Quick Reviews and Stuff: July
wow ok hi, it’s been a bit of a hectic beginning of the month, this is later than usual, I hope you’re all out enjoying life and didn’t even notice
here’s what I’ve been up to:
Books
A Dark and Starless Forest, Sarah Hollowell — Teenagers with magic powers all live in a house in the middle of the woods with a guardian who tries to protect them from the outside world, but then some of the girls go missing, bad things ensue. You can probably spot the twist in this one just from that sentence. This was a YA book and I suspect 16 year old me would have liked it a lot more than 41 year old me. 41 year old me found it predictable. The writing was just okay, and while the cast of characters features diversity that you don’t usually see in fantasy books, the cast was so large that it meant that each character was really just a sketch of a person and hard to really get invested in.
Wicked Beauty, Katee Robert — I feel like I just need to be done with this series of mythology “retellings”/adaptations/inspired-by books. This one focused on Achilles, Patroclus, and Helen, with Achilles being wildly unlikeable, even though you’re supposed to think he’s all strong and manly and protective and etc. etc. whatever, when really he’s just jealous and controlling and stomps all over boundaries. The plot was super thin here and was mostly just an excuse to get the three together in a throuple, only, well, it’s a throuple that originated out of jealousy and dishonesty and the worst example of an open relationship I’ve seen in a while. If I want good spicy content I can just go read some fan fiction and be like 96% less annoyed.
Escargot and the Search for Spring and Love, Escargot, Dashka Slater & Sydney Hanson (Illustrator) — Our favorite snail’s world gets a bit larger in the latest two books in the series. Escargot meets a family of voles in Love, Escargot and somewhat reluctantly befriends a rabbit in …the Search for Spring. Both books continue in the same adorable vibe as their predecessors, creating a great conversation between Escargot and the reader, and the illustrations are just the absolute cutest.
This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone — A twisty, slippery, partially epistolary sci-fi tale of two soldiers (of a sorts) on different sides of a never-ending war. I can see why people bounce off of this one, or don’t connect with it, it does just drop you into the middle of a universe with little explanation, and the story’s more Vibes than anything else, but man, I loved how all of this unfolded. I loved not having the answers, I loved just being carried away by vibes. I don’t know how to adequately describe this book, you just have to experience it. Gorgeous, violent, weird, esoteric, all about the vibes, likely to be enjoyed most by a subset of people who have written real weird fan fiction for very small audiences. Sad I waited this long to read it, looking forward to rediscovering it in the future.
Home is Where the Bodies Are, Jeneva Rose — Three estranged siblings come together after the death of their mother, and proceed to discover a shocking family secret. I need to stop being fooled by booktok/bookstagram and cool covers, because this “thriller” was so mediocre and not actually thrilling. The writing was juvenile, the characters were also all juvenile, despite being real actual adults. The mystery is pretty obvious from the go, the characters are all unlikeable, and the ending is such a handwaved cop-out. Wildly annoying characters, gross attitudes towards addiction that go completely unchallenged by the narrative, unbelievable/over the top plot, everyone making the absolute most dumbass decisions, and a dumb “grief is like a box of chocolates” metaphor on basically every page. The writing was just not good. This isn’t a thriller or a mystery, it’s just a family drama about a family that sucks. It was a very quick read, and I was entertained by the fact that while I was reading this, I also happened to be driving up through the area of Wisconsin where this story takes place. That was fun, at least.
For the Love of April French, Penny Aimes — Own voices trans woman/cis guy kink-friendly romance. There are many remarkable things about this book but first and foremost is the way that it uses the miscommunication/”we don’t use our words and instead just assume the worst” trope in a way that felt authentic and not horrifyingly cringey. April and Dennis both have some big stuff that’s happened in their past relationships that explains their trust and communication issues, and so while their conflict is painful to read, it also feels authentic. It also handled a kink-heavy relationship in a way that felt authentic rather than exaggerated solely to be spicy. Dennis and April are so sweet together and I loved watching them learn and grown over the course of the book. (Full disclosure: I share lots of mutual friends with the author, but I still would have loved this book even without that connection.)
Robot Dreams, Sara Varon — I watched the animated version of this movie in June and immediately put the book on hold at the library. If you saw the animated version, it follows the book almost exactly. The movie made a few changes that I think added some more depth to the story — the baby bird imprinting on Robot, the kite-flying Duck potentially being a romantic interest, Dog’s attempts to go back to the beach to get Robot — and the book is perhaps even sadder/bittersweet because of that. The book gives less of a sense that Dog is counting down the days until they can get Robot back. This is the kind of book I’d actually love to do a book club about, because I think depending on where you are in your life, what you’re dealing with, you’re going to have different takes on the story’s overall message on friendships and relationships, and I think all of those takes have some merit. There’s a lot to think about, for a graphic novel with no words.
Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi), Volume 3, Ryoko Kui — The continuing manga saga of a group of adventurers feeding themselves on the monsters they encounter in a dungeon while trying to rescue their friend from a dragon. This volume was backstory heavy, learning more about Marcille and Falin’s shared backstory, as well as about some of the other adventurers who used to be in the party. The illustrations are cute and the humor/plot twists are perfect. The reveal of the frog suits that the party makes had me absolutely cackling.
The Art of Catching Feelings, Alicia Thompson — I went long on this one over on Goodreads and won’t bother reproducing it here, but if you want to dig into all the reasons this book frustrated me, you can head over there. The premise here is that Daphne, newly divorced, goes to a baseball game, gets very drunk, and heckles Chris, a baseball player up to bat, who also happens to be going through a tough time (unbeknownst to her) and gets caught on camera reacting emotionally to her heckling. She eventually feels shame about this and sends him an apology DM, only she forgets to actually state that she was the heckler. They strike up a texting relationship, while she also simultaneously fails upwards into getting a job with the team, where she also strikes up a relationship with Chris. At no point does she reveal any of the deception that’s been going on, and yeah, lying by omission is deception, and Chris is so sweet and vulnerable and she only reveals the truth by accident and otherwise had no intention of telling him. I hated this aspect of the plot so much and think it would have been far more interesting to watch them build a relationship despite her heckling. The consequences are also so minimal for how long she lied to him. For the Love of April French also features a “lying by omission” subplot but there are big consequences for what April did and getting back together required a lot of work/trust on their parts, not just a “if you love her, get back together with her” talk. This is the second book by Thompson that I’ve found disappointing; I don’t think she’s getting a third chance from me.
Silver Under Nightfall, Rin Chupeco — Vampire hunter joins forces with vampires to investigate a dangerous virus that’s turning the undead into even more monstrous creatures. I bounced off of this book a couple of times before taking it with me on vacation, where I basically had to finish it. I thought it was fine — very readable but something about it just felt vaguely unsatisfying to me. Big problems seem to just get solved with a shrug and the plot lurches forwards with little reflection. Remy’s “no one could possibly love me without ulterior motives” issues are real — he’s basically been a pawn for his father’s machinations his whole life — but did get a bit grating at times. I didn’t enjoy all of the choices made in this book but I was invested in getting to the ending anyway.
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Movies
MaXXXine (2024) — I was so underwhelmed by this. The 80s LA vibes are so good — grimy, gross, sleazy, cocaine-fueled — but the payoff did not work at all for me. This hardly counted as a horror movie for me, and instead felt much more like the stereotypical 80s Erotic Thriller, which I suppose is what Ti West was going for, but after the sheer audacity of X and Pearl to revel in blood and gore while still paying homage to the films that inspired them, MaXXXine felt like a pale imitation. Mia Goth is delightful as always but she hardly even got to do anything here. A disappointment for what had been one of my most anticipated films of the year.
Chopping Mall (1986) — Every so often, my friends get together and we order pizza and watch a bad movie, and this is maybe the least bad of the bad ones we’ve watched. The premise is simple: robot security guards at a mall run amok and start offing some teens. It’s PEAK 1986, with Ridiculous Teen Slang and silly technology and teenagers who all look like they’re 35. The real attraction is watching this with a group of people who aren’t old enough to remember what malls were really like back in the day. I enjoyed spotting all the real stores that real me really did get dragged to by their mom back in the real 1980s.
The Nature of Love (2023) — So French, so Canadian. Sophia, a philosophy professor in a long-term relationship that’s plateaued into something more like “friends who live in the same house”, embarks on a torrid affair with Sylvain, the construction worker hired to help renovate her new home in the woods. I’m feeling a little sensitive about the whole mortifying ordeal of being known thing lately, so this movie may have hit me a little harder, but I genuinely enjoyed watching this even though it’s just Sophia turning her life into a slow-moving train wreck for two hours. It’s obvious how this one is going to end, that the hot-burning lust/passion with Sylvain isn’t going to be sustainable unless the both of them do a LOT of work on themselves, but my goodness is their connection so magnetic anyway. Writer/director/co-star Monia Chokri apparently said that a lot of the filming techniques she used were done to echo a wildlife/nature documentary and I absolutely loved that approach, it worked perfectly to capture the vibe between bougie/pretentious philosopher Sophia and salt-of-the-earth laborer Sylvain. Also 10/10 chili peppers for Pierre-Yves Cardinal, wow.
Twisters (2024) — Far better and more fun than I expected, although Glen Powell’s charisma does a lot to carry the day. He’s just so perfectly cast as “smarmy bro with a heart of gold” and you find yourself rooting for him despite any initial misgivings you may have had.
Without Arrows (2024) — Documentary following members of a Lakota family in South Dakota over a number of years. This doesn’t dig too deep at trying to find an angle, just captures the family’s life the way it is at each interval that the filmmakers visited. I respect the decision to not dwell too much on the past/what happens off screen, but it does leave some gaps in understanding the family’s full situation.
Aikāne (2023) — Short animated film about a warrior who’s rescued from the ocean by an octopus, only that octopus also turns into a man. The story is simple, the animation is lush and evocative, and while it has a definite beginning/middle/end, I also found myself wanting more.
3:10 to Yuma (1957) — I watched the Russell Crowe/Christian Bale remake a while ago, then decided to dig up the original for comparison. This one obviously is not as violent or intense as the recent remake, but still with the same theme of “what is your word worth to you”, essentially. While the ending of the remake is a big depressing bummer, I also liked it more than the original ending, which felt far too easy. Glenn Ford walks the exact right line of smarmy/dangerous/charismatic as Ben Wade.
Nightcrawler (2014) — A gloriously unsettling Jake Gyllenhaal performance as a somewhat aimless small-time thief who falls into the world of crime journalism, the ambulance/cop-car chasing vultures who swarm crime scenes to capture footage to sell to the highest bidder. His character is relentless and obnoxious and conniving and Gyllenhaal inhabits him with such ease.
Godzilla Minus One (2023) — Somehow whenever I queued this up on Netflix, the audio track was the dubbed version, but the closed captioning was the translated-from-Japanese version, which was giving big cognitive dissonance until I figured out what was going on. For a monster movie, this is surprisingly human, but you’re never without Godzilla for too long. I would love to read actual articulate, culturally sensitive analysis of this (or the Godzilla franchise in general) because man they sure are saying something about Japan and this giant radioactive monster. Setting this in the shadow of WWII really drives home that point.
Touch (2024) — An Icelandic man who once studied in London as a college student, now in the twilight of his life, facing down illness and also a global pandemic, goes in search of his college sweetheart whose family up and left without warning, separating them seemingly forever. This was fine, but I wanted a little something more from it, I guess. The actors playing the young versions Kristofer and Miko had a lot of chemistry, and I enjoyed the slow burn of their romance. The end gets too exposition heavy and takes a twist that, like, I get what it was going for but also it felt unnecessary, and that there wasn’t enough time allotted to really unpack everything that the ending threw at you. I also didn’t entirely love how it handled the pandemic. I think Kristofer dealing with an unspecfied illness gave enough weight to the theme of “my life is nearing its end and I have unfinished business,” I don’t know that it was necessary to actually set this during COVID.
The Shining (1980) — Everyone knows what The Shining is, and that’s actually the biggest problem I had with watching it. The downside of seeing a movie for the first time 40+ years after it came out is that all the shocking/startling moments have already become part of our cultural lexicon. This was very good and suspenseful but I wonder what it would have been like to see this unburdened by the eight billion memes and homages you’ve already seen.
Orlando: My Political Biography (2023) — I didn’t know anything about this film, just saw it show up in the new arrivals section at the library, and thought it looked interesting. It’s part documentary, part retelling/reimagining, weaving the real stories of trans people in with the text and themes of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. I haven’t read Orlando and I shouldn’t be speaking about how it approaches the lived experience of being trans. I can talk about it as a film in general though, which is that it feels like a short film or art school project that got stretched just a bit too thin.
Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) — I really wanted to text my dad about the fact that I was watching a terrible movie starring iconic wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper but then I realized I didn’t want to answer the inevitable “why are you doing this” question. Of all the bad movies my friends have subjected each other to lately, this one was probably the most competent, even if it was utterly ridiculous. The frog prosthetics were actually really good.
Other Stuff
Spent July 4th in the woods of Michigan and also on the Lake of Michigan. Highly recommend the Fields of Michigan for all of your luxury glamping needs. We made s’mores and I read two whole books. A+ would do again.
Plus a quick weekend trip up to Minneapolis to see Andrew Bird.
And ended the month with a brief jaunt around the Northeast for a few more Mountain Goats shows. I also got to knock Connecticut and New Hampshire off of my “states visited” list, having made a side quest to NH to visit a friend, and CT for a Goats show. (Technically I have been in Connecticut before but to be honest I could not tell you when it was, where I stayed, or what I did other than spend the night in a hotel. So it doesn’t count.)
Top L-R: Exterior, Bearsville Theater, Woodstock, NY — The Rooftop at Pier 17 during sound check — John Darnielle & Peter Hughes at Pier 17
Bottom L-R: opener Field Medic at Pier 17 — full Mountain Goats band at Pier 17 — idk just some bridge in NY (lol)
As always, traveling for shows is an incredible delight and privilege. Getting to see friends who I only see at concerts basically means me laughing at dumb inside jokes for the entire time. I talk about this all the time, but my whole “follow a band around” schtick is as much about the little chosen family of amazing humans I’ve met as it is about rocking out, and any chance I get to see any of that squad is a chance I’m going to take. I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be on a disgustingly hot July night than a rooftop in New York City for my 98th Mountain Goats show (over the course of 15 years, please, I’m reasonable, I swear).
What’s Next?
uhhhh
CatVideoFest 2024
Andrew Bird in a botanical garden in Grand Rapids
I’ve been reading Ladyhoppers (sci-fi alternate universe hopping shenanigans) and, for something completely different, am ready to start digging into American Prometheus. I’ve also got, sigh, so many library books that are due back soon. Henry Henry has come fairly highly recommended so I may pick that one out of the library stack next.
I am so behind on movies, don’t even look at me, and let’s not even get into how much Interview with the Vampire I need to catch up on.
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