What Does Pandemic Production Look Like?

Plus: The Fall Preview is Here!

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when a very bad idea for a reality show was announced, and then un-announced. It was the week when Broadway began to return in earnest, and the rest of theater -- the bulk of theater -- hoped to follow. And it was the week when lots of good books made it onto a long list. Let's get to it.  Opening Argument: What Does Pandemic Production Look Like? One of the interesting things about the Toronto International Film Festival (covered on Friday’s podcast) was seeing movies that seemed like obvious pandemic productions. That’s neither good nor bad; it’s just the sense that a movie is of a type that would be easier than most to complete under various COVID restrictions.  One was The Guilty, the Antoine Fuqua thriller (and a remake of a 2018 Danish movie) where Jake Gyllenhaal plays a 911 dispatcher. You spend the great majority of the film just watching him at his workstation, talking into a headset and tapping at a computer. Believe me, it’s still very tense — it’s just confined. It doesn’t have much in the way of crowd scenes, or sex scenes, or other large helpings of close contact.  Another is a film called Lakewood, in which Naomi Watts plays a mother whose son’s school goes into lockdown. The hook is that she’s out on a (long) run in the woods when she gets the news, and she doesn’t have an easy or speedy way home. So the great majority of the film is just Watts in the woods, running and talking on her cell phone and trying to get a ride. Like The Guilty, it looks isolation-made, like the headaches would have been minimal. Netflix Of course, minimal is relative. The HBO series Scenes From A Marriage that’s currently airing on Sunday nights is almost entirely just Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac interacting inside a house. But there are little glimpses of the production process at the beginning of the episodes, and they offer a good reminder that there are still a lot of people involved in shooting these confined stories. The idea that you can make anything at all easily when people aren’t supposed to be in close contact is perhaps an illusion. And production has also continued on things that do involve sex and crowds and big groups in close quarters. I watched screeners this week for an upcoming Netflix series (it’s still embargoed!) that’s full of “regular” scenes involving lots of people and lots of chaos — and they managed to film it in late 2020. It’s not as if pandemic protocols created one-person (or almost one-person) movies. Think about Ryan Reynolds in the “guy in a coffin” film Buried (or don’t; that movie haunts me) or Tom Hardy in the “guy in a car” film Locke. Those would both look like “well, sure, because … pandemic” movies if they came out now.  So maybe what’s happening is just that I’m much more conscious of production challenges when I’m watching than I have been in the past. Maybe it’s the mark that these many months have left on me as a viewer, right? Maybe it’s just that now I think, “Whew, Jake Gyllenhaal doesn’t look like he’s breathing on practically anybody in this scene!” It feels like it could take a while before that feeling recedes.    Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend: Please enjoy this story from NPR's Bobby Allyn about the current Elizabeth Holmes (no relation) fraud trial. Sometimes, news still has the capacity to be engagingly wacky.  I've been playing Overboard! on the Nintendo Switch this week. It's a murder mystery where you're a glamorous newlywed at sea and, uh, you're the murderer and you're trying to get away with it. (I choose to believe the victim was a person who was very very evil.) You have to conceal evidence, prevent people from tattling who might have seen what you did, that kind of thing. You play through to the end and find out whether (1) you got away with it and (2) you can get the life insurance money, and then if you don't accomplish both of those things, you start over. It requires a little more repetition (redoing the round when it doesn't go perfectly) than I prefer, but it's a game to which I lost a couple of happy hours.  I think a lot of people were quite riveted to the testimony to Congress from elite U.S. gymnasts, including familiar names like Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Aly Raisman, who spoke about the abuse they suffered at the hands of their team doctor, and about what they described as mishandling of the allegations by the FBI, among others. If you're interested in this story, there has been a lot of fine journalism done about it, but I want to resurface in particular the podcast Believed, from Michigan Radio and NPR. What We Did This Week: Jojo Whilden/HBO This weekend, Aisha, Glen, Bob Mondello, Eric Deggans and I collaborated on a Fall Preview -- a guide to some of the TV and movies we're most excited to see this fall. It's certainly not comprehensive and it comes from our very subjective POVs, so feel free to take a look around and let us know what you're looking forward to!  On Monday's show, Stephen and Aisha sat with NPR TV critic Eric Deggans to talk about the legacy of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which came to an end this week.  On Tuesday, I had so much fun talking to NPR's London correspondent Frank Langfitt about Ted Lasso. Frank was kind enough to go to Ted's very own pub to talk to some locals and bring back their thoughts, and you can hear a bit more of his coverage on All Things Considered. On Wednesday, Stephen talked to Lyndsey McKenna and Anamaria Sayre about the new Kacey Musgraves album Star-Crossed.  On Thursday, we brought back an encore episode about the comedy series What We Do In The Shadows.  And on Friday, Aisha and Glen and I talked about some of what we saw at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.  I continued recapping Ted Lasso as the show took another break from its narrative to do a standalone episode about a character in crisis.  And I debuted a new weekly recap that will be running for the next couple of months: The Morning Show, the curious case of a high-profile project with everything going for it that had a very ho-hum first season and is now looking to bounce back.  I wrote last weekend about the HBO drama Scenes From A Marriage.  Another thing: Remember that we'll be talking about The Sopranos on the show in an upcoming episode, and we're taking your questions. Send us a voice memo to pchh@npr.org, and you might hear us talk about what you asked! (We promise not to turn you into the authorities for having questions about crime.) What's Making Us Happy! Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: What’s making Glen happy: Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza What’s making Aisha happy: Run the World on Starz What’s making Linda Happy: Bad Blood, The Final Chapter. You can also check out our previous coverage on PCHH Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. 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