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.