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This episode takes place almost entirely in the past. It focuses on Melody in the aftermath of the seance. She visits Dr. Turner, and learns that he was discussing her a message board because she showed signs of being "sensitive." She sends him a tape of the seance. At the Visser she finds out Annabelle's been moved by Cassandra up to the [secret] 6th floor, where's she's painting frenetically. Cassandra says Melody "smothers" Annabelle. Father Rocco has died, he fell in… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 10:33 AM on February 8, 2022

For reasons I can't really explain, I read Bobbi Brown's book "Dirty Rocker Boys." You might remember Bobbi from such hits as the video for Warrant's "Cherry Pie." Anyway, she was married to TLJ just before Pamela was, and the way she tells it, he was not a nice man, and he was doing way too many drugs even for BB, which is saying something. He was, however, well-hung. And I also learned from this book that Leonardo diCaprio is also well-endowed (at least according to BB).
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 12:18 PM on February 3, 2022

What I think is best described as the "splicing" sequence at the end is extremely well done and completely unnerving. Best bit of this series so far, and there have been a number of good set pieces. Also, Annabelle's "outing" of the party hostess Cassandra is, I thought, elegantly done and does a bit to offset the "straight-washing" mentioned in re the podcast. There are clearly some shots set up here to suggest a relationship between Anabelle and Melody that's more… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 8:27 AM on February 3, 2022

Spoiler: the woman Mark meets, she's not Melody.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 1:25 PM on February 2, 2022

in re the shoelace, I took that as something Dan had done, to mark the spot where he found cell reception.

The "straight washing" thing is problematic but maybe not, er, straightforward. I'm on episode 4 now and things are getting ... complex.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 8:20 AM on February 2, 2022

GenjiandProust: "Your shoelace explanation is perfect! Thanks, I had no considered that! It still looks very ominous, though. That little bit of blue in all the browns, greens, and greys."

I agree, the whole milieu of this series (so far) is "ominous" up to 11. I think the priest when we see him in episode 2 seems skeevy as all get out, as does Sam.

I like how the mystery keeps Dan from doing the obvious… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 1:24 PM on February 2, 2022

I think rewatching all 3 seasons would probably yield enough evidence that Tom has in fact been zui quaning his way through the Roy hierarchy to become supreme leader, just like Jar Jar Binks is actually Snoke.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 11:40 AM on December 14, 2021

j.r: "Props to the writers, directors, and actors for letting Tom and Greg give the shippers so much to work with, too. I assume all of them have seen that Tom/Greg romcom trailer cut, and I love how gleefully they're leaning into it."

I mean, come on

"you could be getting away from the endless middle and to the bottom of the top"
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 11:41 AM on December 14, 2021

A supercut of every time Logan Roy says "Fuck Off" over all 3 seasons
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 11:32 AM on January 27, 2022

I read this one a few months ago and enjoyed it, it's funny & deeply subverts the genre, including subversion of the subversion. Some of it is ridiculous, all of it is gory, and a big part of all of it is the rich island vs. blue collar townies dynamic which lends some of the dramatic impulse. Jade is an excellent character.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 4:23 AM on January 27, 2022

I haven't read this one yet but I did read two other "final girls" novels, both by Stephen Graham Jones: The Last Final Girl and then My Heart is a Chainsaw. They are both kind of the same book, like a draft and then a polished version. But lots of gory fun to be had throughout. This article from Tor discusses those books as well as the Hendrix in a broader look at the inversion / conversion / subversion of the "final girl" trope. It's all pretty entertaining! [see also:… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 1:43 PM on January 17, 2022

Anyone who likes / loves / is obsessed with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd should read Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? by Pierre Bayard
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:43 AM on January 6, 2022

rhamphorhynchus: "Another amazing performance from Brian Cox. I'd love to see his Lear."

Sorry, no can do. They gave away the PJs.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:47 PM on November 28, 2021

Bro!
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 3:12 PM on November 24, 2021

Was I right noticing that Hiam Abbass' name wasn't in the credits? Is Marcia gone?
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 1:29 PM on November 21, 2021

The scene in the middle where they try to come up with a sacrificial lamb was like an Agatha Christie novel in reverse; rather than starting with a corpse, you end up with one. It's a letsdoit instead of a whodunnit.

I'm on team Logan's Plan; I don't think Logan plotted with Kendall, just that he manipulated him into stabbing dad in the back and thinking it was his idea.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 10:22 AM on November 20, 2021

I just watched S1E1 today, after someone mentioned it in the comments of a thread I posted. I found it amusing though the first episode was just scratching the surface of the conspiracy weirdness. I suppose it will dig in deeper. Brett Hand reminded me a lot of the ridiculous CIA plant in No Time to Die: ridiculous white man just cruising through life.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:59 PM on November 16, 2021

I just finished. It is fast-paced & fun, and a minor entry in the canon of unreliable narrators / authors playing with POV & time to jar you out of your tropes & expectations. I fully expect this to be made into a movie in the style of "Stand By Me," it's got that feel to it. Above all, Towle is a storyteller, and a very convincing & entertaining one.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 3:32 AM on October 24, 2021

Here's a very positive review from the NYT
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 1:19 PM on November 5, 2021

I'll root for Atlanta in this series only because: a) they're the NL team; b) they beat LA who beat the Giants.

So it's transitive fandom, but I won't really care about it, because the real World Series was the SF/LA playoff set which while it didn't end the way it was supposed to was nevertheless a showcase of just really grand baseball.

Go Giants!
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 10:39 AM on October 26, 2021

Go Giants!
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 7:23 AM on October 5, 2021

Just a reminder of an early prediction that (so far) ran true.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 11:47 AM on October 5, 2021

Thorzdad: "Giants/Dodgers starting Friday. After that series, I'm not sure I'll care much about the rest of the post-season."

QFT. It's like this matchup is the real World Series, anyway.

Go Giants!
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 4:32 AM on October 8, 2021

Just woke up to the SF-LA rout. Arrgh. Hot bats.
Go Giants!
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:01 AM on October 10, 2021

CheesesOfBrazil: "LAD @ SF game 5. THE game. Can't not watch, time zone be damned. \m/ BEAT L A \m/"

QFT.

A reminder that SF / LA is the World Series this year. The rest is going to be much less exciting.

Go Giants!
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 9:48 AM on October 13, 2021

Bah.

what a game though.

worth it?

Go Giants!
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 6:13 AM on October 15, 2021

The Giants Deserved a Better Ending Than This
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 8:32 AM on October 17, 2021

It's fun, it's wild, it's ridiculous, it's Bond.
Both shaken and stirred, with a twist.

(Apparently only comes out in the U.S. next week; It opened in Europe last week.)

BBC review roundup: No Time To Die: Daniel Craig's final Bond film gets five-star reviews
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 11:55 AM on October 3, 2021

On James Bond, new and old. With spoilers.

An excellent essay from Osita Nwanevu at Gawker. [With spoilers!]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 12:20 PM on October 14, 2021

I read this and enjoyed it. There was too much car chase (doesn't translate to the page well, best left to the big/small screen though the jokes about how denizens of LA are inured to and enamored of them post-OJ leavened it a bit). I also thought the actual "spider heist" of it all was underserved, just blurted out at the end in a kind of offhand "here's the twist" way. RTB!
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 7:46 AM on September 20, 2021

I finished this book last week, am a long-time Michael Lewis fan. It's an excellent sideways look at a) how truly well prepared the US (and much of the developed world) was on paper for a pandemic and b) how dramatically they f*cked up the response thanks to bureaucracy, inability to think rationally, misinformation, miscommunication, and lack of courage. His heroes -- especially Charity & Carter -- seem like extremely interesting people with a lot to give.… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 3:45 PM on June 15, 2021

jenfullmoon: "Baby Yoda with eggs and alcohol."

Are we sure the Mandalorian's true name isn't Gin Dozen?
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:29 PM on December 2, 2020

It is my opinion that Crispin Hellion Glover is vastly underrated. He is absolutely pitch perfect in BttF. And then there's this, from "Happy Days"
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 11:47 AM on November 5, 2020

Another interview, on NPR (transcript)
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:44 PM on October 24, 2020

I though the decline of the husband was actually one of the more interesting arcs over the first season. He went from being a supportive, we-have-a-deal semi-stay-at-home-dad to unreasonable egotistic but-I-wanna-be-a-CEO-and-damn-the-kids over the 10 shows, pivoting (I think) around his boorish behavior when Birgitte's father comes to stay. The writers, I think, made it clear that he's not handling his wife's success well, and that he's wrong to be behaving like this. The twist is that the… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 3:24 AM on October 10, 2020

I just saw this (it's 2020!) and had two thoughts: one, why had I never heard or seen of this movie? And two: this movie would be taken an entirely different way if the title were different. "Atomic Blonde" is ridiculous; just about anything else would be better & would help us take Broughton seriously, as she clearly deserves. Also, I would never have guessed this movie was from 2017, I would have put it in the mid-noughts, and was wondering how they got McAvoy to age.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 3:42 AM on September 1, 2020

sixswitch: "CONTENT WARNING
Child sexual abuse

just so it’s really, really clear"

Indeed. Since I haven't finished yet it's not clear to me yet what the "moral stance" of this book is going to be; the first half is Vanessa being groomed and convincing herself that her teacher Strane's advances are "true love"; the second half appears to be the reckoning.

It is wrenching, for sure.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 5:11 AM on July 27, 2020

So, I just finished. I have to say I was disappointed (though not surprised) that Vanessa never really comes to accept that she was groomed and then raped. For her the "love story" reigns supreme, it has become her, she can't untangle it. This is tragic, and if nothing else this novel lays out clearly the permanent, disfiguring damage done by this kind of abuse + gaslighting + rape + other manipulation from an early age. Objectively speaking the novel does a remarkable job of… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 4:56 AM on July 30, 2020

Quixote is a hero in spite of himself.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 5:33 AM on July 24, 2020

It's escapist. Faintly ridiculous in the airport-thriller mode, though the ending is ... apocalyptic.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 1:15 AM on May 16, 2020

Come on Niners. Not really from San Francisco anymore, but then, neither am I. (Go Giants!)
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:04 PM on February 2, 2020

I just finished reading this. I found it hard to put down, a clever twist on two genres -- the quirky millennial love story & time traveling to change the course of history. There is enough ambiguity about Kate's condition (is she just lovably odd, seriously mentally ill, or something else entirely?) to bleed into the love story part. I found some of the Shakespearian-era stuff lightly superficial, but Newman never leaves you in any one place for long, so it never gets tiresome. And the… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 7:56 AM on January 8, 2020

Plus... it is a show for kids

It’s a show for 50-year-old kids like Baby Yoda ... and me.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 3:42 PM on December 29, 2019

I just finished listening to this, and found it in equal parts fascinating and horrifying. The whole "vast right-wing conspiracy" experiment clearly spiraled out of control and yet seems to be delivering on its premises. Mayer brings to light democracy captured by ideologues with lots of money, and no seeming way out. Curiously, the book ends on the eve of Trump's election, which arguably shifts the whole game again, and not in a good way.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 1:55 AM on December 23, 2019

emjaybee: "I still think Finn, Poe and Rey make a nice poly triad."

I'd invite Rose to that party, too. A-and maybe Chewie too; I expect Wookiees are vocal
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 9:54 AM on December 22, 2019

Brandon Blatcher: "Sooo, Veidt was just stockpiling his semen?"

Not unlike Jeffrey Epstein, they say
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 3:44 PM on December 16, 2019

As for vibes, I got an Asterix vibe from the village. Kept expecting an off-key bard or fishmongers' fisticuffs.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:09 PM on December 3, 2019

So to be the perfect stay-at-home dad you have to actually be a God.
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 4:01 PM on December 2, 2019

there's the kind of pole that Luke uses to try to stop the garbage compactor.

I saw that! Also what appeared to be a Gremlin roasting on a spit...
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:53 PM on November 28, 2019

chortly: "I remain a bit suspicious that that final "memory" is actually a memory."

Could be a false memory, of course. Planted for some reason. TBH, I sometimes wonder if Judd is really dead or if there is some long game thing going on with Trieu, Reeves and Judd, and that all of them will end up as "heroes" in this world.

Best moment for me of this episode was the head fake when Reeves brings in… [more]
posted to FanFare by chavenet at 2:22 AM on November 26, 2019