{"id":17192,"date":"2021-12-29T00:50:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-29T00:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=17192"},"modified":"2021-12-28T20:46:56","modified_gmt":"2021-12-28T20:46:56","slug":"fade-in-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/29\/fade-in-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"FADE IN: 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Once upon a time I wrote a line in a short story\u2014it was more like a poem\u2014somewhere that went like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got high as a kite one night, and discovered that the world will be united and the world will be at peace, but only at the moment we have a shared, visual experience.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

I still believe in the impact of shared visual experiences. I don\u2019t still believe they\u2019d lead to unity and peace. I just hope they do.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d is a film dealing with this idea of a shared visual experience, specifically that of a \u201cplanet-killer\u201d comet heading toward Earth. More specifically, how do we spend our time when everything\u2014or nothing\u2014is at stake. The film is now streaming on Netflix, and probably playing normally in a theater somewhere, too. It\u2019s relevant now because this is the time of the year we think about time most. \u201cDo you have any New Year\u2019s resolutions?\u201d is December\u2019s small-talk version of \u201cWhat do you think about this weather we\u2019re having?\u201d much of the rest of the year.<\/span><\/p>\n

The toughest part about an end-of-the-world movie is how to end the film, which another \u201chere comes the meteor\u201d movie called \u201cSeeking a Friend for the End of the World\u201d (2012) probably does better than any film will ever do again. And to a degree, \u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d borrows heavily from its predecessor. As for the rest of the plot, \u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d makes every second of every scene worth waiting for and is several notches more artistically potent than a film like \u201cIdiocracy\u201d (2006) that also used comedy to attempt social commentary. The resounding comment: We are all crazy, or worse, we are all stupid.<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter how blue, red or purple your personal politics are, you\u2019ll have a hard time evaluating the message of these films honestly, or at least without a zero-sum-game political lens. So that brings me to the visual experience I had Sunday night, \u201cHamilton.\u201d Although the show is named after one of the most divisive\u2014and influential\u2014political figures in history, you\u2019ll have a hard time choosing sides once the Americans overthrow the Brits and have to figure out for themselves how to rule themselves. <\/span><\/p>\n

What \u201cHamilton\u201d is about goes beyond the politics of a different time. Its message is about time itself. Even its unique stage turns in clockwise and counterclockwise circles to denote passages and reversals of time. In other words, the play isn\u2019t about time, it\u2019s about how shocking it is what we do with it. <\/span><\/p>\n

And all this leads me to how I plan to spend the majority of time in 2022 writing and\/or editing this column. In 2021, it was called \u201c4th Estate,\u201d a reference to the term for the press and its role\u2014for better or worse\u2014in shaping politics. Starting in January, this column will focus on reviews of film, theater, music, and the rest of the entertainment world. The column will have a new title, \u201cThe Republic.\u201d It\u2019s a reference to Plato, the Greek philosopher who, in his writing called \u201cThe Republic,\u201d said <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is honored in a country will be cultivated there.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

I can think of no better way to understand a civilization than through its art, especially film. So cheers to the first sunrise of next year; the Wood River Weekly is ready to \u201cfade in\u201d now.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine Once upon a time I wrote a line in a short story\u2014it was more like a poem\u2014somewhere that went like this: \u201cWe got high as a kite one night, and discovered that the world will be united and the world will be at peace, but only at the moment we have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17196,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17192\/revisions\/17196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}