This week we’ve seen ‘Everything’
Ted Lasso, the Ides of March, March Madness and St. Patrick’s Day, all at once
In a week, we’ve seen two banks collapse, a family with a multiverse of dysfunction sweep the Oscars, Short Round hug Indiana Jones, COVID celebrate its third anniversary — leather is the traditional gift if you’re feeling masochistic — the season premiere of “Ted Lasso,” the Ides of March, March Madness and St. Patrick’s Day.
So let’s start with “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Imagine if George Bailey and Clarence dropped acid. Frequently. That’s sort of like “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” with Evelyn Wang’s life fluctuating between ho hum and quiet desperation, a superhighway of broken dreams with an invisible off-ramp. Then she gets dragged into the multiverse, and chaos ensues. So does weirdness.
“Everything” is the weirdest Best Picture winner ever (trust me: I’ve seen all 95 and it ain’t even close), but the last three years have made us forget how wonderful weird can be. Yes, 2020 was the weirdest year of our collective lives and it was horrid, but so far 2023 is (looks both ways, throws salt over his shoulder and whispers) relatively normal. So maybe a little weirdness is worth embracing.
Teacher says, Every time a fighter uses a butt plug, an angel gets his wings. Attaboy, Clarence!
OK, maybe not that weird. But we love things like March Madness because of their unpredictability. Even if a favorite eventually wins, most of the joy — and weirdness — is in the journey.
We love an underdog. Most people who shrug when real-world banks collapse were rooting like crazy for George and Mary when the fictional Bailey Brothers Building & Loan nearly evaporated. Some of us nearly lost it when a bank examiner tried to deduce if the Baileys had any dirty laundry — or when an IRS agent examined Wang’s laundry for any dirty deductions.
We aren’t always as kind toward ourselves. Instead of underdogs, we see underachievers. We don’t see Ted Lasso’s blue and yellow sign that says “BELIEVE”; we see our own red flags. If we have a stabbing pain on March 15, we blame ourselves for doing too little in our salad days.
Maybe you can see a part of yourself in this scene, just as generations before did when George Bailey had his epiphany. Evelyn Wang found room in the whole weird world to love not only her family, but herself.
“It’s OK if you can’t be proud of me,” she tells her father. “Because I finally am.”
Hell, learn from St. Patrick, even if you don’t buy the hype about him driving the snakes out of Ireland. For all we know, he offered them some green beer and they slowly backed away. But now he’s a legend.
You have a chance to write a few plot twists in your own story with some real-life inspiration. (No, not George Santos.) Try Ke Huy Quan, who fled Vietnam in 1978, spent a year in refugee camp and eventually, at age 12, got to co-star with Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”
When the roles for young Asians dried up, he started working behind the scenes, figuring he’d never get another great opportunity. But after “Crazy Rich Asians” thrived, Quan got his own plot twist: a role as Evelyn Wang’s husband. And as Oscar.
I know the math might not check out on this, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes two are worth a million.
Murphy Slaw
Something old: This Los Angeles Times story offers a somewhat futile question: Can playing word games and solving puzzles keep your mind sharp (and maybe protect it from the ravages of age)? Alas, there’s little evidence. But the story did include 12 risk factors for dementia: excessive drinking, a head injury, air pollution, limited education, hypertension, hearing problems, smoking, obesity, depression, inactivity, diabetes and limited social contact.
Something new: As the weather gets better, this might be great motivation for city dwellers.
Something borrowed: Just a bunch of dogs looking cute.
Something blue: If you find yourself worrying so much about the consequences that you never do anything, maybe this will help.