A week in, have we even glimpsed the new normal yet?

We pick some titles for April's Formerly Dangerous Movie Club as well as today's choices for streaming

We’re starting homeschooling here today. Because my ex-wife and I share custody, she’s had them for the first part of this brand-new way of doing things and I am jumping in today. So far, it seems to consist of both of my boys eating their breakfast while still asleep (one of them confidently tried to put the cereal back in the refrigerator) then grumbling as I install them in front of their laptops in different rooms.

It’s weird how quickly life has snapped into a different shape. My girlfriend’s been home all week, now the boys are here, and we’ve all already started to figure out how it’s going to work with all of us here in a workspace that’s normally just me for most days. We’re already talking about how the days need to be shaped to work for everyone, and we’re adjusting.

I figure there’s going to be a lot of that in the next few months. Even the best-case scenarios make this look like it’s all going to have to be our new normal for a while. So if that’s the case, then we can’t start it off treating it like it’s a vacation or some quick moment. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

As I post these movie picks for you guys, I am also going to start building other things into the newsletter around them. Otherwise, I’ll never get to anything else. I’m not really sure how to handle the Formerly Dangerous Movie Club this coming month. Do we still do it? Is every day the Formerly Dangerous Movie Club now? I’m not sure.

If you’d still like to participate in next month’s conversation, I’m going to pick three films about fools. Let’s go ahead and give you those titles here, which we’ll come back to discuss on April 1st.

There’s this beautiful shambling thing…

There’s this mad little spasm of language and attitude…

And then finally we’ll wrap it up with a man knocked sideways out of his life and seemingly out of his mind.

And, yes, I know that’s two movies featuring Jeff Bridges. I did not come to that decision lightly. I think it’s time to talk about how many times in his career Jeff Bridges has hit a high that would be anyone else’s career-best, and then just kept right on rolling into something else equally great. The dude abides, man. And we should talk about him.

For today, I’m going to specifically pick two films off of Hulu. I know not everyone has every service or can instantly find everything I am listing. Tomorrow I’ll do two Amazon picks. I’ve done a Netflix day already. I’ll keep rotating them.

I’m also suggesting titles you can rent because I think there’s nothing wrong with digital rentals. Maybe it will encourage you to add some of these titles to your library permanently if you love them. Nothing wrong with having a copy of The Black Stallion on-hand at all times.

For today, I’m going to name two films that are more recent. I feel like I’ve been doing almost exclusively catalog titles so far, but I know people don’t always see every good new film, and there’s plenty of stuff that gets missed. For example, Fighting With My Family wasn’t a monster hit. And by any rational metric, Fighting With My Family should have been a monster hit.

I don’t care about wrestling. I don’t dislike it. It’s just not my thing. I grew up in the South and in Florida (which is a whole different dimension of weird than the rest of the American South), and I was surrounded by wrestling culture. Believe me… I had every opportunity to be a giant wrestling fan. Look, I think the performers work insanely hard. It’s not easy, what they do. “Sports entertainment” is a strange phrase, but I get it. They are athletes, and they have to be able to do things that would destroy most people, and they have to do it while not only acting but often improvising. It’s a demanding lifestyle. There are plenty of people who do it who never get anywhere near the dream of superstardom, and they do it despite all the punishment they take and the respect that they are not given, and they do it for a genuine love of the show. Man, do I respect that. You don’t have to be a fan to understand what it is that fans love.

Fighting With My Family is based on Max Fisher’s book about the life and career of WWE wrestler Paige. Florence Pugh, who has by this point established an impressive range in a fairly brief period of time. Here, she’s entirely credible as a girl from Norwich, England who grows up in a family that is WWE-crazy. She’s not… at first. But once she gets bitten by the bug, she’s all in, and eventually, she and her brother both pursue dreams of turning pro. Watching the way her life unfolds, I’m charmed by the way writer/director Stephen Merchant resists turning this into a simple Rocky rehash. It’s an honest look at the way the industry works, it’s a smart film about women working in traditionally male spaces, it’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s a little rude, and Dwayne Johnson gets to play himself.

There’s great supporting work by Lena Headey and Nick Frost as her parents, and I love the way they etch the overall world of the WWE. Again… speaking as someone who’s not a fan, what I thought was great was the sense of general honesty. Sure, they telescope events and condense things and play with the truth, as in any biopic of any kind, but it feels like an honest reflection of how it felt. Pugh’s a terrific lead, and even though that’s not really her doing some of the more demanding physical stuff, enough of the performance is her that it’s clear she is just as comfortable throwing elbows as she is in something like Little Women.

If you’re not excited by this pick and you are up for something more challenging, let me direct you to Monos, a wild, surreal, beautiful riff on Lord of the Flies. Alejandro Landes weaves this hypnotic spell with this story of a gaggle of heavily-armed kids who live in isolation, raised and trained as a military cell, cut off from the outside world almost entirely. The film is about the ripple effects on their tiny community when a grown-up is brought to them to be watched while she’s being ransomed. It’s an incredible film, haunting and otherworldly, and it has stuck with me since December like a dream I had. I believe Hulu may be the only place it’s streaming right now, and it’s well worth your time and attention.

Tomorrow’s Friday Snapshot is going to be strange. It’s hard to believe that a week ago, I was still wrestling with whether or not to go see a new film for review. It feels like years since things were totally normal, and if that’s just what happens in a few days, the other end of this thing is genuinely impossible to imagine right now.

Let’s just buckle up and be good to each other. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay sane.

See you tomorrow.

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