I don’t want to criticize this book too harshly. It’s well-written and readable, and my wife really loved it and got a lot out of it.
The author’s main argument can be summed up as: “Work sucks sometimes, but you are not your job, so don’t take it personally.” Each chapter is a mini-profile of someone who has experienced the suckage of work, and how they have learned the lesson that they shouldn’t have felt so bad about it, and that they should focus on what really matters.
But the things that suck about work still suck, whether you take it personally or not. It’s easy in hindsight to make the case that you should detach from the job, but it’s not so easy when it’s happening to you. I found myself wishing for justice from the employers who caused the suckage, but I suppose that would be another type of book.
Reservation Dogs appeared recently on The Hollywood Reporter’s list of top TV shows of the 21st century, pretty high up there. Not that these rankings mean a whole lot, but this show deserves any critical praise it gets. Equal parts hilarious and touching, and ultimately hopeful without shying away from the injustices that Indigenous people have faced… just watch it.
The premise and setup of this thriller drew me in. A family is home-invaded by twisted doppelgängers, monstrous versions of themselves. Cool idea, but unfortunately, the extended middle section of the movie doesn’t do much with the idea. It’s mostly generic chases and fights, and their attackers could have been anyone. The action scenes are well done and I felt the tension, but ultimately I was disappointed because the concept isn’t fully developed. The only explanation comes in the form of a long villain monologue… I wish it had been integrated into the story instead.
My main takeaway from this book is to try to see social issues in terms of insecurity instead of inequality. It’s easy to blame inequality on greedy wealthy people, which amplifies the divisions between people, whereas insecurity is a function of the capitalist system, and affects everyone. The reason that greed is such a powerful force is because everyone is afraid is losing it all, no matter how much they have.
I’m not sure if the book really sticks to this idea, though. We get the historical background of the origins of capitalism, which is a story about barons and commoners, which brings us back around the division between haves and have-nots all over again.
While I appreciated the historical and especially the Canadian context in this book, it felt overall like preaching to the choir. (I’m already quite the socialist.) It’s also written in a somewhat academic style, which made it increasingly skimmable towards the end.
I think this movie is much funnier than I felt it was on the first viewing. Julianne Moore plays Gracie, a woman who committed statutory rape, was imprisoned for it, and then ended up in a long-term and seemingly happy marriage with the much younger man. Natalie Portman plays an actress who will play Gracie in a movie, and is embedding herself in Gracie and her family’s life for the sake of research.
The subject matter is so uncomfortable and awkward that I was probably too tense to laugh. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not supposed to be a comedy, and the characters go through some painful realizations. But the fact that I chuckled on more than one occasion is a credit to the strength of the dark humour. I look forward to rewatching this in the future.
This comedic documentary just wrapped up its third and final season. It’s worth catching up with it for its truly unique format: the entire thing is made from first-person footage of random things happening in New York City, with intentionally awkward narration by Wilson. Every episode ostensibly has an educational topic, e.g. “How To Clean Your Ears”, but it inevitably veers off on some unexpected tangent. It’s not a laugh-out-loud kind of comedy, at least not for me, but I was always charmed by his worldview. It’s also suspenseful in a way because we don’t know what type of odd real-life characters he’ll meet next.
Things that are spirals in Uzumaki (lit. “Spiral”): dust devils, tongues, snails, water draining from bathtub, smoke, people who have turned into snails, people in general, hair, a hurricane, growths from a skin condition, staircases, etc.
This horror manga series was not the most narratively satisfying, but works great as a creative exploration of the visual motif of a spiral. So much in nature takes the form of spirals, so there’s nothing inherently scary about the shape, but when it invades and twists human bodies, the result is effectively stomach-churning.
I’m not going to pretend I know anything about the publishing industry, but I like to imagine myself as an author, and so as I read this book, I found myself constantly feeling indignant about the pressures and injustices that the industry puts artists through. I credit Kuang for making an outsider feel like an insider.
For the first time, I’m revisiting and writing about a film that I’ve previously reviewed. It’s enlightening to see how my tastes have changed since over a decade ago.
My earlier rave was not completely misplaced… I still agree with myself that the strengths of the film lie in its poetic style and rhythm. However, I see in my past self a style-over-substance attitude that maybe I’ve outgrown?
Most notably, I’ve come to take more seriously any story about trauma and mental illness. I’m not above enjoying thrillers or horror or action films that deal with revenge, but I think that the style needs to be heightened enough for it to feel fantastical, e.g. John Wick or Kill Bill (although it’s been a long time since I’ve watched the latter).
I had trouble swallowing Confessions this time around because its style is melancholic and realistic. Genre films like action movies or murder mysteries can skip over the trauma of death in favour of plot; but when the trauma is the plot, it carries much more weight. Are we really supposed to revel in the mental torture of children by an adult?
I’m a sucker for long, meandering sentences as a stylistic flourish, and this book contains plenty of those. Mohsin Hamid maybe overdoes it with this technique, but I’m cool with it.
(Spoilers follow)
I think the book can be divided roughly into two halves. The first is a realistic look at life in an unnamed city as it falls under civil war. I guess it’s meant to evoke Syria but there may be further references beyond my ken. I found myself missing the specificity of time and place, and was carried through mainly by the romance between the main characters.
The second half kind of explains the vagueness of the first. Forced to flee their home, the couple travels through “doors,” literal portals that lead to other parts of the world. Unlike their origin, their destinations are named: Mykonos, London, Marin. They find themselves living amongst other refugees from all over the world.
The book rolls to a heartbreaking end as the relationship of the couple deteriorates under the pressure that all of the refugees face as a group. Despite their diverse backgrounds, the citizens of the West just see them as a single mass of unwelcome intruders. Their city was unnamed, because their identity is irrelevant to their opponents: it doesn’t matter where they came from.
