Quick Reviews: January

When I sat down to do my 2022 Best Of lists, I had a hard time remembering what I really liked vs. what I just consumed and didn’t hate. My aversion to ranking things (letter grades or stars or whatever) doesn’t help here either. So I figured I’d channel my days as a book reviewer, where the whole initial premise of the site was basically: reviews you can read in a minute. The elevator pitch of a media review. Think, like, five sentences or less.

So we’re going to try that this year, since I turned out to really like my 2022 experiment of “actually engaging with more media instead of just doomscrolling and looking at Tumblr”.

My effort to become A Movie Person — not, like, a serious movie person, but just a person who makes it a point to see movies — last year was a success and I’ve actually been pretty excited about adding movies to my To Watch list, trying to catch up for the times where the only things I saw in theaters were the big blockbusters. (You can also find me on Letterboxd or Trakt now!) So I want to keep on doing that.

And I finally ended a 10+ year-long standoff with the Chicago Public Library over fines they said I owed for books they said I lost, which I did not lose, I returned and they never checked them back in; I refused to pay the fines out of principle, but changes in computer systems plus a general fine amnesty meant that last time I popped in a library to just, you know, see what I needed to do to get my card back, turned out all I had to do was fill out a new application.

Anyway, despite owning hundreds of books that I haven’t ready, I’ve been rapidly accumulating a “to read” list at the library. Turns out putting books on hold gives me the same brain juice rush that I get from online shopping, only this is free. (Also: the library has movies! I’m really killing two birds with one stone here.)

So I’m thinking I’ll do little monthly wrap-ups of what I’ve been watching/reading, or anything else notable that happens.

Let’s go.

Movies

1. Legend: The 80s were a weird time for fantasy movies and it’s probably a good thing I didn’t see this as a kid, because there was Too Much there that I could have imprinted on. 20-something Tom Cruise as a twinky forest elf creature would have wreaked havoc on my young brain.

2. Bones and All: Honestly bless David Kajganich (you may know him from writing the Suspiria remake, or the absolutely amazing first season of The Terror) for including frantic “please partake of my body” scenes in his work; doing the lord’s work for altruistic cannibalism here. He and Luca Guadagnino could spend the rest of their careers making weirdly atmospheric movies and I’d be okay with it.

3. Broker: Charming and moving story with a strong found family aspect. I don’t know enough about South Korean culture to know what kind of message this movie was trying to tell about abortion/adoption/parenting/motherhood, but the cast is very very good and features one of the only non-annoying performances by a child that I’ve seen recently.

4. Edge of Tomorrow: The fact that I am only now seeing this movie in the year 2023 is a crime. Emily Blunt’s muscles get five stars. Tom Cruise playing a guy who actually sucks at his job gets five stars. I understand that Tom Cruise is busy like riding motorcycles off of cliffs and shit but can he take a break so they can figure out a sequel to this?

5. Knives Out: I welcome the start of the Benoit Blanc Cinematic Universe.

6. X: wtf wtf wtf wtf (I had already spoiled myself on Wikipedia a while ago but still: wtf wtf wtf) (those are Good wtfs, I genuinely enjoyed this)

7. The Visit: Featuring lots of jump scares, incredibly obnoxious teen/tween protagonists, and a standard M. Night Shyamalan twist. Entertaining but also I wanted the tweens to get eaten.

8. Top Gun: Still painfully 80s, but the parallels between the original and TG:Maverick are very well done. I didn’t realize until this viewing that the whole “if you fly long enough, you’re going to lose someone” speech that Maverick gives Rooster in TG:M is nearly word for word the speech he gets after Goose dies, and now I want to just walk into the ocean.

9. Puss in Boots (2011): For being an orange cat, Puss in Boots is shockingly competent.

10. The Green Knight: Visually striking, and not just because Dev Patel is a beautiful human.

11. Only the Brave: I expected this to be another Rah Rah America!! type story, but instead it was a heart-wrenching true life story of a group of wildfire fighters in Arizona. A bit clunky in places but you get great performances from Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, and Josh Brolin.

12. Infinity Pool: Alexander Skarsgard and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Several days after seeing this and I still can’t stop thinking about it. It is incredibly messed up and Skarsgard is very good as a guy having basically the absolute worst week of his life.

13. 21 & Over: No need to watch this one unless you’re a Miles Teller Cinematic Universe completionist or you’re very bored and it’s the movie of the day in the Discord.

14. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Honestly delightful. Scary villain, nice use of different animation styles, and Harvey Guillen was very charming as a weird little dog. I want Mama Luna’s outfit. (The cats all have too many teeth, though.)

Books

1. Born to Be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune — Keith Thomson: Does what it says on the tin. Quick read, didn’t love the author’s style — his method of foreshadowing is going “Bob turned down the offer of oranges but if he knew what was coming next he would have wished he hadn’t” at the end of a chapter and then mentioning in the next chapter that they all got scurvy. But if you watched Our Flag Means Death and wanted to learn more about non-traditional pirating figures, this is entertaining enough.

2. Ocean’s Echo — Everina Maxwell: I absolutely stayed up until like 3 am to read most of this in one night. A sci-fi/romance that leans more heavily on the sci-fi side. I thought the plot got a bit convoluted at times but I absolutely loved the slow burn romance between Tennal (I Think I Will Cause Problems on Purpose) and Surit (Not Repressed, Just In The Space Military). Technically part of a series, but it 100% stands alone and just exists in the same universe as the other book.

3. Even Though I Knew the End — C.L. Polk: I think I need to admit that noir just isn’t my thing. Pretty much everyone I knew loved this; I enjoyed it for what it was (a rare f/f story that is competently written) and thought the worldbuilding was interesting, but it just didn’t captivate me as much as I’d hoped.

4. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law — Mary Roach: I liked Stiff, Roach’s first pop-science book about what happens to dead bodies. I had higher hopes for Fuzz, but this one missed the mark. The first chapter talks about legal cases that have involved animals, which is what I thought the focus of the book would be, but instead most of it was about human/animal conflict and how different places address overpopulation. Additionally, I know it’s her schtick but there was way too much sarcasm/flippant jokes/useless asides from the author.

5. The Bedlam Stacks — Natasha Pulley: Pulley’s The Half-Life of Valery K was one of my favorite books of 2022 so I’ve been starting to dive into Pulley’s back catalog. The Bedlam Stacks is technically part of the Watchmaker of Filigree Street series, but stands alone well. Meanders a bit more than I would have liked, it probably took me until around 40–50% to get really engaged in the story. I appreciate Pulley’s writing for its sparseness but that sometimes works against her here, as significant events are written about in a very clinical, detached manner which made it hard to connect to. The slow burn friendship (maybe pining for something more if you squint) between Merrick and Raphael is great though and even though I’d accurately predicted the ending I still burst out into tears.

6. Dogs of the Deadlands — Anthony McGowan: A story about survival (told largely through the perspective of dogs) set post-Chernobyl. This book honestly seems confused about what reading level it’s meant for. It seems more geared towards middle grade (the library shelves it in the “Elementary Reading” section) but the vocabulary, some of the plotlines, and violence are all much more mature. Had I read this as a middle schooler I think I would have been traumatized for life.

7. The Ruin of a Rake — Cat Sebastian: Ah so turns out doing these monthly roundups is going to reveal exactly how many quick read romance novels I go through. This is the third in a series where I’ve previously read the first book and an associated novella, but you don’t really miss anything from not having read the others. Like in my blurb for Ocean’s Echo, I am absolutely a sucker for the Disaster Gremlin/Incredibly Proper pairing/trope, and Julian and Courtenay here are absolute perfection. The depth of their developing feelings, the slow burn, and the complete idiot pining made this a very enjoyable adventure.

8. Nona the Ninth — Tamsyn Muir: I have never had an author make me feel so dumb but also so okay with being dumb — because literally every character in the book is also missing a significant amount of information. I pre-emptively put The Locked Tomb series on my best of 2022 list, even though all I’d done is re-read the first two books and hadn’t gotten around to more than a few chapters in Nona yet. Muir absolutely rewarded my faith in her with this one. Nona might be my favorite of the series — you’ve got your unreliable narrators, you’ve got your absolutely gutting backstory, you’ve got a broader picture of the very narrow world we saw in Gideon and Harrow. The detail and world-building absolutely blows my mind and some of the latest developments here break my heart.

9. The Soldier’s Scoundrel — Cat Sebastian: After reading The Ruin of a Rake I figured I might a well go back and start at the beginning of the series. This one is still incredibly enjoyable on re-read and extra fun reading it and knowing now how all these various characters intersect throughout the rest of the series. Yes, all of their problems could have been solved by using their words, but the pining is [chef kiss] exquisite.

10. The Lawrence Browne Affair — Cat Sebastian: Probably my least favorite of the series and by least favorite I mean, would initially rate it like 3.75 stars instead of 4. Feels very Brooding Gothic Romance to me, which is not my favorite genre, but I really loved Georgie and the journey he goes on to discover a path forward in his life. The handling of Lawrence, who in today’s world would have an anxiety disorder or be on the autism spectrum but in this time period he’s just thought to be mad, is very sensitive and I loved how kind and understanding Georgie is. Also having accidentally read the whole series out of order, this book was crucial for understanding how Jack, Georgie, and Julian’s novels all intersect.

On tap for next month:

• re-reading Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House and starting Hell Bent

• Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell

• I’ve had the DVD of Heat checked out from the library for like a month so I should get around to that

• Magic Mike’s Last Dance comes out on my birthday. Say no more.

What about you? What are you watching/reading/listening to/etc.?