Books:
Fuzz by Mary Roach
This is a breezy - as with all Mary Roach books - nonfiction book about the processes we (that would be humans) have put in place to deal with wildlife encroachment. It's a deep dive into an issue I really hadn't given much thought to, like, beyond scarecrows, what exactly is the history of and how are we currently dealing with birds eating crops? Or things like coyotes, bears, and mountain lions near urban areas or trying to get rid of invasive species without creating even more problems in the process. If you've read Mary Roach before and have an opinion about her, this book will not change that, so either stop reading the review and go get it or, if you know you dislike her, then well same thing in reverse I guess because nothing here's going to change your mind. (No wait - read the review regardless, it's genius clearly!) The book is broken up into easily digestible chapters which read like longish magazine articles, i.e. perfect for this kind of book because it's all very informative and links to what came before and what comes after while also having each chapter be complete within itself. What I like about Mary Roach is that you can tell she's a journalist at heart and, because all her books are first-person accounts of her own investigations, she has an amusing doggedness about her in her efforts to dig for more information which adds to a bit of the fun beyond the mere facts. In other words, she learns something, gets a little sidetracked, digs deeper, does (or doesn't) get more answers, then goes about her way, and this mini insight into her process is a lot of what makes her books appealing because there's a personality behind all the science facts and an inquisitive mind that's either asking the same questions you are or asking questions that never occurred to you but which you want to know the answers to once they're posed. As you can see, this review is primarily about the vibe of the writing rather than describing the details of the topic since I'm guessing you're either curious about how we’re dealing with human stuff butting up against nature or you're not. But if you are, this is an engaging look at all that and, if you haven't read her before, a good starting point as all of her books are focused around one particular science topic which is covered from various angles and if you're looking for something informative and easy to read well look no further.
TV/Streaming:
Manifest (Season 3):
I've said it before (here and here) and I will no doubt say it again when I watch the final season of the Lost-alike (kinda): I know it's dumb; I know the characters are blunt; I know there are gaping plot holes; I'm not super confident the writers will be able to pay it off. And I don't care! I find this show to be entertaining despite all that and that's the way that is. As a reminder: this is a series about an airplane incident where, when the passengers emerge from a storm, it's five years later and people, in addition to having moved on with their lives, are freaking out about this change in reality. To hardly mention the passengers all have these "callings" where they find themselves compelled to unwrap local mysteries and do moral good for reasons that become much clearer this season. Look, this show is hanging on by a thread in terms of its dumbness by which I mean I totally get how for some people it's simply too ridiculous and takes itself too seriously to invest in. I see that, I really do, I get the character network-TV-ness and how the various pieces - being vague to avoid spoilering - are coming together in a, I don't know, not super creative way, but I still like it. I mean in every episode there's a mystery, some tension, some family and/or interpersonal drama, conflicts between the passengers, stuff with the callings, the police, the NSA, and, as with Lost, some larger thing being played out and which will all hopefully be wrapped up in an at least marginally satisfying way next season. Having watched three seasons now and enjoyed every single one of them despite noticing all the not-great stuff, I’ve come to the conclusion that this show hits the right balance for me of absorbing mystery and utter mindlessness. Like I am not a procedural person, but I imagine this is exactly what people love about the L&Os, CSIs, and NCISs of the world - they're puzzles and not super complicated ones and ones where you generally know the basic outcome but where the fun is in seeing how all pieces are going to come together and how the characters will make it all happen. That's this show for me; it has more drama to it than straight procedurals - there's a lot of family and relationship stuff around the passengers returning and loved ones or bf/gfs having moved on etc. plus new relationships forming - but I think it's the same basic thing. I'm invested in it enough to enjoy the puzzles each week, the relationship stuff, and the overall big-picture puzzle and action-y obstacles without being so invested that I'm going to wind up disappointed if it doesn't all pay off in an amazing way. Very much like an actual jigsaw puzzle come to think of it, it's about the process meaning if you can get into the basic spirit of this show the, I don't know, 39ish episodes or so I've watched plus I think there are maybe 20 left, all make for a very easygoing and entertaining series and if the finale turns out not to be awesome well, as with Lost for those of us who watched it after all the hullabaloo about the bad ending came out so we knew upfront what we were getting into, it won't take away from having been entertained for all those prior episodes and that's fine with me.
Movies:
Black Panther: Wakanada Forever - "Forever,” presumably, referring to how long it took me to finish this movie, not because it was exactly boring (it wasn’t exactly not-boring either btw) but because I kept forgetting I was watching it at all, as in I'd watch a bit, stop to go do something else, and then like 2 weeks would go by and it would occur to me that I was in the middle of the movie at which point I'd go back and watch and then repeat the cycle. Alternatively, that’s the very definition of a boring movie. Regardless, as I mentioned it my rant/review of Black Panther, I think this entire series - sequence? I don’t know - is unbelievably racist in the name of being progressive, and while I wouldn't say this movie has exactly changed my opinion on that as you’ll see, I would say it was dazzlingly confusing in terms of its plot logic (normal for Marvel) and character motivations (also normal for Marvel but a bit prevalent here and more on that in a minute). My belief is that a large part of the reason for the non-Janice lauding of this film had to with the final few minutes. In case you're not aware, the lead actor of the original Black Panther died of cancer someone between that movie and this one and the final minutes of the film are essentially a eulogy to him done in the context of the film, meaning the filmic character had - spoiler alert I guess - also died and the movie ended with the character's sister - the new Black Panther and film lead - mourning her brother’s death alone in an extended scene. Honestly, it was pretty moving even though I had no connection whatsoever either to the film creatively nor to any of the people involved, but I know that lead actor's a real person who, whatever her relationship with the deceased actor may have been, it must have been brutally awful for her in real life and I thought what they did in that last sequence was, within the context of the film, essentially show us someone grieving in character but you also knew she was probably grieving in her real life and I thought that blurriness was genuinely moving. And I'm saying this as someone who would be hard-pressed to name either of those actors and didn't like the first movie nor, particularly, this one. But, for that moment, it definitely made me think about the sad real-world reality of loss and for all my Janice shade I have to acknowledge it and particularly that actor because I imagine shooting that sequence must've been brutal for her on a human level. Okay now onto the insults!
The plot, and if you've read my prior Marvel reviews (and if not what is wrong with you?!? start here and then just keep going sequentially because I watched them all in release order) you'll already know I'm convinced these scripts are basically, not even first drafts, but what writers call the vomit-draft where you're just spewing out ideas and characters and dialogue to get it on a page in order to have something to work from. But Marvel just shoots those unedited I'm pretty sure. Anyway, Wakanada is now out-of-the-closet in terms of being basically the sole source of mega-superhero-metal vibranium and there's all kinds of worldwide political pressure for them to share it though, I mean, if you were basically the only source of this thing would that even be a remote issue for you? Lest we forget, Iron Man's suit is entirely vibranium and he could destroy the planet with nobody being able to do anything in response so, like, why would you care? Would any leader of literally any country care? Well Angela Bassett does care and, to make matters worse for her, the CIA (or something) has invented a vibranium detector in an effort to find other sources and, oopsie, they do with some underwater community of superheros who aren't happy about the whole thing - read: they kill everyone and Wakanada is blamed - and then the underwater superheroes get really mad at Wakanada over the existence of the vibranium detector (as if that makes a lick of sense) and tell them they better take care of that shit and by "tell them" I mean try to kill them all. Wakanada's dealing with a LOT, and - and yeah I didn't think I was going to talk about the racist shit but I can't stop myself - it's simply implicit that, as noted in my Black Panther review, Black skin = Africa (as opposed to, say, White skin which is related to nothing or whatever skintones exist in the Middle East and Asia and are associated with racial characteristics rather than some vague quote unquote Asian culture - like remember when "Oriental" was a thing before everyone realized it was incredibly racist? Guess what? "African" is the same thing because an entire continent of people all with varied, rich, different and historical cultures being lumped together based on solely on a collection of visible phenotypes is, well, racist!). Anyway, since if it's Black, it's Africa and if it's Africa well White people are coming for its resources... actually this will be easier to show you the other direction.
China has basically all the lithium in the world; are countries attacking China and trying to force China to share its lithium? No, because everyone realizes attacking - colonizing - China would be a bad idea because China is powerful and there will be really unpleasant consequences. Thus it's not even on the table. But because it's Black thus Africa, it is. Despite the fact that Wakanada's a country of Iron Men (Iron Mans? Iron Thems?) and - and this was an issue in the first film that I found to be really racist too - instead of these mega-powered people who happen to have dark skin being like, "Fuck you, world" they're instead locked into the same systemic shit that we have in this country where Black people are forced to make themselves smaller because, well, cops will shoot them for no reason and without consequences so better lie low. This movie did the exact same thing to these people! Only with zero social commentary! Or sense! Exclamation point! Like how about showing a bunch superpowered people who, regardless of skin tone, would behave exactly like non-Black people in that position. Here: if vibranium were solely found in the US or Russia or England or Iran or Thailand or literally, like, anywhere but the source of the people who are the victims of ongoing systemic racism, would there be even a single question of whether or not those other countries would contemplate negotiating sharing their resource? No! And you know what else they would do? Get all war-like and tell the world to stay the fuck away or they're gonna wipe that everyone out. Admittedly, the world wouldn't be thrilled and would likely attempt to pry it out of the - do countries have fingers? I'm going with it - fingers of whatever country had it (which would’ve made a perfectly serviceable plot for this film btw), but that's not the same as the country making itself small and trying to get world approval from the start and we don't want to rock the boat here because... because we're Black and because Marvel cannot show Black people in a way in which they're empowered and just like everyone else.
And that, to me, is totally racist. Instead, this movie had the most powerful country on the planet bow its head and try to appease the White people who wanted its resources unlike what would've happened if the filmmakers weren't so enmeshed in racism that they couldn't even see that, rather than allowing their leads to be same militant assholes they would've been if they were from anywhere else... OMG I was gonna end the sentence and review here until I remembered an even more racist thing. So the underwater superheroes are also Black and, instead of attacking the White people who invented the detector and attacked them, they instead blamed the Black Wakanadans because the underwater Black superheroes just... want... to... HIDE! You, Black Wakanada, made yourself visible and as a result we’re now visible and now we’re mad at you for allowing the White people to see us! I mean, is it just me!? How is a movie in which the lead characters and country to hardly mention the antagonists believe they need to keep themselves small and not upset anyone (meaning White people) and only attack each other - because, what Marvel, Black on Black crime, like in, say, the Bronx drug wars, is totally fine but because God forbid they attack the White people who are actually the source of the problem because OMG we can't do that and instead better be accommodating and yessir and of course you might colonize me and take my resources but let me try to be diplomatic and talk you out of that and look for peace and maybe share and keep my head fucking low all the time and their behavior is written that way solely because they’re Black and they therefore can't risk being accused of being what... “uppity”?, the national equivalent of an “angry Black woman” who are worried about being Karened by White America? How is writing a movie entirely starring people with dark skintone but not allowing them to experience the fullness of empowered humans behaving in whatever manner, good or bad, self-serving or generous, whatever they choose for whatever reasons - you know, just like everyone else in every other Marvel movie - anything other than racist?
The acting in manifest is bad. The story lines are repetitive. I gave up when the weird Christian girl killed the wife of the main guy. Icky and she could at least act. It’s a great premise that never pays off The lady cop is so bad.
Oh and how do they get around NY that fast?