Three Fun Things for August 4, 2024
A big, smash-y movie, a (non-Olympics) world record, and a defense of "trashy" books.
1. The Fall Guy (streaming on Amazon Prime)
It isn’t a caveat, exactly, to say that I like big, dumb movies with big, dumb action sequences—I really enjoyed the latest Deadpool movie (don’t even try to convince me that it was a Deadpool/Wolverine movie) despite my loathing for “fan service” (ugh) and I was one of the first in line to see Top Gun: Maverick despite my loathing for, you know, cults.
It’s just that dumb action movies aren’t for everyone, and if the idea of a film that’s primarily about the spectacle, and humor, of stunts and the men who perform them sends your teacup pinky flying skyward, The Fall Guy isn’t for you. But if you’re a sucker for elaborately choreographed fight sequences, comically stupid villains, and big, smashy practical effects, you’re going to love this movie.
The plot centers on Colt Seavers, a stuntman (Ryan Gosling) who doubled for a bleach-tipped dummy named Tom Ryder (British actor—and maybe the next James Bond???—Aaron Taylor Johnson) until he fell down an elevator lobby while executing a stunt, an accident he blames on himself. Seavers is convinced to get back in the game by Ryder’s longtime producer, Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), who entices him to join the crew for a sci-fi romance called Metalstorm by telling him that the director—his old flame Jody Banks (Emily Blunt)—has asked for him specifically. But (dun dun DUNH) nothing is as it seems, and pretty soon Seavers is being framed for murder. Now he has to clear his name, get the bad guys, and convince Banks, whom he ditched after his big fall, to give him another chance. Plot, schmot: The movie is an homage to stunts, and there are more than enough good ones to justify its more than two-hour runtime and a deliberately paint-by-numbers plot.
Despite what I said above, my favorite sequence is, arguably, a form of fan service : A replication of the Universal Studios’ stunt show based on Miami Vice, featuring a flaming speedboat, a daring underwater getaway, and multiple boat jumps—a perfect distillation of this funny, sweet, pyrotechnic-fueled love letter to the little-appreciated professionals who make action movies, and their stars, look cool.
2. Once you’ve watched Fall Guy (or in lieu, if you’re highbrow), check out Terry Gross’ Fresh Air interview with the movie’s director, former stuntman David Leitch. Among many other fascinating things you will learn about stunts and the guys who do them is the amount of preparation that goes into executing a cannon roll—a trick that involves a pneumatic tube that forces a speeding vehicle to roll end over end—and the many ways the trick can go wrong. Stunt man Logan Holladay took the world record by executing an eight-and-a-half-flip cannon roll during the filming of Fall Guy, a feat that’s featured—and celebrated—in the movie.
3. Books aimed at teen and preteen girls are among the most maligned American literary genres, and it’s easy to see why: Like adventure and mystery stories aimed at boys, “girl” books tend to be frothy and fun, but unlike those books, they’re for and about girls—a group whose musical tastes, fandoms, hobbies, and interests have been historically ridiculed as unserious and inferior.
The Sweet Valley High books—which, along with the ouvre of the great Judy Blume, taught me much of what I knew as a tween about sex and desire—are a prime example of this tendency to look down on mass-market literature about and for girls. Their creator, Justine Pascal, died recently at the age of 92, and her passing has been the occasion for a number of wonderful pieces revisiting her legacy and the impact her books (written mostly by a team of writers) had on a generation of young women.
Sally Franson’s, in the New York Times, is the best of the bunch. I’ll just leave you with an excerpt that I recently read aloud at home, cackling like Kamala all the while:
“He responded by turning his face to hers and kissing her hard, his arms crushing her against him, his mouth demanding what his body wanted to take.”
The line precedes a sultry encounter that, like Proust’s madeleine, has had such staying power in my consciousness that for years I’ve joked it makes up the bulk of my sexual identity. […]
“His body was urgent against her, and she didn’t have the heart anymore to fight … a strange weight was on her limbs. She was giving way.”
If you squint — you don’t even have to squint hard — D.H. Lawrence’s imagery is indistinguishable from Ms. Pascal’s. Like her, Lawrence was ridiculed for writing about female sexuality. Unlike her, Lawrence was a man, and his efforts to put words to desire were, eventually, touted as genius.