Books:
Magic Bites (Kate Daniels #1) by Ilona Andrews
While I am not the hugest fan of urban fantasy - I mean I liked the Harry Dresden books okay but petered out on them eventually - I enjoyed this first in a series about a magic mercenary in a mutated Atlanta hired to hunt down her magical mentor/brother-figure's murderer. What I liked about it was that, unlike with most urban fantasy where the idea is that we're in the real world but there's a subset of hidden magical people and elements and rules there as well, this book posits a world where tech and magic shift in long-term waves and where the transition is from tech to magic in book’s present tense. In other words, nothing's hidden, this is just the way the world is, kind of like in Game of Thrones where winter is coming but in this case it's magic is coming. In this book at least that's all mostly implied and I assume future books flesh it all out, but what I liked is that the author clearly thought about world-building and a longer-term story even though this book (and I'm assuming the sequels) had a primary story that wrapped up at the end. That's definitely a format I like, i.e. some bigger mysteries and longer-term relationships and problems that will (knock wood) grow across all the books with a satisfying wrapup to the main story in each book, i.e. i.e. they're standalone but you also have to read them in order. I'm not going into too many plot details about this book because it's not really what made me like it. I mean the plot was fine and made sense and, big plus, there were a lot of huge-ass action sequences which made it all pretty fun, but what I really liked were all the main characters and the way the author set up relationships and backstories while being in no rush to reveal everything all at once which, assuming the sequels are good, will likely wind up being very satisfying. The main character - Kate - is tough, competent, and more someone who isolates herself without actually being a loner because there are some things about her that she needs to keep hidden and I can't tell you exactly what or why because the author didn't reveal either in this book but rather hinted around stuff and made it clear that she's this way for a reason. And that combo - tough but emotionally vulnerable but self-protective thus isolated - makes for a pretty interesting character as she makes her way through this world where she's clearly a pro at dealing with the issues that arise around the tech/magic shifts and where she connects and disconnects from the people who appear in her life. The mercenary story was fun, there was some good action/violence, while I wouldn't say I understood the entire world layout I feel like the author does which is fine for a first book, and the people all behaved in ways that made sense for who they were and what they were up to (being vague to avoid spoilering). For a subgenre that generally isn't my thing, I was totally hooked and will definitely be reading the sequels.
TV/Streaming:
A Cut Above (Season 1):
This is a deeply mediocre background-noise-only competition reality show in which chainsaw artists compete for a prize. It's that last part that kept me from DNFing because in many ways the final art products were super cool. Also it's a show where you don't need to be an expert in the craft to assess the final product, like you can look at it yourself and judge whether it's creative or things are in proportion or whatnot. The reason for the mediocrity isn't so much the production stuff - I mean it's no better or worse than an HGTV show - but rather that the process is really obtuse. With, by contrast, something like Project Runway, you can kind of see the shape of a designer's vision as you go, like you see they chose those colors and that fabric and it looks like that on the mannequin and in the model fitting etc. With chainsaw carving, there's kind of a big block of wood, a lot of looking like not much while things are being hacked at and then a final product. This means that for much of the show you're not looking at a lot. I mean the producers try to make up for it by having the judges question certain decisions along the way or point out that, for instance, rotten wood is just part of the game and explain the options the carvers have to deal with it. But it's just very difficult with carving to track the progression of a creation which isn't an insult to this show really - I imagine it was equally dull to watch Michelangelo carve David - but just kind of the nature of the beast. I stuck with it because the outcomes really ran a range from wow to awful and one of the carvers was really into abstract which, because all the challenges were theme-based, allowed for some genuinely surprising reveals; abstract is that thing where you either get it/feel it when you see it or you don't and it was interesting to see what that particular carver came up with. So, yeah, the show isn't a total waste of time and there are people with real talent in there but it is what it is. If you're into this kind of thing or cast a wide competition reality show net as I do, then yeah it's perfectly fine to watch while playing on your tablet and focusing on it more towards the end of each episode. But if this isn't really in your wheelhouse, it's not good enough to be worth seeking out.
Pennyworth (Season 3):
This surprisingly - to me because I always expect to be bored but never am - entertaining '60ish Batman's butler origin series maintains the high quality of the prior seasons (here and here) meaning if you already know you like this well more pleasure awaits and, if you're unsure, just know its been solidly good for three seasons. The series is set in a Gothamized version of London where, across Britain, there's a fascist party on the rise and Alfie - the butler - along with his crew of ex-Army guys are sort of hired out by the government to go deal, not only with the fascists, but with the burgeoning (though also coolly mod) technology that allows people to have superpowers, especially in this season. What makes the show fun is its tone. It definitely has a snazzy amusing wit to it combined with some solid plotting and action and genuinely memorable characters by which I mean you really don't need a previously-on even if you go years between seasons because everyone's clear and consistent enough that you instantly know who they are. Each season has its own plotline but also builds on prior seasons so you need to watch in order. I'm not a Batman person - as mentioned in prior reviews, I don't really get what he is - but I can assure you that doesn't matter for this show. Yes the Waynes are present but really the focus is on a relentlessly self-assured and highly competent kinda PI/fixer who's hired to handle dangerous situations while also dealing with all sorts of drama in his personal life. The show is also good about splitting time between all the main characters meaning it's not really just the butler story (though it was more so in earlier seasons) but rather expands outwards in satisfying ways. As you can see, I'm giving you zero plot details because it's all spoilerable and the plotting is really good and built in ways I didn't see coming. For a show with a superhero-origin backbone, which I normally think of as pretty morally binary in a good/evil bland way, this show has a fair amount of texture. Like there are some horrible people on the good guys side and some morally interesting people within the villains. This really adds to the overall vibe of the show because, while of course we're on the side of our leads, they're not perfect and, yeah, while some of the bad guys are kind of pure evil, some transform in ways that make it all more interesting. 'Nuff said. I didn't start this show thinking I'd enjoy it this much, but it's been carried along by really good characters, snappy dialogue, interesting plotting, and an overall vibe and look that's very appealing. If you think it's even vaguely up your alley, I'd say give it a go because it's a significant step above other shows of its ilk.
Movies:
The Covenant - While I'm of course going to talk about the plot and moi opinion of this Guy Ritchie Afghanistan making-it-out-of-enemy-territory action movie, the first thing I need to discuss is that this is the first movie I've been to - as in I saw it in an actual movie theater - with subtitles. And I don't mean subtitling a foreign language; I mean the thing I - and I believe basically the entirety of GenZ - do at home when watching on my screen where I just leave English subtitles running the whole time on everything I watch just 'cause. I've become so accustomed to it that, when subtitles showed up in this movie, for a few minutes I didn't even realize it was strange because it's just how I watch everything. But, in a movie theater… weird! Like are English subtitles running the whole time in American movie theaters a thing now? So the plot: Jake Gyllenhaal is an army Sergeant on a squad that tries to hunt down Taliban weapons manufacturing plants (or whatever they're called) and teams up with an interpreter who hates the Taliban and, when things go to shit during an operation, the interpreter saves Jake and, later, when the interpreter needs saving, Jake does that. In case you can't tell from the plot description, I was meh on this movie. "Character" meant macho quipping while being shot at and the first like 25% of the movie was a fair amount of swaggering and attempting to set Jake up as being a maverick - oh why oh why is everyone who’s both (a) in the military and (b) a movie star a maverick yawn when we already have an uber-maverick I mean really that's all the Hollywood writer hive mind can come up with? - plus establishing the interpreter as knowing a lot because, like, he lives there and therefore probably... knows a lot and he and Jake getting into some male-ish authority battle/bonding thing. Then the next chunk is a huge sequence where everything goes to hell and Jake and the interpreter are stranded alone and running through the dry scrub with a nonstop stream of Talibani with really just awful awful aim with their machine guns coming after them. Eventually Jake is injured and it's up to the interpreter to save them both. So that's, say, 2/3 of the movie maybe. The next what felt like 50% but I'm gathering from my own math was around 1/6 of the movie was Jake at home on the phone trying to get visas for the interpreter and his fam who were now in hiding. We all knew where this was going - Jake returning to save him - but we just watched endless streams of Jake on hold, Jake yelling at a customer service person, Jake on hold drunk, Jake yelling drunk. I mean honestly I get it - and Jake maybe you should've thought about using the online chat which I assure you is a lot less frustrating - customer service is the worst because even when you're a highly decorated military person you still get hung up on by a supervisor. Anyway, Jake eventually mortgages the house because no one in the military will help rescue the guy who rescued Jake. And look, maybe this was based on something totally true - there sure were front and end crawls about Afghani translators - but the movie didn't bother to make it make any sense. I mean, why WOULDN'T the government offer visas to these people? Why wouldn't they help? I'm sure there were wonderful red tape reasons for that, and it would've been great to hear why the only option was Jake spending $150k of his own cash (he had a nice house in Santa Clarita so maybe he came from money? Or earned a ton in his car mechanic business? And btw: the movie made a real point about the interpreter being a mechanic in his real life but never bothered to mention that Jake was one as well and doesn't that seem strange as in maybe the writer totally forgot s/h/they’d made that choice?) to enlist a team to go back to Afghanistan to save everyone who needed saving. Here's the thing: this movie was asking us to take itself seriously. It was presenting itself like Hurt Locker not a The Rock franchise. Meaning what would otherwise be ignorable quibbles became actual issues because when you're presenting something as drama with action, you actually need something more than five years of someone being on hold drunk as character motivation. In any event, Jake eventually gets off hold, hooks up with Homelander from The Boys (kind of, and not in a sexy way though that definitely would’ve been an interesting twist), learns he has the deepest most beautiful blue eyes ever seen in the entirety of Afghanistan (there's a scene devoted to another character telling him this in which I wondered if Jake and the guy he was talking to were about to make out (which, as with Homelander above, would've been fine actually), in case you think I'm making it up) and it all works out in the most expected and also completely unsatisfying way, which is - and no spoiler here unless you've literally never seen a movie of this ilk in your entire existence in which case go ahead and skip the next bit - Jake is trapped and out of bullets and it's seemingly the end, like those 500 trillion Talibani machine gun bullets which never seem hit anything other than cement will finally reach their targets, and Homelander shows up. Yeah, that's what happens in these types of movies, but our ostensible hero being saved isn't exactly the same as our hero saving anyone. But whatever, that's this movie, it was fine I was definitely into that middle chunk where action was happening but beyond that zoned in and out - but at least there were subtitles for when I spaced - and it feels like if you’re at home and in the mood for something actiony and this is on your streaming somewhere, you'll be perfectly fine.