Some entertainment of late

I haven’t had any brainwaves for interesting newsletters lately but I’m always reading and watching stuff, so—here’s what I thought of all that:

Watched the new documentary about the Counting Crows, Have You Seen Me Lately? and deeply enjoyed it, even though it’s slightly weird and to be honest I never cared about the personalities behind the music of CC. I have always quite enjoyed their music, and still listen to it—the documentary made me feel less embarrassed about that, and really explained a lot of the depth and artistry that underlies it, which I never quite articulated myself. The lead singer, songwriter, and animating spirit of the band, Adam Duritz, is not someone I ever thought much about but he winds up seeming like an interesting person in the film, if not one I’d want to spend a tonne of time with. The structure of the film is weird in that it’s mainly about the band’s first two albums in the 1990s, not about their childhoods or the THIRTY YEARS that came after when they continued to make (pretty good) music. I also feel like Duritz was forthcoming in the onscreen intervviews but only up to a point—there seemed to be plenty left out. I was excited to learn that the song Long December is actually about Courtney Cox, but overall I couldn’t help comparing the doc to No Dress Rehearsal, a better movie about a better band (The Tragically Hip). Still I like and recommend both.

Watched the movie Good Fortune staring Aziz Ansari as a struggling gig worker living in his car, watched over by inept guardian angel Keanu Reeves. When rich tech mogul Seth Rogan hires Ansari’s character to be his assistant, hijinx ensue until the angel has to step in to fix things by swapping the rich and poor guys’ lives. It doesn’t make too much sense but this leaves formerly wealthy now nearly homeless Seth Rogan to hang out with angel-on-earth Keanu Reeves in a series of diners and parking lots and eat a bunch of junk food while bickering affectionately and THAT is the movie I wanted to watch—we did not need the plotline, or Aziz Ansari. Rogan has made a weird career pivot into playing immature a$$holes—on The Studio, Platonic—and this is another example. He’s great at it! Keanu Reeves is a strange strange human being and possibly just not a good actor but so…sweet? He does seem angelic. Also this movie has a strong pro-labour plotline—Union Now!!…?? And Sandra Oh is in it for some reason. Objectively a 4/10 but also somehow a delight.

Read the novel Infinite Country by Patricia Engel, which is about a family immigrating from Colombia to the US, and getting stuck there illegally, some going back or being sent back, getting stuck back in Colombia, and so forth. A “mixed status family,” as the novel calls them. An EXTREMELY RELEVANT topic in light of recent American events. The writing is good, even lyrical at times, the characters sympathetic and sad but the book is very short, less than 200 pages, and sticks mainly to the objective of teaching the reader the lessons about how hard it is to be undocumented in America and to leave one’s original home behind. There isn’t a lot of detail or context to the story—just the gruelling hardships the characters endure, and consequently the book starts to feel like a textbook, or possibly like medicine. Still worthwhile but a rough read.

Re-watched the movie Spotlight from 2015 and found it really holds up. It is about an investigative journalism team in Boston in 2001 who are investigating pedophile priests when those were just beginning to be known as a widespread phenomenon. It is gripping and fascinating and extremely well-put-together as a film, as well as deeply sad. A real classic in my book.

I read Born by Heather Birrell, a novel about a high school under lockdown against a presumed-violent intruder, when the English teacher goes into labour. I liked the multiple narrators, and the big, rich, context-heavy approach to storytelling. I suppose this is my personal preference in how I like a story to be told—I feel everything in the surround matters—which is why this story was engrossing to me, with its backpacks and folded Timbit boxes, huge cast of characters and memories of backstory, and Infinite Country was less, with its arrow-straight plotline. Both books are about issues incredibly important to our modern lives, but Born just hit harder because it felt more like I could step inside it, more like a lived-in sort of life.

I sort of knew Born would be a book I’d like and it was on my list for a while—there’s a lot of books out there! But I ended up listening to the audiobook because Heather mentioned to me that she read it herself and I thought I would like that. I did! She has a lovely speaking voice and really warmly inhabits the text. A great experience.

I watched the rest of the tv show Heated Rivalry. As mentioned in a previous post, although I liked the book I wasn’t wild about the first episode of the show because it is different (to me) to read graphic sex scenes than to watch them and I was a touch uncomfortable. But I got past that and the show really got less porny and more plotty as it went on, until I was completely enthralled. I ended up being really happy I watched it—I see why it’s a phenom sweeping the continent.

Adjacent to the above: listened to Wolf Parade a bunch. I went through a phase of liking Wolf Parade years ago but hadn’t thought of them in a long time until the song I’ll Believe in Anything popped up in Heated Rivalry, in a scene I think most fans will agree is the best one—perfect timing, cutting, music, performances. Even though I knew exactly what was going to happen from the book, I still thought it was gasp-worthy, and part of that was the heart-thudding Wolf Parade song. So now I’m back into them. Which is great.

And finally, adjacent to Wolf Parade, a funny story from the mid-aughts: I went out with a guy whose name mercifully escapes me who was obsessed with Wolf Parade and who was shocked I hadn’t heard for them. He talked about them a lot throughout the evening and seemed happy I was receptive to hearing about them and willing to take his recommendations. He was one of several dudes I met during my dating years who mistook Nick Hornby’s “It’s not what you’re like, it’s what you like” as an actual life’s motto. Anyway, it wasn’t a bad evening but also wasn’t much of anything, so I was surprised when he asked me out again. However, I wasn’t busy so I went and when he met me on the corner to walk to the restaurant he eagerly presented me with a gift—a Wolf Parade cd! (Remember, mid-aughts!) I accepted it courteously, we ate the dinner and then—we never spoke again! I did actually get mildly into Wolf Parade but I couldn’t help but wonder if he worked for their PR and this was part of a very slow burn marketing campaign??? Anyway, I imagine somewhere, he is thrilled at what Jacob Tierney has wrought.