Between the World and Me – *****
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A heavy read, but well-written, timely and poignant.
Altered Carbon – ****
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I wasn’t sure I’d like this book or get in to it at all, but once I started I wound up getting caught up in it. I haven’t read SciFi in quite a while- well, not like this- but I got in to it as the story in itself is more of a pulp-style mystery. Almost like a SciFi noir. The mystery itself was good so that kept me engaged and the sci-fi aspects weren’t distracting, but well thought out ideas that added to the environment. I wound up really enjoying it.
Maybe I’m Wrong About Baby Driver?
Multiple people have now told me I’m wrong and that I should have gone with my gut regarding Baby Driver. It was entertaining to them, the only difference was they didn’t know about it before they went, so their expectations were much lower than mine. That allowed them to enjoy the flick and not dwell on it so much like me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ready Player One – *****
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
thoroughly enjoyed this one. very entertaining and right up my alley due to my love of this old stuff- arcade games, consoles, d&d, RUSH, etc… (or I’m in that demographic)
Baby Driver is entertaining, but doesn’t pass my 3DMT
Let me preface this by saying that I’m still working on recovering all the old posts from the wayback machine. I can’t find the one post that explains the 3DMT in depth. 3DMT = 3 Day Movie Test ™. Basically it means I need to sit on my opinions about movies for a while before I make a final judgement.
And with the 3DMT there are some holes in the theory that people have pointed out. Eg ‘if you’re thinking about a movie for that long, doesn’t that make it worthwhile in itself?’ etc… But it’s still the Uncle Kenny way of ratings.
Why did I see Baby Driver in the first place? I really like Guillermo del Toro. I follow him on Twitter. When Baby Driver came out he unloaded a long set of tweets RAVING about the movie and Edgar Wright (the director, his buddy). So I immediately thought- okay, I’ll go see it on that recommendation alone. [direct link to Twitter raves].
We went, and we thought it was entertaining. I liked all the actors in it. I liked 90% of the story. I liked the cameos (Paul Williams!). And I liked the music.
But after chewing on it for a while I came to the conclusion that the film was too in love with itself. It’s too self-referential with the references and the music. And something I didn’t think about for a while was that the female characters in it are really really poorly thought out (see below).
GDT did tweet that
The key to understanding it fully- at least for me- is in the fact that it is a fable, complete with its very own Disney prince and princess, but it is also rock n’ roll. Meaning- the magic exists in a dirty, genre-tainted world. The film is incredibly precise. Flawlessly executed to its smallest detail: breathtaking Russian arm shots, real-world car mount and foot chases executed with the vigour and bravado of a Gene Kelly musical.This is An American In Paris on wheels and crack smoke. Its a movie in love with cinema – the high of cinema and motion.
And I see his point about looking at it as a fable. He’s correct in that it helps- but I shouldn’t have to tell you before you go see it to think of it as a fable. Because if you didn’t know that – you know what you’re going to think the movie is? A late night getaway/heist movie combined with a music video. It’s like a low-rent La La Land meets Getaway.
Again, I did think it was entertaining, and I liked all the actors and I find myself listening to the music from the soundtrack periodically- but you can skip it until DVD.
Looking back in a few months or years I’ll probably think this is a harsh review, but maybe if I had seen it without reading about del Toro raving about it first I wouldn’t have been so dismissive.
https://twitter.com/gabydunn/status/879917803326722048
https://twitter.com/gabydunn/status/879919466737356800