Kellams: This is Ozarks at Large, it is time to welcome our culture — vulture. April Wallace, back to the studio. Welcome back.
Wallace: Thank you so much.
Kellams: An instructor at the University of Arkansas School of Journalism and Strategic Media as well.
Wallace: That's right.
Kellams: And today we're going to start with reading. Reading our reading habits, thinking about our reading habits.
Wallace: Think about our reading habits. Okay, so I'm curious, Kyle, if you have a reading goal.
Kellams: So when you ask a reading goal, I mean, for your year, like, do you start it with a goal? Do you have one?
Wallace: You mean like a number of books?
Kellams: No, there are certain books that I want to read, and there are books that I've probably purchased and are on a nightstand, and I — my goal isn't to read them all, but to spend time reading most of them. How about you? You have a goal.
Wallace: Well, I think Goodreads tricked me into doing a numerical reading goal for a good while, but I think the downside was that I got caught up in the number for a little bit, and I frankly would rather have high-quality reads and fewer. I would like to get the most enjoyment out of reading and connect with people who, you know, have given me recommendations over just trying to meet a number. So there's — there's been years where I read a lot for myself, like 30 or more books for myself. These days, I do read a lot per year because I'm reading chapter books to my boys at bedtime.
Kellams: Sure.
Wallace: But, you know, I prefer the quality of the experience over, like, let's just blow through a book a week.
Kellams: Absolutely. Well, as far as TV and movies this week, I'd love to talk about "Hacks."
Wallace: Okay.
Kellams: So "Hacks" is on HBO.
Wallace: It is. It's about a veteran comic who hires a younger comedy writer to help her boost her career.
Kellams: Yes, I think it's not altruistic at the start in any sense.
Wallace: But yes, that is the starting point. So Deborah Vance is a longtime comedian. She's in her mid-60s. She's kind of in her final, really working years. And she's kind of like — I think the main problem is she's kind of at risk of being mediocre on her way out when she's been used to being at the top of the field for so long. She's a resident Vegas performer. She kind of made the residency thing a thing. But she has aspirations. She wants to fill Madison Square Garden. She wants to do late night. These are things that come up in the final season. And there have been slights in her career because she was a woman.
Kellams: Exactly.
Wallace: I think that is a huge part of what makes it so appealing, is seeing them work through those issues in a story sort of format, rather than just talking about them. Enter Ava Daniels, the queer Gen Z comedian, with a fresh perspective. She makes Deborah uncomfortable, to say the least, over and over again, but they have this great dynamic where she pushes her to be better even when she doesn't like it, and it's just wonderful.
Kellams: It covers some serious topics, but it's first and foremost a comedy.
Wallace: It is, and I do love that, because there's a difference between being about comedy and doing comedy, and it balances both. It is not strictly just a laugh a minute, but it will make you laugh when you're not expecting it. It's both serious and funny, but I think it's like funny even when it's not trying too hard to be, which is beautiful.
Kellams: And that's "Hacks," all seasons on HBO, or Max, or whatever it's called today.
Wallace: I think they're back to HBO now.
Kellams: Okay. Next we have "Spider-Noir."
Wallace: All right. So, you know, I'm a huge Spider-Man fan.
Kellams: Yes.
Wallace: I also like Nicolas Cage.
Kellams: Mhm.
Wallace: I don't get Amazon Prime, so I haven't seen this.
Kellams: Oh my goodness.
Wallace: So is it good?
Kellams: It's so good.
Wallace: Oh darn, I was hoping you'd say it was horrible. Scratch that. Tell me about it.
Kellams: We did have the most fun watching it. So you're gonna have to get Prime pretty soon, because it is worth it. Any Nicolas Cage, as you said, is Spider-Man — I could just leave it at that.
Wallace: That's pretty much all I heard, and I was like, I will watch it.
Kellams: Yes, please. As you can surmise, it's not like the young, modern teenage, like Tobey Maguire brand Spider-Man, like geek turned superhuman. This has been Reilly, and he's a private investigator who's faced a lot of tragedy. When we meet him, it's been a few years since World War Two ended. That's not the main source of his sorrow, but it's definitely like an undercurrent that informs, like, everything about him. His hero form is called Mr. Spider, which I just adore.
Wallace: Okay.
Kellams: He wears a trench coat and a face mask, like a knitted cap kind of face mask, and a hat, of course. You know, he's not particularly athletic. He's just — he looks like the average guy working in an office at that time. And he's got a really healthy skepticism for everyone and everything. And he's struggling to find enough work to get by. He hung up his spider costume because of the tragedy that you learn about at the beginning, but strange events cause him to dig it out again. So he feels like he's forced back into being a superhero, because he's the only one in the city. And if he's not going to do it, who will?
Wallace: Who will?
Kellams: That follows the Spider-Man mythos — with great power.
Wallace: It does, and that is said outright at some point.
Kellams: It's got everything. Mobsters, a gorgeous jazz club night singer, a cheeky assistant, and a newspaper reporter named Robertson.
Wallace: My maiden name, by the way.
Kellams: Determined to get his desk back in the newsroom by, you know, getting some more superhero shots. And he's got the canned, like, P.I. voice, like — say, you know, if I like Spider-Man and I like Humphrey Bogart, this is your film.
Wallace: Okay.
Kellams: Yeah. And this was a series.
Wallace: It is?
Kellams: Also, you have the option to either watch it in color or in black and white.
Wallace: Nice.
Kellams: And I'll say we tried color. It's beautiful and vibrant. It was really fun to do for a few minutes, but I had to go back to the black and white, because that is more, um, something else.
Wallace: Wonderful.
Wallace: I watched recently, but maybe others have seen it in the last few years — is the 2023 movie "Nyad," based on Diana Nyad, the great swimmer who was the first to swim from Cuba to Florida, with no shark cage, with no assistance other than her team in a boat alongside her. Full disclosure, I only watched this because I heard a fantastic interview on "Wiser Than Me" with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Kellams: That's right.
Wallace: And it was like an hour long, but I wanted to know more. And the movie is based on a book that Diana wrote. So it is — it is fiction, it is a drama, but it is based on real events. And if you've been watching "The Rower" recently, and you want more, I think this would be a good place to start. Annette Bening and Jodie Foster.
Kellams: Yes, I think they do a great job.
Wallace: Of course, Annette plays Diana, and Rhys Ifans is the boat driver. And if this has been a long time ago, but he was one of the main characters on "Notting Hill."
Kellams: Oh, yeah. The roommate. Yes.
Wallace: Right. Looks exactly the same. The same guy. But it's just an amazing story. And the fact that it really happened is just so incredible. Diana Nyad — her name translates to Water Nymph. And she knew this as a child. It was part of what her father instilled in her, the family lore that this was kind of meant to be a part of her. So she started swimming and found a talent and dedication for it as a kid. She's been very open about this, but she had sexual abuse from her coach when she was in high school. Both the interview and the movie talk about this, which I think is pretty powerful way to help others who may have been through something similar. She doesn't bury that. It's part of the storyline, but we start out with her actual news clips in the movie. You see her in the '70s swimming from the Bahamas to Florida. And it was right at that time she did attempt the Cuba to Florida swim in 1978 and failed. It took her four tries. But the truly amazing thing is that she took a 30-year break in between try number one and try number two. She was deep into her athletic career, and she was in her early 30s when she realized, I'm probably going to need to do something else at some point. And she was having offers from all kinds of broadcast stations. She was on ABC Sports, and she covered the Olympics, and she was on NPR, "All Things Considered," for a long time. So she did that because she wanted to set herself up for life. But reaching age 60, she realized she needed to do that and make that goal happen before it was too late. She had maintained fitness over that time, but she hadn't been swimming or swim training in those 30 years. So at age 60, she begins to train again, and she says in the interview that she would go back to the car and just put bags of ice all over and would wind up sleeping in the car, because that was how difficult it was to re-enter the same level of athleticism that you need to do that. Even if you care nothing about sports, this will be a gripping tale, for all the many dangers of swimming in the open water, and cheering on someone who is so singularly focused — it's just an amazing ride.
Kellams: Okay, "Nyad," where can I see that?
Wallace: That is on Netflix.
Kellams: All right. April Wallace is our culture vulture and makes recommendations and asks us questions. April, thanks as always for coming in.
Wallace: Thank you.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
