, in fact, a decent summary of how the Unionist cause saw itself), while still being plenty resonant to modern-day values.
Sure Lurkalot
How about your favorite line in a movie or song?
Someone mentioned bad Adam Sandler movies…but one of my favorite lines, Cloris Leachman mother to Tia Leone, her self absorbed, spoiled daughter: “Honey, lately your low self-esteem is just good common sense” is from Spanglish.
Manyakitty
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I’m torn about the upcoming episodes because I think they are set in Scotland again and I adore the actress who plays Jamie’s sister. But yeah, it’s become an ultra violent bodice ripper. Yuck.
Manyakitty
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Woody Allen. I just can’t with any of his movies any more.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Manyakitty: alas, I have to agree. My mother was an admirer of his, thought him a genius. I’m glad she didn’t live to see the dark side.
Nelle
Maybe too off topic for Medium Cool, but I would be interested in short descriptions of teachers who have had a lasting influence on one’s outlook and life. As a retired teacher, I know that I had students who will never remember a thing about me, not even my name. Still, maybe there was a seed that later bloomed or a ripple that spread into something. So often, we never have an opportunitiy to go back to thank the teachers or professors.
Nelle
My husband has always intended to write his memoirs but is set on writing them in chronological order, rather than telling stories. He has barely started. For his 80th birthday, our son gave him a subscription to Storyworth. My husband is a bit irritated that it is taking him off of his engineering mind’s idea of it, but really, what the kids want are his stories. When I met him, back in olden days, he was putting himself through grad school by flying summers in northern Alaska as a bush pilot. That was after three years in nuclear subs and three years in Vietnam. He’s had a rich and varied life and he can tell a good story. I don’t mind sharing some of the topics here; maybe not all culture, but at least conversational. The first was a song that you heard at a pivotal time of your life – hearing it brings it all back.
Kayla Rudbek
@Scout211: that would be Harry Kemelman’s Rabbi mystery series for me (I was raised Roman Catholic so this was an exposure to Judaism)
Kayla Rudbek
@Brachiator: although early recordings and movies are more difficult to listen to and watch for me due to sound quality and pacing (I am thinking pre-1940s)
NotMax
@Brachiator:
Many, many, many of the movies made prior to the 1950s are lost forever, sad to say. Have seen estimates of around 50% of the total produced.
NotMax
False link in #89. Fat fingered fumble.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: fixed!
frosty
@Nelle: That sounds like the way my mother wrote her autobiography, by subject, not chronology. I need to do something like that. Sooner rather than later. Dementia came on in Mom’s last years but she could pick this up, read some of it, and remember who she was.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
This is true. It is even worse with respect to recordings and radio and TV programs. And yet you can still reconstruct the history of film from its beginnings and much material has been preserved.
We can’t know exactly how Richard Burbage played Hamlet, but we can watch Laurence Olivier.
prostratedragon
Here’s one that I puzzle over, while not disagreeing: why are remakes of movies so less well-received than new productions of plays or operas? There are exceptions. For instance, the many remakes of A Star Is Born continue to get both respect and audiences, and there are other examples. But in general there seems to be a big dropoff, and a sense that the newer projects are a pointless exercise. Why?
West of the Rockies
@Nelle:
Interesting suggestion, Nelle. I taught CC composition and lit for 14 years in northern CA and have had the lovely experience of being approached and thanked years later by a mid-sized handful of students. It was gratifying and somehow humbling.
Brachiator
@prostratedragon:
Kinda depends on how well remembered the earlier version was. And some people like to complain that “they don’t make them like they used to…” while also demanding remakes that are little more than empty nostalgia fests.
ETA The classic version of The Maltese Falcon was a remake of a 1931 movie.
Geminid
@Chris: It’s a fascinating subject– for some people. Maybe a post on Gettysburg would be good some July 1-3.
But in general, I would not recommend Civil War histories or novels for a Medium Cool post because it might be the same five people commenting up a storm. The topic comes up sometimes in more general threads and that’s good enough for me.
@Geminid:
Kosh III
worst required reading material by your school?
Great Expectations two years in a row.
most overrated TV show that you couldn’t fathom how it got popular
South Park
Movie I can watch over and over and over….
Porky’s
BellaPea
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I’ve read all of the books, so perhaps I am more patient with the story lines. I do think there are far too many rapes in the books and in the series. It seems to be an easy out for a number of threads. I know the episode in the first season that you’re talking about–it was in the books, but the series went a bit too far in showing everything, to my mind.