Books:
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
Okay so I am not the biggest fan of celebrity biography - really not of biography in general - especially celebrities whose stories don't seem like they'll interest me, like in the context of a success story, what is the actual story? Someone had a talent (or not) and managed to parlay that into a win through some combination of luck, skill, and ambition, which isn't unique to the arts but is the way success works out everywhere. If there's some other story to it - Trevor Noah growing up in racist South Africa, Anne Heche going around telling everyone she’s Jesus, Jane Fonda somehow in the mix of every major political or social event of the mid-20th century (plus giving her bulimia the gravitas of history by tying it to ancient Rome, like she was part of a long line of elite vomiters) - then I'm usually game. So with this one, I had little expectation beyond a strong certainty that I'd be DNF'ing because I have no passion one way or the other for Matthew McConaughey, i.e. I'm perfectly fine when he's in something and don't give two thoughts to him otherwise. Well, I was wrong. Not only did I not DNF but I also (cough) kinda enjoyed it. He's a weirdo! Again, maybe those who've paid attention to him over the years know that, but I didn't and so it was kind of fun hearing about his hippie, folksy downhome bumper stickery (by his own admission he loves bumper stickers and the book is peppered with them) vision of the world. The book touches on his acting success of course but really it’s more of a spiritual journey. I mean he was neither privileged nor suffered major hardship and his career and success came pretty easily to him so the bulk of the book is a kind of ambling journey to sort out the world and his place in it and his efforts to connect with the things that have meaning to him and explaining why they do. And I'd say he did a pretty good job at all that. The book leans very heavily into folk wisdom, often to the point of irritation, but never to the point of making it unreadable. He did strange things out of a need for self-discovery - moving in with this wack family in Australia and trying to make it work, wrestling in Mali, stuff like that - and he doesn't really shy away from referencing all the drunk partying and Hollywood aimlessness (read: Kate Hudson movies) he had along the way. Oh plus it's short. All that combined, you basically have a decent guy trying to figure out who he is and going down a career path that simultaneously allows him financially to do exactly that while also to an extent (though not really) derailing him. It's a pretty easy read and, even if you're not into the downhomeiness the way he is, you can tell it’s genuine and hey if that's who he that's who he is. Gotta say, I enjoyed it and if you like this kind of thing in general, you probably will too.
TV/Streaming:
The First Wives Club (Season 1):
There is 100% absolutely nothing good about this TV version of the film I barely remember yet I'm fairly certain that's not going to stop me from watching season 2 when I recover enough to forget how much I thought season 1 sucked and can replenish my normal viewing optimism, though I know to the core of my being that the optimism is totally unfounded in this case unless they replaced literally the entire writing staff - though that might mean the writers will wind up on other shows and frankly I'd rather they were caged on this one where I know where they are and can avoid at will. My insanely vague memory of the movie - and I'm pretty sure I read the book too which gives you a sense of the forgettability of the entire thing (isn’t it nice that the problem isn’t with my memory but rather the content’s forgettability?) is that it's about divorcees at least one of whom was super rich and none of whom I remember being poor and the bonding they had while getting revenge on their exes. Fine, I'd be fine with a short (these episodes are only 30 mins) amusing if dumb story about women reconnecting and pulling their lives together and, sure, some revenge after a divorce. But this show insists on the dumb without the amusing and by "dumb" I mean so contrived and stupid that it makes it impossible to buy into the universe of the show at all. A few examples: washed-up singer divorces megarich music producer and we're supposed to believe she's penniless and homeless at that point - it's that level of lazy writing. Like we're all aware divorce is generally a 50/50 split except in the event of a prenup and regardless no one's penniless until the case is settled. Ugh why am I even bothering? It's so stupid and frankly if the writers wanted the lead to be penniless, moving in with her friend, and vengeful, just show me a scene in court where all assets are frozen or something, like give me something to grip onto. Instead it's just dumb. Next dumb thing (and then I'll stop because it's all so boringly dumb): the way we're told the wife of a political aspirant has a bad marriage is... she's lying in bed while he jacks off to porn then, right before he cums, leaps on top of her. It's only significantly later in the season that he learns this wasn't satisfying for her but, again, this is literally the only way the writers could think of to tell us her marriage is unsatisfying? Really? And she put up with it presumably for years... why exactly? And he really didn’t know that was crap sex? So, yes, if it isn't already apparent, this was a total background noise hate-watch. I mean entertainment comes in many forms, and feeling rightfully superior to the morons who aired this while twiddling on my laptop was definitely a form of entertainment for me. Nuff said. It's an atrocious show with ideas of women that seem trapped at least two decades ago without even a juicy soap opera plot and, to make matters worse, hot people few and far between. Unless you're explicitly looking for a hate-watch, avoid.
Homecoming (Season 1):
This Amazon show, in addition to being the only series in the history of broadcast media ever to be set in Tampa, is apparently based on a podcast of the same name, one this Janice never listened to because in moi’s experience all - yes, despite having only listened to (and DFNed) like 3, I feel very confident in globalizing what I’m about to say - fiction podcasts, which mostly seem to fall into the spooky/sci-fi/maybe romance genres, are super boring due to having the same basic formula: mysterious setup followed by 10 episodes of padding then a pedestrian yawner payoff. I’d like to say the televised (or whatever - Primed?) version of this show broke the mold but… no. In fairness, the mysterious part lasted longer - 4 episodes maybe - before it began to spiral downward into padded idiocy. I’m not going to describe the plot to avoid spoilering but, in the broadest sense, something’s occurring at a facility for returned soldiers where Julia Roberts plays a psychologist (or somesuch) and Bobby Cannavale’s her boss and there’s all kinds of obtuse goings-on and whatnot. The “mystery” is based entirely around withholding from the audience a key piece of information which Julia Roberts’ character knows meaning the very best you can hope for at the end, even if you love the friggin’ camo trousers off the series, is “Oh mmm hmm that’s why that all happened.” (See “pedestrian yawner payoff” above.) Additionally, the plot relies on Julia Roberts’ character having a moral crisis about her job, a plot device which, not just in this show, but in general completely undercuts character, i.e. she knew what she was doing before she got there, was not misled in any way about her role, applied for the job, got the job, did the job for x years then suddenly feels bad about it and engages in corporate sabotage for… why? In a well-written show, like, say, Halt and Catch Fire, you get to watch the characters become frustrated with their work or the administration or whatever and then change their behavior as a result. In this show and really many others, instead you get well the plot needs it and that’s the way it’s gonna be. To make matters worse, this show tries to justify its unearned character change by having the withheld-information/mystery/quandary pay off as… hmm well without spoilering, I’ll just say, yeah podcast/Prime team, we were all in it for the FUCKING ROMANCE! I finished but completely not worth the time and no way I’m watching season 2 (please, me, don’t let those be famous last words, PLEASE!).
Haute Dog (Season 1):
This is a dog grooming competition reality show - one of a slew apparently - and while I watched it, I have to say it was just okay. Conceptually, I thought it would be genius - dogs! hair! - but really after a while it all just began to seem kind of strange because it's impossible, after watching hours of this show, not to observe what we all know which is that dogs have no concept of their appearance and it all started to get a little depressing because watching a dog with a Long-Island-housewife pink topknot or with their ankle hair cut into a bell bottom flare or whatever kind of decaninized (?) them, like dogs are just dress up toys for humans to giggle at. This isn't a function of the show really but rather how you view domesticated animals in general, i.e. whether your preference is more in the keep-it-as-animal-as-possible-but-without-crap-all-over-the-floor arena or whether applying human fashion standards is charming fun. I'm in the former camp - I like the personality of the animal rather than an imposition of owner taste on the animal but that's a personal thing as the highly intertwined contract between human and animal is not super clear in this regard. They're being fed, sheltered, cared for, given medical treatment when needed, and kept away from everything that would otherwise want to eat them, so can any of us really say that straightening a poodle's hair and giving it bangs and rhinestone sunglasses is somehow outside the bounds of the evolutionary agreement? Meaning if you're in the camp that enjoys that, this show, while clearly cheap (I mean I'm pretty sure it was lit with overhead fluorescents), had a sense of humor about itself and is only about 30 minutes per episode and is probably something to add to your list because frankly even though I'm not in that camp, I still somehow managed to overcome my principles and watch the entire season.
Movies:
Thor: The Dark World (Marvel Universe #8) - So this is the second Thor and, as with the first, the plot is 2oukbuv98yva,nsdlh43yt and then q20ytawp9zsdhga a08oaidnf Natalie Portman aweohaklhfvklhs hair ahkwefp9y8zodh. Which isn't to say it was bad. But kinda weird, because somehow Thorland has become this bizarre crossover mashup between Norse mythology, lizard robots, Nazis, and Middle Earth and to the deepest core of my Janice-ness I don't understand ANYTHING that's going on. I mean sure I understand top level stuff like "these are the bad guys" and that the main plot more or less is that Natalie Portman somehow inhaled/was implanted with/just has something that the bad guy wants and it's up to Norse bros Thor and Loki to prevent him from getting it. But at the deeper level, the level that involves elves and planetary alignment, for example, I am significantly less clear though I will do my best in the plot description that follows.
So Loki's on trial not so much for murdering innocents like he did in Thor or the whole interplanetary lizard/robot vagina betrayal thing he did in the Avengers but I'm pretty sure for the much larger crime of putting his father/stepfather Odin to sleep in the first film - though I may be wrong about that because it makes no sense? Or it does? I don’t know, something happened, maybe in a prior film, maybe in a stream of exposition while someone forgot to hit pause while getting a popsicle, but something involving elves and not the ethereal long-haired blond kind with floral head wreaths, pointy ears, and, if female, always garbed in flowy resort wear like the second they wrap up the conversation they’re politely suffering through with the yammering mortal they’ll be heading right over to a buffet on the lanai, but some other kind that lives on a dirt world, doesn’t manufacture Pecan Sandies, and looks suspiciously like a lizard/robot all followed by an incredible stream of gibberish around worlds aligning and something about how all the worlds can be destroyed at once during said alignment.
In the meantime, sidekick Natalie Portman and her (basically only other woman in the entire thing) scientist sidekick get a filmic upgrade to sidekick+ and sidekick+’s sidekick respectively when early in the movie the sidekick gets a sidekick. They all go to a warehouse for reasons relating to the gibberish around worlds aligning where Natalie ends up taking the world's biggest vape hit of this purple fog which turns out to be some kind of lethal all-worlds-destroyed-during-the-alignment-type weapon the non-ethereal elf wants. i.e. Natalie bogarted his world-destroying spleef, and he’s understandably pissed. Somehow Thor and Loki get involved in this process and thank Gods because as the Marvel Universe consistently makes clear, the only ones powerful and/or clever enough to save anyone in any world aligned or otherwise are men. Given Natalie’s impending danger from the elf who wants the purple-whatever that got into her, Thor and Loki, like the sci-fi equivalents of Rocky and Bullwinkle saving Little Nell after being tied to the train tracks by Snidely Whiplash, whisk Natalie off to some planet in an effort to rid her of the vape that's supposedly killing her though like, Natalie, maybe lie on the cold bathroom floor tile for a few minutes and see if that helps? In any event, after getting a really really good hit and holding it down for the time it takes to make an intergalactic voyage in Thor's arms, she eventually exhales and, despite Thor's efforts, the elf bad guy shotguns her vape and for reasons that were and still are unclear remains determined to blow up all nine worlds in the planetary alignment.
Thor, Natalie, Loki, and all sidekicks wind up in England where - and I don’t want to call this the absolute weakest conceptual idea for an endgame I’ve seen in any Marvel movie to date so I’ll call it a lame plan designed by total idiots instead - they decide that the only way to stave off the destruction of nine worlds is… you know that thing where you’re throwing a surprise party and you need to keep the birthday zie away from the house until a specific time and you go to, not great lengths, but marginal lengths, some planning, some emails, letting people know the time and not to be late and maybe setting up a circumstance like sending the birthday zie out with a friend who’s in on it and can delay the birthday zie’s arrival home so it’s all timed perfectly with the birthday zie arriving home and everyone yelling, “Surprise!”? Well basically the brainpower of two Gods and three sidekicks concludes that the best way to save nine worlds from complete and utter annihilation is to get the dark elf birthday zie to show up to his worlds-aligning party five minutes late.
The writers go to great lengths to make this the most thrilling calendaring issue of all time meaning, as per usual, the destruction of large swaths of Earth, countless deaths, big pulsating rings, and the nonstop stream of explosives that ends all of these movies. Because this is the eighth one, it’s supposedly linked to the prior seven in some fashion and all I can say is that, while the relationship between Norse mythology, Nazis, Elves, spaceships, Iron Man, Hulk, Captain MAGA, and vaping remains murky at best, this movie does manage to keep everyone’s hair in all mid-back choppy layers and while I wouldn’t exactly trumpet that as a consistent throughline, well maybe I just did.