Your Weekly Dose (5/24/22)
Two stellar animations kick off this week’s prescriptions and a new book asks us to reconsider the South in the print recommendation. As always, thanks for subscribing and sharing.
FILM
Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers
Mainlining nostalgia as a ‘90s kid over here. This hybrid live-action/animated (don’t say) “reboot,” Chip ‘n Dale stands on its own as a laugh-out-loud, whip-smart comedy that will reward numerous easter-egg hunting rewatches with its multitude of (in)famous cartoon character extras. The mixture of live action and animation works well, and the voice acting really lifts the entire proceedings, especially Andy Samberg and John Mulaney in the titular roles. There’s not much to discuss in terms of plot or thematic depth here…nor should there be. But this kind of joyful time travel can be good for the soul too.
Chip ‘n Dale is currently streaming on Disney+. If you’ve got kids, you can also revisit the entire animated series with them, which is also streaming on the platform.
TV
Prehistoric Planet
And speaking of time travel, we go waaaaaaay back for this week’s TV prescription, Apple TV+’s Prehistoric Planet. This series scratches a huge itch for me, my mild obsession with/curiosity about deep time and wish that I could travel back in time millions of years ago to see what our planet looked like. I always liked the opening sequence of Prometheus for this…
…but I digress.
Prehistoric Planet is basically the Planet Earth series set in the time of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, complete with David Attenborough’s narration and a tendency to anthropomorphize other species. This time, instead of mind-blowing nature photography, we have some truly impressive animation that brings these behemoths to life. Equally impressive, or perhaps more so, is the science and research behind the storytelling. You’ll likely learn something new in each of the five episodes. I mean, right from the jump, I learned that (spoiler) a T-rex could swim.
This is good family viewing fodder. New episodes of Prehistoric Planet premiere every night this week on Apple TV+.
If you’re interested, here is footage of producers Jon Favreau, Mike Gunton, and Tim Walker and paleontologist Darren Naish discussing the creation of the series.
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
And now for something completely different…
In anticipation of my move back to the South, a few months ago I purchased a copy of Imani Perry’s latest book, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. Nearly twenty years ago, I left the South as a painfully naive, yet evolving, twenty-something bound for California, which became home to Amy and me for the great majority of a marriage thus far. I knew the state to which I was returning wouldn’t be the same as the one I left, just as I’m not the same person I was two decades ago. Over the years, I kept track of what was changing (and what wasn’t) through connections with family and friends, but when I read about Perry’s journey and the aim of her book, I knew that my own home-coming could be challenged by and benefit from her wisdom and insight.
A Birmingham, AL, native, a Philadelphia resident, and a Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Perry embarks on a series of trips to and through the South to better understand this often misunderstood and put-upon region. I am almost three quarters of the way through South to America, and I have been struck by the juxtaposition of beauty and terror on nearly every page. Perry is adept at showing how hospitality and hostility co-exist in the region and how there isn’t one South but a multitude. She effectively reveals how the sins of the South benefitted (or at the very least found expression in) other parts of the country as well. More than implied in all of this is the realization that you can’t understand America as a whole unless you understand some things about the South and its history. The two are completely inseparable. And as all writers about the South do, Perry calls on Faulkner in her explanation of the cyclical nature of oppression and violence. The injustices of slavery and Jim Crow and their legacies are with us yet…if we know where and, more importantly, how to look.
There is great depth of vision here, but there is a welcome and engaging freshness to Perry’s voice that books like this often lack. Her verve in moving between academia and pop culture, the sacred and the secular, and the critical and the empathic is a sight to behold. And there is occasionally a refrain of uncertainty, or at least a willingness to admit when sense can’t be made out of nonsense. Or, as Perry writes, “I am not answering the question[s], but I am confident [they have] to be asked. And you ought to think hard about the answer[s].”
South to America will certainly be one of my favorite books of the year. It is available wherever books are sold, but consider purchasing your copy from Head House Books in Perry’s Philadelphia.
You can listen to an interview with Perry about South to America on the Write On, Mississippi podcast here.