Best of T.V. 2023 and Revisiting 'Home Alone 2'
My finest work at Textual Variations this year plus some movie thoughts
Hello, everyone and Happy Holidays!
Since it’s the end of the year, I wanted to talk a little bit about my newsletter’s prog-ress, highlight some of my best/favorite posts, and talk briefly about Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (dir. Chris Columbus, 1992), which I had just rewatched.
T.V. Newsletter Updates
I like to think that, although Textual Variations launched back in March 2021, it really started in July 2022. The first year plus change was a period when I didn’t really know what I was doing and getting the hang of how Substack worked. My posts were infrequent and irregular, and I was still figuring out what my newsletter’s relation was to my output on Medium.
I changed up my approach in July 2022, scheduling a bunch of weekly posts in advance, to regularly post new content. Sadly, despite my having a backlog, I didn’t manage to meet my initial goal of maintaining weekly posts for a whole year, eventually leading to some sizable intervals between articles.
Nonetheless, I’d say 2023 was a real breakout year for me. Over the course of it, I’ve learned to write faster, to manage my schedule better as well as to be more flexible with it. I discovered how to get people to engage more with my writing and made some good friends here, who have helped me build my confidence as a writer and allowed my work to gain greater visibility. And finally, I developed a better overall sense of what kinds of articles work best for my publication.*
*This is one reason my CUTS series still hasn’t returned. I plan to relaunch it at some point in the future, but probably not until the latter half of 2024 at the earliest.
The past four months in particular have been some of my most productive and creatively satisfying. And I hope to continue my streak into 2024, not taking any real breaks until the Summer. Until that point, I’m going to try to keep up the weekly posts, most of which should come out on Tuesdays.
With that out of the way, here is a list of what I consider some of my best work in 2023.
My Best Posts of 2023
The Film and Television Newsletter Catalogs
This was made from a desire to provide a directory to the numerous film and television Substacks available here on the platform. Quite simply, there was no directory like this, and I thought it would be great if there were. It is one of my most popular posts, and I keep updating it as I find more and more interesting newsletters to add. And man, there are a LOT of those here.
Thank you to everyone who commented on it. I didn’t know how people would receive it, but it looks like most were happy to see their publication pop up here.
I’m sad though that
itself still doesn’t offer ‘Film’ and ‘TV’ as separate categories on its “Explore” Tab. I mean, ‘Culture,’ ‘Literature’ and ‘Fiction’ all have their own sections. But nothing for Film or Television, even though there are over a hundred publications about those topics on here.How The Others Hinder Martin’s Progress on 'Winds of Winter'
This is a post I’d been thinking about since around 2019. It is the first of what I consider my ‘tentpole’ articles - long, extensively researched posts meant to dive very deeply into a topic few others have looked into and provide an original argument.
I’ve changed its title multiple times as until recently I couldn’t find one that best captured what this piece is about, which is the idea that George R.R. Martin still hasn’t finished the sixth book in his series, as he struggles with the contradictions of writing for the supernatural beings known as ‘The Others.’
You might say I wrote it for my parents, who like myself, are avid fans of both the ASOIAF books and the Game of Thrones television series.
Apple TV Lets You Physically Save your Digital Film Library
This is a revised version of one of an older piece from 2021 that I had tried to publish here and then pulled as it wasn’t really getting much traction. After I changed the title and rewrote it somewhat, it’s become one of my top performers on Google.
My main intention was to talk about the fact that Apple TV is actually a really good TVOD platform, in part because it allowed you to actually download copies of your purchased films and TV episodes. Video critics continue to talk all about physical formats like Blu-Ray, but it’s sad how Digital Retailers like Apple don’t get discussed.
Emotional Realism vs. Plot Holes in Film and TV
This started out as a section in a Matrix Retrospective essay that I was writing about the first movie’s narrative and why it works as well as it does, despite having some blatant plot holes. (That became an essay I published on Medium about the powers of the Agents.) Eventually, I realized that it deserved its own article, and expanded it, allowing me to discuss M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs among other works.
I’m really proud of this piece and the enthusiastic reception it has received, especially from other writers here on Substack.
A Wide-Ranging interview with Joseph Mallozzi
This was my very first interview for this newsletter! I was really, really nervous about reaching out to a showrunner on social media and was over the moon when he agreed to talk about one of my favorite series. Twitter may be running on fumes at this point, but it can still be useful! I hope to conduct more such retrospective Q&As like this in the future. Hope to find some showrunners, writers, or directors interested in discussing the evolution of ongoing screen narratives.
If you are enjoying this post so far, then please consider signing up to support my work and receive my posts via email.Why Removed HBO Max Originals Return in Other Formats
Though I’m sad it hasn’t quite gotten the traction I hoped, I am very happy with how this tentpole article turned out following the vast amount of research I conducted. In large part, it was my reaction to the oft-repeated myth that when platforms like HBO Max removed their Streaming Originals, they were effectively erasing their works from existence or committing an act equivalent to burning film negatives.
I wanted to show that the reality was much more complicated, and works that get pulled actually have a good chance of coming back elsewhere.
How Neo’s Character Arc Reveals The Matrix Superpower System
This was another post that began as a section before growing into a full essay. I was originally going to include in a very long piece about The Matrix Reloaded but realized I needed to first delve into the intricacies of the first movie and explain why Neo actually becomes The One at the end of it.
I think it’s by far my deepest dive into one of my favorite movies. And though it stands on its own, it helps set up things that will arrive in the future.
How Slashfilm Plagiarized My Original Shymalan Article
This was a post that came from a very personal place.
I had wanted to open up about the plagiarism of one my first articles for over a year but I could never bring myself to do it until recently. It hasn’t impacted the copycat piece produced by Slashfilm but at least my truth is out there now.
I thank Harry Brewis for really opening the door that allowed it to happen. And I thank all of you that have responded to it and helped spread the word about it.
What to Expect in 2024
A lot of cool stuff is coming in the next few months. I’m planning on doing some guest posts here and there, while also keeping up the weekly postings here on T.V., so there shouldn’t be any disruptions to the regular schedule. One thing I’m really looking forward to is to finish up a very cool article on the post-production shenanigans of the unfairly maligned superhero movie Morbius and have it out at the end of January.
And hopefully in the first quarter, I will have finally completed an extensive deep dive article into The Matrix Reloaded that I’ve been meaning to write for almost 20 years. It’s something I’ve been building to with my Matrix articles and I look forward to finally paying off the setups.
There might be some Godzilla stuff in the works as well - at one point I hoped to discuss what happened to Godzilla vs. Kong but for one reason or another never managed to really get that off the ground. There’s a lot of stuff I want to say now about King of the Monsters, the new Minus One movie that came out recently, and the good-to-great Apple TV+ series Monarch. We’ll see what happens.
In any case, I hope to maintain the level of quality I’ve managed to achieve in the past four months or so, and with that, hit my next goal of 1000 subscribers.
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!
Funny thing happened: I rewatched Home Alone 2 this Christmas Eve, and was surprised to see that it wasn’t that bad. Really, I think over the years, despite liking it as a kid, I became convinced through all the negative reviews and discourses that Lost in New York was a terrible rehash of the now-classic first film.
And yes, to a considerable extent, it IS a retread of the first movie, especially in the beginning and then the third act, where the kid lures the Wet/Sticky Bandits into a booby-trapped NYC building. And yes, you have to get through a LOT of narrative contrivances to have Kevin McAllister arrive all by himself to New York City.
But - there’s a whole lot here to actually enjoy.
The middle of the movie where Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) explores NYC and has to repeatedly outsmart the staff of The Plaza hotel, lead by Tim Curry, to rent an expensive room, where he can fill up on junkfood and goof off, is solid gold.*
*Also, just want to say that when I first saw it as a five-year-old kid, Kevin’s New York adventure was like an introduction to a different world.
I was really surprised to discover that this was the Home Alone movie that originated the now-unforgettable quote “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal! And a Happy New Year!” The fake noir movie gag here is already great. But it gets even greater when Kevin later uses the movie to scare the staff into thinking there’s an actual madman in the hotel with a machine gun. Despite the sheer ridiculousness of it, it works!
The film peaks at the point where Kevin leaves the Plaza sadly and never recaptures that energy. But overall, it ain’t that bad. So, if you’re looking for a movie to watch during the Holidays, then check out Lost in New York, ya filthy animals!
Also, if you’re looking for a laugh, take a look at some funny videos called Home Alone with Blood by Bunni Walker (fka BitMassive), which remixes footage from the two films to show what would happen to Harry and Marv if the movies actually ascribed to the laws of physics.
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If you enjoyed this article, then please consider sharing or cross-posting it to help this publication get more views! But what do you think?What are your favorite posts from Textual Variations? Any thoughts on Home Alone or its sequel? Any cool movies you’d recommend seeing for the Holidays?
Please, leave a comment!
I think I subscribed to your Substack a bit after you posted the list of TV and Film Substack writers. Being tagged there is how I found your blog, which was a great way to both showcase writing in this space on Substack and get folks to engage together (when so many of us are / had been writing in silos). Have loved reading your stuff the past 7-8 months - and of course, as I close this tab, I've opened another (I missed your Winds of Winter post). Looking forward to engaging more in 2024!