Books:
Problems by Jade Sharma
This is a first-person novel about an addict and her trainwreck of a life. The narrator is a married PhD student and the book tracks an amorphous amount of time (a year maybe?) most of which is spent on her unhappiness with men, her weight, her family, herself and her relationship between all that and heroin. The narrative voice is kind of funny - bitter, some gallows humor - but in the end the sheer volume of body part-related stuff, i.e. what came out there, what went in here, the smell of that, this sex act, that one, etc. etc. became an irritant in that it all felt like an intentional effort to shock with crudity only when you do it 500 times per page, it reads more like repetitive filler than anything. The story has a biographical feel, so if the author made it all up then kudos her because she sure captured being a junkie (I mean I assume what she captured is what it’s like being a junkie). My feeling about the book is that it's certainly not a waste of time but I'm also not sure what, really, the author was trying to say. We get a whole, not even downward spiral, but rather a static one. It swirls in the same place the entire book which makes it feel like someone trying to work something out on the page rather than a constructed novel. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just that it feels like she was writing this book as a purgative so you're reading someone's unsorted-out thoughts. In many ways, that's the main thing that made it work, the fact that the author didn't seem to have much of a consistent grip on what she was saying about the narrator's life. It's pretty short and while it's not really saying anything new about addiction, it is saying something very specific if somewhat unformed about a particular person going through it, and if the nonstop bodily function stuff doesn't bother you, the writing is decent enough and wry enough to be worth adding to your list.
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
This book, thematically the story of a small (Norwegian) town done as a teen sports drama against the backdrop of a rape investigation, turned out to be much more enjoyable than that logline would lead anyone to believe. The basic plot revolves around a dying town where the only thing that matters is hockey and it pulls together familiar tropes (impoverished hockey player vs rich kids, town loyalty against outsiders, relationships redefining themselves, etc.) into a very readable package (though I’m putting asterisk on that last bit). Despite knowing it wasn’t great as I was reading it, I still enjoyed it, though the author felt compelled at certain points - too many of them IJHO - to drift away from the plot in order to make commentary about community and social issues and the like that I found to be super yawn-inducing. Writing-wise, the asterisk is that basically every chapter wraps up with what reads like a cutesy needlepoint homily, and that authorial voice recapitulating what we just read and telling us how to interpret it was incredibly annoying. I mean I really wanted the author to just shut up and tell his story instead of indicating how I should feel about his story/characters/incident. That said, I enjoyed the hockey parts of it and all the infighting leading up to the big game and, to the author’s credit, thought he pulled off something interesting in that the book is told in the present tense in what feels like a minute-by-minute timeframe (I think the first 1/3 of the book covered 24 hours) yet he managed to maintain narrative energy. I guess the genre it falls into is contemporary fiction but there’s a real story here and the authorial irritations weren’t enough to make me DNF so I’d say this is a decent enough read if the story seems of interest.
TV/Streaming:
The Undoing:
To all the people who've given Nicole Kidman a bad rap over the years for her immobilized Botox face affecting her performance, I'd just like to remind everyone that she was a wispy-voiced overacting springy-haired-ginger ham long before Botox came into existence, and, if the final few moments of the first episode of this series, where she learns (or doesn't) some mysterious things about her Hugh Grant husband with a series of extremely close up eye pops show us anything, it’s that everyone can relax as all ham mobility has returned to her face - she did it! Nicole's face musculature aside, I'd also like to formally nominate her as the torchbearer of High Gloss Idiocy, a genre that's a miniseries of 5 or 6 episodes, jam-packed with stars, lethally serious, at least 30 award nominations in the bag - in its mind if not in reality - prior to even being released, and - and this is the critical component of the High Gloss Idiocy genre - some of the most godawful writing in the history of pen/keyboard being put to paper/screen then later filmed with Nicole Kidman in a big green velvet-y housecoat.
The basic plot of this particular moronia involves Hugh Grant, another lady, Nicole Kidman, a murder and seemingly an entire cast comprised of non-Americans playing New Yorkers, which would've been fine but literally not one of the leads spoke with an American accent and so why didn't they just allow the actors to do what Hugh Grant did and speak the way he spoke and I never thought twice about it? No idea - my operating theory is the director, whom I'd say is a talent about on par with the writer, isn't American either so didn't notice. In fact, the director is either (a) terrible or (b) genius at being at exactly the level of terrible High Gloss Idiocy demands. The director is the visual perpetrator of the aforementioned eyeball closeups but gifts us as well with shots such as a helicopter landing to some random big dramatic orchestral music unrelated to anything that’s happening in the scene, a lingering camera on a splotch of blood for about 10 hours for absolutely no reason, and myriad other draggy nonsensical visuals that are equally as committed to self-importance as everything else going on. But it's the writing as always in the High Gloss Idiocy genre where the stupidity truly shines. The reason for much of the idiocy, which is actually a consequence of the larger writer idiocy, is that, without forcing all the characters to make a series of insanely absurd choices, the show would be about 20 minutes instead of 6 hours. As an example - and I think I’m spoilering nothing by saying there’s a crime involved here - when a super rich person is questioned by the police do they (a) hire a lawyer or (b) absolutely refuse to hire a lawyer no matter how much the cops seem to suspect them of the crime then go on to repeatedly visit the police across numerous episodes without an attorney and, when multiple other people point out that they shouldn’t talk to the police without a lawyer, nod then ignore them for, say, another 3-4 episodes anyway for no reason? Additionally there are entire episodes which are about, oh, 3 minutes worth of plot-reveals stretched across 50 minutes of meaningless dialogue, intensive stares, musing to oneself while looking out the window, and things like calling a friend, cut to the friend noticing the call while in a meeting, friend excusing herself then shot of friend walking down a hall to her office, closing her office door, then answering the phone, and having a conversation such as: "How are you?" "I'm okay, you?" "I had to run out of a meeting to take this call. Can I call you back later?" "Sure." Friend hang ups then intercut each of them staring for a moment before we watch friend leave the office to head back into the meeting. While each episode ends with some kind of cliffhangerish reveal, none of it really goes anywhere because it's all either dispelled or endlessly mused about which has the same effect - reducing it to nothing. All that being said, I must admit there's a deep and abiding pleasure to watching High Gloss Idiocy in order to insult it meaning this show would be perfect for a group watch because it's just that dumb.
Also, to point out something that, if you haven’t already seen it for yourself, you won’t be able to unsee from here to the end of time: in literally every TV/Streaming show out there including this one, no one and I mean NO ONE - regardless of their level of wealth, the square footage of their living space, the height or girth of them or anyone in the household, whether they are single, coupled, thrupled, or in some other multi-limbed sexual situation, whether a scene is shot in a mansion, a cottage, a 5-star hotel, a rundown motel or any living environment whatsoever where sleeping occurs - has a king-size bed.
Younger (Seasons 1-7):
Well Younger started going downhill last season and I'd say this final season kind of confirmed its slide to the bottom. Having said that, this show, even at its worst, is still amusing and quippy enough to watch which is frankly more than can be said for the drastic bulk of comedies out there. For those who haven't seen it, the show is a comedy about a divorced 40something who pretends she's a millennial in order to get a job in publishing. The first 4 or 5 seasons are totally delightful, really. If you don't think too hard about the contrivance and just go with it, it's super fun and LOL funny in parts and actually pretty romantic. The character winds up torn between different guys and there are many seasons of who-will-she-pick to hardly mention will-she-be-found-out which really keeps the plot zipping along. But really the show's about personal growth across all the characters, and the episodes are only 20ish minutes each, so you can really fly through the series. This last season, which feels like even the writers knew it should've ended a few seasons ago, is a fairly repetitive retread of prior seasons with a contrived ending that tosses out character logic in order to, I honestly don’t know, jam in an ending the writers thought would be clever or against expectation or something but just felt completely forced. But really don’t let that stop you because it doesn’t matter - it’s not that it ends badly (like, say, Seinfeld) but rather that it ends meh-ly meaning you can enjoy the rest of it knowing you won’t be crushed/enraged when it wraps up. Even though I'm complaining about the final season, you should definitely watch if you enjoy light comedies with a believably dramatic undercurrent because this show hits way way more often than it misses, the lead actor is great at carrying the show, and, if you're a Janice, you can feel safely cocooned in the knowledge that it's filled with hot people to make it all go down so much easier.
Movies:
Thor (Marvel Universe #4) - This movie really put a lot of pressure on my brain to remember all of the Norse mythology I learned in fifth grade, though what I mostly learned while studying the Gods was how much I friggin’ hated them, all of them Greek Roman whatever. There were too many of them plus they were all super boring and had a kind of David-Letterman-stalker, lurking outside the window (and sometimes they’re-inside-the-house) obsession with mortals as if we were their entertainment… though by that logic, at least in relation to my television, I'm the God, in which case I decree and demand that worship of Janice be added to the fifth-grade syllabus immediately! Also, and this is very important for the rest of the film critique to hardly mention life itself, I’ve observed that Janices fall into two camps: Janices who like Dirty Hairy People and Janices who need them to have a spa day and a trip to Louis Licari before appearing onscreen. The Dirty Hairy People Janices are generally more open, eager even, to watching surfers, medieval Englanders, Australian criminal lowlives, bikers, and the like and, I've observed, those Janices - all Janices actually - simultaneously have an enormous aversion to Clean Hairy People such as pony-tailed Wall Street executives, man-bunned single-speed-bike-owning apothecary-frequenting Bushwick hipsters, White dudes with dreadlocks regardless of occupation, and Orlando Bloom.
Which is all to say that arguably this movie's central failing was in its effort to walk a very very fine line hairwise, which ended up pleasing no Janices. A Hemsworth played Thor, and his shoulder-length Pantene-y textured lob during the film's numerous outdoor head-tilts likely repulsed all the Dirty Hairy People Janices, though clearly not the person using the fan machine who managed, via wind alone, to elevate the Hemsworth's hair to a separate character in its own right, and if at some point in the film I learned the hair was armed, had mortal worshippers, then took out a military base before getting into a Bitcoin bidding war with the Winkelvoss twins, I wouldn't have been that surprised. As for the plot, there's a whole preface about which I understood nothing other than Gods, hair, and ice people - they may actually have been lizards (or robots?) - but all of which resulted in Thor's Hammer being tossed through space and landing, as these things do, in New Mexico. After some science gibberish and a Natalie Portman/Hemsworth meet cute (all the cuter for people being beaten and buildings being destroyed), Thor takes off to find his Hammer, a relationship that, over the course of the film and a lot of complaining about being separated from it, primarily brought to mind that of Eeyore and his tail. In the meantime, back on Planet Norse Gods, Thor’s brother (or whatever he is - his locks definitely have less shine) Loki does, well, something happens with him, a paternity issue, maybe more ice/lizard people/robots, Anthony Hopkins drifting off into Odinsleep, and Loki’s arrival on Earth to beat the crap out of his brother and try to get the Hammer, though it's possible I slipped into Janicesleep at some point and missed a few critical plot beats though it’s equally possible I was awake the whole time and the ones who missed the plot beats were the writers themselves.
Most importantly though, while I feel as if hair, if not on the actual syllabus, was at least an implicit part of the Norse mythology I was taught in 5th grade - certainly every drawing I ever saw of a Norse God had the same flowing tresses primarily these days associated with either Jason Momoa or White Jesus - it was new and intriguing information to me that the younger generation of female Norse goddesses wore what I’m 98% sure were skorts. It's equally possible that there were, other than a weirdly Valley Girlish Natalie Portman as a PhD of some kind plus her sidekick (basically the sidekick of a sidekick given the thinness of Natalie Portman’s role), essentially no women in this movie at all and that those who were served as little more than banter-responders to the White men. Though perhaps I’m being unfair; I mean to the film’s credit at least Natalie Portman et. al. (meaning that one other woman) weren’t saddled with Hollywood’s usual women-playing-scientists hot porno professor look, i.e. hair in a loose bun held with chopsticks and and wearing some tight jacket, leggy slacks, and heels. Instead, Natalie had to bear the dual burden of both being a non-porno scientist - I’m sure that choice led to panicked “will the audience know she’s smart without glasses?!?” emails up and down the studio/production food chain - and romantiheterosexualizing Thor since with no women around, his self-absorbed, aggressive and destructive behavior - within minutes of his arrival anywhere, buildings are flattened and people die - combined with a total lack of curiosity or interest about being on another friggin’ planet to hardly mention caring much about the creatures inhabiting said planet, would’ve come off as “toxic masculinity” with undertones of “rapey” all of which was Natalie’s to mitigate, which, via sassy comebacks, science-sounding word salad, her Pantened-as-Thor’s-and-long-as-Loki’s hair, and the sensible hiking-in-the-desert combo of bomber jacket and leggings perhaps she did, and I guess, by the standards of Norse mythology which also happen to be the standards of the Marvel Universe, we can count that as gender equality.