After abandoning an ambitious schedule, pausing or cancelling several projects, and dragging myself to the finish line in 2021, I craved a comeback and my comprehensive write-ups on every official Olympic documentary provided the perfect opportunity (both onscreen and off). A sense of momentum was restored as I stayed a few weeks ahead on this project, zooming in on individual competitors and events while stepping back to view the evolution of modern history through the lens of international sports. This theme was complemented by the simultaneous conclusion of my already-composed Mad Men viewing diary, with the characters journeying from 1960 to 1970.
Between Ronald Reagan's backward-looking classic Kings Row and my announcement of a new schedule for the coming year and a half, these few months witnessed the end of several eras: the Olympics bookended by Beijing's fraught winter games, Mad Men pulling characters apart and tying them together in a memorable finale, and my patron podcast ending several of its features, including - for now anyway - my once-optimistic political coverage with the left's decline and Putin's invasion.
My highlight of this period captures a similar dynamic at work in The Olympic Films, part 6 of 7: Summer 1952 / 1948 / 1936 (+ 1932 bonus) & Winter 1998 / 2002 / 2006, spanning seventy years from the sinister beauty of Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia to the martial mood of Bud Greenspan's Salt Lake City 2002, touching on post-World War II recovery and end-of-the-millennium enthusiasm before flickering out in a moment of fleeting, melancholy warmth I both do and don't remember.
JANUARY
Interrupted like many other projects in the fall, my coverage finally resumes as a weekly rather than monthly series of round-ups, interweaving forward-moving Winter Olympics, including the gorgeous White Vertigo, and backward-moving Summer Olympics (in this case, a trilogy of Bud Greenspan films)
My "Small Town Blues" trilogy begins late in the nineteenth century as a young man falls in love with a troubled, mysterious young woman whose father mentors him in psychoanalysis
Sterling Cooper & Partners enters the seventies crooning "Is that all there is?" as Don grieves an old friend and finds himself intrigued by a moody waitress
Carlos Saura's talk-free Marathon, Greenspan's heavily narrated Los Angeles debut, and Yuri Ozerov's whimsical, innovative peek behind the boycotted Soviet games accompany a couple uber-sixties French docs set in Grenoble and a trio of South Korean films celebrating Seoul
The turn-of-the-century world of Kings Row and the shocking murder of Twin Peaks are given nonfictional form by a book about the unsolved mystery of Hazel Drew
As he pursues another lonely soul, Don must deal with the wreckage of a past relationship; meanwhile, Peggy and Stan are entrapped by a charming, manipulative fashion photographer
FEBRUARY
The two seasons cross paths in the seventies for some of the series' most striking entries, including a fun James Coburn-hosted exploration of winter sports and an eclectic anthology approach to the dark Munich games in the multi-director Visions of Eight
Fellow podcasters join me to analyze this nineties outback power struggle between a stubborn young woman and an arrogant older man determined to break her faith in a religious cult, re-presented just a month before Jane Campion would win Best Director for the first time
One of my last podcasts in this format completes the past year's look at Nicholas Ray and uses David Lynch's original Twin Peaks finale as a springboard to discuss some heady mythological concepts
In one of the series' last calm moments, Don tries to figure out where he's going, Joan meets cute in California, and an unexpected reunion takes an even more unexpected turn in the shadow of Vietnam
Kon Ichikawa's masterful Tokyo Olympiad adopts an unusual perspective, a happy Sarajevo plays host a decade before being torn to pieces, and my Winter Olympics trajectory finally reaches events I can personally remember
With massive change in the air, Don launches another last-minute campaign to avert business disaster...but will it work and, more importantly, is what's being averted really a disaster?
The Nazis host the last games in a dozen years before the war that they'll start, London and St. Moritz welcome the postwar era in glorious Technicolor (the only documentary to include both summer and winter events), and Americans are determined to win in the wake of 9/11
The original "Small Town Blues" drama left a deep impression on Mark Frost, and its community spirit can be felt in his contributions to Peaks (especially his books)
A moving literary tribute to the legacy of Peaks' portrait of abuse and survival launches a broader discussion about the shape of season three, including the mysteries entangled with Laura's mother
The show unveils some of its most iconic and evocative imagery when Peggy finds her sea legs in an abandoned office, Joan falls through the cracks in a new environment, and Don decides to go on an impromptu "sales call"
Summer coverage stretches back beyond the reach of motion picture cameras and the winter thread unravels into immediate Olympic drama in the present day (passing, in this process, an ominous celebration of Putin's Russia)
I bid farewell to the Patreon template I've used since 2019, opening the last part of Lost in Twin Peaks for the $1/month tier and presenting my final patron-exclusive "Twin Peaks Cinema" and "Twin Peaks Reflections" by connecting Fire Walk With Me to a sad, snowy film and exploring some of its more peripheral characters, locations, and storylines
A door opens for Pete, a door closes for Betty, and Don's breakdown strands him in a town offering both camaraderie and savagery
MARCH
After covering a couple Campions, my season of director miniseries shifts to Darren Aronofsky and the austere but expansive vision of his debut feature
The finale follows through with Pete's and Betty's closing arcs as set in the previous episode, offers Roger a grace note, and asks at least three more questions: Where does Peggy belong? Will Joan choose comfort over ambition? And can Don discover a lifeline?
After months of delay - a year in the case of podcast recommendations - I finally pack together long-promised bonus sections into several episodes' worth of commentary, linked by a concern with history, politics, the passage of time, and the frustrations of the present moment
"Small Town Blues" reaches the film whose cultural imprint and portrait of domestic dysfunction most directly shaped Twin Peaks, even if Lynch and Frost were not fans
Two scholars' multifaceted book explores all three seasons in depth, particularly evoking the spirit of noir and the femme fatale
Another early Aronofsky captures the turn-of-the-millennium Gen X zeitgeist in its extreme visions of delusion and addiction
APRIL
Not for the first time, but hopefully for the last, I lay out a plan to get through several projects and reach Part 6 of Journey Through Twin Peaks
Third entry in my Aronofsky podcast trio examines his late zeroes "comeback" against the background of its cultural moment, gritty but still with a streak of romanticism
Shared on the thirty-third anniversary of the pilot - a chat about the different eras of the fan community, Mya's memories of growing up with Peaks, and the highs and lows of season three
Catching up with comments on various platforms including a compelling fairy tale/Twin Peaks comparison, this wraps my unfinished business from the previous year so that I can move on to more long-term projects and new approaches across the board
(in which almost everything I publish is a podcast - including public Lost in Twin Peaks for Fire Walk With Me and The Return)
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