Books:
When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole
This is a really not very good suspense book which I finished (but kinda skimmed in parts) about forceful and underhanded gentrification of a Black Brooklyn neighborhood. The reason I say it's not good is multifold; it's not the writing, which is okay and moves along at a decent clip, nor is it the general theme which I thought was interesting. Rather the problems lie mostly in a nonsensical plot and characters whose behavior is essentially that of teens in summer camp horror movies, i.e. totally idiotic. The story is told from the back-and-forth POVs of a Black woman who grew up in the neighborhood and is witnessing its (as we'll learn) insidious change and a White guy who lives across the street and who's the boyfriend (for a bit at least) of one of the White women central to neighborhood transformation - basically there's a big company setting up an HQ in the neighborhood and White people are snatching up Black-owned real estate from owners who've mysteriously vanished or gotten caught up in some kind of crime or bank scandal, all very suspicious because it's so back-to-back with the same thing happening to other people in the neighborhood. And this was really the first and in some ways primary problem: it was incredibly obvious something was going on and it took the lead basically the entire book to notice. I mean, yeah, it's a suspense book so clearly I, the reader, know what genre I'm in even if the lead initially doesn't. But, in these sorts of books, the lead usually whiffs it fairly quickly or at least starts investigating. Not in this book. There's a lot of talk about, say, inconsistent stories in why person X suddenly vanished before person Y swooped in and bought their house, but not much more which renders the lead unobservant (death in this kind of book) and the overall plotting really flaccid. Additionally, the White guy POV serves nothing other than as a break from the Black female lead who, in addition to being unobservant, is setup as someone who was once institutionalized which could have been interesting in a is-this-happening-or-is-she-imagining-it kind of way only cutting to the White guy POV kills that since the outside perspective confirms her reality. The other part that didn't work was the structure where you have two characters doing nothing beyond falling for each other and noting what's happening around them then suddenly it's break-ins and guns and scampering through tunnels none of it earned or even present before and, argh, whatever. I stuck with the book mostly because I liked the general thematic around gentrification and racism but after a while the story itself became a trudge.
TV/Streaming:
The Rehearsal (Season 1):
Well I thought this was just a spectacularly great not comedy exactly but sort of mindbendery funnyish experiment. I'm not going to explain that experiment in great detail (or maybe any) nor am I really going to describe how it plays out across the six episode season other than to say it builds in unexpected ways from where it starts to where it ends. To reveal anything more wouldn't be spoilering exactly - it's not that kind of show where there are key plot beats or whatnot - but rather part of its pleasure is the discovery of what's going on and how it all plays out. The show is super specific and I'd say if you're not a John Wilson fan (I am as you can see from my Season 1 and Season 2 reviews) then be aware that this show, while drastically different, is in the same general tonal vein, a vein I'm aware some people find to be incredibly dull, contrived, somewhat smug, and into its own cleverness. I am not that person. In any event, you'll begin to get an idea of what this thing is about roughly 1/3 into the first episode and so if you're unsure I'd say give it an episode and, if it's not for you, it's never going to be for you; if it’s meh/kinda/maybe/ish for you, I’d say keep watching because you might find yourself getting sucked in in later episodes. Now that I've warned you off it, the reason I loved this show was twofold. First, I really didn't see where it was going to wind up; even after I began to get a gist of where it was going, I just didn't see it going as far as it went or to the place it ultimately did. Second, it plays with format and tone in that it's not always clear what's documentary, what's scripted, what's some combo of the two in the service of a joke, and what the underlying reality of the people involved is to hardly mention what the underlying reality of the show actually is. It's why I called it a bit mindbendery because even now having finished, I could make arguments either way for what, if any, was real, not just in terms of what happened (yes, vague for the spoiler reasons noted above) but also for how the showrunner, who's also the lead character (person?) in the series, was affected or not by what he'd crafted. So for me what was so engaging was the wondering and mental back and forth throughout each episode and across the series of what I was watching and what, if anything, it all added up to or meant, as in did I just watch a clever puzzle construct or did I watch a clever-construct-crafter in some ways getting swept up and transformed by his own puzzle? Even as I'm writing this I don't really know and that, for me, was a large part of the enjoyment of this show. And though I used the word "comedy" above, what I really mean is I found it and its situations and spiraling outwards to be amusing rather than thinking of it as an out-and-out funny show. So if you're someone who thinks they might enjoy a bit of a mind trip/journey, then this show might be for you the way it was for me and knock wood there’s a season 2 because I have zero clue where it go from where this season ended, and, as you can tell from my whole review, that’s a huge plus in my book.
Masterchef The Professionals (Season 14):
Ya know, there's a thing about British cooking competition shows that I - and given the (seeming - give me the data!) success of The Great British Bakeoff/Baking Show many others - find to be engaging even while simultaneously knowing they're slow and somewhat boring. For me, this is that, unlike the frenetic over-produced American competition cooking shows - think: every Fox Gordon Ramsay show ever made - there's an engagingly soothing quality to them. I like that not much happens, that it's polite people being judged, somewhat harshly but still politely, by other polite people and that there's a sameness to each episode, meaning I know what I'm gonna get. I'm a one-a-night binger not an only-watch-one-show-until-it's-over binger and shows like this one prove a nice counterpoint to whatever drama or whatnot may also be in my viewing lineup. So this show is that. It's all professional chefs competing to win a trophy and, I think, this show has wound up giving its winners a boost to their careers so there's genuinely something for the contestants to play for at least careerwise. The structure is nice and slow. Chefs compete in a non-elimination quick skills test then do an elimination cook then do an elimination cook for critics then it's the semifinals with both group and individual cooks and then it's the finals and then it's over. The big deal of this is that the final group gets to cook a single course of a larger meal for the top chefs in England. Are you asleep out there from hearing this description? Because if so you will hate this show. All the cooking is that super high-end fancy food - "elevated" which as far as I can tells means geometrically molded sides and colorful sauces scattered artfully around a slab of protein or perhaps piled on top of it or all shoved to one side of the plate in a semicircle - meaning nothing I ever want to eat. But none of that mattered to me with this show. You're hearing what people plan to make, watching them stumble as they make it, then seeing them get judged for it (followed of course by me judging everything) and perhaps part of the reason I like shows such as this is the enormous relief that all that isn't happening to me.
Movies:
The People We Hate at the Wedding - This is one of those barely there why-on-Earth-would-anyone-make-this-oh-right-it's-a-streamer-(Amazon-in-this-case)-filling-its-library-with-trash movies and, yeah. It's not horrible or anything just pure air, a comedy that vanishes from your (my) brain at 24fps, as in I watched it a day or so ago and am struggling to remember anything that happened in it but I'll do my best. Basically Allison Janney had a daughter in England, AJ’s hubby cheated, Allison Janney moved back to the US, remarried, had two other kids (Kristin Bell and a gay brother (too lazy to Google the actor's name so his name for the purpose of this review is KBGB)), and the English daughter would come and visit the US for chunks of time and bond with her half siblings. Oh and the English daughter's super rich and the US family isn't and a lot was made of this though either not in a way that made a lick of sense or in a way that's so cliche you almost can't believe it's mentioned in the movie then can’t believe it even more when the rich/poor thing actually IS in the movie in a big scene towards the end (spoiler alert: it involves the rich girl slumming it at Taco Bell). Anyway rich girl is getting married at a rich wedding in England and for no discernible reason - by which I mean it's explained later and still makes absolutely no sense - KBGB hates Allison Janney and won't talk to her and both KBGB and KB have miserable lives. Hang on I'm pausing mid-sentence (yes there was more beyond "miserable lives") because the way the movie telegraphs KB's miserable life is, despite her being an actual honest-to-whatever-higher-power-there-may-be-or-not architect, she's chosen instead to be an admin assistant to her married-with-child boss. So she can fuck him. And pine. In other words, the movie needs KB and KBGB to be jealous sadsacks so there can be conflict with rich English half-sister and this is how it chooses to do it, with a blissful lack of anything approaching logic or honestly even remote effort, like would you, with your architecture degree and pining for a married guy, toss it all away to live on $40k/year as his assistant just so you could bang in the storeroom? I mean, sure, one COULD write that character but one (meaning whomever wrote this movie) didn't. And KBGB is doing one of those social work jobs that aren't remotely fulfilling - and, like, I think we're all aware that literally the only thing social work has to offer is fulfillment - and involves something really dumb which I'm not going to bother with and he has an asshole boyfriend but doesn't seem to notice despite the boyfriend being so OTT selfish that, OH WHATEVER! I was planning to finish my "miserable lives" sentence but now I've decided this movie is already taking up too much precious Media Report space. It comes down to this: either you will find the jokes breezy, the actors fun, and the setup enough to keep you amused despite all the contrivances (like I can't even bear to go into the moronic reasoning behind the sibling/half-sibling feud but, spoiler alert, it’s all dealt with at that Taco Bell), awful character quote unquote logic, and nonsensical plot or the person next to you will be feeling all that while you're playing on your tablet. You've either been warned or totally sold depending.