Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 3 January
Wreck-It Ralph (Moore, 2012)
Happy new year, everyone. I hope you all had a grand time and watched lots of cool stuff.
Highlights here included ticking another disc off in the extensive “Almost Definitive” John Clark and Bryan Dawe box set from the ABC, Sydney Pollack’s classic Out of Africa on Blu-ray, on Christmas Eve, the seasonal weirdness of Meet Me in St. Louis, the deeply disappointing Rebel Moon on Netflix, and on Christmas Night, a Peter Baynham double-feature of Arthur Christmas and Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. That led to a (somewhat illicit for New Zealand) viewing of the original BBC six-part TV version of The Trip to Italy.
As you can tell we prioritised laughter this holiday and, as alert readers can tell, we also chose several titles previously recommended in these pages. Eating one’s own dogfood, I think they call it.
To add to the F&S recommendations that we took up, we re-watched the Alexander Payne classic Downsizing – warming up for the The Holdovers which opens here in a couple of weeks – and after that were so high on Matt Damon that we finally tried the 2016 reboot of Jason Bourne which turned out to be a damp squib. You can’t win ’em all.
There were several trips to the cinema among all that home entertainment and reviews of the holiday movie releases should start appearing on the RNZ website in due course.
The kids still require entertaining, though, don’t they? And the weather remains variable, so today’s recommendation is one that the whole family can enjoy indoors. Wreck-It Ralph is a gag-filled animated classic with a first rate voice performance from the great John C. Reilly. “Call of Doody” still makes me snigger to this day.
I reviewed it back in the 2012/13 Summer Holiday roundup:
Kids of all ages will enjoy Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, an animated picture about an arcade video game character who tires of always being the bad guy. John C. Reilly’s Ralph goes looking for another game in which he can be the hero for a change but he doesn’t realise that he’s throwing the entire arcade world out of balance and threatening everyone’s future.
There’s outstanding voice work from Sarah Silverman as feisty young Vanellope and kids will enjoy the exuberant visuals although adults will get nostalgic from the many old game references – not sure if kids still go to spacies parlours these days, do they?
Where to find Wreck-It Ralph
Aotearoa, Australia, USA & UK: Streaming on Disney+
Editor’s note: A word about Substack’s Nazi problem
Some of you may know that there is currently a bit of a backlash from Substack users –both readers and creators – about the platform’s hands-off approach towards content moderation, specifically their acceptance (and in some cases promotion) of far-right and white supremacist authors.
The Substack position on this – that the best response to hateful speech is more speech – is at best naive and at worst implies some sympathy and support for those positions.
Aotearoa author and disinformation researcher Byron Clark is one of many who have written to Substack founder (and fellow kiwi) Hamish McKenzie and his open letter is a good summary of the concerns that have been raised.
Frankly, it’s not cool that Funerals & Snakes is associated with some of that garbage just because Substack has some ideological commitment to letting ratbags talk. It’s also very not cool that some of the good and interesting writers here are having eyeballs and incomes reduced because of growing resistance from readers to supporting the platform itself.
I have had a few comments on social media from people telling me that they love my stuff, but that they won’t support Substack and therefore won’t click a link to read it.
Like many publishers on Substack, I am looking into my options but there’s no obvious alternative and no frictionless way to move – yet. And I don’t have such a huge audience here that I can afford to lose any of you in a rushed transition.
I’m hacked off because everything else about Substack has been great. It’s certainly the most pleasurable digital writing platform I’ve ever come across. And part of me hopes that Substack will come to their senses before it comes to that, but I suspect that the only way to prove to them that de-platforming Nazis works is to de-platform ourselves and join the boycott.
I’d appreciate your thoughts as I work through this.
I think it's very difficult to find any digital platform that isn't sullied in some way by the bottom line, while the unsullied are limited in features and reach by their lack of resources. This era of digital expansion is not interested in ethics or sustainability.
My view (doubly limited in value coming from a fellow Substacker AND a non-fee-paying subscriber) is:
-we are here until the readers leave;
-Nadine Anne Hura has some tips https://nadineannehura.substack.com/p/goodbye-substack-follow-me-to-ghost;
-please keep writing!