November media diet

A fairly solid month across the board.  Half a dozen movies (one at the cinema, Matt Gilmore!), some decent TV shows, and a few books, including the 31st in an anthology I've read every year since 1992.

Movies

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - Regal Cinemas | By far the best part of this film was its honest treatment of grief in a comic-book universe that is usually consequence-free.  But the rest of the muddled plot was limpid at best. Mexican Aquaman was too sympathetic as a villain and the conflict between the Wakandans and Atlantis, or whatever it was called, just never felt real.

Where the Crawdads Sing - Netflix | Reader Greta says the book was much better than the movie, but the movie wasn’t bad.  A little too earnest, maybe, but beautifully shot in a swamp somewhere with a fine lesson about living in harmony with nature. Also, nobody puts Marsh Girl in a corner!

Spirited - Apple TV | I was prepared to hate this money grab from Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, but the writing and choreography and playfulness won me over!  Some real LOL moments and songs.

Rogue One - Disney+ | “Andor” motivated me to rewatch this Episode IV prequel and I’m really glad I did.  Just a great story about the nascent rebellion, told without Jedis saving everyone’s ass all the time.

Taken - Hulu | Greta picked this one to celebrate her first college acceptance letter.  It certainly did not do much to put me at ease about sending her off on her own next fall, but it’s a classic of the kidnapping genre, and one of the first movie junkets I did for the AP in 2008.

The Courier - Amazon Prime | Watched this one by myself on Veterans Day while the girls toured Fordham and Lincoln played Xbox.  It’s the true story of a British businessman — played by Benedict Cumberbatch — recruited to spy on the Soviets shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis.  He ended up carrying more than 5,000 secrets out from behind the Iron Curtain for the CIA and Mi6, and spent almost two years in a Russian prison as a result.

TV

Andor, S1 - Disney+ | The critics, particularly the hosts of “The Watch” podcast, are absolutely ga-ga for this Tony Gilroy-helmed series, which tells the back story of Cassian Andor, the hero of the rebel’s daring heist of the Death Star plans that Princess Leia is in possession of at the start of “Star Wars IV: A New Hope.”  But does it deserve all that hype?  It’s better than “The Mandalorian” and “Obi-Wan,” sure, but I didn’t find it on par with top-notch dramatic series like “Breaking Bad” or “The Wire.”  It’s still Star Wars, after all, even if grittier and more down-to-earth.

Best in Snow - Disney+ | The best to be said about this pseudo snow sculpting competition from the House of Mouse is that I watched it with my father, who actually sculpted snow around the world!  Typical Disney in the way it tries to appeal to everyone but in so doing waters everything so far down as to make it mostly pablum.

The Great British Baking Show, S10 - Netflix | Greta roped me into trying this competition show for the first time, and I must say, it has a winning formula.  They cast great amateur bakers and the host/judge banter and feedback is often quite funny.  Demerits for voting Rebs off too early this season, but in the end I think the judges crowned the deserving champ.

Books

A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley | After reading some real heavy tomes this year, it was fun to review this one — a taut 207 pages set in Monterey, Calif., just about a decade before the Civil War, starring two women who work at brothels and begin to investigate the disappearance of some of their fellow “service girls.”  Kinda amazing what you could get away with in the 1850s!

The Best American Sports Writing 2022 guest edited by J.A Adande | This year’s annual anthology was just OK.  Too many obscure stories or long investigative pieces I didn’t care about.  The best are the short columns that reminded me of flipping to the back page of Sports Illustrated every week in the 90’s and 00’s to read what Rick Reilly had to say about the world of sports.

A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet | Finally read this book that I bought as a Christmas present for Carey in 2020 after seeing it on many a year-ender list.  Pretty straightforward allegory about the perils of climate change.  As an over-the-hill father and wanna-be tree hugger, though, it was a little annoying to see the parents cast as such Neros, fiddling while the apocalypse begins.