Books:
Operation Hail Storm (Hail #1) by Brett Arquette
So this is what I get for deciding to try a Tom Clancy type novel (btw I've never read Tom Clancy but in my mind I meant something contemporary, tech-y, dumb, but action-y). The writing is bad, as in the author doesn't seem to be familiar with the past imperfect bad, but that was fine, kind of. I mean I was reading just to read a silly plotty book after all, right? Also I guess a certain amount of sexism is perhaps to be expected in these kinds of things, though I still found it irksome that while the men weren't described at all - like never - the women were talked about in terms of their looks and sexuality - "an attractive blond" and whatnot. But what really made me stop reading was that, I don't know, 10% in where really not much had happened - the plot is about a guy who owns some super tricked-out military boat staffed by said attractive blond plus a bunch of MIT orphans that he adopted (don't ask) and how they're hired by governments to assassinate baddies - I went over to Goodreads to see if it got any better (cause like the sole requirement of popcorn entertainment is being entertaining and that wasn’t happening so much) only to discover an entire RIVETING writeup devoted solely to how the author had apparently paid for a bunch of sockpuppets to give 5 star reviews/likes to each other's reviews and how people had been harassed by the author to give 5 star reviews or change low star reviews and how the author had paid his sockpuppets to attack those who'd given bad reviews and then how Goodreads had removed his account and he'd opened up a bunch of fake ones to keep the harassment going and well when I realized that that story was far more interesting than anything in the book so far, I DNF’ed. I did not DNF that review however - that was really good - and oh, yes yes yes, this review, as with all of them actually, is so going to be posted on Goodreads and knock wood something more exciting happens as a result than anything that happened in the book.
TV/Streaming:
Delilah (Season 1):
Why do I watch these things, me? Because I’m amazing? Yeah, that must be it! So this is a total and complete abomination about a defense attorney and her love life and her bestie and is basically in the nonstop-idiots-behaving-idiotically genre with a killer combo of awful writing and equally bad acting. In a nutshell: defense attorney - that would be Delilah - takes on a case initiated by an old college friend that involves a wrongful firing by a defense contractor, and Delilah's best friend, also an attorney, is opposing counsel. What makes this show bad isn't really the bad dialogue or aimless plot; it's that the characters are so dumb. I mean, yes, I'm sure it's uncomfortable to be the maid-of-honor for the attorney on the opposing side of your very important case… OMG I wrote a whole series of sentences describing that even more that I just deleted because I cannot even bear to share with you the plot and character stupidity that arose from that quote unquote conflict, and I’m going to gift you with something with which I should’ve gifted myself, i.e. deleting this show from one’s brain and never speaking of it again.
Wentworth (Season 8):
This Australian show set in a women's prison has just gotten better and better over the seasons and this season is no exception. As previously reviewed, in a nutshell, the first season of this show was just okay (you kind of have to watch in order because the plots are all connected) and somewhere in season 2 the writers introduced a character who transformed everything and from there on the show went balls-to-the-wall with plot - twists, crosses, everyone screwing everyone else, etc. It became exactly what you want if you like this genre, i.e. fun conniving drama that just keeps building on itself in the best way across the seasons. I'm not saying this is the greatest show on the planet but it definitely holds your attention and I gotta say the writers have been very effective at keeping what could otherwise be a pretty static show (it's set in a prison after all meaning there are only so many ways to shiv someone) dynamic by introducing new characters every so often who really shake things up. The show gives equal weight to the guard side and the prisoner side, and this second-to-last season, where three new characters were introduced, was some big ole entertainment as the newbies trampled on everyone else’s long-term plots. Oz is this show’s closest and most obvious analogue but also shows like those middle good years of 24 where you know if you think about it too hard it’ll probably fall apart and where there's repetition season to season but all the new stuff manages to keep it completely rolling along. I'm not going to give a plot summary because there's no way to do that without spoilering prior seasons, but if a prison show is up your alley, this one definitely winds up getting way better than season 1 would indicate.
How to Sell Drugs Online Fast:
This is a really strange German comedy (or whatever one calls bored irritation in Germany) about a nerdy guy who starts selling drugs on the dark web in order to get his girlfriend back. It's one of those shows that uses "clever" (in its mind) graphics all over the screen and random cuts to the lead talking to camera and whatnot which puts it into some weird pocket between Euphoria and a 22 minute TikTok, meaning tonally it’s all very tween. I think the underlying idea of the show was to combine adolescent relationships and personal growth issues with kids-today-and-their-tech!, i.e. an adult’s view of what teens relate to which made it feel weirdly fuddy duddy instead of interesting. Contrast that to Sex Education or Euphoria both of course written by adults but also capturing something that feels very true about being high-school age. The show was amusing for a few episodes but in a world where basically anything can happen just because the writer wants it to - like, for instance, the point where the two teens do a drug drop by catching a duffel tossed from an airplane flying over a nearby field - it becomes unwatchably dull and, for moi, subsequently unwatched.
Movies:
Doctor Strange (Marvel Universe #14) - This was, by far, with Guardians of the Galaxy a distant second, written by a squad that had spent most of its existence on ayahuasca-laced ‘shrooms as the trippiness factor in this movie, which I guess had a plot of some kind, was through the twirling-rainbow roof. In some ways it's conventionally trippy a la The Matrix but it mostly reminded me of a time when people I knew - ahem - went on Space Mountain totally high and if you’ve ever sat flying at high speeds in every sense through a pitch-black environment with twists, turns, going upside down then flipping back the other direction with at most the vaguest flashes of distant light, you will have some idea of what sitting through this movie is like and btw that’s a compliment unless the above made you want to vomit in which case don’t watch.
As best I can do with the plot: Mads Mikkelson and some of his pony-tailed superpals go steal a few pages from some book - I guess there's no Kindle edition yet - which results in Tilda Swinton executing some 3-D building-shifting madness to suck them all into a hole (or maybe they sucked themselves into a hole to escape - unclear). Is this making sense so far? 3-D building shifting and whanot? Okay so in the meantime, Clinkarink Bazzlesnatch is some kind of cocky power surgeon who gets in a hand-destroying car crash and freaks out, not so much because of the 50 metal spikes sticking out of his hands as part of the repair process, but because his hands were, prior to the accident, somehow more accurate than laser-guided computers and now he'll never be a hands-on surgeon again. Oh poopy! Luckily, he eventually hears about some paraplegic who completely healed himself and, for reasons that are completely and totally unclear considering what happens (more on this in a minute), finds him at a pickup basketball game where the ex-paraplegic sends him off to the source of all mysticism - Nepal obviously - to hunt down the mystics who healed him.
Head mystic Tilda Swinton teaches the good doctor how to do the crazy trippy Matrix Space Mountain 3-D thing which, in addition to tripping my ass out more than I thought possible, also allows him to manipulate all matter, though in the service what I wasn't exactly sure. Yes, there's a Darth Vader-y Darkside that Mads Mikkelson et. al. seem very committed to for philosophical reasons involving the Darkside's promise of eternal life due to Darkside time-stoppage though it all gets very hazy in there as to why the bad guys care what anyone else does and why they’re attacking Tilda Swinton, i.e. if you're into the Darkside, baddies, tighten your ponytails and go for it! Why you buggin’ everyone else? In fact the whole thing with the Darkside - other than its prime purpose of generating nonstop action sequences and no complaints about that here - was very unclear to this Janice, a typical response of mine with the entire Marvel Universe which I initially wrote off to gummies and getting absorbed in snacks but which over time I'm thinking is solely in the domain the writers and studio who seem as committed to not rereading their own scripts as I am to commenting on their failure to reread their scripts. Like remind me again what's so bad about time not existing? And why the Darkside cares one way or the other about whatever Tilda Swinton's up to? And why the bad guys, after stealing the pages they needed to contact the Darkside, don't just do what they need to do and go about their lives, timed-stopped or otherwise? Like if you're gonna have a black/white (or, since it's Marvel, White/White) good/evil binary, wouldn't it be helpful to have an explanation as to how specifically the two are in opposition and what's going to happen if one outdoes the other? As in why is Tilda Swinton's universe (which I guess is ours) better than the other one? Honestly, there were a lot of conversations on this topic both in the movie and in my mind, all of which ended up feeling like some heavily Powerpointed interdepartmental squabble between, say, Tax and Compliance, but with 3-D shape-shifting and people dissolving into pixels at the end of the meeting.
Anyway, whatever amazing cleverness I called him a few paragraphs earlier but can’t be bothered to scroll up to look - Plackastack Mapatrash? - joins the group where he’s told unconditionally that for Tilda Swinton to initiate him into her squad and heal him he will be required to do whatever she says for eternity which, I guess, means that the ex-paraplegic was instructed to spend his life playing pickup basketball, hanging out with friends, and relaxing which totally sounds like an awesome job for an immortal and where do I sign up? Also just to note: for those of you who are concerned about such things, have no fear as it turns out the real universe behind our universe is 99% White - I mean yeah there's that one Black guy and I think maybe an Asian guy to indicate "Khatmandu" but none in any real positions of power, so don’t worry! Regardless, a completely insane battle ensues for, I think, like 80% of the film leading up to a deeply bizarre ending where everyone wins, i.e. the baddies go to the Darkside just like they wanted and could have done all along though why they didn't just do that initially and save everyone all the drama is beyond me though maybe they were tripping out too much to come up with that idea and really we've all been there, and the Darkside makes some kind of I'm pretty sure completely unenforceable deal with Dr. Strange to leave Earth alone. Are we calling that a win? I mean, it's positioned as if the good guys won but on thinking about it you know what? Given that the innocent bystander death count and citywide building destruction was low (the 3-D shape-shifting didn’t seem to affect anyone who wasn’t a shape-shifter themselves) and if you count humanity as the good guys and everyone else in the Marvel universe, Dr. Strange included but also Iron Man, MAGA, Scarjo etc. etc. as humanity’s well-intentioned super caring murderers, then I guess in this one the good guys - us - did win.