Books:
Smoke (IQ Series #5) by Joe Ide
I've loved every book in this series so far (as you can see from here, here, and here) and this one, hopefully not the last, is no exception. As a reminder: this is a series about a self-taught young genius P.I. in gang-riddled Long Beach with the investigations as an entry point for exploring an ongoing cast of characters and with plots where, while independent in each book, definitely link to prior books meaning it’s all best read in order. Not only has the author's writing gotten stronger - or really more solidified and self-assured - but he's really allowed to the characters to go off in some interesting directions and, without ever being explicitly about race, these books are infused with issues around race and poverty in a really modern, compelling, and often amusing way. The plot of this one has picked up on the more recent books where the author has allowed some initial side characters to become main characters with plotlines in their own right often completely unrelated to main mystery and, in this case, not really a mystery plot at all. The main mystery plots - which I won't spoiler - still remain interesting because with this book at least, it's told against the backdrop of the lead character's - IQ's - personal emotional issues as well as relationship issues (vague to avoid spoilering) meaning it's an action-y investigation, in this case of a serial killer, as a means of telling a story of someone who feels lost in his life. The other two main plotlines - one character fighting blackmail and the other trying to stop being a con man and go straight (by getting an internship in advertising with the parallels between conning and ads sharply observed) - anchor the story as much as the mystery. The writing is funny and engaging, and I was happy to sink into these characters' live for the duration of the book and hope the author keeps writing more.
TV/Streaming:
Moonhaven (Season 1):
I'm gonna describe what this show's about, but I'mma tell you: the show description makes this series seem so awful that it borders on unthinkable that anyone would watch it and in that way I'm glad I didn't really know much about it prior to watching because if I'd read my own plot description, I would've been like no effin' way and would've missed out on what I thought was actually a thematically interesting as well as entertaining show. So here goes. The backstory is that at some point in the nearish present there's lots of war over water and climate stuff and basically we're all killing each other, i.e. something that doesn't sound too implausible and, without going into too much detail (there's a much deeper dive into the backstory via one of the leads in a later episode which I won't spoiler), some mega-AI is launched to terraform part of the Moon - did everyone just tune out at the notion of Moon colony? - and, more importantly, observe and track a group of settlers across the generations to figure out why we all end up destroying and killing each other then setting into place a societal structure that prevents all that all with the colonists knowing that their job will be to return to Earth and use what the AI has learned to essentially save the planet by transforming society via what the AI proved works on them. Is anyone still here? Just checking. The show then jumps 100 years into the future (the above is in like the first 3 minutes of the pilot) where the descendants of the original colonists have been transformed into their optimal societal selves and are on the verge of being sent back to a now ravaged war-torn Earth to enact the plan to save it. It gets worse, hang in there. Essentially, the Moon has become a hippie commune with people dancing around spouting peace and wearing brightly colored clothes etc. etc. I'll be frank: I was right on the edge of tuning out at this point (somewhere early in the first episode) because it all just seemed dumb and cliche utopian, like really, writers, dancing hippies is the best you could come up with? And to a certain extent, that was there the whole time, but as it turned out it didn't matter as you'll see. So basically there are two main story threads. The first is there's a murder on the Moon and that story tracks the detectives sent to investigate it and the very particular way the Mooners deal with basically everything including crime. The second thread is about how the sort of CEO - the Envoy - of the company that created the AI a century ago who’s the leader of the team bringing the first wave of Mooners to Earth along with her henchman and a pilot she was forced to hire last-minute arrive on the Moon to lay out the transition - the Bridge it's called in the show - and find themselves embroiled in a much larger plot that in many ways is glued to the murder investigation.
Okay you've heard the bad part. Here's the good part. The Earthers, particularly the pilot, bring an enormous amount of fun skepticism, vicious plotting for reasons I won't spoiler, and in some ways an intellectual justification for much of the eye-rolling hippie stuff that at least makes you understand why an AI might shape a society the way it did given the goal of the society (to save Earth). What lifts the show out of its somewhat unbearable (to read at least) setup is twofold. First, the writing has a sense of humor, not just with the Earth pilot but with the Mooner detectives as well which definitely leavens the whole thing. Second, there's a ton of action and plot because there are all kinds of things happening on the Moon as well as on Earth (yes, vague to avoid spoilering) because, let's face it, Earth's in trouble, the Moon's a utopia, there's a massive AI that's spent 100 years studying and shaping people - what do you think self-serving snaky people might want to do with all that? Third, and this for me was honestly the surprising part, there's some real intellectual heft. As in beneath the hippieness and the sometimes simplistic view of humanity, there are some interesting arguments being made both for and against the society the AI wants to form - oh and btw the AI isn't God or anything nor can anyone really talk to it nor does it for the most part intervene i.e. it's just there to test and observe then test again as well as keep the air breathable etc. - and it's often not as obvious or is at least more textured than it seems on the surface. Honestly sometimes the show delves a little too deep into it all (read: I got kinda bored) but for the most part, once/if you get past the initial Moon hippies thing plus some other spoilerable plot beats which, because they're unresolved this season, I can't really opine on but I'm not sold on yet, there's really something pretty good here. The show doesn't explain a ton which is both good in the sense that it forces you to just figure it out but bad in a way because I could've used some clarity on certain rules and on certain other spoilerable aspects of what they produce on the Moon and how. That aside, at least this show is reaching for something and understands that what's going to make anyone pay attention is a lot of plot mixed with even more sarcasm plus some very appealing actors and if there's any part of you that isn't so turned off by everything I just wrote, you should probably give it a shot. It's only 6 episodes; I have no idea if there's a second season but I certainly hope so in part because it ends on a cliffhanger but really because this show's different from other things I've seen and both earns and questions its own premise and that kind of reach for answers in an action/mystery setting is something I'd like to see more of.
The Other One (Season 2):
I know this British comedy about two Oscar/Felix millennials who discover, in their late 20s/early 30s that they're half-sisters, is really really dumb but I don't care because I also think it's funny as it manages to blend its silliness into a bit of character depth that really makes each season work. I had the same reaction to season 1 and good news - or bad I guess if you didn't like this show - is that it's more of the same. What I really like most about the series is that, even though it's sitcom length, each short season is a full character story meaning it's not like a sitcom in that you actually do have to watch this show in order. Also - and this is a positive as well - the writers aren't super concerned with giving you exposition but rather just jump right into jokey situations and assume you'll catch up which, because nothing's really all that complicated, you will. The characters and jokes are super super broad but clearly deliberately so; in many ways its closest analogue is maybe The Simpsons only live-action not animated in the way that that show combines ridiculous OTT characters, jokes, and situations in a package where you kind of ish care about the leads. Humor, I know, is super subjective so if the first episode of season 1 isn't giving you at least a few giggles, stop watching because the show really doesn't change. However, if you click with the humor, this most recent season expands on the prior season. It's not just about the half-sisters but also their moms, one of whom (this is in season 1 and not a spoiler since it's the first scene) didn't know her now deceased husband was cheating on her with the other and it's fun to see a friendship blossoming between them. The half-sisters are entertaining opposites, as in one is a friendly-exterior/sarcastic-y interior pushover but then not and the other sister dresses like she's a trashy beeyootch but is actually more in the sarcastic/oblivious/sweet mold. It's a show about the unlikely friendships of people forced together in an uncomfortable circumstance and kind of crafting a new family of sorts around it all. If the humor is up your alley - and it wasn't apparent in the first chunk of the first episode that it would be for me as, as mentioned numerous times, the jokes are super broad - and you haven't seen it well you have two seasons of entertainment ahead of you with knock wood a third in the works.
Movies:
Ticket to Paradise - Oh Gooooooooooood. Am I actually going to have to write about this non-romantic non-comedy starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney phoning in - more horse-and-buggying honestly or perhaps just Ubering their assistants over to do them instead - performances in a script I can only imagine was written as part of a sleep study? Ugh I think I am. But resentfully! I mean why do I, crafter of a Substack absolutely no one on Earth is insisting I write, have to write about this? Why, me?!?! Oh whatever, fine. All right so this is one of those movies that relies solely on and, I guess, unsurprisingly? or surprisingly? fails at the ostensible logarithmic mega-wattage generated by two once-mega now old-timey stars. The idea obviously was we all couldn't resist girl-become-grandma-next-door and rakish-charmer-become-dad-bod tossing quips or something at each other nonstop for whatever the duration of this film was (weeks). But honestly it was more like watching two decrepit 18-wheelers struggling to park even though the rest stop lot is really big and empty and listening to their diesel engines slowly shutting down. Why is this movie awful you're wondering? The basic plot: JR & GC are long ago divorcees who, for some never explained reason still, like 20 years later, can't bear to be anywhere near each other. The movie discusses their backstory - they met in college, married, got careers, and moved on - but offers zero logic for the ongoing loathing and sniping meaning you're really just watching two people snarl at each other for no particular reason, like sometimes randomly happens when you're walking a dog and another dog walks by and your dog nips at its butt and there's a tizzy and then everyone moves on. But okay, they have that plus a daughter who - OMG I can't stop myself. The movie goes to great pains for plot reasons to tell us the daughter is starting at a law firm in August and in the two months in between she's heading to Indonesia with a bestie for some pre-work relaxation. Yet the movie also goes to great pains to tell us she just graduated from her 4 years in college meaning... she skipped law school and just took the bar and got a job as a lawyer? Or... no one involved in the financing or production of this movie read the script or cared. Okay, so the daughter heads to Indonesia, falls instantly in love with a seaweed farmer (don't ask) the meet-cute of which is that the daughter & bestie’s tour boat leaves them stranded in the middle of the ocean and Seaweed happens to motorboat by and save them and the daughter, after a month, decides she's marrying Seaweed and JR/GC band together in a stream of meaningless dialogue to go stop that. I could buy (maybe) the ridiculousness of all this if there was a lick of character or charm. Like, for example, if the daughter were setup as someone hating on her future life as an undergraduate degree’d attorney and wanted a big freer life and... and wanted to repeat the mistake her parents had blaringly made because... because, that's why. That's this movie's idea of character - because. Like you know what Julia Roberts' character is? She hates surprises! Yep, that's her character, that's it - she has a quirk not a character and guess what her French boyfriend (I can’t even) does all the time? Surprises her! You know what else this movie is and oh if only it had been this in an entertainingly oblivious way as opposed to the incredibly boring oblivious way it chose: White people encounter wacky Brown natives. Really, much of the movie is spent with JR and GC, despite their mega-wealth, seemingly never having encountered a single other culture on the planet and treating Indonesians as kindly innocent idiots. Okay I'm done now. I really can't believe I wrote this much about the movie. It's awful because it's so DULL like not fun-bad but just boring. Skip at all costs just like I think everyone did when this was briefly (maybe?) released in theaters.