Here's a Bit of Backstory for You

There’s a scene at the beginning of Top Gun: Maverick where Maverick walks into Don Draper’s office. My memory is a bit faulty on how it played out exactly, and I don’t want to pay $4.99 to watch it again on Amazon Prime, but what I remember is that Don recited Maverick’s resume to him. “You’re one of the riskiest pilots on the planet and you once took an upside down photo of a Russian MiG, and your friend Goose died after he played a Jerry Lee Lewis song on the piano for Meg Ryan, and now you have the audacity to show up here to teach a flying class just a few years after you were forced out of the Top Gun academy for joyriding? My god, man.”

Something like that. All while Tom Cruise just stood there with a smirk because Tom knows he still looks pretty much the same as he did when the first Top Gun came out in 1986, unlike the rest of us melting midlife jerks in the theater.

Reciting someone’s own resume to them is an economical way to get the movie’s backstory out, I guess. I just saw it happen in the Edgar Allan Poe-focused movie The Pale Blue Eye, too. Still, it’s somewhat clunky to have a character tell another character their life story. It drags down the pace and doesn’t feel natural. It’d be like if I walked into the gym I used to go to back in the days when I had self-respect.

“Well, well, well — would you look at who just came crawling back,” the Spin teacher would say. “Kind of surprising that you’d return to renew your membership, considering how bleak your last two bank statements were and what you owe the IRS. And because the last time you were here you yelled, ‘Stop telling me to f-cking pedal, Kayleigh’ before falling off your bike.”

“ … I was pushed …”

Producers and screenwriters could avoid this expository dialogue and instead just have a character look at the camera and say, “Okay, everyone, Google ‘plot of Top Gun’ before we move on. Ready? We all set? You may continue acting, call sign Abominable Snowman.” We’re all on our phones most of the time, anyway, at least when we watch movies at home. The other night my husband and I were enjoying Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but it took us almost two and a half hours to finish it because we kept pausing it to look up crucial information.

“Siri, how old is Michael Caine? No, Michael CAINE. No, not Tricyle Taim. What the hell is Tricycle Taim? MICHAEL CAINE. HOW OLD?”

“Try saying Sir Michael Caine,” my husband suggested.

“SIRI SIR MICHAEL CANE. SIRI SIR MICHAEL CAINE AGE. SIR SIRI — SHIT.”

“Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.”

I never do this in an actual theater, of course. I’m a purist about never talking or using my phone during a movie. I remain stone-cold silent from the moment the trailers start until the end credits roll. I wouldn’t even yell, FIRE! in a crowded theater if there was an actual fire. Rather I’d just do a lot of pointing and gesturing before running to the safety of the concession stand, hoping that $7 bags of Twizzlers are flame retardant. Probably not, since they’re at least 98% candy chemical.

But what this vow of silence means is that if I have a question about something during the movie, I have to wait until I leave the theater to find the answer. That good old delayed gratification we all remember from our youth. It’s like returning to the pioneer days of 2001. Of course, most of the time I can’t remember what I was curious about during the movie by the time the movie is over, so that works, too. Not much is a mystery anymore, so it’s almost refreshing when you don’t know something.

Like Michael Caine’s age.

(Okay, fine, I cracked. He’s 89.)

---

Miscellaneous Stuff!

My friend Devorah and I are in The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts talking about why we should have been Prince Harry’s ghostwriter.

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s Michael Caine bit from The Trip is hilarious.

I tried watching MILF Manor, where a group of moms hook-up with each others’s sons but I only made it seven minutes before dry heaving. I consider this a feather in my cap. No, I’m not linking to that shit.

I loved this book and I was sad it wasn’t longer.

I didn’t love this book and I was sad it wasn’t shorter.

I had a great time talking with Zibby Owens on the Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books podcast. And I’ll be doing an in-store event at Zibby’s new bookstore in Santa Monica on 4/29!

I’ve also visited a couple of book clubs and book groups lately to talk about I’M WEARING TUNICS NOW and it’s been really fun. Hit me up if you’re interested and I’ll show up on your doorstep like Mary Poppins in Eileen Fisher.

Finally, thank you for all of the nice messages and notes about Tunics! Please leave a positive review on the places that accept reviews, and keep on telling your friends about the book!

Just not during a movie.

—Wendi