My Week in Media: April 23
Everything I read, listened to, and watched
Hello, hello,
I hope you’re having a good day. I’m sending this out a little later than usual because we were—GASP!!!—social last night, which resulted in us only getting to bed at TEN P.M. OMG SHOCK HORROR, which then resulted in me getting up at the late hour of SIX A.M. OMG DOUBLE SHOCK HORROR and then I wanted to go out for a walk before it rained and so I’m all discombobulated.
All that and the rain hasn’t quite started yet, heh, but I’m looking forward to getting cozy on the couch with some books and movies this afternoon. (And possibly all day tomorrow—they’re talking about a couple of inches of rain over the next 36 hours? Which is fine by me—before long everything is going to be green, green, green.)
Reading
Young Adult
Lying in the Deep, by Diana Urban
(covered earlier this week)
None Shall Sleep, by Ellie Marney
I mentioned this one on Friday, and I’m going to start the sequel pretty much IMMEDIATELY after I send this list out. I loved so much about it: I loved that it was a procedural, which we don’t see all that often in the YA space; I loved how it included a Fascinating Serial Killer character but ALSO was very frank about the trauma and grief and death that were a result of his actions. Also very much enjoyed the inevitable serial killer showdown—it was extremely satisfying in a very oh, you thought you had the upper hand? that’s so cute sort of way.
Adult
Fleishman is in Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
I mentioned this one on Friday as well, and now that I’m done: yeah. I get why this one resonated with so many readers and how some of it, particularly in the back half, could have felt so affirming. And I really did appreciate a lot of what she did here.
Buuuuuut ultimately, I felt like it could have been summed up by just saying: misogyny and sexism exist, which sucks; the people affected by it notice it a whole lot more than the people who aren’t, which sucks; your understanding of a story largely depends on who is centered; unresolved shit from your childhood will continue to mess you up if you don’t deal with it; it’s a real bummer when you learn and grow as you age and your friends and loved ones don’t. I just… didn’t need 373 pages to get there. THIS BOOK COULD HAVE BEEN AN EMAIL, the leila is bad at reading Literary Fiction story.
Points for using the insult ‘chucklehead,’ though, that one always makes me laugh.
Watching
Movies
Sneakers
Phil Alden Robinson, 1992
Childhood fave, young adulthood fave, middle age fave, forever fave. It holds up, continues to be one of my go-to comfort watches, I will love it forever.
The Last of Sheila
Herbert Ross, 1973
(covered earlier this week)
Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
It had been a while since I’d watched this one, and good lord, what a masterclass in making you really care about/root for the “bad guy.” (So much so that I clearly have a hard time even calling him the bad guy, yikes.) It’s right there in the script for sure, but I chalk it up to Anthony Perkins more than anything else because of his performance and his physicality.
That said, watching it through 2023 eyes, it happens with Marion Crane’s character as well. After she steals the money at the beginning, a suspicious cop starts following her around, and we fully had to pause the movie so we could BOTH participate in a tirade about how angry we were that this dude was basically stalking her when he had NO IDEA that she’d done anything wrong other than seem NERVOUS, which, like, WHO WOULDN’T BE NERVOUS IF A COP WOKE YOU UP OUT OF A SOUND SLEEP AND STARTED HASSLING YOU? She probably wouldn’t have even GONE to the Bates Motel if he’d left her alone, so REALLY, his actions led to her death.
We also had to pause during the scenes towards the end where Sam is “making conversation” with Norman—scare quotes because ACTUALLY, he’s being AWFUL, just verbally needling him over and over and over—and it resulted in Josh just BELLOWING profanity at the television.
…we get a little emotionally involved when we watch movies in this household, heh.
Opera
Dario Argento, 1987
The moral of this story is: Don’t mess with ravens.
Also, maybe give this one a pass if you have a thing about Eyeball Stuff.
Television
Bob’s Burgers, Midsomer Murders, Father Brown, Abbott Elementary, South Side
Common thread here: COMFORT WATCHES? I apparently did not have the bandwidth for anything super challenging this week, yikes.
Previously
That was what I knew for sure, that this was the only way to get someone to listen to a woman—to tell her story through a man; Trojan horse yourself into a man, and people would give a shit about you.
—Fleishman is in Trouble
Sometimes I really like when an author directly puts their thesis right on the page. Other times, it just makes me say OMG I GET IT, JEEZ.
Listening
Art, Culture, and History
Maintenance Phase
You’re Wrong About
Scam Goddess
Decoder Ring
This Day in Esoteric Political History
ICYMI
Articles of Interest
TV/Movies
Again With This
Extra Hot Great
Screen Drafts
Criticism is Dead
I Saw What You Did
Girls, Guts, and Giallo
I cannot even hint what it was like, for it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal, and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and desolation; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation; the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world—or no longer of this world—yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty on the human shape; and in its mouldy, disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more.
—H. P. Lovecraft, The Outsider
H. P. Lovecraft’s aforementioned lack of chill continues to make me giggle.
Books & Language
Short Stories, Storytelling, Audiodramas, and Audiobooks
I’m just a few episodes into the first season of this mystery audiodrama, but I’m enjoying it so much that I’m almost GLAD to be so behind in my temperature afghan? It’s set in an apartment building in Wales during some sort of apocalypse, and features a few residents teaming up to INVESTIGATE. So if you like Only Murders in the Building, it may well appeal?
Will You Make a Bet with Death? (Suspense, CBS Radio, 1942)
Menace in Wax (Suspense, CBS Radio, 1942)
The Body Snatchers (Suspense, CBS Radio, 1942)
The Outsider, by H.P. Lovecraft (Classic Tales Podcast, ep. 719)
Same time next week?
Talk soon,
Leila
Oh, SNEAKERS!!!! What I love about these lists of yours is how many Things I Have Loved And Mostly Forgotten items it returns in all their shiny nostalgic glory. It's definitely time for a re-watch.
Also, I think we pretty much scarred some friends of ours for life when attempting to watch the first SO AWFUL Abrams Star Trek remake years ago... We get emotional and bellow at screens around here as well and the pandemic just made us worse. We have henceforth limited films to the drive through or home alone...
Sneakers is the best heist movie OF ALL TIME and is still incredibly relevant and I will never not giggle over the final scene where they shake down James Earl Jones. I love it so much.