Watching 'WarGames' In 2021

Plus: Jean Smart The G.O.A.T., 'F9,' and What in The Heck is 'Sexy Beasts??'

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when Britney Spears spoke for herself. It was the week when Conan O'Brien closed a chapter. And it was the week when a lovely 50th anniversary feature got us talking about Joni Mitchell. Opening Argument: Watching WarGames In 2021 I'm fairly confident it was an algorithm that got me to watch the 1983 thriller WarGames, which stars a baby-faced Matthew Broderick and a baby-faced Ally Sheedy as high school students David (a hobbyist hacker) and Jennifer (his potential love interest), who accidentally dial into a military computer and nearly start a nuclear war with what was then the USSR.  Also starring Dabney Coleman, Barry Corbin and John Wood, WarGames is a collision of video game and computer paranoia (what are those nerds doing?) with Cold War paranoia, in which the futility of war turns out to be the one lesson a machine cannot learn unless it is made to play tic-tac-toe against itself. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, it relies on the idea of an anthropomorphized computer system that has opinions and can turn on you. What it doesn't have is a fear of tech geniuses: Falken (Wood), who invented the system that's called Joshua, is presented as a traumatized man who just wanted to do good things.  The technology was contemporary at the time, but watching it now, it plays as comedy: David's enormous floppy disks and his clunky drives, his modem (which is the actual phone-receiver-cradle variety), his brute-force phone calling of random numbers waiting for a computer to answer. (One day, we will get to the point where people don't even remember that you once had to use your telephone line to connect with any computer that wasn't in your house. And while you were connected, your phone was busy. Can you believe people got along with their roommates for so long?)  This was a time when the fear of large-scale military conflict fought with missiles was top of mind, and when the efforts to rein in the threat of nuclear weapons was in the news constantly. Two TV movies about this threat came out in 1983, too: The Day After, which was about the aftermath of a nuclear war, and Special Bulletin, which was about a detonation caused by terrorists. I'm not sure there's any way to better explain how constant that threat, which very very rarely makes news now, was talked about in 1983 than to point to these three movies, two on television and one in theaters. I don't think people think of WarGames as any kind of classic; I don't think that I'd argue it is one. It's pretty ham-handed and firmly of its time, even though there's also something bold about its gravity and how much it puts on the shoulders of its young actors. But even if it isn't, this is why I sometimes like to watch movies that are not classics -- even ones that are not artistically special, particularly. This was popular entertainment in 1983, starring the guy who was a couple years away from being in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and the girl who was a couple of years away from being in The Breakfast Club, and they were in a thriller about the philosophical imperative of preventing nuclear war. And it's not just that -- it's the peculiar brew of war fears and computer fears, the idea that kids were at home by themselves, doing all kinds of things with big machines that their parents didn't know anything about, playing games for hours or writing programs in BASIC. What was understood, which was the enormous danger of nuclear weapons, went into a bucket with what was less understood, which was computers and games and military technology (the entire construct is that video games for teenagers were not unlike military simulations).  It captures a very particular moment, in the same way there will be a movie in the next couple of years, most likely, that captures what pandemic isolation felt like in a way that no effort to explain pandemic isolation in words really could. A film doesn't have to be great for that to happen; it just has to be stamped, indelibly, with the date of its release. Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend: Starstruck on HBO MAX is a charming romantic comedy created by and starring comic Rose Matafeo. It follows a young woman who discovers that the guy she just hooked up with is a famous actor, and how that complicates their efforts to get to know each other. There are only six episodes, a little under a half-hour each, and the show is a real pleasure. We'll be covering it soon on the podcast.  Laura Lippman’s book Dream Girl is out this week. It’s the story of a writer who, while laid up in a hospital bed after a freak accident, begins receiving calls from someone who claims to be the lead character in his most famous book. The … fictional lead character. It’s full of swerves and surprises, and I can honestly tell you I had no idea where it was going.  At the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016, I saw a terrific family comedy called Jean Of The Joneses, from director Stella Meghie. It’s about a family and their secrets, and there’s a delightful romantic comedy piece, and for years, it wasn’t possible to stream it. Now, it’s on Amazon Prime. Enjoy the movie that made me complain about its unavailability for five years!  I love a good conversation with a great actor, and this conversation in The New Yorker between Rachel Syme and Jean Smart certainly qualifies.  And if you haven't already, RSVP for the virtual book launch for the book NPR's Podcast Startup Guide, written by our own Glen Weldon. He'll be joined on Tuesday night, June 29th, at 8 PM Eastern, by our pal Gene Demby of Code Switch and by our producer, Jessica Reedy.  What We Did This Week: Universal/Getty Images On Monday's show, Aisha and Glen were joined by Inkoo Kang to talk about Tuca & Bertie, the animated show about bird friends that has made a triumphant return after an earlier cancellation. Glen is responsible for calling it "beak TV," so don't write to me. On Tuesday, Glen talked to Roxana Hadadi about We Are Lady Parts, a Peacock comedy with a lot to recommend it.  On Wednesday, we teamed up with NPR's Life Kit for a starter guide to reading romance, featuring Christina Tucker, Karen Grigsby Bates, and author Adriana Herrera. On Thursday, I talked to Kristen Meinzer about Physical, the Apple TV+ aerobics dramedy with Rose Byrne that we both wish had ... more Rose Byrne and more aerobics.  For Friday of F9: The Fast Saga week (hooray!), I talked to Aisha, Sam Sanders and Ayesha Rascoe about the newest Fast & Furious movie.  If you're looking for a deeper (much deeper) dive into how the Fast & Furious franchise has lasted 20 years, through tough competition, a few missteps and the intervention of a tragedy? I went into detail. And at the top of that page, you can find a conversation I had on All Things Considered with Ari Shapiro, talking about the film's legacy at 20.  Glen had a very smart discussion with Ailsa Chang on All Things Considered about the subject of female pleasure and the censoring thereof in the context of Batman and Catwoman. Oh, and also: I wrote about the most important question confronting society today: What in the heck is Sexy Beasts? 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 Sam happy: the Sexy Beast trailer on Netflix What's making Linda happy: Launchpad Short Films on Disney+ What's making Aisha happy: " 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' at 25: An Oral History of Disney's Darkest Animated Classic," by Josh Spiegel on Slashfilm.com What's making Ayesha happy: Mythic Quest on Apple TV Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. 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