The Leftovers: Season 3

I don't even know where to begin with this show. You check any online rankings for the best TV programs of the year, and undoubtably you'll find The Leftovers sitting near the top of the list. It's clear the show has a following. A strong following. But this isn't a following that I understand. For that matter, this isn't really a show I understand. Sure, at its core it's about family. Families that comes together. That drift apart. And that's a powerful, simple concept to grasp. But that's about all I can grasp within the show's concept. All these visions, prophets, trips to the afterlife... I think they're lost on me.

All that said, rather than me sitting here complaining how much I didn't get this show, let me do the opposite. Let me try and understand it. Maybe... even try to like it? Weirder things have happened.   

Kevin's life in the afterlife

Right, so I take it that we're intended to believe that Kevin does actually "die" when he visits the afterlife. My question is whether or not this afterlife is a communal space where all people converge, or is this just his own personal interpretation of an afterlife? It seems to always be weirdly specific to Kevin's life and events, and he seems to have complete control over the area whether he realizes it or not. I feel like if it were THE afterlife where we all go when we pass on, then there should have been more purpose to his presence there. I mean was there purpose? For all I can gather, the only thing that resulted in his visitations to the afterlife is that he eventually achieves personal enlightenment. Basically, he understands that he loves Nora. It's a powerful sentiment... but seems insignificant if he's trying to speak with something tantamount to God and keep all humanity safe or some shit. 

Matt's Relationship with God

I did really enjoy Matt's standalone episode where he's on the ferry with the crazy Lion sex party. When he finally has the conversation with God at the end (although I think it's clear he's just talking to a crazy guy who's masquerading as God), Matt reaches some sense of enlightenment. Was he doing shit this whole time in God's name, or was he just doing it for himself? Clearly, it was for himself. But after reaching this epiphany, it doesn't seem as though he achieves the same level of awareness as Kevin, meaning, he never goes home to see his wife and kid. Sure, he buries the hatchet with Nora, but it would have seemed like a more definite conclusion of his arc if we saw him repair his family. Yes? No?

Meg and the Guilty Remnant
What the fuck was Meg's deal? She somehow comes into ranking power within the GR, but she clearly never really believed in it (as in she breaks her silence all the time; sort of seems to mock them; etc.). Then she knowingly sacrifices herself at the beginning of the season killing off that group of GR members. Was that her master plan? Did she hate the GR and want them gone? Seems like a foolish plan because it's not like that was the only group in the country. Right? I don't understand this character at all. When she rapes Tom in the previous season, I always thought that event would have come full circle and she would have given birth to his kid, bringing a whole new wrench into this show. Yet, that's never fucking touched upon again! I dunno. Seems like lazy writing just to wipe out a slew of characters they didn't know what to do with.

The rest of the gang
The show seems to wrap up really fast at the end. I think if you look hard enough, most main characters' arcs are brought to an end. Maybe not a satisfying end, but an end nonetheless. However, this lack of satisfaction really bothers me. Am I the only that feels that way? 

Kevin senior seems to have his brief moment on the roof after the flood never happens and  he recognizes not really some important biblical figure that he'd hoped he would be. On the plus, he realizes he's got his son and loves him. I guess that's it? That's his whole reaction to something he was at first fighting so hard for. A short minute conversation on the roof. I don't buy it.

Laurie doesn't kill herself, but she abandons her family. Like, what? So... I'm guessing she learned nothing. Not to mention it doesn't seem like Kevin or the kids were ever that concerned about her disappearance since they don't mention looking for her.

We don't talk about John anymore after Laurie is out of the picture. I guess, fuck him. Right? They don't even show him with his son at end. Meaning he at least has that family going for him. Ugh...

Then there's the bald dude who shot the dogs with Kevin (Dean was it?). So he goes all crazy and thinks dogs are taking over the world. What the fuck is that suppose to represent? I understand there's this whole balance between what's real and what's not in this show. After all, when 2% of the population just disappears, couldn't anything be possible? But I have no idea what this character is suppose to represent. Not a clue. Nor do I grasp what his presence in Kevin's afterlife is suppose to signified as well. 

And don't get me started on the openers to seasons two and three. Those weird vignettes. I guess they both establish the theme of families throughout human history, and maybe what blind faith can do to hurt or help them. But, I dunno... it's another weird ingredient in this strange, unsatisfying concoction. 

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Some of this show was really great. I loved the ending. Nora's monologue. It was riveting. Or Matt's misadventures on the ferry. Even Kevin talking to Kevin in the afterlife was super intriguing. Those individual moments are great. But when I try to connect all the dots, I'm left with a mess of nonsensical dogshit. So, please... If you're super into the show, help me understand what's to get. Because I certainly don't.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

This is a fun little documentary about an 85-year-old man so committed to his craft - making sushi - that he rarely ever takes a day off. Such dedication! Truly the Greatest Generation...

Here's the thing - if you've seen food porn, you've seen food porn. And this being the godfather of our current cultural obsession with food porn doesn't make it a particularly special or exemplary example of food porn. But hey! This was still enjoyable and very easy to watch. Except for all the subtitles, I mean.

I will say this. There's a second season episode of Documentary Now! called "Juan Likes Rice and Chicken" that was always one of my favorites in the series, and in hindsight it's a pitch-perfect parody of Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Watch it! It's only one third as long as Jiro Dreams of Sushi and I think it stands alone just as well.

Bokeh

Bokeh is a real word - I learned this last night, watching Bokeh - that refers to the out-of-focus visual blur in the background of a photograph.

If you think Bokeh, the movie, would thus have something to do with ambiguity or uncertainty, you'd be right! Unfortunately, that's about as far as Bokeh decides to go with its own premise: "this is a movie about uncertainty!"

I'll back up. The premise here is that two Americans on vacation in Iceland wake up one day to find out they're the last two people on earth. Overnight, everyone else has vanished. Yes, it's The Leftovers meets The Last Man on Earth and probably a hundred other rapture-like stories. It's the last three minutes of the Futurama finale, played out for ninety.

The acting's pretty terrible, but whatever - the script is, too. Would the third or fourth lines out of your mouth, upon discovering you and your girlfriend are the last two people in the world, be "it can't be a plague, we'd see the bodies?" No? Mine either. How about "it can't be aliens, we'd see all their ships?" Also no? Yeah, same. But at first I at least thought, okay, cool, a low-budget movie that wants to get all philosophical on me - be my guest.

Nope! These two are just content to fart around Iceland for a while. Is it a satire on how self-focused millennials are? Like they barely even notice the lack of other people? Eh, no, not really - the movie's not interested in going down that particular route. Is it ironic that perhaps the most socialist country on earth has somehow become empty, desolate, and society-free? I thought so, yeas, but I'm not even sure if the movie understands this juxtaposition exists. Is this a take on the necessity of social safety nets? After all, winter is eventually coming, and what the hell are two unprepared Americans going to do once the "long night" comes? Eh - we never really get there.

In fact, it's fair to say that almost nothing happens for so much of this movie. That's true in a lot of movies I like, granted - but those are all atmosphere, all tone, all ambiance, and all intentionally so. Here, these two just kind of bounce ideas off each other about what happened - or more accurately, she's driven into a deep depression over the uncertainty about what happened, while he's only focused on how to deal with their new circumstances, how to adapt to their new life. I think that's where the title comes from. She's upset that the metaphorical background's so blurry in the photograph. He's just looking at the foreground, the subject at hand.

But fuck, so many scenes are so beautiful. Because hey, Iceland is so beautiful. Go there! Go to Iceland! You almost certainly won't end up being one of the last two people on earth, and then being so hopelessly boring about it.

Night in the Woods

This was a game I've heard some buzz over --  a bunch of gaming critics I follow expressed love for this game, got an "overwhelmingly positive" review on Steam... I mean, the signs are there that this might be a hot game for 2017. Sadly, I felt anything but love for the game.

Some background on this indie title. It follows Mae, a recent college dropout who talks like Daria and has returned to her small hometown at height of her living through a quarter-life crisis. Moving back in with your parents, you lead Mae around town to reconnect with her old high school friends and uncover a strange mystery that's lurking in the shadows of her hometown. 

First things first. While I may not have liked this game, I feel as though I understand why so many others seem to love it. It's got excellent characters spouting catchy dialogue as they battle internal conflicts that I think are universally relatable -- figuring out who you are, what you want to be, etc. etc. It's Catcher in the Rye shit. However, that's all I could find appealing about the game. 

The game -- if I can even call it that -- is really more a dialogue simulator. You run around, talk to someone, then run over to the next person and talk to them. Repeat this until you talk to the right person who allows the story to advance to the next chapter. A various points you'll play mindless mini-games that barely matter and hardly present a challenge. 

So what's left beyond intriguing characters with great dialogue that's absent of any meaningful gameplay? The story. I feel like if the story was there, I could have really dug this game. (At it's heart, that's really all the game is prepared to offer players.) Sadly, I found the story kind of a mess and ultimately unsatisfying. It starts out alright, but builds into a direction that left me with more questions than answers (kind of like Lost -- and if you didn't already know, I'm not a fan with how Lost ended). 

People also seem to praise the game for it's soundtrack. It was ok. They also celebrate it's art style. It's something we've seen done a bunch before.

I'm kind of left at a point where I'm puzzled how this game has garnered so much love? Maybe I'm just a heartless asshole who can connect with today's youth. 

The Graveyard Book

I read a book! You know, a book? Feels like it's been ages since I read anything that wasn't Dresden related. 

Decided to bounce back into Neil Gaiman territory. The man who's brought us Stardust, Sandman (a comic series I'm still pushing my way through), and -- my personal favorite -- American Gods. I think if Gaiman has a talent for anything, it's creating a mythos. A fully fleshed out world for you to lose yourself in the lore and grand characters contained within. Jumping onto another piece of work of his, where does The Graveyard Book stack up against the rest?

Sadly, I place it at the bottom.

The Graveyard Book felt too toned down for my liking. It was a simple story contained in a world that felt rich with backstory and history, a history that's never really talked about. Instead the story stays swimming on the surface over this vast, vast mythical ocean that contains vampires and werewolves and goblins and the undead and more! Yet we only scratch the surface. And I suppose I wanted more. Much more!

Once upon a time I heard Ron Howard was going to direct an adaptation to this story. I could see that possibly working. Possibly. But I think there would need to be some fundamental changes to make it stand on its own a little better.

Still, this book does have a bit of charm to it as it resonates as sort of a children's storybook you might read to them before bed. Maybe that's where the simplicity comes into play. Because at the end of the day, it really feels like a story about an orphaned boy being raised by ghosts in a graveyard that's intended to help lull a kid softly to rest. 

Baby Driver

First things first - I liked this! I did. It was good.

But I wanted it to be great! I expected it to be great! Y'all know how much I loved Drive and how much I enjoy my Fast and Furious movies - "car action" is, weirdly enough, a genre of movie with a very high bar for me. And with Edgar Wright directing, I thought this'd be a slam dunk. And instead it was just kind of, I dunno, fine? The best driving sequence - the only real car chase sequence - is the opening scene of the movie. Jamie Foxx is what you'd expect hi to be, but then Jon Hamm is just, like, so much less than he usually is. Even Kevin Spacey felt weirdly wasted here, and fuck, I've seen 21.

But again, I did like this! It was good! Let's talk about what was good. Uh, well, there was the way the soundtrack blended seamlessly with the story - no coincidence, obviously, that there are like a thousand pop songs from the last forty years that directly address "Baby" - which the movie makes sure you understand, by the way, like two or three times. The characterization and story are incredibly underbaked, even for a "car action" movie, and - wait, shit, this was supposed to be the good section! The part where I rave about what I liked! Gah, why is this so hard? Why did this feel so unpolished and messy in a way no $34 million movie should?

Fuck, you guys. I just feel let down. I wanted to love this, expected to love this. Something original, something fun, something bold, something that isn't just another summertime superhero chapter book. And instead I only sort of liked it. And that's such a tough pill to swallow. Almost easier to hate it. Almost easier to get real mad and incredulous and decide, "no, this thing SUCKS, guys, what's wrong with you all?" But slight disappointment is tougher to process.

Maybe this one will grow in memory, improve with time, get better when I read about or see all sorts of easter eggs. But for now, fuck, it's like a seven. I know, I know, the laziest grade! Nothing safer than a seven. A seven's a B, a seven's a "pretty good," a seven's a goddamn cop out. Maybe it's an eight? No! No, it's a seven. I'm sorry, No one likes this review and this recap less than I do.

A Little More Human

I struggled with this one.

It's immaculately written, in the sense that most sentences and paragraphs were just delightful to read, clever and interesting and, uh, well-written whatever that means, and perhaps good writing was an extra welcome quality to me after reading that Stuart Woods dreck. But! As far as the story here goes, the characters in this novel, the actual cover-to-cover plotting and piece moving and development and denouement - I'm left wanting more, I think. So many narrative dead ends here, so little pay off, and I'm sure so much of that is intentional and that plenty else is just flying over my head. It's not like this is rare, a case where I've enjoyed reading a book but couldn't reliably recount the big plot points or what about the book mattered, and some of my favorite authors have given me similar experiences through the years. (Heller, Vonnegut, Murakami, to name a few.)

But then, in a certain sense, it makes sense for the narrative here to be a jumbled mess - the book deals primarily with the frailty of the human brain - missing memories, dementia, that horrible gap between thinking or knowing something and being able to clearly express it. So for the story to be full of dead ends and red herrings kind of works, I guess. Maybe. Kind of.

Dunkirk

Saw Nolan's latest a few days ago and it has haunted me ever since. I absolutely loved it, just as I expected. This is, bar none, the best movie I've seen in 2017 thus far. Holy hell. Wall to wall intensity, probably the best war movie in a decade, and Nolan still pulls off his whole temporal puzzle gimmick of mishmash timelines. There's every chance that this fades over time, that I'm still riding the IMAX high (so many loud noises here), that in a few years I'll look back on Dunkirk with a far more critical eye, but for now this thing's a rare five-star movie in my eyes.

Silicon Valley: Season 4

This show is such a gem. I feel like it's been going strong since season one without my enjoyment ever dipping. Sure, I hear some of the comments from peanut gallery that at four seasons the show might start to seem trope-ish. Pied Piper is still struggling. Characters are continuously self-desstructive. And then we'll pepper in some satirical jabs at silicon valley-VC folks. We all know the routine by now. 

But that doesn't mean I don't love it. 

The show has had a steady build for me, season over season. This season really seemed to  amp up the crisis over Richard's morals as he encroached on corrupt CEO territory. Likewise, we see the fall (and rise, again) of Gavin Belson. Not to mention Pied Piper is evolving as well. No longer are we solely focused on some outta-this-world compression software. We're actually developing the next wave of the internet -- whatever that's suppose to mean. Exciting, nonetheless. Point is, I feel like this show is steadily growing. And even when watching this alone, I still find myself laughing out loud. 

OK, now time to address the elephant in the room (or lack thereof) -- the departure of T.J. Miller. Easily one of my favorite characters on the show, it's tough to say goodbye to Bachman. It's like Seinfeld losing Kramer! How do you move on from the departure of you're main comic-relief character? I suppose we'll have to see how the show will progress next season, but, regardless, it will be weird not hearing Miller screaming out "JIAN YAAAAAAANG!"

On a similar, yet slightly different, note... I built my list of TV shows I'm hoping to watch by the end of the year. 

Ugh... Since when did watching TV start feeling like a job?

Stardew Valley

What a delightful little 16-bit farm life simulator... for about 30 hours. Then, what a slog! I'm sorry, I know there are people who devote literally hundreds of hours to games like this, getting all the way to an eighth year on the farm, laying out their farms in these intricate, beautiful patterns. That ain't for me! The facts that, A, 35 hours in, I'd seen most of what this game had to offer, and B, 50 hours in, I'd barely seen anything more at all mean that, C, this is not a game I needed to spend those extra fifteen hours playing, never mind a friggin' hundred.

But I liked this! I really did. Just, whew, oh boy, what a slow game it became once I'd unlocked all kinds of new seeds and farm animals and equipment. Should be, if you ask me, that the further along you get in a game like this, the more all the menial and repetitive as hell tasks should be automated or easily finished. Right? Anyway, that's just not the case with Stardew Valley, at least not nearly enough to make me keep playing after 50 hours. At least it's something you can enjoy while watching television in the background!

And special thanks to Trev for the game key.

Orange is the New Black: Season 5

So I finally finished up the fifth season of Orange Is the New Black and it was, to use a too-heavily overused phrase, a "hot mess." Prison riot! Yes! Fun. After four seasons of taking shit from guards, the inmates are literally running the prison this time around. What's the plan? There is no plan! No one can agree on their demands (Occupy Litchfield?) and it quickly becomes clear that a lot of these women are here for the party more than for the idea of negotiating for better treatment.

The back half of the season is so much better than the first, allowing the riot to play out to its tragic, inevitable conclusion (and right after it came so close to playing out a different way!) after the front half of the season sort of sloppily puts certain pieces in place. Plenty about the way it all unfolds is unrealistic as hell, but I'm happy enough with the way it all played out and looking forward to Season 6 - although where Season 6 goes from here, I really can't imagine.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Kind of torn on this one. On one hand it's weird as hell and brilliant and clearly the singular vision or at least almost singular vision of David Lynch, whose Mulholland Drive has slowly become one of my favorite movies and one that only gets better the more time I spend away from it. And like Mulholland Drive, this one's split into two very distinct parts, and the ending is just nightmarish, and I respect that.

But also, kind of importantly - what the fuck? And this is sort of my thing with Twin Peaks in general, I guess. I love how weird and uncompromised and specific it is, but at the same time I can't tell if I actually like it all that much. Eh. Time to give the third season a go and find out.

Standup Guy

A long way back, when I was 16 or so, I was on a family vacation to the Florida Keys, bored out of my mind. My grandfather lent me a paperback murder mystery novel he'd just finished - your standard airport bookstore trash, but I didn't know such a genre even existed at the time - and I read it and enjoyed it and even felt sort of - ugh - older and wiser and more mature for having read it. (Four-hundred pages! Sex and crime! Grandfather literature!) It was a book by an author named Stuart Woods, a guy I'd never heard of (and still really haven't, all things considered) and I ended up "borrowing" and reading two more Stuart Woods novels somewhere over the next couple of years. (I distinctly remember reading one during my freshman year of college, which would have been just two years later, and oh holy shit how time dragged then and flies now.)

Fast forward to a couple summers back, I'm up in Maine visiting the grandparents when my grandmother says there's a huge pile of paperback books from the last few years they're going to throw away if no one wants them, so go ahead and pick through it if you'd like. I take home with me a copy of American Sniper (oh boy) and two more Stuart Woods books. Why not revisit them? Marissa immediately winces at the Stuart Woods picks and asks, "but why?" It's a valid question! Y'all know my tastes - Heller, Vonnegut, Atwood, Murakami, Perrotta, Hemingway, Camus, with the occasional dash of sci-fi or YA (what's the difference?) and of course a few experiments along the way. Michael Crichton and Dan Brown are as close as I come to "airport bookstore literature," and have you seen my batting average on those books? Yowza!

The thing about Dan Brown and Michael Crichton - even at their worst, they're telling interesting stories. A zany caper in the Uffizi is patently absurd pulp, but it's interesting pulp, sort of. And a story about man-eating nanoparticles gone rogue is dumb as hell, but it hints at philosophical questions, at least, even if it never addresses or answers them. But Stuart Woods? Nothing. None of any of that. Just stories about khaki-wearing men's men solving crimes for sexy lady clients while drinking hard liquor and flying back and forth a lot. It's lanyard literature. It's four-hundred pages of generic political thriller action movie, stuffed to the gills with phone calls and breakfast. I think what it is, really, is lifestyle porn for old men; there are an alarming number of direct references to J. Crew and Brooks Brothers in this book, no kidding.

We all like to say that our tastes evolve with time, grow more refined, and so on, but never have I seen more direct evidence of this than in my own reaction to this particular novel, Stuart Woods' Standup Guy, which I'm almost positive was ghostwritten by someone else, since otherwise Stuart Woods is popping out four or five books a year these days at the age of 79. Good for him! Anyway, yeah - ten to fifteen years ago I was reading this guy's novels and at the very least enjoying them. These last few days, on the other hand, I tore through Standup Guy almost laughing out loud the entire way through. These books are decidedly not for me!

Since showing is more powerful than telling, and since sharing is the greatest gift of all, I will now present to you all the first sentence of every chapter in this book. Really helps you get a feel for Stuart Woods and his writing style, everything [sic].

Oh, and the main character's name is "Stone Barrington" which is just fucking awesome. See? Lifestyle porn already.

1. Stone Barrington made it from his bed to his desk by ten a.m., after something of a struggle with jet lag.
2. Stone wore a dark suit and tie, because he didn't know who else was invited.
3. Kate came back at five minutes before the hour and handed Stone a sheet of paper.
4. Stone took his breakfast tray off the dumbwaiter, along with two morning papers, the New York Times and the Daily News.
5. Stone arrived at Patroon as Dino was getting out of his car, a large black SUV. He clapped his friend on the back. "No more town car?"
6. Stone's ass had barely touched his office chair the following morning, when Joan buzzed.
7. Less than an hour had passed, and Joan had returned from making her bank deposit. She buzzed Stone.
8. Stone had a sandwich at his desk, then Joan came in with the New York Post, which he subscribed to but rarely read. Today would be an exception.9. Stone was having his usual breakfast in bed when his private line rang. Caller ID said the U.K. was calling.
10. Shortly before lunch, Joan buzzed.
11. Stone polished off his Dover sole and took another sip of the Far Niente Chardonnay.
12. The president of the United States finished his scrambled eggs and sausages and started on his coffee. He could eat sausages for breakfast because the first lady was in New York.13. Sunday morning, and Stone's phone was ringing.
14. Stone sucked in a breath and clenched his teeth as Holly took a curve on the Sawmill River Parkway.
15. When Stone awoke the following morning, Holly was gone, and her side of the bed had been neatly made up.
16. Dino Bacchetti attended a meeting at an uptown precinct, and among the subjects discussed was the shooting of Sean Donnelly.
17. Stone got to P.J. Clarke's early, so he bellied up to the bar to wait for the others.
18. Stone let them into the house, entered the alarm code, and took their coats.
19. John Fratelli sat in a deck chair on a terrace of the Breakers, a monumental turn-of-the-twentieth-century hotel built by Henry Flagler, the partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil.
20. Secret Service special agent Alvin Griggs rapped on his boss's door and was invited in and offered a chair and coffee.
21. Onofrio "Bats" Buono, whose sobriquet arose from his wanton use of that instrument when collecting debts, took the call in the little office behind the chop shop he ran in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
22. Jack Coulter, née John Fratelli, checked his image in the mirror before leaving his apartment. He had lost twenty pounds since leaving prison, ten of them since buying his Brooks Brothers suits.23. John Fratelli awoke the following morning, and something was nagging at the back of his mind. It came to him: IRS. He showered and dressed and had his first shave of the day, then he called New York on his throwaway cell phone.24. Howard Silver stood at the hundred-dollar window at Hialeah and took one last look at the odds board.
25. Stone's day was closing, and he called Holly Barker.
26. Alvin Griggs was called into his boss's office during what would ordinarily have been his coffee break, and told to sit down.
27. Stone was awakened, as the first rays of dawn came through slatted blinds, by a cool hand on his warm crotch, to which he immediately responded.
28. Harry Moss's ears were burning. He had just been rudely escorted out of the Breakers beach club because he was not a member, and it was embarrassing.
29. Now Stone was faced with a problem: he had an itch to go to London for a few days, but on the other hand, he had a very similar itch to stay closer to Hank Cromwell.
30. Dino and Viv showed up for drinks at the appointed time, as was their wont, let themselves into the house with Dino's key, and entered the study, where Stone was reading a book. He looked up as they entered, then got up and built them drinks.
31. The following morning at seven thirty, Stone walked out his front door and had a look up and down the block.
32. The car belonging to Derek and Charles was an old London taxicab with the taxi sign removed.
33. Emma was on her cell phone all the way to the dinner party, at a house in Eaton Square, so Stone didn't have to talk, which was just as well, as he was dumbstruck.34. Emma woke Stone the following morning by the simple device of biting him on a nipple. Nature took its course, a couple of times.35. John Fratelli sat on the edge of his bed, feeling sick.
36. Stone was back at his house before John Fratelli called.
37. Dino was out front in his unmarked police SUV on time.
38. New Fairfield was an actual wide place in the road, not a metaphor.
39. Stone watched Hank take a deep breath.
40. John Fratelli was dressing for dinner when his cell phone rang.
41. Stone was at his desk when Dino called.
42. Manny called the number, and Willard Crowder answered on the second ring.
43. Stone got downstairs to his office at the usual time, and there was a pink memo slip on his desk: call Dan Sparks.
44. Stone thought about it for a few minutes before he made the call.
45. Jack Coulter was in the Breakers' gym, working out, as he had done every day in prison, except he did not now use weights to achieve bulk.
46. Herbie Fisher sat in his office, cradled by his Eames lounge chair, reading a letter for his signature. His secretary buzzed.
47. Stone called John Fratelli on his throwaway cell phone.
48. Joan Buzzed. "Mike Freeman on one."
49. Harry Moss sat on his usual stool at his usual Sports Bar and had his usual Cutty Sark and water.
50. Stone's bell rang a couple of minutes after seven, as he was walking down the stairs.
51. Stone smelled leather, and he couldn't understand why.
52. Jack and Hillary finished their round and went back to the clubhouse for lunch.
53. Stone had managed to doze off.
54. What the fuck?" a man's voice said.55. Hank and Parese were driving north on the Sawmill River Parkway in the van.
56. Stone, Dino, and Viv had a good dinner and waited for Dan Sparks to call back.
57. Stone sat in the backseat with Viv. He didn't know why he was so tired; after all, he'd spent the day on the sofa in his office.
58. The group sat around the living room of the lake cottage. It was after one a.m., and the medical examiner's wagon had already left with Parese's body. They were all having a drink from the cabin's booze supply.
59. Stone and Dino got the two suitcases out of the SUV and rolled them into Stone's office.
60. Stone slept through the afternoon. He woke around six p.m. and reflected on the past few days and weeks. Three people were dead, one of them someone he had grown fond of, before she had betrayed him for money.61. Stone was at his desk at ten a.m., and his first call was to Mike Freeman.

Holy shit, why did I just do that?

Some of my personal favorites are in bold.

You get the picture. Forget the bland, basic sentence structure. Ignore the bad grammar an abundant commas. Taken on content alone, every single sentence in this book is about cars, drinking, falling asleep or waking up, sex, secretaries, meals, newspapers, and phone calls. The only food described in any detail are breakfast meats and eggs. At one point Stone and his pals "had a good dinner." The phrase "throwaway cell phone" appears twice, and that's just in these chapter openers. "The following morning" is written five times. Thirteen of the sixty-one openers include the word "call" and an additional three include "phone." There are several references to Stone being tired, and still he finds the time for two one-night stands.

Old man lifestyle porn, indeed.

Castlevania: Season 1

The only Castlevania game I've played is Super Castlevania, and it's a true gem. That said, this show feels fairly different than the game (that game at least; I'm well aware the franchise's story has likely evolved over the years). Sure the villain is Dracula and you play as "a" Belmont who uses a whip and throwing knifes to fight off evil, but that's about all the connections I can make here.

This show wasn't bad, but I was let down by the fact that there were only four episodes in what they're calling a season. It's really just a "first act" and nothing more. It's a tease at best for what's to come. For what it's worth, it's a decent tease. I want to see more and do like the direction it's going in. It's not the best thing to hit TV, but it's not bad. However, I'll refrain from saying anymore out of respect that there's so little content to actually comment on. 

I'm hoping there's a Season 1 (Part II) to come out this year. The show really needs it. 

GLOW: Season 1

Came for the Alison Brie, stayed for the Marc Maron, will return for the whole cast.

This is a textbook example of "the whole first season is the pilot." It's got a very Orange Is the New Black vibe to it, introducing us to an array of colorful (no, really - come on, not like that) female characters with different hang-ups and motivations and drives, largely at first through the eyes of a relatively uninteresting and unsympathetic pretty lady. The ten-episode season sort of took its time fleshing out the supporting cast, which was to the show's early detriment but eventual strength. I definitely recommend this one, and what's more, I'm already looking forward to Season 2.

Moral Orel: Season 3

So for two seasons, Moral Orel was a fairly typical Adult Swim show - irreverent, low quality, funny but non-essential. I mean it was much sharper and more biting and bitter than your standard high-as-a-kite stuff like Squidbillies or Sealab 2021 or whatever, but it was still a show designed to make you laugh at one in the morning or whatever.

Season 3 takes everything played for laughs in the first two seasons - Orel's crisis of faith, his mother's mundane life as a housewife, his father's alcoholism and abusive tendencies - and plays them dramatically. And it works magnificently! Suddenly these dumb little clay puppet idiots, you're no longer rooting for their own dumb prejudices to come back and bite them in the ass, instead you just feel bad for them.

At its core, too, it's worth mentioning, Moral Orel was never actually anti-religion. It never really suggests that God isn't real or worth believing in, or that faith is automatically a bad thing. Instead it lampoons the hypocrisy and institutional sadness of these Bible Belt families who twist and warp Christianity into whatever shape allows them to sin profusely and still feel morally superior to others.

It was a good show! A pleasant surprise, and a very strong third season that got dark as hell but still managed to end on an uplifting note.

Ready Player One

Meh. I understand the hype, but this is one giant self-love letter to '80s nerd culture, arcade games, and Angry Redditor Syndrome. The main character is Harry Potter and Charlie Bucket and Matilda and every other put upon poor-ass teen, and he spends his shitty life playing video games and looking for a multi-billion dollar prize in a virtual reality simulation. I had plenty of issues, but chief among them was that to believe this story at face value you need to buy into two or three eighteen year old kids being more prepared to solve a years-long puzzle than an entire corporation dedicated to doing the same. Forget that the corporation, essentially a Google-Amazon-Facebook-Verizon combination, owns the ISPs that allow these meddling kids to connect to the VR simulation flawlessly - we can suspend that much disbelief, this story takes place in the 2040s, so maybe instantaneous network connections are a dime a dozen - but how the hell do three fucking kids outsmart entire teams of dedicated researchers and puzzle solvers? It's the ultimate nerd rage fantasy, this story where the real life social outcasts are somehow the coolest dudes on the Internet, and where these dipshits who do nothing all day but watch '80s television reruns are able to decipher riddles that flummox fucking Google. I mean right down to when the main character falls in love with a woman who thinks she's hideous but then he finds her beautiful, so, shit, win-win for him, he gets to be the hero and get the pretty lady, and a win for her too, because she gets him, right? Ugh ugh ugh. I just never felt like I was rooting for the protagonist in this one. Earn it, book! Earn it!

Dirty Grandpa

Why, you might ask?

Because, hey, when you're down the Cape with your in-laws, and it's ten on a weeknight, and no one is quite ready for bed but no one wants to really do anything, it's time for a lowest common denominator comedy.

This one was very not good. You already knew that. Zac Efron, I mean, I've never felt strongly about him one way or the other, but holy shit was he bad here. And Robert DeNiro apparently wants to spend his '70s making just the shittiest little mid-tier comedies, which, sure, fine, he's earned that, and also, sure, he slid into Meet the Parents territory like fifteen years ago, but also, holy shit, this is arguably the greatest dramatic screen actor of a generation, and can you even imagine Daniel Day Lewis making something like The Intern in his twilight years?

Aubrey Plaza was far and away the best part of this wreck, but what's that say? No offense to Aubrey Plaza but when Aubrey Plaza is the best part of anything (see also: Legion), that thing is probably not going to be something great.

And hey, holy crap, I just realized Aubrey Plaza and Zac Efron also costarred in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, which was also a pretty bad 2016 comedy. They bonin'?

I Am Not Your Negro

[Disclaimer: The author of this post is aware that two documentaries released in the same year, both up for Academy Awards, that depict different but correlated aspects of the black experience in America over the last several decades, need not be compared directly to or ranked against one another,]

Ava DuVernay's 13th was probably slightly better for me, in that it was a little more eye-opening and straightforward, and still horribly depressing and tragic. But I'm also a guy who appreciates numbers and figures and charts and trends. This movie, which was Samuel L. Jackson reading prose on race relations written thirty years ago by James Baldwin, superimposed over footage and images of all sorts of shitty things from the last, uh, hundred years or so - basically for as long as we've been able to film and record anything at all - I mean, I can see why this movie resonated so well and so powerfully with so many people. See them both, I guess, really, if you haven't.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Spider-Man has always been my favorite superhero. I'm not that into comic books and superheroes, as you all know, but Peter Parker was always just a high school no one. Not a billionaire with dead parents. Not an alien from another planet. Not a billionaire with a drinking problem - just a straight up kid... with dead parents.

That said, even I never saw, or wanted to see, those awful-looking Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies. The Raimi-Maguire-Dunst movies were damn near perfect - okay, the third one wasn't great, but it was still at least good, dammit - and why spend time and money legitimizing something so clearly inferior, so obviously made for all the wrong reasons - a naked cash grab that let Sony retain the rights to a franchise it had no idea what to do with. Hollywood at its worst, I tell you.

But when news came that Spider-Man would finally be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I figured, hey, sure, what the hell, why not? They know what they're doing. They'll make a fine movie. I'll enjoy the Tom Holland Spider-Man era. And after seeing this movie, yeah, sure, I;ll confirm that all these suspicions were true and correct.

It's good! It's also different than all the other Marvel movies, sort of, in that it takes place largely in a high school. Which is great! It's also identical to all the other Marvel movies, sort of, in that it never even pretends to attempt to be anything other than a new chapter in the gigantic, sprawling story of Marvel and the Avengers. And that's kind of too bad! I mean, don't get me wrong, I like Robert Downey's Tony Stark character just fine, but his presence in this movie just sort of served as an unwavering reminder that Peter Parker is a child, and that Spider-Man is a B-team hero, and that even the villains in this movie are, you know, beneath the Avengers.

It's... different. It's not bad. There's a lot there, sort of, in the idea that Peter's a kid who thinks he's invincible and just wants to impress Stark and company. And maybe even, in turn, Stark sees Peter as more than a prodigy, but as a son of sorts. He's got this line at one point - I think it's in the trailers, even, so no spoilers - about how he wants Peter to be better than he was. This is a powerful sentiment for sure, given all the fucking up we've seen from Iron Man, but it's also a sentiment entirely unrelated to, you know, Peter Parker the fucking high school student just trying to do his own damn thing in his own damn movie. But I get it, I do - everything's connected. Nothing stands alone. And that's fine! It's just... different. I miss the Tobey Maguire Peter Parker who had to police his own behavior, not because he was afraid he'd get grounded or lose his suit, but because he saw firsthand that his actions have consequences. I miss geriatric Aunt May, not just because casting Marisa Tomei as Aunt May is this blatant, terrible example of ageism in Hollywood, but because having a frail widow as a beloved guardian was always part of what infused the Sam Raimi Peter Parker with an unwavering "common man" decency.

But this is good! I don't want to poo-poo this too hard here, as there are plenty of Marvel movies and DC movies and superhero movies in general that I just have not given one fuck about. This is good. It's probably the best blockbuster high school movie I've seen since, like, Superbad. And yes, it is a high school movie. Or at least, it's at its best when it's being a high school movie, and at its worst when Spider-Man has to fight Michael Keaton. Which sucks, because Keaton is good here! His character just sucks. You know what, just see it. We'll talk later.

Castlevania: Season 1

Four half-hour episodes on Netflix - why not?

I've never played a Castlevania game for more than a few minutes at a time, and I have no idea what story or mythology connects the franchise, or if one even does at all, aside from "vampires." But this quick little anime was a neat little standalone story that I was able to follow and enjoy just fine. It was kind of surprisingly profane and gory, actually.

Definitely do want to remedy that Castlevania blindspot in my gaming career, though.