Sweeney's TV Dump: January 2015

The Sopranos: Season 6 Part 1

My prolonged journey through The Sopranos is nearing its end, so here's the first half of its sixth and final season. The show continues its streak of excellence, although its tough to say anything that happens this season is all that important to whatever series-long story is being told. The closest thing to a "game-changing" moment happens in the first episode when Tony is shot by someone he trusts, and goes into a coma for a few episodes. These were probably the best episodes of the season, featuring Tony's family preparing for the grieving process, the mob preparing for the next steps after the potential death of the boss, and some extended dream sequences for Tony- something the show has always done well. After he finally wakes up, the rest of Tony's season has him wavering between treating every day as a blessing, or reverting to his old ways. The other highlight of the season for me featured Vito's secret homosexual lifestyle finally being revealed to everyone; once this happens he hastily splits for New Hampshire, wondering what he could possibly do to fix things back at home; I'll leave out how this ends, but it's heartbreaking to watch and made for the more compelling scenes in the back half of the season. There's only a few episodes left in the series and it sounds like the action and plot will likely pick up in the final season, so I should finally finish this off this year!

The Jinx

In between the behemoths of true-crime that were Serial and Making A Murderer came HBO's foray into the genre, The Jinx. The Jinx is a bit different from those two series, where the hook is that there's a good chance an innocent man is behind bars- The Jinx is all about the completely bizarre millionaire Robert Durst and all of the mysterious deaths that seem to follow him around, and the likelihood that he's actually the murderer. While I know The Jinx enthralled its many fans when it first aired, I unfortunately had the (completely insane) ending spoiled long before I got around to watching, so a good portion of the series underwhelmed me as I was just waiting for that ridiculous ending to finally happen. That finale lived up to the hype, but I feel like the rest of the series doesn't quite unless you were watching it as it aired.

The Affair: Season 1

The first season of The Affair varied pretty wildly in quality, and it was hard to put my finger on what the show was trying to be. At first glance, it's a soapy drama with a great cast showing the build-up to a summer affair between Noah (Dominic West) and Alison (Ruth Wilson), and the toll it takes on their respective spouses- Helen (Maura Tierney) and Cole (Joshua Jackson). However, the first episode pulls a bit of a surprise narrative trick halfway through, and while I'll leave out what it was (I actually knew what it was already but forgot, and it still caught me by surprise) but it's an important factor in how you watch the show- almost like how central the flashbacks were in Lost. It gives you a better sense of who these characters are and provides a nice framing device for the whole season, often elevating the series to "elite tv" status. Sometimes however this narrative device would backfire and the show would drag, or just feel like a glorified Lifetime movie, especially towards the end of the season when the story felt particularly rushed. Still though the good usually outweighs the bad, and the show is entertaining for the most part, so I'll stick with it.

The Affair: Season 2

And hey, here's season two! The hit-or-miss quality stuck around in season two as the show grew more ambitious, doubling down on its storytelling gimmick. At times it was more pulpy than ever, focusing heavily on a "whodunnit" murder case from season one, and yet the show often excelled with its subtler moments of character development more than the times it tries to burn through story or provide shocking plot twists. One of my favorite moments of this season was just twenty minutes or so of Noah talking with a therapist, trying to work through his complicated feelings for both Alison and Helen. I'm not really sure where the show will go from here though; I liked it more when it was a show about awful rich people in a rich town in the summer making poor decisions; watching the endless fall-out from those decisions can make for a tough binge watch.

Masters of Sex: Season 1

A bit more from Showtime. Masters of Sex is the dramatized version of some true events, focusing on Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson, two pioneers in the scientific study of sex. What the show posits is that up until the 1950's, scientists had been exhaustively studying the procreative aspects of sex, but very little on the recreational activity- why does it make people feel good? What exactly causes an orgasm? Stuff like that. In the fifties, this is all very controversial stuff- Michael Sheen's Masters is an extremely well-respected obstetrician, but when he tries to focus his work on the study of sex in general, most dismiss it as meaningless smut, unworthy of his brilliant mind. Joining him is Lizzy Caplan as Johnson, the female half of the duo- untrained in any actual scientific background, but able to communicate with test subjects in a way that Masters never could. Sheen and Caplan have excellent chemistry, and a large portion of the first season focuses on the difficulties that the two face trying to keep a platonic relationship while watching so much sex. It's good! This feels a bit like a spiritual successor to Mad Men- late-fifties/early-sixties setting, a troubled marriage, office politics, a man who's the best at his field of work. It's not quite Mad Men level- a few Masters of Sex scenes are a little on-the-nose where Mad Men was always more subtle, but it definitely does scratch a similar itch.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret: Season 2
It's been a long time since I watched the first season of Todd Margaret, back in 2009 when it first aired; I always planned to watch its second and final season, figuring there was no rush, and then out of nowhere IFC brought the show back for a third that aired back in Mid-January. Time to catch up! For those who don't know, the title here really tells you everything- David Cross stars as Todd Margaret, a guy who just can't help but tell lie on top of lie and make horrible decisions with wacky and terrible consequences. The first season featured him getting sent to London, working for a company that may not actually exist, selling energy drinks. It goes far worse than you could imagine. Todd Margaret's an extremely dark and cringe-worthy comedy, and the inclusion of Cross and Will Arnett makes it feel just a bit like Arrested Development- full of callback gags, convoluted plots, international incidents, and characters who thrive off of hating each other. So hey, I guess there's two spiritual successors to two of the greatest shows of all time! I wouldn't say the second season is any better or worse than the first- honestly, the show might have worked even better combining them into one 12-episode season, but that's just not how British tv works. The thing is though, season two ends pretty definitively, so I have no idea how the third season is going to work. We'll see, probably in February.

Trev's Movie Dump: January 2016

The Monster Squad (1987)

Basically, Universal Studios saw The Goonies and said, "Hey! You know all of our old monsters we still own the intellectual properties on? Let's have have Dracula lead these classic monsters in a coup to take over suburbia America and the only people to stop them will be The Goonies... only not actually the same actors, but our own knock-off versions." 

Stop drilling... you've hit gold!

But, seriously... The fat kid in the group is appropriately titled, "Fat Kid." As far as bad movies go, this one if a fucking gem. Worth a watch if your surrounded by enough drunk and/or stoned people that you can share the -- unintentional -- laughs with.

The Revenant (2015)

Two and half hours of DiCaprio screaming at the top of his lungs. Does this performance warrant Leo an Oscar... Probably not. (In fact, I would argue Tom Hardy delivers a much better performance.) However, it's quite possible that this is the film that will earn it for him. I mean, I wouldn't say The Departed is Scorsese's "best" work, yet that was the guy that finally earned him his Best Directing title. 

All-in-all this film is an amazing and brutal experience. While it -- literally -- screams Oscar-bait material, it's also a wild ride that I would recommend anyone to see.

Also, did anyone else feel bad after the mama-bear dies leaving her cubs to forage for themselves. When talking about this film to someone who was reading the book, she explained that in the book, after the mama-bear dies, the fur-traders kill the cubs for their furs as well. And now I made myself sad... 

Intruders (2016)

So my creative director wrote a screenplay. And then it got turned into a movie. And this is that movie. (Originally titled Shut In.)

As he pitched it to me... "this film is about a woman trapped in a panic room, only the walls of the room are in her mind." (I think I got that log line right...) 

It's an exciting and suspenseful indie thriller where a woman suffering from agoraphobia, failing to leave her house to attend her brother's funeral, finds herself trapped in peril when a bunch of vicious thugs enter hoping to loot an empty home. As they crooks invade this seeming normal, quaint house, they soon discover there's more to the house -- and the woman -- then what both they and the audience have previous thought. 

It's a brutal and exciting film that explores that whole world of what happens when the hunters become the hunted. Funny enough... it kind of felt like a morbid version of Home Alone... and lo and behold, the film actually stars a Culkin! (Don't ask me to name which one, they all kind of seem the same to me to me.) There's a few other recognizable names here: Beth Reisgraf (Leverage) and Martin Starr (Silicon Valley). It had an intriguing ending that went in a very "human" direction compared to what I was expecting. Always enjoy a film that's capable of surprising me. Check it out! 

Anomalisa (2015)

For all South Park fans, this movie's message can aptly be compared against Stan's plight when he suddenly hears everyone's voice as literal shits and farts. Only this is the sophisticated, imaginative, and more human version of that story. 

A man trapped and tortured by the banality of his life strives to save himself from this boredom when he finds a unique spark within this random woman staying in the same hotel as him. He then proceeds to have a one-night affair with her, which is done in a remarkably cringe-worthy yet charming way that only (writer-director) Charlie Kaufman could tap into. Then as the sun rises, the spark slowly fades away and the man returns to the pain of his banality.

As much as the trailers, reviews, and interviews sold this film as a relatable story... I didn't find much to relate with. The main character, Michael, is a tragic figure who's depressed beyond all hope and possibly a borderline sociopath -- in that the guy can't connect to anyone he meets. Everyone annoys him (much like the South Park episode I mentioned), leaving him to feel immensely alone. And rather there being a happy ending, in that he finds his true love that will save him -- his brief affair quickly loses its luster before going back to being the same as everything else. 

The most brilliant part about the film is that after about 10 minutes in you realize that every character outside of Michael and his affair, Lisa, is played by the same actor (Tom Noonan -- you know... that creepy villain from The Last Action Hero) who does a great job of carrying a similar cadence and tone in his voice despite which character (male or female; young or old) he's playing. 

As this is a Kaufman film, there's a lot I could and sort of want to say about this, but in fairness that this is a "dump" post, I'll keep it brief. The last point... where does this stand with all the rest of Kaufman's films? It doesn't hit the same echelon as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Adaptation, but I kind of feel like it sits well next to Being John Malkovich. To be fair, Kaufman's films usually deserve a second watch to really let the heavy material he's laying out sink in. But that's something I don't have access to right now. 

Room (2015)

Another film down off my Oscar list. Based on the Emma Donoghue novel (of which I believe she also wrote the screenplay) this film has an amazingly engrossing first half, but then leaves the second half feeling a bit lackluster. 

It's the story of a woman trapped as a sex slave (or sorts) in a tiny little, one room, prison where she attempts to do all that she can to raise her little boy (who turns five upon the start of the film) despite the horrific conditions they are both enduring. Obviously, these struggles against her kidnapper are fairly intense and leaves you sitting on the edge of your seat for the first half of the film. But why only the first half? Well (SPOILERS)... the two escape half way through the movie, then we begin another story: How they mentally heal after this seven year imprisonment. 

Basically there are two parts of the film. The first part where they are struggling to physically escape the confines of the room, and the second part where they must emotionally escape the prison. It's worth noting that the little boy (who should have got some Oscar attention) is Brie Larson's savor in both cases. However, the emotional escape in the second half of the film, is... well, boring isn't the right word. It's just not operating at the same level. It's kind of like comparing a scenic helicopter ride against a skydiving trip. Sure, they're both delightful and fun, but the second after I come down off my high (ha! get it?) from my skydiving trip and am then asked to go on a helicopter ride, no matter how cool it is, it's just not going to be appreciated in my current glow of post-free falling through the air. 

And that's the problem we have here. 

However, there is an easy fix. Tarantino it up a bit! And by that I mean use some non-linear editing techniques. 

This film could have really benefitted from having both story lines (the physical and mental escapes) unfold side-by-side. We'll flip back and forth between plot A and plot B and it helps deliver on a more powerful and satisfying ending without wearing out audiences when they're only halfway through. Sure... we'll learn early on that these guys escape... but that's not the point. 

It doesn't matter that we know they escape if we see they are still suffering in pain from the incident and we're in fear they might never recover. It will still cause audiences to question how did they exactly escape, and was there something in that process that aided in the scarring? 

Anywho... that's my suggestion that could take this fairly decent film and make it something truly extraordinary. 

Bridge of Spies (2015)

Steven and Tom. Back at it again. 

For a movie that's predicated on pretty much nothing more than one noble man running around eastern Europe making negotiations, this was a great movie. I mean, it's masterfully shot. Masterfully acted. Masterfully written (by the Coen brothers, no less). Really, there's nothing to hate and everything to love. 

I wouldn't say it's my favorite film of the year -- hell, I wouldn't say it even stands in my top 10, but that's not to say it isn't an incredible movie. Had a great time with it and definitely liked it far more than I thought, but that's how I generally feel about Spielberg films. 

I remember hearing one critic talk about Spielberg in that you don't have a favorite film of his, you have a favorite era of his films. His current era, focused more on historical pieces (from Munich to War Horse to Lincoln to... well, Bridge of Spies), just isn't the Spielberg that I adore. 

You'll find me at home in his early stuff (Jaws to Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Raiders of the Los Ark and ending with E.T.). I'm not exactly sure what to describe this phase of work as, but this shit right here is where I feel most at home. 

Brooklyn (2015)

Booooooooooring. 

Ok, so this film is clearly not for me. It's a romance story. A romance story about a girl who leaves home (Ireland) for someplace strange (Brooklyn). Once she manages to establish herself in this new place, she is then called back home under tragic circumstances. Ultimately this whole thing puts her in the quandary of asking herself, "Where is home?" 

It's not like this is poorly written, directed, or acted. Far from that. Everything is done extraordinarily well. It's just a sleepy love story that did the worst thing a film can possibly do to me. It was boring. 

I love you Nick Hornby, and hope we connect better in your next work!

Straight Outta Compton (2015)

I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. No, I don't have anything against Ice Cube, Dre, or Gangsta Rap and its origins... I just really don't like music-based biopics. The Doors, Walk the Line, Ray, and all the others that follow suit, they're just not the films for me. Can't explain why. They just are.

But this one was different and I'm trying to figure out why. 

Maybe it was because the filmed hinged off the controversy of the people versus authority. Or maybe it was the interesting glimpse into gang-life within South Central L.A. Or maybe it was sharing the experience of three friends building a bond as they take the journey of a lifetime together. Wouldn't be surprised if it was all three. 

Despite the film running a tad on the long side for my liking, I really enjoyed it. Straight Outta Compton definitely stands at the top of my list for music-based biopics (or whatever you want to call them). Do I think this film got snubbed at the Oscars especially as the #oscarssowhite discussion keeps circling around? Hard to say. But I can definitely point out some other films that the industry and critics seem to adore, where I would happily watch this film again over those others (looking at you The Big Short). 

Also, it's important for me to say that in this film Ice Cube is actually played by his son (Ice Cube Jr.?). Near the end, there's a scene where Ice Cube (the character) is looking out in his backyard watching his wife playing with his kids. Then it hit me. This actor is interacting with another actor who's playing him. He's literally watching himself, while he's playing his dad. Mind = blown.

Full disclosure, I may have been high while watching this...

Eagle vs Shark (2007)

Ever wonder what Napoleon Dynamite would be like if it was made in New Zealand? No? Well, I don't blame you. But if you were ever interested in it... then this would be the film you're looking for. 

Honestly, these adorkable, indie art-house films aren't for me. Sure there's a lot of subtle, awkward humor -- and with Jemaine Clement staring, some of it actually lands a laugh or two with me -- but most of the film felt forgettable and boring. It's by the same director who also did What We Do in the Shadows, which seem to gain a lot of critic praise this past year (I think even earning it enough momentum to get a sequel?). However, if that's the benchmark for great work in these adorkable and awkward comedies, then maybe they're just not for me. 

But then why do I love Flight of the Conchords so much? Same actor. Same director. Essentially the same humor. Go figure?

Clearly I'm a very complex human being. 

Creed (2015)

Saving the best for last...

Jesus... Thank god for torrented movie leaks because I've re-watched this film at least three times already. (Please understand that I did buy a ticket and first saw this in theaters. Only later, with such a strong desire to re-watch, did I find a leaked the screener.) This movie keeps getting better with every watch. 

I wouldn't say that I'm a Rocky fan, but I also wouldn't say that I'm NOT a Rocky fan. It's a great series that has some amazing highs muddled with some charming lows. (I'm not going to pretend that Mr. T redefined cinema with his performance of Clubber Lang.) The point is, I've done my due diligence and have seen each film -- the fourth one the most -- and have built a relationship with the humble heavy-hitter who takes on the mentor role in this film. 

So, keeping in mind that I might be a little biased, I not only see this film as the best in the Rocky series, but perhaps one of the best films of the year!

There's A LOT I can say about this film, but what speaks most is that after a decent amount of time, I keep wanting to come back to it. I keep wanting to see that last fight. To see Rocky plead with Adonis to throw in the towel. That he doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. Then Adonis, looking up with his beaten, swollen face, finally admits that he, the bastard son of Apollo Creed, is not a mistake. After the whole film, we finally get that bomb dropped on us that that's why he's been fighting. Not to make a name for himself, but to prove he's worthy of the Creed title. 

With an astonished look, Rocky embraces the kid. Tells him that he is going to beat his opponent because he is a Creed and that he loves him. (Jesus, I'm weeping right now thinking of it.) Suddenly, after waiting the entire movie to hear it, wondering if it was ever going to be played at all, the Rocky anthem kicks in. Adonis stands for the final round, and just gives his undefeated opponent the fight of his life. 

Such a fucking good flick! Sorry if I've spoiled anything for anyone, but I have this one scene burned into my mind for all time. It's storytelling masterfully done. The physical and emotional struggles of this one character hitting its climax in the last fight make me want to scream out in excitement at the final round of boxing as if I'm in the stadium watching it live. Truly a shame this film didn't get more love at the Oscars. But, hey... seems like most of the films that stand the true test of time with their fans very rarely begin that appreciative journey with a little gold statue-man next to them.  

I can't wait to see what these guys dish out next. (Note: The writer/director Coogler has just been tapped for Marvel's Black Panther. I'm hoping for great things.) 

If there's only one film you watch on this dump of a movie list here. Make it this one -- I'm also just curious if a non-Rocky fan will feel the same way about this film as I did. After all, this is all art and art is entirely subjective. 

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

The year of #BigReads continues for me; here's my second straight book exceeding 500 pages in length. I'm sure you've all heard of Victor Hugo, who more famously penned Les Misérables, and also of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, perhaps best known today as a 1996 Disney movie. Well, here's the original novel. I liked it!

There are plenty of scattered thoughts I have here, but nothing like last time where I rambled for twelve paragraphs just to try to wrap my head around The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It's more that this is a classic book with some well known characters and I feel like I should say a few things about it, but there's no cohesion to anything I feel like saying. Screw it - time for some categories!

Title

The book's original French title is Notre-Dame de Paris, and only when it was translated to English did someone decide to warp that into The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The original title makes much more sense; this is a novel about a number of characters, and Quasimodo is arguably only the third or fourth-most important character in the story, which takes place primarily in and around the big old cathedral of Notre-Dame. So, why name it after the hunchback? Gothic romance, baby. This was 1830 or so, and there was nothing the Brits loved more than a good old monster story. (Think of Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, and Dracula - all Victorian era novels with spooky creepy bad guys!) The name stuck throughout the anglosphere, and as such, most people who haven't read this book likely assume it's about, you know, the titular hunchback of Notre-Dame. But again - it really isn't! Mostly. We'll get there.

History

Hugo had a big old boner for medieval French history, and that's probably the entire reason he wrote this book. It takes place in the 1480s, right at the tail end of the Middle Ages before the Renaissance or the Age of Exploration, in Paris. So, get this. Hugo wrote the book around 1830, after the French Revolution(s) had destroyed a lot of Paris. Apparently the very famous cathedral of Notre-Dame was in really rough shape, and had been for decades, when Hugo began writing. And so much of Hugo's goal when writing his story was to instill a sense of historical appreciation in his audience. Common Parisian thought at the time, apparently, was something along the lines of, "hey, there's so much old and dirty and broken shit in this dingy old city of ours. Let's knock it all down and get with the times." And Hugo was all, "cool it, guys. Our city's history is bright and vibrant and worth preserving!"

At any rate, this is likely why there are entire chapters of Hunchback devoted to describing the architecture of Paris, and of Notre-Dame in particular. There were multiple pages just written about stained glass windows. There's a tangent about how there used to be farmland within the city limits. (Note that these big-ass tangents aren't unique to Hunchback; Hugo went off the rails multiple times in Les Misérables to talk about sewer systems, Waterloo, and any number of off-topic subjects.)

These are the parts of the novel that drag the most, and unfortunately, they're all over the first half of the book. If you decide to read this one yourself, please, have no qualms with skimming dozens of pages at a time, particularly in the early going. It gets better! And whether or not Hugo had anything to do with it, the French people eventually came around to respecting their historical landmarks, and Notre-Dame de Paris still stands today. Great!

Characters

Props to Hugo - the guy can craft a memorable character. Even if you haven't read or seen Les Misérables, you're probably at least vaguely aware of the ex-convict Jean Valjean, of the conflicted police officer Javert, and possibly of a handful of other characters. Likewise, even if you haven't read or seen The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, I'll assume you're somewhat familiar with Quasimodo the hideous bellringer and Esmeralda the mysterious gypsy dancer. What I love, too, about Hugo's characters is that he fleshes them out into fully realized people with flaws and merits alike. When Disney adapted this story into a movie they made it ore family friendly by substantially cleaning up the ending (in the book, more or less everyone ends up dead) but they also took the complex character of Claude Frollo - perhaps the protagonist of this story, though admittedly a deeply flawed one - and flattened him out into a monstrous villain with no redeeming qualities and no backstory to explain how he became the way he is. Which, hey, fine, this is a ninety-minute movie that kids need to comprehend, so maybe we don't need to get into the whole "chaste priest tormented by sexual longing" angle, but still - Frollo spends the bulk of the book being an overall decent person.

And the rest of the characters are just as complicated. Quasimodo is a sympathetic and tragic figure, hobbled by his condition and deaf from ringing the bells his whole life, but he's also withdrawn and cynical and not overly kind. This makes perfect sense - the city sees him as a monster deserving of ridicule - but it also makes Quasimodo into a perfect antagonist from certain characters' points of view. Isolated, angry - he's the prototypical social outcast.

Meanwhile, Esmeralda is an enchanting gypsy girl with a heart of gold. Her dancing drives Frollo mad with lust and desire, and her gentle kindness toward Quasimodo makes him fall deeply in love with her. But she rejects any advance made by either of these men; instead she's lovestruck by the handsome Captain Phoebus, a knight in shining armor. This makes perfect sense, because Esmeralda is sixteen years old. And who's dumber than a smitten sixteen-year-old girl?

Phoebus, lastly, is older and engaged to somebody else and frankly he's a womanizing piece of shit who doesn't care for Esmeralda at all. But to his credit, he's no flat character either - he did save Esmeralda from being kidnapped early on in the novel. As such, she's smitten enough to pine for him for the remainder of the story, long after the point where he actively ignores and avoids her in public.

And then there are several other minor recurring characters who spice things up by interacting with these four. You've got a bitter, angry woman who hates gypsies because her daughter was stolen by gypsies; you've got Frollo's younger brother, an irresponsible but entirely harmless jerk-off; you've got the self-proclaimed gypsy king, a cutthroat who'll kill any honest man who sets foot in his part of the city, but who ultimately leads a mob of gypsies on a rescue attempt at the book's climax. There's a richness to the web of relationships at play here that you just don't see in many nineteenth century novels. Hell, the very lack of a centralized, main character makes this book fairly unique among anything I've read written before, oh, 1920 or so.

Bingo

Precocious teen, mysterious woman, secret passageway... okay, no, we're not playing Murakami Bingo. That'd be dumb. But I did find a pretty spot-on card for Victor Hugo Bingo! Local women gossiping, terrible foster parents, Paris, lines in Latin, unrequited love, tangent of at least 50 pages, big battle near the end... yeah, that all fits, and it fits for Les Misérables too. Of course, therein lies the problem - what else did Victor Hugo write beyond this book and that one? You can probably find a lot of similarities between any two stories whether they're by the same author or not and retroactively make a convincing Bingo card. Damn. Consider me less impressed!

Conclusion

Lengthy diatribes aside, this was an entertaining story with memorable characters. There were a few major recurring themes and motifs here - nothing fancy, new or complicated, but poignant all the same. It was also a quicker read than I was expecting, which is likely largely due to the amount of skimming I could do when Hugo zoomed out too far every so often. Can I give this one a blanket recommendation? Eh, sure. It's one of the better books I've read from the 1800s and it holds up well enough today.

Eating The Dinosaur

It's been a long time since I posted a book here, so hopefully I can break that trend and read a bit more in 2016. Chuck Klosterman's Eating The Dinosaur feels like the sequel to his breakthrough essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto in that it's simply a collection of essays, mostly dealing with pop culture. When I wrote about that book four years ago I gave lots of quick-hit thoughts on each individual essay. This time around I read the first half of Eating the Dinosaur several months ago and the second half more recently, so I wouldn't be able to recall some of the less interesting essays. I will say that my personal favorite essays in Eating the Dinosaur were about comparing Kurt Cobain to the leader of the Branch Davidian cult, why football is Chuck's favorite sport because of its constant evolution, and a brutal critique on the concept of laugh tracks. If there's one way Eating the Dinosaur is different from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (aside from references to more recent events as it was published in 2009), it's that Klosterman's style has become a bit more personal. Lots of Klosterman's writing has felt a bit alien in a way to me, calling out non-sensical and odd things in pop culture that I (and the rest of society) have always ignored, like's some other species trying to understand people through the music and television they consume. Here however you get a bit more insight as to who he is, talking about his own insecurities or what's important to him. It's a small change, and most of these essays could have fit into any previous collection, but I liked Eating the Dinosaur just fine and I'm still looking forward to whatever else he'll publish.

Killer Instinct (2013)

I still don't own an Xbox One, but thanks to Keith's generous "borrow until you buy" policy, here's the second game I've beaten on the console. It was a Games with Gold freebie for the month of January and I always liked the original Killer Instinct for Super Nintendo, so why not?

As it turns out, this is one of those freemium games where the game itself is free but every character is paid DLC. So what I technically got for free via Games with Gold was the "Season 1 roster," which was eight characters large. Fine. No big deal.

I played through the story mode as Fulgore and found that the game was just as button-mashy as ever. I'm sure there's a "right" way to play Killer Instinct, but who needs to learn it?

If you missed out on this free offering, hey - you didn't really miss much.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I'm not sure if I've ever been more flummoxed over how to write a post for Back-Blogged than I am here and now when it comes to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Sween and Trevor have already accomplished such a feat, five and two-and-a-half years ago respectively, and now it's my turn. There's just a whole lot to say here - and to ask, too, of Sween and Trev and anyone else out there who's read this thing. Where to begin?

Haruki Murakami

This is the second Murakami novel I've read, following Norwegian Wood last year. The difference couldn't be starker. Norwegian Wood was a straightforward but beautifully written coming-of-age tale in which a college student learns to cope with loss and sorrow. It felt like a less cynical Catcher in the Rye, and also like a more elegant Great Gatsby. I couldn't help but love it, and eventually I declared it the best book I read in 2015. So it made all the sense in the world for me to start 2016 with Murakami's most-revered novel.

Now, I'd heard that Norwegian Wood was a relatively tame Murakami novel in that it had a concrete resolution and didn't deal with any surreal elements, but oh man was I unprepared for the extent to which The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle left plot threads open, didn't explain itself, and loosely but only barely connected all kinds of disparate characters and motifs into vague and general recurrences.

Torn

When I finished this book several hours ago, I had no idea how to feel about it; snap judgment was impossible and I couldn't shake the suspicion that so much of what I'd just spent 600 pages reading was meaningless. But at the same time, I'd thoroughly enjoyed reading most of those 600 pages. The Internet was similarly divided. The book boasts a large contingent of devoted fans, many of whom consider this the greatest book of all time, but non-literary-group forum perusing has left me with the impression that more than half of the people who start this book can't bring themselves to finish it. I found it engrossing, but not necessarily addicting; I've been working on it for two and a half weeks, which means I've only managed a few dozen pages per day - but then, it also means that for two and a half weeks I've been reading a few dozen pages of this thing every day.

Most of all, I can't even directly compare this to Norwegian Wood. I didn't end up loving that book until it was nearly over; it all seemed to come together right at the end for me. Here, an almost opposite occurrence - I had all kinds of interest in five or six separate arcs in this one, and in the end I was left hanging. Frustrated is the wrong word, but I was at least overwhelmed by The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, wondering what it all meant and how it all fit together. I can't deny that Norwegian Wood left me more satisfied at the end of the day, but it seems absurd to call it a superior book to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I like to come up with little ranked lists all the time - I think we all do, to an extent - but right now my only two Murakami experiences are just unavailable for such a comparison. Hell, this latest experience probably isn't even over; give me some time to let it marinate. Bottom line: I don't know how I feel about this book. But I do know that it was among the greatest books I've ever read.

One thing the book's supporters and detractors can agree on is that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle doesn't really have a thematic through-line. There are plenty of novels with plot threads that don't intertwine into a perfect braid, but generally the good ones will have some thematic consistency linking the strands together. But there really just isn't a moral or consistent tone or running theme here. The central narrative reaches its conclusion - in a surreal, dreamlike haze, no less - and the book ends shortly thereafter with plenty of other stories left unresolved. None of this makes The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle a bad book, of course, but it does mean that the only reward for reading it is the experience of reading it. Does that make sense? I'm not even sure if that's what I'm trying to say. Whatever. My point is, this is no allegory for any bigger picture or issue. There's no real-world real-issue symbolism here, and certainly no satire, nor is the book's unconventional messiness somehow a winking in-joke or commentary on literature or fiction or storytelling expectations or anything like that. There are no hidden meanings. There are only the connections between different elements and characters of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

Details

Alright, so what exactly was this book about, anyway? It starts off simply enough. An unemployed, passive, and apathetic man named Toru has lost his cat. While searching for the cat, he encounters a teenage girl skipping school. They become fast friends and hang out to talk about things every few days. Toru receives a few mysterious phone calls from a woman who claims to know him, but she's just trying to have phone sex. Toru's wife, Kumiko, sets him up with a psychic woman to help him find the cat. This woman, Malta, tells Toru that his brother-in-law - Kumiko's older brother - once raped her younger sister, Creta. Toru meets up with Creta one day and then begins to have wet dreams about her; Creta calls herself a "prostitute of the mind" and reveals that she's been having sex with Toru in her own dreams. Shortly thereafter, Toru is visited by an old World War II veteran who tells Toru about the time he and a few of his soldiers were caught behind enemy lines in Mongolia, and describes in horrifying detail how his commanding officer was skinned alive in front of him before he himself was dropped down a well and left for dead. One of his fellow soldiers - another apparent psychic in a book with several psychics - told him he'd make it back to Japan alive, though. And he did. Shortly after this, Kumiko leaves Toru and files for divorce, admitting that she's been cheating on Toru for months now, and advising him to stay away from her and try to move on as quickly as possible. Distraught and at a loss for what to do next, Toru climbs down into an old abandoned well on a vacant lot in his neighborhood, sits in the darkness, and thinks. And dreams. And wanders.

Lots to take in, right? Well, hang on, because that's only roughly the first third of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. What follows is much crazier and harder to describe. Hell, the whole book is hard to describe. But in a nutshell, Toru's deep mediations down in the well transport him into what can only loosely be described as a dream land of sorts. Most of the rest of the novel takes place both outside of the well and in the non-dream "reality," but the very structure of the narrative begins to come apart in the third act; Toru's first-person narration is replaced every so often by newspaper stories, letters from other people, and some sort of 1985 proto-IM conversation service. (Oh yeah, the whole story takes place from 1984-1985.) But even the events happening in the "real world" begin to take on a dreamlike quality, and plenty of different elements begin to feel connected and repeated in ways.

Connections

These connections are probably the most compelling argument in favor of The Wind-Up Bird being something truly special and not just a bunch of well-written but meaningless bullshit. Creta, for instance, looks almost exactly like Kumiko, and fits into all of her clothes and shoes perfectly. Toru's cat has the exact same name as his brother-in-law. Toru winds up at the bottom of a dry well, just like the lieutenant did in Mongolia forty or more years prior. The mysterious sex-caller sounds exactly like Kumiko. Toru ends up with a weird blue mark on his cheek identical to one on an important character's grandfather. No fewer than three separate assaults with a baseball bat are made during the course of the book. Toru's cat disappears, and then so does his wife. Early on, someone warns Toru and Kumiko to always be wary of water; Toru later nearly drowns, and another character does in a separate incident. A number of different nameless women are described as having been "violated" but not explicitly raped; Kumiko claims to have been "violated" by her own brother, while Creta explicitly says she was raped by him. A boy has a dream in which he finds a beating human heart under a tree; a man is later killed and harvested for his heart and other organs. And perhaps most importantly, what with the title of the book and everything, Toru finds great comfort in hearing the call of the wind-up bird, a bird that sounds like a spring winding up - but no other character is even aware of such a bird, and some of them eventually notice a strange-sounding bird they've never heard before.

What does it all mean? Is it all a dream? Is Kumiko even gone? Is Toru even real? Does any of it matter?

Conclusion

Plenty of people have shrugged off the strange non-resolution as a by-product of Murakami being a Japanese author. "Books in Japan don't work like Western novels," goes the argument. Except, that isn't really true in Murakami's case; he's known in Japan - and loved - for having a distinctively "American" writing style. And even more people - both lovers and haters - try to summarize the entire book by calling it "surreal" or "an acid trip" or "down the rabbit hole." They're not wrong, but they're lazy! There're so much more to this book than just how weird and bonkers it can be. Truth be told, it's not even that weird. Most of what happens is realistic and rooted firmly in the realm of the normal. And although you could pretty easily be convinced that the entire book could be one long dreamscape - hey, anything could be. At least within the context of the story, most of what happens is real.

But here I am, trying to verify that "most of what happens is real" and allowing a modifying clause on top of that. Fuck it, maybe the masses aren't being lazy - maybe they've just done all these mental gymnastics themselves and determined that there's really no way to describe or talk about the story here in any certain terms. Maybe "it was totally surreal and I really liked it" is as apt a description as any. Maybe the whole novel is comparable to abstract art, where what matters isn't so much what's been depicted, but instead how it resonates with others.

Trev led his post off with "...and my head's still spinning," which is really no less than I've managed to say in twelve paragraphs. Yeesh. Can I get back to you all on this one?

Bingo

Alright, enough poorly-written half-baked rapid reaction takes from me. Let's play some Murakami Bingo.

Since nothing comes easy to me, I'll opt out of the binary "yes or no" and allow a third option - "kind of." I figure that in a 600-page novel, and arguably the man's most famous work, I can't just go handing out a Bingo on a technicality or two. We've got to earn this Bingo, Murakami! Show me what you got.

Mysterious Woman:

Yes. Everything is mysterious in this book, but the woman on the other end of the phone calls at the beginning of the book elevates this one from a technicality to an easy square. She may even literally be described as a mysterious woman.

Ear Fetish:

Close, but no. At one point a woman's ears are described as being small and cute, but it's a far cry from a one-sentence description to "fetish." On the other hand, multiple women end up licking Toru on the cheek. We were inches away here!

Dried-Up Well:

A hundred times over, yes - this is literally the setting for close to a hundred pages of the book.

Something Vanishing:

Yeah. Toru's cat and wife aside - because hey, those are creatures, not "things" - there are a number of occasions where an object is not where Toru left it. (Rope ladder, baseball bat - probably plenty of others.)

Feeling of Being Followed:

No. Unless I'm forgetting something, I can't remember this specific emotion or fear ever popping up. Plenty of other general uneasy feelings, but not this one.

Unexpected Phone Call:

Totally. The first fifty pages alone felt like they contained a handful of unexpected phone calls.

Cats:

Yes, of course.

Old Jazz Record:

If there was one, I missed it - closest thing I can think of is Toru listening to classical music on the radio which is neither jazz nor a record.

Urban Ennui:

Yes. Toru lives in Tokyo, the largest urban metropolis in the world, and he has neither a job nor any real interests or passions - his life is textbook urban ennui.

Supernatural Powers:

Several characters are at least mildly psychic, so yes.

Running:

Murakami loves running, but Toru doesn't seem to. If he did, he'd probably go for a jog to clear his mind instead of slinking down into the bottom of a well. No, no running.

Secret Passageway:

I'm gonna go with a full-on yes, and it comes from two separate half-assed technicalities. The first is an alleyway behind Toru's house that doesn't lead to any roads - just other houses in the neighborhood. It's a weak example on its face, but it allows Toru access to the vacant lot with the dried up well without anybody seeing him. Secondly, at the bottom of the well itself, Toru is able to "slip through the wall" and into the dream world. That counts, right?

Train Station:

Here's our first "kind of;" Toru takes the train a few times over the course of the novel and at least briefly describes being at the train station. I can't recall any specific events that occur at the station though, nor does Murakami describe any train stations in loving detail.

Historical Flashback:

Several, all to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. (I really liked these, and wish I had more time, room, or effort to describe them in the bulk of my post. Oh well!)

Precocious Teenager:

Yes - May Kasahara, Toru's hookey-playing neighbor, who smokes and sunbathes all day when she isn't working at the factory. Somewhere in the middle of the novel, Toru is even taken aback when he remembers how young she is.

Cooking:

Another soft "kind of." This is so broad, and I'd challenge anyone to find a 600-page novel in which the preparation of food is entirely absent. The only cooking I can remember comes on the very first page, where Toru gets an unexpected phone call from a mysterious woman (seriously) while whipping up a pot of spaghetti. I almost want to say no, but then, it's the first page, and it's a memorable scene, and you could really tell how invested Murakami was in Toru's boiling pot of spaghetti.

Speaking to Cats:

Yet another "kind of." Toru's cat returns about halfway through the book, and at one point Toru says something to him. But, come on. It happens once. It's not really a "thing."

Parallel Worlds:

Blech, a third straight "yeah, sort of." This should probably be a straight-up yes - Toru's dream world feels a lot like an alternate reality. But it's never really described or treated as such within the novel. I'm struggling here.

Weird Sex:

Yes. In addition to dream sex, which is only "subjectively" weird, Creta describes being raped as being physically split in two and having some slimy and indescribable presence extracted from within her. And that's just straight objectively weird, even if it's only a metaphor, which, hey, it probably isn't anyway.

Chip Kidd Cover:

Another vague "yes but no." Chip Kidd designed a cover for this book, but the cover on the paperback edition I have - pictured above - was made by John Gall.

Tokyo at Night:

Virtually the entire book takes place in Tokyo, and that absolutely includes several nights, but you know what? No. Nothing about "nighttime in the city" ever comes up. I won't even give this the half-ass check mark.

Unusual Name:

This is usually tough, since all the names in Murakami books tend to be in Japanese, and it isn't clear to this ign'ant ugly American what kind of names are unusual in Japan. For instance, Creta and Malta don't seem like strange Japanese names to me, but Toru specifically considers them to be unusual to him, so I've got to yield to his thoughts on this one. Oh, and two important characters go by Nutmeg and Cinnamon - but those are code names! Do they count? Whatever - this is a solid yes.

Faceless Villain:

I'm sorry, but here's another "kind of" from me. The only true villain in the book is Toru's brother-in-law, and he's very clearly identified immediately and he also has a face. But - but! - in the climactic scene in the whole book, Toru wails on a faceless man with a baseball bat in the dream world, and it's strongly implied that this faceless man is the dream world extension of his brother-in-law in the real world.

Vanishing Cats:

We end on an easy one. Yes! Yes! Yes!

The verdict...

Goddammit. Even with 14 surefire squares, there's not a pure bingo on the board. The "sort of" squares get us to three, but two of them hinge on more empty circles than filled ones. That leaves top-left-to-bottom-right as our only real shot at a bingo, pending approval on parallel worlds. Hell, even the other two bingos hinge on parallel worlds.

Sween, Trev, please - weigh in. Did The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle feature parallel worlds? I'm done thinking about this. Good night!

Fargo: Season 2

Fargo. Season 2. Let's get to it, eh? 

After catching up on this show that the 3rd Party Support podcast ultimately agreed as the best TV show of 2015, I have to say... I think I sort of agree. (Working my way through Mr. Robot which is going to definitely give this show a run for its money.) The second season of Fargo still holds strong while providing some extra insight into the characters and the history of this Midwest crime community, which conjures up some interesting theories on where the show could go, and -- possibly -- how the film has an even stronger connection to this series. 

First, how did I like the show this season? I liked it very much. Frankly, I believe it sits in the "masterpiece" echelon along with the first season. Whether you choose the first season or the second as your favorite comes down to a preference of taste. It's like going to the best ice cream parlor in the world and having to decide between vanilla or chocolate. Regardless of which one you choose, you know the quality is going to be astounding. At this point it's just personal taste. For me, I choose chocolate... I mean, season 2. 

The second season just had that suave tone of being cool and hip, borrowing editing techniques that reminded me a bit of 24. On top of that, I really enjoyed the story of two crime families waging war against one another with another mild-manner couple innocently getting all caught up in the carnage with the performances by Ed Blumquist (Jesse Plemons) and Mike Milligan (Bokeem Woodbine) being excellent. Then there's Molly's dad (back in his prime as a State Trooper) just trying to make sense of it all. I also like how there were seeds planted for the Sioux Falls Massacre layered into the show even from the first season. We all knew shit was going to be bad. Just a matter of when.  

Some questions, and I suppose this is the obvious one... what's with the aliens? Part of me thinks that the writers behind the show feel the need to drop in the essence of something supernatural in each season. Season 1 we have clear mentions of God. Season 2, we've got aliens. At this point, who knows what we'll get in season 3... Ghosts? Witches? The Tooth Fairly?

Speaking of the Tooth Fairy... let's all remember that 

the Rock as the Tooth Fairy was actually a thing. 

Back to the show... I'm wondering what the need for these other-worldly things is? I mean, it felt very deus ex machina for the UFO to show back up during the massacre essentially saving Trooper Solverson's life. But, hey, I suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the ride. If anyone that has any input on this enigma, I'm all ears, because I'm struggling to make heads or tails of it. 

The other question (or maybe an answer) that this season gives is the information behind the Fargo crime syndicate. We get the hint that Hanzee, after betraying the Gerhardts, might become the leader of the very same crime syndicate that Numbers and Wrench come from (seeing as how Hanzee walks over to, what we can only presume are, the child versions of the two hitmen from season 1). But this whole thing got me thinking -- as I'm desperately looking for some sort of cohesion between the film and the TV show -- what if the name of the TV show and movie isn't referring to the humble town, but rather the crime family with the same name. In season 1, we see two hitmen sent out from Fargo, which ultimately lead to the Fargo mob's destruction as Malvo shoots up the joint. In season 2, we get a sense how Fargo may have been started. And in the movie, well... where do the two hitmen (Showalter and Grimsrud) come from? A quick peak at Fargo's wikipedia page reminds me that William H. Macy's character drives to Fargo, North Dakota to hire these two unscrupulous characters to kidnapped his wife. It stands to reason that a crime family so big likely wouldn't allow any competition to run games on their home turf, so I submit to you that Showalter and Grimsrud are actually members of Fargo, the crime syndicate. 

And, thus... we have our connection perfectly tying in the TV with the movie. 

This isn't a reference to the location where terrible things happen to innocent people with funny accents. This is a story about a family... a mob family. The Fargo mob family. 

But I can already hear complaining, "If that theory's true... then isn't everyone already dead after Malvo shot up the joint?" 

Great point. Perhaps everyone is dead. Or maybe Hanzee...

...this guy...

Is actually still alive. A survivor of the Malvo assult, and continues to exist... 

...as this guy.

Crazier things have happened. Like muther-fucking UFOs appearing out of nowhere with no explanation! 

Kirby's Adventure

It being B-Town's birthday and all, I decided to chip away at my Kirby backlog a little more. Kirby's Adventure is the second Kirby game and also one of the last games ever made for the NES. It felt a whole lot like Kirby's Dream Land, which makes perfect sense.

These games are cute and charming and, remarkably, not all that old. This game came out in 1993, a good two and a half years into the SNES lifecycle. B-Town once told me that Nintendo likes to end their major consoles with a Kirby game, and the evidence agrees. For instance, Dream Land 3, for the SNES, came out in 1997 - and not until '98 in Japan, even. What's interesting is that such releases come when developers have tapped into every last corner of a given console's processing power - and as such, Kirby games are often among the most beautiful and graphically advanced titles on their own consoles.

I don't have a ton to say about this one. I mean, it's Kirby. You float around, dodge enemies, absorb powers, and kill bosses. The first boss is Whispy Woods and the last two* are Meta Knight and King Dedede. What more do you want?

*(Just kidding! They're actually the antepenultimate and penultimate bosses, respectively. The last boss this time around is an entity called Nightmare, which I'll admit I wasn't expecting! I was wondering why Dedede was the boss of the seventh world when I'd read that the game had eight of them...)

Adorable, easy, enjoyable, quick - I find this whole franchise to be a rather pleasant logging experience so far. Good thing I've got a handful of Kirby games left in my backlog!