Books:
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
So I really whipped through this... urban fantasy? religio-or-maybe-sf-elements action novel? And, much in the same way that I'm not entirely sure what the genre is, I'm not entirely sure of the degree to which I enjoyed it. First the basic plot and without spoilering: asoiaoierhiawhaksdf. I mean the book both is and isn't incredibly hard to describe. It is because there are a number of components to it that stem I'd say more from theme as the book progresses and because, as noted, it's in some non-plain-old-contempo-fiction genre much of the plot description is highly dependent on extremely spoilerable points which I'm therefore not going to describe. At a basic level, it's about, kind of, a group of people who, as kids, were pulled into becoming Librarians of particular segments of all knowledge in the universe, i.e. healing, languages, war, etc. and the consequences of their efforts to fix things when something goes drastically wrong. So that's all I'm going to give you for plot which really isn't much but is actually more than what I had going into this book. And, if you're going to read it, going in blindly is best because it was pretty fun having no idea where anything was headed and being surprised at where the author took the story and which people became main characters and why. All confusion aside, it was an extremely fast and fun read. But my hesitation is that it definitely went places (yep, vague to avoid spoilering) and drifted, in a very earned way I must say, into a space between religion, fantasy, psychology and SF that on the one hand was successful because the author was very cohesive in his vision but on the other I'm not sure whether the end result was cheap/easy or interesting/complex. How's that for a reaction! The writing is serviceable and the characters somewhat on-the-nose or really there more for plot but that kind of didn't matter because reading this book felt like an action-adventure deep-dive into a very particular view of the world and what I mean by my uncertainty is that the end result is a somewhat simplistic moral but the journey getting there was so complicated and specific that I can't tell if simplicity coming as the result of a complex thought journey is really all that simple. Or is it? See what I mean? No, I know you don't see what I mean. What I'm saying is the book was a fun, zippy, plotty, action-y read that may all have added up to something obvious but where that obviousness may or may not matter. Did that help? Hmm, I'm guessing not. Try this: if you like plot-driven genre books and don't mind a fantasy/SF overlay (or, the reverse, don't mind a fantasy/SF book that's primarily set in the real world) and are interested in backstory reveals and where the unfolding of the ideas is the aha! of the book (as opposed to the final ideas themselves) then I'd say give this a read. It's not immediately apparent what this book is; in fact, I wouldn't say I got super hooked until the second chapter (the chapters are long-ish) but once it got rolling, all my uncertainty aside, it really ripped.
TV/Streaming:
El Marginal (Seasons 1-5):
This is a deeply weird prison show in the pretty-gripping-even-when-I-think-it's-gonna-be-boring genre set in a disgusting men's prison in Argentina (I think). When I say the show is weird, I mean, well go Google and look at one of the lead guys' teeth or the murders occurring to rap-slash-calliope music or, I don't know, the dwarf gang member, the "yo mamma"-level of insult banter between, well, everyone, and the overall decrepit shantytown nature of the setting among a million other things. Beneath all the weirdness though - which btw isn't weird for weird's sake but is I think simply the way the showrunner imagined the show - is a really good, well-plotted prison drama with clearly etched characters and power dynamics that, despite (due to plots I won't spoiler) seeming to end at season 2 has managed to continue in a totally clear and connected way through to this final current season. The center of the show is a corrupt warden, two brothers who run the prison (one of whom has those aforementioned teeth), and an undercover cop sent into the prison for reasons I won't spoiler and with a storyline which plays out in some unexpected ways. There's also everything you'd expect in this genre, i.e. gang warfare, escape attempts, complicated dealings with family members, relationships between staff and prisoners, all with an overlay of people trying to claw their way out of their circumstances in the face of violence on all sides. And BTW violent it is. The gore level is high as is a kind of jeering torture that pervades all the violence across the characters. I think the reason I sometimes think the show is going to be boring - though as mentioned it really never is - is in part because of the dreary setting (the prison is old, gross, and depressing) and in part because the show doesn't shy away from character beats, e.g. the warden is trying to make a political move in the outside world and using some of the prisoners to get what he wants but of necessity that requires the introduction of a bunch of other characters plus a laying out of motives and interrelationships which can sometimes feel like a lot, perhaps in part because it's set in a foreign country where I'm not as familiar with how things work so have to infer a bit more about what's going on. But that, in many ways, is what makes the plots so entertaining. Everyone is super sneaky and, because you can see all these conflicting motives and motives which may also seem to change as the characters interact with each other, it becomes really unclear in a good way how it's all going to resolve at the end of the season. Oddness aside, it's a really well-written prison show made more appealing by dialogue which is often pretty funny because the level of insults is so extreme that it makes for some very amusing viewing. You'll note I've discussed no plot and that's because it's impossible to do so without spoilering and there are definitely twists, especially across the early seasons, which could be spoilered. Having watched the entire thing and having seen the writers pay off in season 4 something setup in season 1 which I really didn't see coming at all but which also made total sense made me feel like whomever's running this thing has a total grip on what the series is. Season 5 is a little different than the prior seasons for the first few episodes but revs up to ending with a bang that is very in the spirit on the entire series, so if you like this genre and can settle into the flavor of the show, I'd say it's worth investing in.
Letterkenny (Season 1):
Well I have now tried this show twice, once years ago and again just recently at the insistence of a fellow Janice, and my verdict remains the same: it's insanely boring. The basic premise of this comedy (20ish mins per episode) is, well I have no fucking idea because it's set in some small town in Canada and seems to do nothing more than take Canadian hillbilly types and have them talk flatly then engage in nonstop juvenalia. For example, one guy talks flatly and punches people; one guy talks flatly and stands in the background while the other guy punches people; sometimes everyone punches everyone; there's an entire episode devoted to farting; etc. etc. I guess if you click with that humor - which clearly my fellow Janice did - then it's wall to wall hilarity or something. But absent that click, there's zero here. I mean, there's not a lick of character as in I'd like to say everyone's drawn with a broad brush but even that would be granting them significantly more detail than they have. There's no story, none whatsover, as in literally nothing happens not one shred of plot to grip. In fact, any even vague plots are only there so the final 10 minutes or so can be people standing around talking flatly then punching each other. I guess this show, perhaps showing the British heritage of its Canadian creators, falls into that same love-it-or-hate-it category as old-school British comedy does as in I thought Monty Python and Mr. Bean were boring too. But let that be a benchmark: if you're the opposite of me and haven't tried this show, you may very well love it. I can't say if the show is good or bad in the sense that, yes, to my taste, it was excruciating, but comedy is way more subjective than drama since drama requires story cohesion in a way that comedy simply doesn't and drama can be assessed on more objective levels like plotting, character development, etc. whereas with comedy those may matter a lot less if you find the jokes and performances to be amusing. Thus all I can really say is it was a struggle to force myself through the 6 20 minute episode first season and I will assuredly never be engaging in that struggle again but it's highly possible that, if your taste in comedy is different from mine, you might have the exact opposite reaction like my fellow Janice did.
Movies:
Enforcement - This is a somewhat elevated somewhat action movie about two White (Danish? Swedish? too lazy to Google which country made this movie) cops trapped in a Muslim apartment block in the midst of a race riot over a cop-killing of a Muslim teen. In some ways this movie is in the familiar genre mode of The Warriors or The Raid in that there's an exit way the hell thataway and our leads are here and have to sneak/fight their way out. To me its problems but in some ways its interest lay in the film's attempt to elevate those genre films into issues around police and race. The way it does that is the movie starts with tensions rising due to the Muslim teen being in a coma and there's a clear implication that one of our lead cops knows something and may be thinking of spilling what he knows to Internal Affairs. He's paired with a somewhat cliche White racist cop who - and no spoiler here I promise - in some way was either involved with the Muslim teen's coma/death or is trying to prevent the lead cop from ratting on the cops involved in the coma/death. So from this beginning there's a tension between the two which only escalates as the racist cop picks on a (different) Muslim teen for a stop-and-frisk which results in raising already high tensions among the onlookers which in turn results in someone throwing a milkshake at the cop car which leads to the Muslim teen's arrest... right around the time it's revealed that the kid with the coma has died and there are now riots starting and the cops are trapped with the handcuffed kid and no help on the way. The movie from that point on is an odd mix of escape-y action sequences as the cops try to get to an exit point combined with a coming-to-heads of the racist cop trying to get the lead cop to lie to Internal Affairs combined with both cops having to rely, in differing way, on the charity of some of the Muslim residents to aid them in their escape. If this sounds like a mixed review that's because it is. In many ways the White racist cop thing was not just a cliche but, to emphasize it, the filmmakers made the cop do really stupid things, not just the inciting stop-and-frisk but many things after that which, when trapped and surrounded by armed angry people who hate you and have a different skin tone from you meaning you really stick out, seemed like patently bad ideas. Also the movie vacillated between action and long stretches of conversation and relied on people with somewhat weak reasoning to aid the cops, e.g. a woman who happened to be a nurse helping heal one of the cops at some point and hide him from her neighbors for no discernible reason, two kids helping a cop to escape for what seemed like even less of a reason, stuff like that. I didn't hate it or anything but it made the movie feel slow in some ways because I could tell that the filmmakers wanted to make a larger point - which they did in a very blunt and contrived way at the end - about the conflict between doing the right thing (i.e. telling Internal Affairs about police corruption) vs being utterly reliant for your physical safety on corrupt people and the potential consequences of being partnered with someone who doesn't have your back. The movie didn't really say anything about that conflict but more or less just put it out there in a visceral way. So I don't know. This wasn't a bad film by any stretch and much of it was enjoyable but there was a lot of thematic mushiness and blunt characterizations for the purposes of make a point that to me dragged it down in places. Perhaps this review is a result of the fact that I thought I was going to be watching a nonstop action movie and wound up with an action/theme combo so, if you choose to watch, knowing that upfront might make you better geared to enjoy it because it really isn't a bad movie at all.