Lit Hub Recommends: Ted Lasso, The Windsors, and Dash & Lily.
Apparently we need a break from books.
This month, I would like to recommend both the 1949 expressionist noir The Third Man and the 2020 surrealist blanc Ted Lasso. The former (which I had never seen before, despite its classic status and my extremely useful film minor) is a hypnotic, dark-toned, zither-heavy, off-kilter experience, a bizarre thriller that unfolds at least half in unsubtitled German. The latter (which Dan Sheehan made me watch despite how bad the trailer looked, so if this is you, do it) is an absolute riot of golden light and joy and puns and niceness, immediately comprehensible on every level, in every moment. Both, however, managed to pluck me from my regular reality more fully than anything else I consumed this month, which is apparently my new standard for entertainment! Thanks, 2020.
–Emily Temple, Lit Hub Managing Editor
I would recommend watching The Crown, but that was before I made my way through the even-better parody of The Crown—The Windsors. Watch this one for Camilla’s opera antics, Princess Anne’s turn as Mrs. Danvers, and the way that Prince Harry says “Pippa!”
–Molly Odintz, CrimeReads Senior Editor
Since discovering it (via the Book Marks instagram!) a few weeks ago, I have been charmed and delighted by Kim’s Convenience, the Canadian sitcom about a Korean-immigrant/first-gen family living in Toronto, where they own a convenience store. The continuity is fabulous (so many recurring background characters), and it’s laugh-out-loud funny multiple times every episode—true medicine for the end of 2020. So is Taylor Swift’s surprise new album evermore that I am listening to as I write this. So are these cinnamon rolls (not soothing while you spend all six? hours making them, but VERY soothing while you’re eating them).
If you’re in NYC a bunch, I also recommend products sold at Fountain House + Body, which is a store that sells soaps and other liquid cleaning products in glass bottles, that, when you eventually empty them, you can bring back to the store for refills—a process which both eliminates plastic waste and minimizes excess glass consumption. Fountain House, itself, is an nonprofit that seeks to provide support, housing, resources, and employment for individuals with mental illness. So when you get their soap refills, you also support this initiative. If you’re looking for a place to get people practical holiday gifts, I heartily recommend!
–Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads and Lit Hub Staff Writer
I regret to inform you that the Netflix original Dash & Lily is indeed just as adorable and wholesome and heartening as everyone says it is! I put it on the other night, thinking it would be just a fun and festive background show—reader, I finished all eight episodes that night. If you are on this site, I can only assume you are a moony-eyed book lover like the rest of us, so you will be unable to help yourself from falling for the very cheesy conceit: a girl who just wants to fall in love leaves a scavenger hunt in The Strand. Full disclosure: I low-key think that somehow this show is based on my teenage life (picture me, a dork, at age 15, leaving inspirational post-its inside the very same bookstore, hanging out by the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park, even attending the same Sunday night poetry reading at Zinc Bar). Plus—and this is a biggie—I can’t convey how great it was to see an Asian-American character center-stage in this. Strides, baby! Happy holidays.
–Katie Yee, Book Marks Associate Editor
I recommend Broadcast News.
–Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads Editor-in-Chief
