Hello, friends & a very happy spring to you all! Apologies for skipping the March Rabbit Hole, we are parents to a one year old who happens to be in daycare, which is code for “you are sick for all of eternity.” Our family spent much of March and part of April recovering from one virus or another, which meant very little energy left for anything that wasn’t light or somewhat brainless (no judgment on light content, it definitely got me through a *very* tough month!).
Anyway, I’m back with this month’s issue, and I had a hard time narrowing down my favorite pieces from this month to just three, which meant it was a good month for content (yay).
I narrowed my month’s recommendations down to a high octane action movie, a slow-moving beautiful film, and a laugh out loud travel series, just to give you some variety, and to satisfy all your moods. (You’re welcome.):
Recommendation #1: Monkey Man (theaters, for now)
I am a massive Dev Patel fan, less because of his movies and more because of his goddamn earnestness and authenticity, which he has in spades. The world needs more people like Dev Patel in my opinion, so when I first read about Monkey Man, his directorial debut that won an Audience Award at SXSW, I was dragging my whole family to the theater to watch it (obviously my toddler stayed home). This is a revenge film set in India, riffing off the mythology of the Indian monkey god Hanuman.
I have to be honest: it’s not the *best* movie — it’s Jon Wick-like but a bit messy and jumpy and chaotic. However, there is so much to love in Monkey Man that I’m recommending it purely because films like this need to exist. There are several themes and scenes that are just ingenious. In one scene, Dev’s character has a “call and answer” where he’s punching a rice sack to the beat of the tabla drummed by Ustad Zakir Hussein (who cameo’ed in the film). It’s akin to a Rocky Balboa training sequence, except it’s decidedly and unapologetically Indian. And that’s the film in a nutshell — it postures like a typical action film except it’s a much deeper commentary on corruption and politics and class and much more. I loved it for what it was trying to be, especially when you know the back story behind the film: Dev spent 10 years trying to get it made, they began filming and then the pandemic hit, Netflix bought it & then said just kidding, and Jordan Peele eventually helped save it. In a very meta way, the film is an underdog similar to its main protagonist who you just want to root for.
If you want to further Rabbit Hole on the creative process behind the film, I love the podcast Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso (such a great interviewer!) and he has a great interview with Dev that dropped a few weeks ago (linked above).
Recommendation #2: Perfect Days (Amazon Prime)
My husband and I rented this film the other night, and my goodness did we love it. Perfect Days is a film by German director Wim Wenders that follows Hirayama, a man who lives a simple life in Tokyo and cleans toilets for a living. Not just any toilets though — the Tokyo Toilet, which are 17 public toilets in the city's Shibuya district, created by architects and designers over the past six years (you can see them here, they are just gorgeous). Interestingly, Wenders first was asked to create a documentary about the Tokyo Toilet Project by Koji Yanai, the son of billionaire founder of Japanese brand Uniqlo, and the person who spearheaded the project. Wenders visited them in Tokyo, and while he didn’t feel he could make a whole documentary on the subject, he did feel there was a story he could tell around them.
The film is not dramatic, and that’s precisely the point. It instead follows the main character through his mundane, day after day. There isn’t much dialogue, but so much is communicated in the movie through its smallest and most still moments — from a small peck on the cheek to a hug to Hirayama’s eyes. Music plays an immense role in this film, and so do the toilets (believe it not), grounding the audience in a sense of place. It was a movie that reminded me how much joy can be experienced by living in the present, just like Hirayama does every day. Perfect Days was nominated for an Oscar this past year (for best international feature), and it is easily one of my favorite films of 2024.
Recommendation #3: Conan O’Brien Must Go (Max)
My siblings and I like a lot of the same things, and one human we universally love is Conan O’Brien (I mean, really, who doesn’t love Conan?). My sister and I religiously listen to the podcast he started post his late night show career, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and that’s where I heard he’d be launching a four episode travel series for Max called Conan O’Brien Must Go.
For the uninitiated, Conan had a travel series before called Conan Without Borders, and it was one of my favorite pieces of content not just because it was laugh out loud funny, but because Conan has the unique ability to make a serious ass of himself while still being nuanced and respectful of the places he visits, from Cuba to Korea to Ghana.
My husband and I already binged the first few episodes of Conan O’Brien Must Go, which premiered this past week, and it is even more ridiculous and funny than his previous series. If you like laughing until you cry (because who doesn’t), this is the show for you.
Bonus: Conan appeared on the YouTube show Hot Ones to promote this travel show (Hot Ones is also frequently discussed in the Lakhani sibling chat), and it was absolutely bonkers and so much fun to watch, see below:
I hope you enjoy these recommendations, and please feel free to share your own, along with any thoughts you have of the above, I’d love to hear it!
Until next month,
Kals x