# reviews

date: 2010-11-08
category: Books
creator: Alan Frederick Hattersley
genre: History
title:
The convict crisis and the growth of unity: resistance to transportation in South Africa and Australia


date: 2017-05-26
category: Movies
title: Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2
creator: James Gunn
genre: Superhero
review:
An 80s fetish taken a step too far. The first was a splash of something different in the MCU. Now it needs to step up. Did not do so.


date: 2017-07-01
category: Books
title: Black Panther: World of Wakanda
creator: Roxanne Gay
genre: Superhero
review:
The title is misleading. The Black Panther is a secondary figure in a story about the Dora Milaje. You can tell the writer is new to the medium, but she tells it well.


date: 2017-07-22
category: Books
title: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
creator: David Foster Wallace
genre: Shorts
review:
Dense. Very dense storytelling. Felt like eating at a wedding. Stuffing yourself so full that your tummy wants to fall off and life its own live. The stories are told in detail, which gives it a richness and realness that suggest the writer eavesdropped on real therapy sessions.


date: 2017-07-22
category: Books
title: New Avengers: Everything Dies
creator: Jonathan Hickman
genre: Superhero
review:
This is Black Panther the king, the diplomat, the maker of hard and harsh decisions. We see him here occupy that aloof position that makes him a different type in the Marvel universe. The philosopher king in black making dark decisions.


date: 2017-07-22
category: Books
title: Bad Feminist
creator: Roxanne Gay
genre: Shorts
review:
Not knowing the history of the author I was floored by that story. The one where she is raped. It is sensing the impending ugliness, without being fully aware. Words have a way of enveloping me in emotion and that story did. The depravity of rapemust not be an intellectual thing, but a fel thing - for everyone. I felt it.


date: 2017-07-22
category: Books
title: Kingdom Come
creator: Mark Waid and Alex Ross
genre: Superhero
review:
The old heroes revived in a future full of them. Brought back to police their children. I can see why this was a seminal work in the 90s. It holds up. The story asks questions that the superhero universe never quite approaches in mainstream stories.


date: 2017-10-05
category: Movies
title: Blade Runner 2049
creator: Denis Villeneuve
genre: Science Fiction
review:
Better than its predecessor. How many times can you say that? An achievement of style and substance. Goes from the cool blue ravaged future city to the warm orange of forgotten Las Vegas with an economy of pace and an assured manner. Raises the philosophical without neglecting the popcorn crowd.


date: 2017-10-14
category: Movies
title: Hunt for the Wilderpeople
creator: Taika Waititi
genre: Drama
review:
An innocent story that you feel is almost out of time. It could only work with pastoral New Zealand as a setting. Earnest, funny and rugged without losing its twinkle.


date: 2017-12-12
category: Books
title: Black Panther: Book 4
creator: Ta Nehisi-Coates
genre: Superhero
review:
The remarkable thing is a graphic novel about lost love and a strained relationship in a superhero setting. Somehow it comes off. Storm and the Panther working through what was and fighting the unknown. Nehisi is getting good at this.


date: 2017-12-24
category: Movies
title: Columbus
creator: Kogonada
genre: Drama
review:
A meditation on life set against the architecture of man. It's refreshing to have a film with a man and a woman who are not love interests. John Cho has a way of being so cool that he's almost not even there, just a mirage of a man. Present, not overbearing, but shimmering.


date: 2018-01-12
category: Books
title: The Romantic Movement
creator: Alain de Botton
genre: Novel
review:
The third of de Botton's romantic novels. And possibly the weakest. Dissections and theories about the minitiae of love that I have read before. Not the worst novel, but it is difficult to like the central character or her romantic partner. The only likeable caharacter is at the end - and guess what, he gets the selfish, insecure girl.


date: 2018-01-15
category: Books
title: Dinner At The Centre Of The Earth
creator: Nathan Englander
genre: Novel
review:
How many false starts have there been? The conflict of our times, our parents times and what looks like the next generations times. How do you tell a compelling story about something most of ous are tired of caring about. I have sometime thought that land showuld be cratered and forgotten, forgetting that there are people in this story. People who hurt and this telling of the stories love and betray across lines and between each other. It's a love story, a thriller, a spy tale - it is compelling. But as with all stories about that barren slab of land, it has no reslotion.


date: 2018-02-03
category: Books
title: The Golden House
creator: Salman Rushdie
genre: Novel
review:
A book with a half life of a year. So 'now' that it could not be understood fully except in these crazy times of reality presidents. The narrator peaking over and getting involved in the affairs of the Golden family, while Rushdie peeks over the narrator telling a story that hints at himself - how he sees himself and his Indian / NY conversion. Perhaps the first real account that helps me to see the world between genders. That world that we who accept the dichotomy do not know and barely understand.


date: 2018-02-04
category: Movies
title: Blue Ruin
creator: Jeremy Saulnier
genre: Drama
review:
Revenge is the ruin. Not sure why it is blue. Lex Talionis breaking down a man with each of his killings. An eye for the wrong eye. Kiling, kiling, killing. What's shocking is the realism of it all. We want him to kill and we are as responsible when he does - again and again. Beautifullt shot and Macon Blair is the core of the film's emotion (barely saying a pragraph's worth of script).


date: 2018-02-07
category: Books
title: Men Without Women
creator: Haruki Murakami
genre: Shorts
review:
Lonely and broken men abound in a series of stories about their quiet lives without women. I think the thesis here is that women are an essential part of man (a point driven home by a negative heart shaped space on the cover).


date: 2018-02-08
category: Movies
title: Thor: Ragnarok
creator: Taika Waititi
genre: Superhero
review:
It’s fun. Even funny. But it occupies that same slot that Gaurdians of the Galaxy owns in the Marvel Universe. With a more regal Black Panther on the horizon, this king seems immature – a child in a man’s role. Also it downplays what is essentially colonialism in the same way we do in the real world. The nine realms surely have to be acknowledged as suppressed kingdoms?


date: 2018-02-19
category: Books
title: Sapiens
creator: Yuval Noah Hariri
genre: History
review:
The breadth of knowledge it takes to trend map all of human history is astounding. Smart observations about the simple things that have separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Possibly the best argument for vegetarianism I have read. Manages to be macro without getting lost.


date: 2018-02-25
category: Movies
title: Eames - The Architect and the Painter
creator: Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey
genre: Documentary
review:
A worthwhile documentary on an enterprising couple. Tries to balance the man and the woman, but you do feel Ms. Eames is more a background player.


date: 2018-03-12
category: Books
title: Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs
creator: Henry Carroll
genre: Photography
review:
The first of a series of books on the neglected part of photography: having an eye (or two). Feels quite shallow at times, but it is difficult to make depth of something so there yet so hard to access.


date: 2018-03-21
category: Books
title: Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs of People
creator: Henry Carroll
genre: Photography
review:
I found this to be the best of the series. Perhaps because it deals with a weakness of my won – taking pictures of people. My last trip avoided all snaps of the people I met. Says something.


date: 2018-03-24
category: Movies
title: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
creator: Rian Johnson
genre: Science Fiction
review:
An unconventional storyline that revives the franchise. This is no black and white play, with a grey Sith lord and a light grey Jedi. The Jesus scene was well done. Makes it all worthwhile again.


date: 2018-04-15
category: Television
title: Counterpart Season 1
creator: Justin Marks
genre: Thriller
review:
The concept is not new. Fringe was similar – there are parallel worlds, we did something that hurt theirs, now they seek revenge. But the acting is a level above. The characters are round, real human beings. Their relationships are and motivations are grainy like life and JK Simmons is a revelation.


date: 2018-04-22
category: Movies
title: Dunkirk
creator: Christopher Nolan
genre: Action
review:
Comparable to Saving Private Ryan with fewer words, more atmosphere and a reluctance to acknowledge the part played by not-so white soldiers. The lead’s story is almost too remarkable, could have done with a co-lead to pick up the story along the way. Bought a lump to the throat in the final scenes.


date: 2018-04-28
category: Movies
title: Anti Matter
creator: Keir Burrows
genre: Science Fiction
review:
It takes commitment to follow the story, but well worth the wait. A scientific examination of the soul told with an unreliable, forgetful lead stumbling about trying to find themselves. The end is expected. I saw it coming, but still it gives you something to enjoy in its execution. Well acted and believable.


date: 2018-05-10
category: Television
title: Atlanta Season 2
creator: Donald Glover
genre: Dramedy
review:
There is a temptation, after a lauded season, to keep doing what you were doing. There is none of that here in the Robbin’ Season. Each episode a story worthy of examination. Some of it is not easy, but all of it is worthwhile. Especially the spooky episode with Jackson simulacrum rotting away in his mansion looking for some connection and seething with rage. All the characters are well motivated: Lottie is tired of raising a man child; Paper Boi needs a mature manager and Earn is drifting in the wind. The sage of the show still delivers in all his of his scenes. It’s his show, the rest just don’t know it.


date: 2018-07-01
category: Books
title: Black Panther: Book 5
creator: Ta Nehisi-Coates
genre: Superhero
review:
A strong end to the Klaw arc. Just a bit surprised by the ultimate villian, an unknown (to me). But the conclusion is on point, spiritual in feeling, strong in tactics.


date: 2018-08-16
category: Books
title: Homo Deus
creator: Yuval Noah Hariri
genre: History
review:
An astounding piece of scholarship and philosophy. Presents a stark future of human obsolescence. A bit scary to note all the forces moving us towards this future without a guiding hand, but a firm purpose. A bit of a heavy read in the initial chapters that are prophesy padding: this might happen or it might not, I’m just saying.


date: 2018-08-22
category: Books
title: Confessions Of The Lioness
creator: Mia Couto
genre: Novel
review:
African poetry as prose delivered by white guy who lives as an African. A story about the deep wounds suffered by women told in a way that cuts and surprises. The lioness is the hero rescuing women from the rape that comes with war. The men are sad, shallow characters until the end. A lot packed into vey few pages.


date: 2018-08-25
category: Books
title: The Lonely City
creator: Olivia Laing
genre: Essays
review:
The strength of this writing is in how raw and real it is: whether it is the Author admitting those awkward feelings around loneliness or the stories of her subjects laid bare – in ways they probably could not do themselves. Her study of the depressing first wave of AIDS in America is heartbreaking. A hollow decade of people dying without love or acceptance. She contextualises the outside hate and the inside battle of those who suffered. And then there is Henry Darger’s anonymous life, Warhol’s life in 3D (and not the shallow images most revert to) and a  range of unique human experiences centered around loneliness.


date: 2018-08-28
category: Books
title: Nabokov’s Favourite Word Is Mauve
creator: Ben Blatt
genre: Writing
review:
Interesting information, boring writing. Feels like it has been written by a statistician trying hard to love the words. It’s not helped by a scattershot approach. There is no overall thesis being built, just a series of meandering questions. Feels more like a a couple of stitched together blogs than a book, but the data itself. I am keen to apply some of these statistical analysis to my own writing. To fingerprint my style and see my tendencies.


date: 2018-09-09
category: Books
title: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
creator: Ken Liu
genre: Sci-Fi
review:
Astounding in range and depth. Each story is a universe capable of sustaining its own novel. What we get is a slice of imaginative future (and past) scenarios that could well end up blockbusters (a la Arrival). It would not be too much to say that Ken is the best of his class. As a historian the last (The Man Who Ended History) just floored me in its inventiveness and exploration of hostory as a lived experience.


date: 2018-09-10
category: Books
title: Rise of the Black Panther
creator: Ta Nehisi-Coates and Evan Narcisse
genre: Superhero
review:
Narcisse is a student of this mythology, so unsurprisingly he has a firm grasp on this origin story. My gripe is a lack of focus. We are thrown into a slalom of villian battles. Maybe focusing on detail and one villian may have made for a more dramatic story.


date: 2018-10-15
category: Movies
title: Day of Soldado
creator: Stefano Sollima
genre: Action
review:
Sicario was stellar, the followup is good. Some of the action feels fantastical and rah-rah. The central scene for me is with the deaf farmer and Alejandro. It is the emotional core of the story. The rest is battle scenes and grim men commiting violence. Special mention to the lead, a girl who captures the horror we as the audience should feel at this macabre playground of violence and drugs.


date: 2018-11-01
category: Movies
title: Sorry To Bother You
creator: Boots Riley
genre: Satirical
review:
I wanted to like it. I did. Starts off quirky, but socially aware and then goes bizarre. I think the implication is that figures like King and Mandela are frauds designed to keep black people compliant despite their resistance stance. Killer ending though.


date: 2018-11-28
category: Movies
title: Mr Turner
creator: Mike Leigh
genre: Biography
review:
Gruff. Like the man. It meanders, but does not feel like a meandering story. What it lacks is artistic exploration in depth. This is more the story of Turner the man, which is engaging. Warts and grunts all inclusive.


date: 2018-11-28
category: Movies
title: Salt of the Earth
creator: Wim Wenders and Julien Salgado
genre: Biography
review:
It starts as a documentary about a photography, but ends as one about a conservationist - nay a environmental revivalist. The middle bits are hard going, some of the things Salgado saw and photographed are hard viewing: Rwanda, genocide, famine. Deftly handled and delicately produced.


date: 2018-12-10
category: Movies
title: Akira
creator: Katsuhiro Otomo
genre: Anime
review:
The reputation of a classic can sometimes be a product of its time. Akira is one of those. Yes, it has an interesting unconventional story. But having been exposed to its descendants I struggle to put it up there. It feels like it's the post-War Japanese generations way of reconciling themselves with the nuclear bomb.  


date: 2019-01-07
category: Books
title: The Three-Body Problem
creator: Cixin Liu
genre: Sci-Fi
review:
Makes no bones about its hardcore science, but at the same time amnages to tell stories about people, their motivations and their development. The conspiracy is well unfolded alongside what seems like a distracting side-story, but is central to the plot. Can't lie, got a bit lost when he was explaining the two Proton world enveloping supercomputer at the end, but I enjoyed the rigor of it. I di not think I would be interested enough to commit to the trilogy, but now...


date: 2019-01-27
category: Television
title: Luther Season 5
creator: Neil Cross
genre: Crime
review:
I watched it to the end out of a sense of Lutheresque loyalty. It has become a parody, where nothing of consequence happens. A warning that quality eventually fades the more you hammer on the same themes. Each death just feels like a cheap trick to extend Luther's anguish, but it means nothing. Benny dies. Nothing. Random Luter partner dies. Nothing. Like that flop of a Superman movie it has overdone death, such that it has no impact on the viewer. Luther's personal life becomes the main focus to the detriment of 'you'know' that whole detective thing he does part time: catching broken white boys who are playing out twisted fantasies. Just not bielevable at all. They should have ended when Ripley died.


date: 2019-01-28
category: Books
title: Write to the Point
creator: Sam Leith
genre: Writing
review:
Were it an outift it would be an Armani suit: well-tailored, excellent fabric. The most stylish style guide I have read. Written with a mischevous grin and practical application. Felt rushed in the end with a grab bag of advise, but well worth the time. 


date: 2019-03-25
category: Books
title: Invisible Planets
creator: Ken Liu
genre: Sci-Fi
review:
Uneven stories. Some astounding visions of the future from Chinese science fiction, others perplexing stories about mutant rays. My favourite: Taking Care of Goc by Cixin Liu. This book was a struggle because my life was a struggle in these days.


date: 2019-04-13
category: Movies
title: Creed II
creator: Steven Caple Jr
genre: Sports
review:
Would it be cliché to say it packs a punch. Maybe, but the movie itself is a cliché. An effective one. The punches are heavy and so are the emotional punches. There is nothing subtle about it, but it works. Even when the size difference between Creed and Drago Jr's the story manages to follow the Rocky formula to a successful end: a tribute to the actors who can make the dull material work so well. They could have done more in sound design with his wife's condition and Drago Jr is an empty villain, not enough about his struggle - just a wantaway mother who servers little purpose.


date: 2019-04-21
category: Movies
title: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
creator: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman
genre: Superhero
review:
Brilliant. If not for Black Panther, it would have been the best comic book adaptation of the year. I have never enjoyed Spiderman - too jokey, too brash, too lightweight in the superhero stakes. A boy from Queens. But the Miles Morales Spiderman is rich, his vulnerability is so well enunciated and his hero's journey has weight. The music, the animation style, the pace - everything is right.


date: 2019-05-01
category: Movies
title: Avengers: Endgame
creator: Anthony and Joe Russo
genre: Superhero
review:
I came away feeling like I had watched an accomplishment. Not a cinematic one, but n organisational one. After 22 films here concludes the mighty MCU juggernaut. That this was possible is amazing. Helps you overlook the scratchy story, some plot holes and almost too many arcs. I will say they managed to make the big battle scene conclude well on the death of Tony Stark.


date: 2019-05-04
category: Movies
title: Glass
creator: M. Night Shymalan
genre: Superhero
review:
Shymalan does it different. The power levels are much lower than MCU, but the story is closer to reality. The iritating part of this is that in the last quarter of the last movie of the trilogy he introduces the 'villians'. No time to even know them, just hello and then goodbye.


date: 2019-05-31
category: Television
title: Game of Thrones Season 8
creator: David Beniof and D.B Weiss
genre: Fantasy
review:
I think the disappointment comes from the anticipation. This series was good, excellent even. The scene where the first King of the North, Rob, executes Carstark is so taut and tight with shivering grimness and is leagues beyond any of the FX-heavy scenes of this inconclusively ugly end.


date: 2019-06-01
category: Books
title: Black Panther: Book 6
creator: Ta Nehisi-Coates
genre: Superhero
review:
I had doubts. I really thought taking the story 'intergalactic' was going to weaken it, but what Coates has done is subvert the slavery narrative. Made a king a slave. Shaped the empire like the empires of the past feeding on Black bodies. Taken 'memory' and used it as an allegory condition of the African disapora. I should not have doubted.


date: 2019-06-23
category: Movies
title: First Man
creator: Damien Chazelle
genre: Biography
review:
A story that fits the man. Taciturn, almost nothing is extra. No exposition, just glances that explain a lot. And that is the way it should be. A more ambitious brand anme director may have been tempted to show their auteur and ruin the story. Really gets into the human costs of the Apollo program.


date: 2019-07-01
category: Television
title: Fleabag Season 1
creator: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
genre: Dramedy
review:
I didn't like anyone. All privileged unlikeable people, but funny. And human. The dialogue is snappy and smart. It's difficult to lurch from laughter to drama, but this one did it. Sometimes in the same scene.


date: 2019-07-03
category: Books
title: The Order of Time
creator: Carlo Rovelli
genre: Science
review:
A book of layers: complex logic and explanation, followed by poetic musings on the nature of time and the occasional anecdote. Even the most complex ideas were easy to grasp in the calm hands of Rovelli. Science long left philosophy, but this book shows they were never apart truly. 


date: 2019-07-15
category: Television
title: Fleabag Season 2
creator: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
genre: Dramedy
review:
To go out on a high like this is commendable. Many would be tempted into four or five seasons. This is top notch, especially the scene at the restaurant. The layers to it and the fallout are well dramatised.


date: 2019-07-19
category: Books
title: Utopia for Realists
creator: Rutger Bregman
genre: Economics
review:
Brugman is abrasive. But the right sort of rough character to speak truth to the powerful. I was convinced: income grants, shared work and open borders. It all makes the simplest sort of sense. The sort of sense that makes momney scared and Davos shake.


date: 2019-08-06
category: Books
title: The Overstory
creator: Richard Powers
genre: Novel
review:
It felt more than it thought around the issue of our race: the human race in a rush to to destroy everything for convenience and money. A strong environmentalist manifesto well told in nine interweaving stories over a century. Makes me want to hug a tree and see these magnificent creatures. It made me think of that mood that came over me when I went to see the World Tree in Vic Falls. Was I under the influence of that Baobab tree's magic. To quote: "The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story" and this one definitely is.


date: 2019-08-19
category: Movies
title: The Last Jedi
creator: Rian Johnson
genre: Science Fiction
review:
The Star Wars series is a mess. I was never a fan of the originals or the prequels. But this one dared to be different and was slammed for it. 


date: 2019-09-01
category: Books
title: Black Panther: Book 7
creator: Ta Nehisi-Coates
genre: Superhero
review:
The one thing that bothered me about the story's direction was the science. The how of creating an entire intergalactic empire. But this issue wraps that up nicely and launches into an intrspective restored T'challa.


date: 2019-09-24
category: Books
title: Algorithms to live by
creator: Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
genre: Science
review:
Thinking about thought and processes as a computer would shows that human decision making is actually efficient. The way they present emotions as a mechanism for changing the equilibrium for hum games is a cutting insight. I'll be reading this one to apply some of the strategies in my personal life.


date: 2019-12-04
category: Movies
title: Ad Astra
creator: James Gray
genre: Science Fiction
review:
I watched this on a plane back from Europe. The story felt thin. Lots of pensive moments, Pitt broods and the plot moves. I can't see it was good, but it was not a waste of time. The music elevates it beyond the thin plot.


date: 2019-12-05
category: Movies
title: Apollo 11
creator: Todd Douglas Miller
genre: Documentary
review:
The story of mankind told truthfully with just footage expertly stitched together. I had a lump in my throat at the end at my ducts were ready to go. The truth is the best story you can tell and this is it.


date: 2019-12-20
category: Movies
title: Free Solo
creator: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
genre: Documentary
review:
Has there ever been a riskier undertaking for a documentary. Where the lead can die on camera and poof all that work is gone. It's not so much the act that defies understanding, but the person. Normal. Within three-sigma of your average climber, but then he climbs El Capitan without ropes. It's watching a binary mind assess that risk and say 'ok, let's do it'.


date: 2020-01-07
category: Books
title: Kaddish.com
creator: Nathan Englander
genre: Novel
review:
Orthodoxy is hard to imagine for an agnostic like me. But this book gives some insight into how belief can totally take over your life. A man goes from modern to Jewish Orthodoxy and finds peace. Maybe, that's what it is. Peace. Funny and sad in parts.


date: 2020-01-14
category: Books
title: Bird by Bird
creator: Anne Lamott
genre: Writing
review:
Not much in the way of solid advice for writers, but it does well to frame the writing life. What it means for a writer and how to inhabit the title wothout feeling like a fraud. She's an exuburent, exciting writer. Makes me feel less self-conscious about some of my own overflowing prose.


date: 2020-01-21
category: Books
title: Exhalation
creator: Ted Chiang
genre: Sci-Fi
review:
So, ya. What a letdown. After all these years waiting to read The Lifecycle of Software Objects and then it's a story about 3D Tamagotchis. Nothing hit right in these stories. Maybe the ones about time, but ya, disappointing.


date: 2020-01-28
category: Books
title: Reinventing Comics
creator: Scott McCloud
genre: Superhero
review:
The difference with the third of the McCloud trilogy is that it deals with the practicalities of creative business. Not as eye-opening as the first, but a necessary coda to an amazing series. The tech references are dated, but still speaks truth.


date: 2020-02-18
category: Books
title: Black Panther: Book 8
creator: Ta Nehisi-Coates
genre: Superhero
review:
It's come full circle and you feel like this story is moving into wish-fulfillment. It's so rare that you get that in media when it's not for a white male so let's see where it goes with the Black Panther against his own empire.


date: 2020-02-20
category: Television
title: Mr Robot Season 4
creator: Sam Esmail
genre: Thriller
review:
It gets frenzied, but my god what a conclusion. The episode where Eliot finally confronts the truth of his father molesting him is grand television. Everything after just felt less. And the finale left me unfulfilled with Whiterose just not living up to his potential. Yes, Eliot defeats his controlling alter-ego (the Mastermind), but what of Whiterose's grand machine. A bluff?


date: 2020-03-15
category: Books
title: Less
creator: Andrew Sean Greer
genre: Novel
review:
An oddball story with a timid out-of-place Arthur Less. To be an outsider in a gay world that doesn't quite fit him. A writer struggling to love his work (sound familiar?) running across the globe. I really liked the instagram account they created with mementos from Arthur's travels and experiences. A nice light read.


date: 2020-03-20
category: Movies
title: 1917
creator: Sam Mendes
genre: Action
review:
It hits you. An impactful war epic much like Dunkirk. Very much like Dunkirk. I'm a bit tired of the mythologising of WWII, but I'll allow this one on merit.


date: 2020-03-27
category: Movies
title: Knives Out
creator: Rian Johnson
genre: Mystery
review:
Murder mysteries seem outdated after years of CSI, but this one is fun and funny and as an allegory for white America losing control of America (to Latinos) it is enjoyable. Twists and turns without losing itself, but ends on a note that many people will not pick up. The very people who watched this are losing their political power in the house.


date: 2020-04-01
category: Movies
title: Loving Vincent
creator: Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman
genre: Documentary
review:
The animation style makes each frame feel so vibrant and alive. And telling the story of Van Gogh's final days gives us a view of a life in service of one thing hamstrung by the same mind. The accents were not French, which was offputting - but the rest, well developed. You know the end, but the stuffing of it is the joy.


date: 2020-04-05
category: Books
title: All The Light We Cannot See
creator: Anthony Doerr
genre: Novel
review:
A struggle to 100 pages and then I put it away. But when I came back the story bloomed in front of me. There's hostory and then there is lived history and this story so perfectly encapsulates the latter. You feel the times, you are forgiving of a boy caught in the Nazi machine, the blind girl in exile on the coast and the ordinary people who suffered the war in Germany and elsewhere. Touching to the last page in the present.


date: 2020-04-12
category: Books
title: Trick Mirror
creator: Jia Tolentino
genre: Essays
review:
I've read about as much of this I can. Parts of it inspire jealously (she's so young and talented, my age). Her dissection of the Lulemon world, Houston church and hip-hop and the invertion of Trump feminism is cutting. But, but some of it I found on and on and it lost me eventually.


date: 2020-04-18
category: Television
title: Devs Season 1
creator: Alex Garland
genre: Science Fiction
review:
Almost had me. The god-like tech CEO creating multiple realities to remake his past. It just lost it at the last moment: why did Lily make a different choice? After all that about a deterministic universe we get no answer on how she did it. And why? The resolution is rescued by the man in the corridor making a decision to keep the timeline on track. Not satisfying.


date: 2020-04-30
category: Movies
title: If Beale Street Could Talk
creator: Barry Jenkins
genre: Romantic
review:
A beautiful series of lingering gazes and longing shots which are a staple of Jenkins' style that make this so easy to fall into. It also makes the lows really low. Not your happy go-lucky romance where love conquers, but maybe life-is-tough but love still conquers all. Stephan Adams is a charismatic lead. Every scene occupied by a beautiful strand between the leads.


date: 2020-05-01
category: Books
title: A Game of Chess and Other Stories
creator: Stefan Zweig
genre: Shorts
review:
I only really enjoyed the titular story. The others are well written, but just didn't strike me as great. A Game of Chess is about that crazy 24/7 chess feeling that I've had in small servings. I really got the mystery players obsession. That point when you dream about positions and pieces.


date: 2020-05-03
category: Television
title: Westworld Season 3
creator: Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy
genre: Science Fiction
review:
It got technical. I like the idea of introducing a controlled society. Manipulated through data. Owned by a machine. It felt like the season was more about where humanity is headed and the hosts took a backseat. Interesting ideas. Hated the music episode, felt contrived.


date: 2020-05-16
category: Movies
title: Ruben Brandt, Art Collector
creator: Milorad Krstic
genre: Animated
review:
Mental illness is difficult to film, but this deftly put together animation does that with panache and style. Clearly a labour of love and the work of someone who appreciates the art and the struggles of an unstable mind. When the character stares at his reflection we are with him and his alter-ego on the train to somewhere better.


date: 2020-05-20
category: Movies
title: Bad Boys For Life
creator: Adil & Bilall
genre: Action
review:
Didn't expect much, got more than I asked for. Lots of fun amidst explosions and hard cop stares. If you forgive the rustiness of the plot it's exactly what the genre does the best. Two dudes having fun, shooting guns and having a midlife crises.


date: 2020-05-25
category: Movies
title: In The Mood for Love
creator: Wong Kar-wai
genre: Romantic
review:
What we might have been to each other. A film of missed timings, suppressed desires, long gazes and realistic endings. The trick is how mundane everything is, nothing is magical - but the story. It could and does happen to many of us, but Kar-wai manages to give it poignancy.


date: 2020-06-01
category: Books
title: What it means when a man falls from the sky
creator: Lesley Nneka Arimah
genre: Shorts
review:
I dipped into stories and bailed out of others. The perspectives here are forcefully African. Stories from the Nigeria and the diaspora. Where it lost me was in the familiar casting of them all. Similar women in African tales.


date: 2020-08-07
category: Movies
title: The Old Guard
creator: Gina Prince-Bythewood
genre: Action
review:
It's an interesting premise, but comes across with a heavy saviour complex. And begs the question, immortals would be able to accumulate massive wealth and power. Why not control the fate of humanity that way instead of craven violence.


date: 2020-08-10
category: Books
title: Happiness by Design
creator: Paul Dolan
genre: Psychology
review:
A straight forward map of what the research shows about happiness. A lot of it is obvious, but it's the reasoning behind it that sets apart this book. The cntral premise of the purpose-pleasure dynamic allows Dolan to avoid the philosophy of happines, which tends to end up vague.


date: 2020-08-14
category: Movies
title: Palm Springs
creator: Max Barbakow
genre: Romantic
review:
A millenial refit of Groundhog Day that is just a ray of optimism. Happy go lucky and lucky gets happy seems to be the message. Engaging leads. Contrasting leads that blend well. The rift was a little shallow (so what he had sex with her before?), but an enjoyable time.


date: 2020-08-22
category: Movies
title: The Gentlemen
creator: Guy Ritchie
genre: Action
review:
Hmm, slick, yes, prejudiced, super yes. We are sold this hierarchy of crime: with innocent white crime (weed dealing) and the minor foibles of white aristocracy at the bottom and the evil Jew the villian. Distasteful when the villian is asked for a literal pound of flesh. Subtle much?


date: 2020-10-01
category: Television
title: Raised By Wolves Season 1
creator: Aaron Guzikowski
genre: Science Fiction
review:
What the fuck!? Spend hours building a wrold of characters and then fuck it up in the last episode with dumb decisions. Nope out immediately.


date: 2020-11-03
category: Books
title: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
creator: Ocean Vuong
genre: Novel
review:
I could tell this was written by a natural poet. As the book went on, memories and thorughst fragmented into stanzas of fleeting emotions and scenes. The packed paragraphed prose of the early pages gave way to peotically written scenes (sometimes difficult to parse). A mother's son's tale told as a letter of remembrance. Personal, powerful, poetic. 


date: 2025-01-04
category: Movies
title: Deadpool & Wolverine
creator: Shawn Lewy
genre: Superhero
review:
Even a self aware formula is still a formula. Felt like it had no consequence with all the timeline magic. Paper thin characters and cameos all round.


date: 2025-01-04
category: Television
title: Ripley Season 1
creator: Steven Zailian
genre: Thriller
review:
The shot selection is amazing. Atrani is beautiful (I need to visit!). The failure is with me here: I can't find it in me to relate to the sociopath. Ripley makes my skin crawl and I could not finish it, which speaks to how well Andrew Scott wears the predator skin.


date: 2024-11-02
category: Movies
title: Monkey Man
creator: Dev Patel
genre: Action
review:
Infuses the revenge tale with so many layers and heart. The pain feels palpable and the politics all too real. The grist of repressive regimes, the lives crushed - we get to see the hero win, unlike in live.


date: 2019-08-17
category: Movies
title: Baby Driver
creator: Edgar Wright
genre: Crime
review:
Fun and fluffy crime caper. Lifted by the soundtrack, which is the main character's gimmick, and a great cast.


date: 2023-02-01
category: Movies
title: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
creator: Ryan Coogler
genre: Superhero
review:
The last mournful scene rescued something for me. Until then it was too long and convoluted. The final battle scene and Ironheart were not doing it for me.


date: 2020-11-30
category: Television
title: Chasing the Sun 2019
creator: James Cook, Greg Lomas, and Gareth Whittaker
genre: Sports
review:
Just the first episode made me cry. Beyond sports, even if it is entirely about how the Springboks won the World Cup.


date: 2024-03-03
category: Movies
title: Dune: Part Two
creator: Denis Villeneuve
genre: Science Fiction
review:
It's a ludicrous stoy, excpet when Denis handles it. I don;t get enough of the misleading Messiah tone of the books. Maybe that will come later. Exemplary costume design.


date: 2024-09-08
category: Movies
title: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
creator: George Miller
genre: Action
review:
It's a bleak and barren procession of violence and villanious men. Deserved better at the box office.


date: 2022-12-19
category: Movies
title: Nope
creator: Jordan Peele
genre: Thriller
review:
I normally do not enjoy horror, but this one is different. It's difficult to maintain that tightrope terror of an unknown menace for the length of a movie, but Peele does it here. The horror is in the lives lived in the shadow of the 'thing' and not the the thing itself until the last act.


date: 2024-03-02
category: Movies
title: Oba
creator: Femi Oladigbolu
genre: Shorts
review:
Says a lot in a short 11 minutes. Magical and measured in how much it does with the limited time. The actor's face does a lot too.


date: 2021-04-07
category: Movies
title: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
creator: Céline Sciamma
genre: Romance
review:
A beautiful surprise! So assured, so sensual and present. The soft focus, the rich colours, and the glances. A painting is the centrepiece of the story, but the whole thing is art.


date: 2024-10-01
category: Movies
title: Rebel Ridge
creator: Jeremy Saulnier
genre: Action
review:
Aaron Pierre has the presence for this genre. Not loud, but there in his glare. Ordinary racism and corruption keeps this small scale action all too believable and real.


date: 2023-08-17
category: Movies
title: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
creator: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin Thompson
genre: Superhero
review:
They topped the first one. The music. Amazing! The script. Amazing! The voice acting. Amazing! The plot. Amazing! Somehow the material feels new. Miles Morales is my Spiderman.


date: 2024-02-08
category: Movies
title: The Circle
creator: Evgenii Bakirov
genre: Shorts
review:
A metadocumentary ostensibly about a VR-created tattoo. It bristles with art styles, pulsating music, and movement.


date: 2021-12-25
category: Movies
title: The French Dispatch
creator: Wes Anderson
genre: Drama
review:
A magazine of stories. An ode to the well written foreign dispatch. His style, but also his cast make this some of his best work.


date: 2022-12-20
category: Movies
title: The Green Knight
creator: David Lowery
genre: Fantasy
review:
The texture of this film made me want to reach out and touch the screen. It defies the expected Hollywood storytelling formula: a man accepts a challenge and meets it - despite what that means for him. Patel is a willow of a knight, shaking and quivering until he meets his fate head on (off?).


date: 2024-04-08
category: Movies
title: The Holdovers
creator: Alexander Payne
genre: Drama
review:
This happened to me: left at a boarding school over the holidays. Captures the wood and character of teachers of that type of institution. Their former lives, what they wanted to be, how they farm the next generation. My viewing of it was interrupted by a relationship.


date: 2023-01-10
category: Movies
title: The Menu
creator: Mark Mylod
genre: Thriller
review:
It oozes: food, blood, gore. Like a high definition pimple. Fiennes is terrifying as a priest of vengeance and head cook.


date: 2022-01-16
category: Movies
title: The Tragedy of MacBeth
creator: Joel Coen
genre: Drama
review:
Like the halfway point between film and theatre. Theatrical performances on black-and-white. Makes me want to see more theatre.


date: 2024-04-29
category: Movies
title: They Cloned Tyrone
creator: Juel Taylor
genre: Science Fiction
review:
The question is: what do you do as the oppressed in an oppressive society. Play respectability politics or play the militant. The answer is apparently cloning.


date: 2022-12-19
category: Movies
title: Triangle of Sadness
creator: Ruben Östlund
genre: Comedy
review:
A world turned upside down: the character of the Global South holding power and violence in her hand, while the Westerners cower and cry. The vomiting scene is amazingly funny to me.


date: 2020-10-05
category: Books
title: The Dark Forest
creator: Cixin Liu
genre: Science Fiction
review:
Maybe I'll pick it up again. It was not the right fit for the time of my life. Seemed to be building up, but I lacked patience.


date: 2021-08-31
category: Books
title: Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire Book 9
creator: Ta Nehisi-Coates
genre: Superhero
review:
The whole series is so impactful: the king as a slave to frame the historical opposite. It's too smart for a comic book, yet still has the pow wow of the medium.


date: 2022-09-27
category: Books
title: Escape into Meaning
creator: Evan Puschak
genre: Essays
review:
He has a formula that works best for video essays. The essays are engaging, but some feel forced: the anecdote stretched.


date: 2023-06-30
category: Books
title: Black Panther: All This and The World Too Volume 3
creator: John Ridley
genre: Superhero
review:
This series felt like a come down after Intergalactic Empire. The story has the bones, but not the meat. A king exiled could have been better.


date: 2023-08-08
category: Books
title: The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
creator: Ken Liu
genre: Shorts
review:
From terrific highs this is just above average. Still has a way of raising Science Fiction to the Dramatic. It's about people, not technology.


date: 2024-07-01
category: Books
title: Tales of Wakanda
creator: Addison, Broaddus, and Chambers
genre: Shorts
review:
Some great shorts here that defy the idea that comics have too little literary to offer. I could imagine a whole franchise of stories (and so can Disney, probably).


date: 2024-09-28
category: Books
title: Shark Heart
creator: Emily Habeck
genre: Novel
review:
It's a stretch of a premise: people mutating into animals. But the characters have depth that makes you forget the premise and respond to the person. It's about letting go, about loving when it's futile.


date: 2024-01-27
category: Books
title: This is How You Lose the Time War
creator: Amar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
genre: Novel
review:
I don't know how. I'm bothered by the how of it as I marvel at it. The beauty of two minds shaped into one seamless story. I thought I would tire of the back and forth or the inevitable unending end, but no - it's a beauty of letter writing. From one to another, from Red to Blue, from the writers to me.


date: 2006-01-25
category: Books
title: Jonathan Livingstone Seagull
creator: Richard Bach
genre: Novel
review:
A book in the mould of 'The Alchemist', but far less effective at delivering its deep spiritual message. Whereas in 'The Alchemist' the story was as interesting as the message, the story of this book seems to be contrived and bland. Good message, but not good enough story.


date: 2025-01-11
category: Books
title: How To Stop Time
creator: Matt Haig
genre: Novel
review:
The premise reminds me of the film 'Man from Earth': an almost immortal man drifting through time. I think we can't escape the cage of our short lives, as much as the author tries. A four century-old view that feels very Mayfly to borrow the term used for us normal people. He imagines broadly and the story is well told between time periods, but a part of me thinks this is ant's view of a life long lived.


date: 2021-02-05
category: Movies
title: Malcolm & Marie
creator: Sam Levinson
genre: Romance
review:
The actors did an amazing job, but the script is a white guy writing black words. It's trying too hard to mine the black relationship experience.


date: 2025-01-28
category: Books
title: Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent
creator: Jean-Claude Ellena
genre: Non-fiction
review:
Am easy read, but felt lightweight. Like I was missing chapters. Starts with the magic and ends with hard industry facts, without some of the secret sauce.


date: 2025-02-06
category: Movies
title: The Brutalist
creator: Brady Corbet
genre: Drama
review:
A wonderfully expansive film about the immigrant experience. From the joy of arrival, to the poverty that greets, to being the constant outsider, to the predations of natives, and the change that the passage imbues in you. Some rough scenes and low points, but so deftly put together that you barely notice the 215 minutes. Not a fan of the Israel stuff, but I get where it fits into the story.


date: 2025-02-09
category: Books
title: Everbody
creator: Olivia Laing
genre: Non-fiction
review:
It sinks into the body slowly. But when it did it was exhilirating. A book about bodies that exhilirated the body. Scared me too, some passages about the creep of facism recall our current time. I wish she wrote more the midwest artist who lived alone. The author sounds tired and defeated. There is a heavy realism to the beautiful protest. I felt like the arc of progress is broken by the end of the book.


