My Cultural Diet

Zindell continues to fascinate and frustrate. His prose can be compelling and even strikingly beautiful in its description of a far-distant spacefaring future. But it’s also ponderous and long-winded, with segues and side quests that are a slog (and could’ve used an editor’s red pen). I’m glad to be reading this trilogy, but I’ll be glad to be done with it.

I’m not sure I enjoyed this as much as the first Enola Holmes movie. The constant breaking of the 4th wall — which happens in the first movie, too — grated on me, and felt like the movie was trying too hard to be clever. Still, I enjoy the rapport between Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill. The “fight the power” message is a bit on-the-nose for a production by a multi-billion dollar company, but it’s not an unwelcome sentiment in this day when the ultra-rich keep getting richer.

I still enjoy Lower Decks’ poking fun of Star Trek tropes, but this season didn’t click for me as much the previous one did. Perhaps the constant references and throwbacks are wearing a bit thin now. Hopefully, they can inject some fresh life into the series for the already-announced fourth season.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is ultra-stylish and ultra-graphic — much like Love, Death & Robots, it’s definitely not safe for kids — with some truly stunning animated action. (Kudos to Studio Trigger.) It occasionally wrestles with some deeper themes re. technology’s impact on humanity, but Ghost in the Shell it most certainly is not. Sometimes it feels like an edgy tragedy thanks to its melancholy tone, while other times, it’s all about the nihilistic excess. Your mileage will most definitely vary.

I wanted to like this more than I actually did. The story — based on Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s comic — was interesting and the young cast was game enough, but this is one of those cases where the various pieces just didn’t click. Also, don’t believe any Stranger Things comparisons; aside from being (partially) set in ’80s, Paper Girls has little-to-nothing in common with the Netflix series. There was a lot of potential here that will sadly be unrealized since Amazon canceled the series.

I didn’t like this as much as the first season. I like fantastical world building, but it felt like they crammed in way too much into this season. As a result, everything felt rushed and half-baked. But there’s still enough that I like that I’m looking forward to season three.

Like Andy Weir (Project Hail Mary, The Martian), Blake Crouch writes sci-fi that’s intellectually stimulating thanks to the science involved, but at the same time, real page-turners. (I think I read Upgrade in two days, total.) That said, Upgrade may have been too much of a page-turner; it felt perfunctory given the heady topic involved (genetic engineering). As for the ending, I get why Crouch wanted to end the novel on an optimistic note, but it rang a bit false and left a bad taste in my mouth.

The interviews with Woodstock ‘99’s staff, promoters, artists, and attendees as they reflect on the festival’s disastrous end are equal parts fascinating and infuriating, and a showcase of naïveté, incompetence, and greed. It’s all further proof that when art and capitalism meet, it’s often to art’s detriment. Unfortunately, Trainwreck stumbles in its coverage of the sexual assaults that occurred at the festival; the clips of half-naked women getting groped and mobbed by men were no doubt included to highlight the reality of the problem, but they end up feeling gratuitous and exploitative.

Blackout is billed as a “gripping WW2 thriller,” but while I enjoyed it well enough and found its Nazi Germany setting interesting, I wouldn’t exactly call it “gripping.” It moves at a brisk pace but I was never on the edge of my seat. What’s more, the protagonist’s angst — to be fair, he’s in a pretty unenviable position — and stricken conscience both become rather on-the-nose by the novel’s final act.

This Netflix original is nothing mind-blowing, nor does it approach Pixar’s heights, but it’s still pretty entertaining in its own right (especially John Cho as the voice of the titular dragon). There are definitely worse things to watch on a family movie night.

Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion is one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time. This novella is set in the same world, though a century earlier. It’s a nice return to the World of the Five Gods, but does pale in comparison to Bujold’s novels set in that mythical world.

When is a Godzilla title not a Godzilla title? When it’s Godzilla Singular Point. Sure, there are plenty of kaiju and even a version of Jet Jaguar, but it’s bogged down with technobabble about ancient prophecies, extra-dimensional lifeforms, time-bending supercomputers, and something called an “Orthogonal Diagonalyzer.” I guess I want more spectacle from a Godzilla title, and less labyrinthian, Evangelion-esque mythology.

I liked the film’s concept and the first half is filled with delights not too dissimilar from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Unfortunately, the script feels unfinished. Several story points just end and aren’t explored to a satisfying degree despite being presented as really significant. As such, the film founders about halfway through. I did appreciate its underlying anti-elite message; I just wish more had been done with it.

I’m pretty sure that if I’d seen this back in high school, when I was discovering anime, it would’ve blown me away and seemed really radical and subversive. As it stands, it’s a decent hard sci-fi film with a dystopic bent and some bizarre mecha designs, though the mid ’80s animation and gratuitous content haven’t aged too well.

I’ve always found classic serials from ’30s and ’40s fascinating. This one’s a bit less exciting than its premise — a hotshot pilot must protect an anti-gravity device from smugglers — might otherwise suggest, but it has the requisite damsels in distress and ridiculous cliffhangers. That being said, the real aerial stunts are pretty cool to watch.

I wanted to like this way more than I did, but I could never figure out the tone. Was it a black comedy like Four Lions, a parody of spy thrillers, or a spy thriller in its own right? Not that it couldn’t be a mix of those, of course, but not knowing how to react to, say, Gary Oldman’s scene-chewing was frustrating.

I watched the original Rescue Rangers quite a bit as a kid, so I suppose I was the target audience for this modern spin. Its barrage of post-modern pastiches, pop culture references, and self-referential humor were, by turns, amusing and annoying. But mostly amusing.

I mainly watched this because it’s from the director and star of Netflix’s Lupin, which we really enjoyed last year. As a buddy cop movie, The Takedown has its moments, but it really just made me want the third season of Lupin to get here even sooner.

Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham are a pretty strong combo, but this felt like it was trying to be a lot moodier and more intense than it actually was.