Somewhat inspired by Kottke, I decided to write down the notable meals of my media diet for January. It’s a good exercise to look back and try to pay attention to what you pay attention to.
The last good man, Linda Nagata. A thriller that thinks very very seriously (in a speculative fiction kind of way) about where war is going: autonomous, everywhere, human destroying but not necessarily human fought. (A)
The marvelous Mrs. Maisel. What a joy. Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino pulled off a fantastically entertaining show. The production quality and direction is simply insane. (A)
Thor: Ragnarok. This movie does not work on a tv, the humor was hit and miss. But I was in love with the costumes and the character design. (B–)
Call me by your name. A delightfully delicate movie. I liked it but also have somewhat complex feelings about it. Something worth sharing is that it’s filmed in an area of Italy that is incredibly close to my hometown and — with obvious differences as I’m not the genius child of a polyglot family — has the merit of capturing the feeling of the incredibly slow and boring summers I had in my childhood and teenage years. (A/B)
Pattern Recognition. William Gibson. I read this many years ago and it’s has been one of my favourite books. The plot is somewhat weak but Gibson packs so many ideas and so many observations about the present that every page sparks neuron fireworks. The book was written and is set in 2002 but it still feels surprisingly contemporary. Gibson’s observation about internet culture, memes and marketing are spot on. And Cayce Pollard is a truly truly fantastic character. For some reason, I’m reading it in Italian and the translation is 💩 (Still A)
Tactical Tuesdays: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. I find videos of people playing videogames extremely relaxing. I think I get at least some of the endorphin boosts that I would get if I was playing the game, but without all the effort required to play a game. I’ve been watching several gameplay videos but Waypoint‘s Tactical Tuesday is probably my favorite. Austin Walker and Robert Zacny play XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, dig deep in the lore and the storytelling that make people care about charachters in XCOM games and, generally, are really fun to watch and listen too. (A)
This American Life – Human Error in Volatile Situations. Sometimes I don’t listen to new episodes of This American Life for a while. I listen to a lot of podcasts and usually shorter ones win over longer ones. Every time I go back, I remember how damn good This American Life is. This episode is particularly good. I went back and listened to it right after the Hawaii a-missile-is-coming-but-not-really incident because the title intrigued me, and it’s absolutely fantastic. Act 1 tells the story of a crazy sequence of events that nearly led to a nuclear explosion in Arkansas in 1980. (A+)
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