Books:
Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine
This is a thriller about a woman and her kids who are in hiding for reasons I won't spoiler and what happens when they begin to suspect they're found. Well you know what? Totally gripping! It's apparently the first in a series, and I haven't read any of the others so far, but I surely will. Look, this isn’t like the heights of writing here, but once the plot gets going - takes a bit for that - it's pretty nonstop to the end. Plus there are some decent twists and the writer has her lead character behave like an actual person in the circumstance would, meaning you can buy everything the character ends up doing which is in part what allows the plot to spiral (in a good way). This is a pure airplane/beach read, and I was delighted to find something absorbing without being particularly challenging and if that's what you're looking for too, I'd say grab this one.
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
If you haven't read this and like Patricia Highsmith-type mysteries, i.e. ones where you know the who, what, and why up front, and the cat and mouse comes from the criminal trying to avoid being caught as the detectives slowly unravel the case, then you’ll probably like this book. It's the first in a series that features a somewhat smug and contemptuous physics professor who helps out the cops with cases, and it's very satisfying because of its logic (or may read as too schematic depending on your viewpoint) and, because it's Japanese, has a pleasant oddness to it that distinguishes it from other books of its ilk. I will def be reading the sequels.
TV/Streaming:
90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days (Seasons 1-4):
No, I did not watch all four seasons of this ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS spinoff - one of the 400,000 spinoffs of the original show - at all. I did not do that. Rather, I engaged in an anthropological and come to think of it political study about the struggles couples face when dating internationally, like, say, self-deluded Las Vegasan to Nigerian scammer or 40-something CT trainwreck to 20-something Amsterdam trainwreck. Just wait until you see my final published work on the matter! I'd like to blame the stresses of pre-vaccine COVID or the election count or police murders or really anything, but maybe I just have to face that this is who I am now: someone who watched four back-to-back seasons of the reality show equivalent of whatever feeds on bottom feeders and went on to tell the world about it.
For Heaven’s Sake:
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be trapped at a total stranger's house with like 20 of their extended family members and listen for, oh, 5 hours while they all nattered on and on and on about every single detail of the Ancestry.com rabbithole one of them had just gone down? Have you ever thought about financing that? How about distributing it? If so, you should work for Paramount+! The gist of this documentary is that 90 or so years ago, the great great uncle of one of the two documentarians vanished and both now decide to go talk to all the family members and, with some reenactments, a chalk board, and for reasons unknown to me an entire crew and decent production budget go see if they can solve the cold case. Sounded okay conceptually to moi (which is why I tuned in at all) but, in order to make this concept work, one would have to have an actual driving story across the 8 episodes wouldn’t one and not, say, episode after episode of “well maybe this is what happened?” [next episode] “or maybe this is what happened?” [next episode] “or maybe this is what happened?” until one runs out of things that might have happened and then just continues shooting for a few more episodes anyway. Additionally, one running a content production and distribution platform might ask oneself, who, precisely, other than the family itself, is the audience for a stranger’s idle speculation on a, sure, mysterious but otherwise completely inconsequential family campfire story? I understand it's a documentary and no one knew up front where it would all wind up, but surely someone involved in the creative process must have run through the possible outcomes and thought about whether or not whatever emerged at the end would be satisfying for some - any - unrelated viewer? No? I guess no! I finished so can tell you with great assurance that you never need start.
The Missing (Season 2):
A few years ago, I watched but didn’t really enjoy the first season of this show about child abduction, not because it was bad but because it was such a bummer - weird I know given the topic. So when some sister-in-law Janice recommended I check out the second season, it was with enormous reluctance (read: I started immediately), and is it okay to call the second season of a show wherein each season tracks the investigation and devastation of a child kidnapping "fun"? Because if so, this season was a lot more fun and seems to have thrown in the towel and gone for straight-up twisty (ish, meaning twisty but with British reserve) plotting, i.e. cliffhangers and turns and character drama and layers within layers and honestly if I’m going to watch something about child abduction let it be entertaining and detached from reality rather than its grim and super depressing truth (S1 of this show) thanks! Nothing genius, but whizzed right through the whole thing - saikeirei bow (see how my Japanese has really taken off since reading the Keigo Higashino book above?) for that one, SIL Janice!
Movies:
Bandslam - this is a very strange movie made in the mid-’00s that feels trapped somewhere between an '80s John Cusack teen dramcom and a financier trying to capitalize on the then, to someone, surefire-hit combo of High School Musical and Friends. Basically a high-schooler hires the interior Bowie-loving new kid to help her put together a band to compete in a battle of the bands against her ex-boyfriend. Conceptually, I didn’t hate it one bit - I mean it sounded kinda like by-the-numbers silly fun - but unfortunately, even though the writing and characters were okay, the story was a sloppy mess filled with bits of setup, no payoff, and an utter failure to go where the numbers wanted it to go. If I recall correctly, someone won a Fields Medal for proving there’s a direct causal relation between the romantic comedy numbers and box office numbers, and I know you want to be original, romcom filmmakers, but stop fighting it! If everyone involved had just researched the numbers then done it by said numbers, this movie would’ve been perfectly delightful - they were so close, I mean they cast Lisa Kudrow as the mom for Fermat’s sake! Instead, I don’t what they thought they were doing but whatever it was it was super boring.
Sunshine - this is a pure hunk of unwatchable SF garbage from a decade ago by two filmmakers I normally like - Alex Garland and Danny Boyle - but who combined to make this, in its mind, character-driven people-going-crazy-on-a-ship-heading-to-the-Sun-to-save-Earth coup de cinema into an eminently predictable, dull and, thus, DNF'able snooze. I mean I enjoy staring into the sun just as much as the next person who wants to go completely blind, and maybe I’d enjoy it even more if I did it in the way Cillian Murphy and every other cast member does, i.e. to ominous music while pondering the meaning of existence for seemingly hours at a time before returning to a thin, nonsenical plot. I’ll never know I guess because I only lasted about 25 minutes before staring at the blackness of my screen in blessed silence for mere seconds while contemplating what to watch instead (which wound up looking a lot like <cough> Gilmore Girls).