Nate Hood Reviews

Reviews, gifsets, and essays on films both classic and current. Movies are given scores based on a 5 star scale.

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2024 Year End Compilation

Sophie's Choice, William Styron

You know what really gets me in the mood to lose my virginity? Listening to the woman I love tell me about how she lost her children at Auschwitz. Man, I hated this book. Stingo is one of the most repulsive little twerps I've ever encountered in literature. He made this book actively difficult and unpleasant to read.

Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson

Been a long, LONG time since I've read a sci-fi book that felt so explosively, radically new and original.

Sourcery, Terry Pratchett

The Orientalism hasn't aged well, but this is easily the most I've enjoyed one of the Rincewind novels.

Dead Man’s Float, Jim Harrison

“Sticking to It” blindsided me with a terrible heartache and “God’s Mouth” moved me terribly. “A Dog in Heaven,” too, whew!

Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett

I feel that "Macbeth but Discworld" should've been a slam dunk, but something about this novel didn't quite click for me.

Lake Effect Country: Poems, A. R. Ammons

Ammons' poetry is a bit too thick and dense for my blood, but even still it has moments of shocking beauty. "The Only Way Around is Through" alone was worth the whole collection.

Eric, Terry Pratchett

Perhaps the first and only Discworld novel I've come across that felt woefully paint-by-numbers.

Moving Pictures, Terry Pratchett

I know that as a film buff this book probably should've been a home run for me. But it's a messy, lumpy novel with much too much going on in it. Still, when it's good it's as good as any Discworld novel I've read.

Perdido Street Station, China Miéville

A book of staggering, unceasing imagination. Countless individual aspects of Miéville's worldbuilding could easily be the basis for entire novels in and of themselves. The Ambassador from Hell. Vodyanoi watercraefters. Khepri gland-artists. Handlinger assault teams. Cactacae thugs. The mind staggers. I could've easily spent another 600 pages in Miéville's world with these characters. Also! The slake-moths are up there with the Xenomorphs from Alien as one of fiction's greatest monsters.

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2023 Year End Compilation

Alphabetical Africa, Walter Abish

I’m not sure how or why, but when I picture the events of this book in my head, I imagine them illustrated by Mœbius. Alva certainly flitters back and forth through its pages like one of Mœbius’ dragon-riding heroines forever skirting distant horizons. Reading this book for more than half an hour at a time made me dizzy, but not in an unsatisfying way. I already can’t wait to read it again.

River Writing: An Eno Journal, James Applewhite

Definitely smacks of my beloved shady, overgrown East Coast rivers. Still, though, a bit too esoteric for my tastes.

Sleep Donation, Karen Russell

Once again, Russell’s talent for worldbuilding exceeds her talent for storytelling. Her inevitable anticlimaxes undercut all the mystery and intrigue she so successfully sets up in the first two-thirds of her books. This one is no exception.

The Chronicles of Amber: 1-3, Roger Zelazny

This may not be where George R. R. Martin got the idea for a fantasy series based on families fighting for a throne, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is where he gained his nonchalance for said characters being arrogant bastards who use and abuse non-royals as cannon fodder. Ultimately, it’s the story of an amoral man growing a conscience. I love the line from the second book: “I sometime fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils.” The problem, however, is that the cast is too big with not enough personality to go around. I was bored stupid by the third book whenever a new family member would show up and spend an entire chapter narrating their lives up until that point. There may be two more novels in the cycle, but you’d have to pay me to read them.

The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara

“And I am Kilrain of the 20th Maine/And I'd march to hell and back again

For Colonel Joshua Chamberlain/And we're all goin' down to Dixieland!”

The Women Around Jesus, Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel

Come for the feminist theology, stay for the cornucopia of fascinating, rarely heard Christian legends like Martha Slaying the Dragon.

The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection, Robert Farrar Capon

Equal measures prayerful and playful; makes the act of cutting an onion an act of discovery and worship. It reads like something M. F. K. Fisher would’ve written if she’d had a sense of humor and playfulness instead of an occasionally amusing detached snobbishness.

The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

It’s been a while since I’ve had to grit my teeth and force myself to finish such a long book. When I finally did, I could practically hear Schubert’s “Ave Maria” blasting in the background like I was some survivor of a cave-in witnessing daylight for the first time in days. Suffice to say I did not like this novel. It was an unpleasant chore to spend so much time with such unpleasant people doing such unpleasant things to each other. It didn’t help that so much of it was so damned boring!

Mort, Terry Pratchett

Easily one of the best Discworld novels I’ve read yet. I would happily read an entire spinoff just about Death working as a restaurant short-order cook in Ankh-Morpork.

Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett

Not as good as Mort, but it had its moments. I feel like the sentient, parasitic shopping mall and the Bill Door plots deserved their own separate novels, though.

The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis

I can’t believe this is one of the books we recommend to young people looking to learn more about Christianity. I have a Master’s Degree in Divinity and I feel like I only followed about 65% of what Lewis was talking about here.

The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett

I was led to believe that these two novels which kicked off the Discworld franchise were somehow embarrassing and terrible when compared to the books that came after them. But I don’t know, I enjoyed them!

The Iliad, Homer

The scene where Hector’s son Astyanax recoils in fear from his father’s monstrous battle armor only for Hector to chuckle and take his helmet off to soothe him is one of my new favorite moments in ancient literature. It’s this heartbreaking admission of humanity in the midst of a truly gruesome, truly horrific war. It helps bring this fantastical story of divine warriors and capricious gods down to earth, where it perhaps belongs if the myths and legends are true and the Trojan War truly did happen.

Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett

After the madcap antics of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, this book felt like Pratchett tried to tone the humor down in favor of more focused storytelling. My favorite part of this book were the Zoons, a people incapable of lying who elect specially trained Tribal Liars to enact trade agreements on their behalf. I want a book just about this ethnic group!

Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo

A sometimes literally breathtaking work of prophetic fury—a fire sermon that's lost none of its flame or relevance in the decades since its publication. The Jesus Christ in Tucson hallucination might be one of the finest, most heartbreaking things I've ever read. And I've read a LOT. The schemers behind the Red Scare were right to fear Trumbo. 

Point Omega, Don DeLillo

I dunno, gang, I still don't think late DeLillo is for me. Feels like he was trying too hard to channel Cormac McCarthy in certain places. Elsewhere his collage of images and ideas fails to coalesce into anything meaningful or compelling.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., Judy Bloom

Genuinely amazing to me that evangelicals were so pissed off at a book for honestly examining puberty and menstruation that they missed that it’s also a book about a young woman demanding her right to know God despite living in a secular household.

Dimiter, William Peter Blatty 

Forgive the cliche that the story isn’t what you’re here for, but seriously, the story isn’t what you’re here for. Instead, it’s to sink oneself into Blatty’s febrile imagination.

Screwjack, Hunter S. Thompson

The pages detailing Thompson's first mescaline trip are funny, gripping, terrifying. Everything else just...isn't very good. A reminder that just because you CAN posthumously publish a famous writer's assorted scribblings doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Suttree, Cormac McCarthy 

Incredibly, sometimes hilariously over-written. But a version of this book that isn’t over-written wouldn’t be worth reading. Some of the most astonishing English prose the world has seen since Joyce. Harrogate might be my favorite McCarthy character ever—he’s basically Huckleberry Finn by way of Harmony Korine.

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A Still Small Voice ★★★★ →

Reviews of films from off the beaten path, written for those who love the cinematic world and want to hear about more than mainstream movie releases.

[Review originally written for the bimonthly newsletter of the First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach]

In his 1987 film Wings of Desire, director Wim Wenders imagines a Cold War Berlin inhabited by angels. These angels, invisible and incorporate to the humans among them, have watched over the city eons before it was even a city. They serve not as guardians, but as observers, eternal witnesses to the humans around them, privy to their innermost thoughts and feelings. In one heartbreaking scene, one of the angels named Cassiel (Otto Sander) watches helplessly as a young man commits suicide, hearing his every thought, sharing his every agony. The angel, sitting beside him until the last—head on his shoulder, hand on his back—howls in impotent, unheard agony as the young man falls out of his grasp off the side of a tall building.

I used to think that no other moment in film better captured my experiences as a hospital chaplain than this one. Coming from every walk of life and faith tradition, we chaplains aren’t called to heal or even intervene in the lives of our patients. There are doctors, therapists, and lawyers for that. When we enter the rooms of the sick, the dead, and the dying, we do so knowing we will ultimately be as helpless as Cassiel to save them. Though I’ve only completed one of the two necessary residencies to become a board-certified chaplain, I’ve already seen more than my share of death. I’ve prayed over the bodies of braindead car accident victims on life-support. I’ve held strangers in my arms as they shrieked and wailed mere feet from where their loved ones were actively coding. I’ve looked husbands, wives, sons, and daughters in the eyes as they learned those closest to them in this life have slipped away into the next. All I could do—all we chaplains can do—is be present in the moment and offer what religious help we can. We are there, like Wenders’ angels, to look, listen, and bear witness to the suffering humanity around us. We walk beside our patients in their pain, help them acknowledge their thoughts and feelings, and provide company when there is no other company to be had. Sometimes we talk about God. But most often, in my experience, we don’t. And that’s okay.

[To read more, click on the link!]

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2023 Year End Compilation

NEW RELEASES (IN ALPHABETIC ORDER OF RATING)

Women Talking ★★★★½

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Elemental ★★½

I remember the first time I saw the trailer for Pixar Animation Studios’ Elemental a few months ago. It was at a theater with a group of friends who, like myself, had grown up with the first wave of Pixar films in the late nineties and early two-thousands. We all had fond memories of the Little California Studio that Could—the company who beat the seemingly invincible Walt Disney Animation Studios at their own game over and over at the box office and the Oscars. While the Mouse floundered with bland, forgettable comedies, Pixar gained a reputation for movies unafraid to exercise the audience’s hearts and tear ducts. Once, the release of a new Pixar movie was an Event with a capital “E.” Then came their 2006 merger with Disney and something…changed. While still capable of the occasional film with the old Pixar magic—Inside Out (2015) and Coco (2017) come immediately to mind—the innovators who gave the world talking toys, soft-shoeing robots, and balloon houses became a conveyor belt of Good-Not-Great sequels, prequels, and direct-to-streaming releases. When the credits of the Elemental trailer flashed, my friends and I sat in bewildered silence, looked at each other, and laughed.

Perhaps we were unfair. By all accounts, Elemental wasn’t the Pixar-on-autopilot cash-grab the trailer seemed to suggest. Pitched way back in 2015 and largely based on director Peter Sohn’s memories of growing up in the States the child of Korean immigrants, the film is obviously a labor of love with the highest (and noblest) artistic intentions. It’s the story of two star-crossed lovers—one a lower-class fire element named Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis) and the other an upper-class water element named Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie)—living in Element City, a metropolitan wonderland peopled with anthropomorphic versions of the four classical elements of fire, water, earth, and air. After a painful meet-cute where Wade, a city inspector, almost puts Ember’s family’s shop out of business—long story—the two team up to solve a mystery threatening the entire fire element quarter of the city. Oh, and somewhere in there they fall madly in love. Elemental takes bold swings at such weighty topics as racism, the immigrant experience, class differences, and escaping parental expectations (the last being one of Pixar’s favorite themes as far back as Finding Nemo and The Incredibles in the early two-thousands). It also has the distinction of being one of the only Pixar romantic comedies since WALL-E (2008).

Unfortunately, Elemental isn’t particularly good. But it’s not bad, either, which is the problem. In today’s crowded animation marketplace, the most dangerous thing a film can be is mediocre: great films are remembered for their excellence, bad films for their notoriety. But mediocre films? Those are quickly forgotten. Frankly, I don’t see anyone remembering this film in a year or two any more than other Pixar missteps like The Good Dinosaur (2015) and Onward (2020). Too many of the story beats are cookie-cutter predictable, right down to Ember’s contrived falling out with her doting father to Ember’s even more contrived break-up with Wade at the start of the third act. Watching it, I couldn’t escape the impression that I was seeing something Frankensteined together from other, better Pixar movies.

Instead, Elemental is at its best when it steps back from the plot and lets the audience drink in the incredible world-building and art direction. Element City is one of the most dazzlingly realized locations in any Pixar film with exquisite, near obsessive detail poured into its every nook and cranny. Unlike many animated cities that feel like clones of real-world locations like New York City with a few strange buildings thrown into the background for flavor, everything about Element City feels constructed with a city planner’s eye for accommodating real-life creatures of fire, water, earth, and air. Consider, for example, the fire element quarter of the city where Ember lives. As the city was originally built with water elementals in mind, their neighborhood was reverse engineered between a series of drained canals. Since the city’s subway system is essentially a giant log flume ride, the sidewalks underneath their elevated lines are covered with drains to catch and dispose of spilled water so it doesn’t harm the fiery inhabitants. This is world-building of the highest degree, and I haven’t even mentioned the glass tower swimming pools of the water elementals, the tree-filled offices of the earth elementals, or the sky-high spherical sports stadiums of the air elementals.

Element City deserved a better story. The narrative’s need to shoehorn all its weighty themes like racism and classism around its uneven romance fails the latter at the expense of the former. It’s not that you can’t make a good romantic comedy that explores these ideas—this just isn’t one of them. I’ve heard that during production certain story ideas were nixed because the filmmakers wanted to save them for a potential sequel. Despite Elemental’s mediocrity, I hope it gets made, if only because I want to see this creative team take a crack at a better story worthy of Element City.

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Best Films of 2022

As some of you might have noticed, I didn’t publish many pieces or read many fiction books this past year. The reason for that was that 2022 was a particularly busy year for me in terms of schoolwork and regular old work, specifically my first unit of CPE residency to become a hospital chaplain. Still, though, I did manage to see around 50 movies released this past year. Here are my picks for the best of them.

15)  Armageddon Time – Dir. James Gray

If I had a nickel for every Jewish-American cinematic Künstlerroman released in 2022, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice. Jokes aside, Armageddon Time is a fantastic coming-of-age story, and the specter of Anthony Hopkins really helps keep its head above the water of becoming excessively maudlin. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this material could've come across as excessively preachy, but Gray nails the correct tone for making it hit like a sledgehammer. That said, somehow in all the time before watching this movie I'd managed to avoid the news that the Trumps were in it. When I tell you that I felt ice water in my gut when they first appeared, I mean I felt like I cannonballed into the Arctic Ocean. I've said it before, but one of the most obnoxious things about Trump is that he's going to become as ubiquitous in future media as a metonym for everything that's corrupt and evil in the USA as Lincoln is for all that's good and noble. I just want Trump to GO AWAY.

14)  Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe – Dirs. John Rice and Albert Calleros

I cannot believe that this ended up being one of my favorite movies of the year. It begins with one of the cinema’s greatest nut-shots and only gets funnier. A bacchanalia of juvenile stupidity.

13)  Nope – Dir. Jordan Peele 

We as a society need to do whatever it takes to keep Jordan Peele making his intensely unique, intensely bizarre flights of cinematic fancy. This damn thing was a slow-burn horror film, a heist movie, a thriller, and a creature feature rolled into one.

12)  Top Gun: Maverick – Dir. Joseph Kosinski

The best male weepy since ONLY THE BRAVE (2017). Light years better than it had any right to be, and not really as toxic as I expected. Some of the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater all year. Not the MOST fun, but it’s definitely way, WAY up there.

11)  32 Sounds – Dir. Sam Green

I've been a fan of Sam Green and JD Samson after seeing one of their Live Cinema shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music several years ago. I am thrilled to report that Green's new film 32 SOUNDS is probably the best translation of their specifically mind-blowing, tender, and intimate live performances that we'll ever get. With only 32 sounds, Green captures a kaleidoscope of the human experience in ways at once amusing yet profound, devastating yet hopeful.

10)  The Batman – Dir. Matt Reeves

“I don't know if that was the BEST Batman movie, but it was definitely the MOST Batman movie. That said, it was refreshing to see a Batman film that remembers that he's a world-class detective. I have issues with this film, but almost all of them fall away when I think about how we finally got a superhero film that truly, deeply cares as much about images as it does the characters and stories. The Batmobile emerging from a wall of fire, muzzle flashes illuminating dark hallways like bolts of lightning, Batman leading a spiderweb of survivors through floodwaters while holding aloft a flare—these are IMAGES that are going to stick with me for a long time. Also, that opening sequence of petty criminals getting scared by the sight of the Bat-Signals leading up to Batman emerging from the subway tunnel... #chefskiss“”

[Full review at http://www.unseenfilms.net/2022/03/nate-hood-on-batman.html]

9)  The Fabelmans – Dir. Steven Spielberg

An extraordinary work of compassion, contrition, and grace. So much more than an autobiography—it's a Rosetta Stone for one of the cinema's greatest artists. I am have no idea how Spielberg and Kushner can explore feelings and emotions of such byzantine complexity while making it seem so effortless and natural. Pure wizardry.

8)  Elvis – Dir. Baz Luhrmann

The first half is pitch-perfect rhinestone gaudiness and the second half almost Shakespearean tragedy. It's equal parts pathos and bathos, wrapped in silk and slicked with pomade. Baz Luhrmann has been preparing his entire career for this one movie and it shows. I'm honestly mystified by people dunking on Tom Hanks' performance. Was it an accurate depiction of Colonel Tom Parker? Probably not, but Hanks created perhaps the greatest ghoul in popular American cinema since J. K. Simmons' Terence Fletcher. And finally, the early sequence juxtaposing a young Elvis spying on a blues joint and attending a gospel revival ranks up there Bheem attacking the British gala with his animal friends in RRR and the opening scene from THE BATMAN as my favorite so far of 2022.

7)  The Banshees of Inisherin – Dir. Martin McDonagh

This one absolutely gutted me. I spent the last forty minutes of that film scarcely breathing because I kept waiting for The Bad Thing to happen after the banshee made her prophecy. Also, this film was like watching an autistic person's worst nightmare made real. I'm serious. You want to know the one thing an autistic person fears the most? The people they love suddenly deciding one day for no apparent reason that they just don't like you anymore.

6)  RRR – Dir. S. S. Rajamouli

“After years of Hollywood franchise glut—of reboots and remakes, spin-off miniseries and bloated two-part finales—watching S. S. Rajamouli’s Telugu-language epic RRR is like taking that first breath of outside air after being cooped up all day in an office building with no air conditioning. It’s like taking a long, cool sip of ice water after days in the desert with nothing to drink but lukewarm Diet Coke. It’s like being reminded for the first time since you were a child amazed by the moving pictures on the television that movies can truly do anything, say anything, and be anything. It’s not just the most triumphant, crowd-pleasing blockbuster in years, it’s the best, most exhilarating action movie from any country since George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).”

[Full review at: http://www.unseenfilms.net/2022/06/nate-hood-on-epic-masterpiece-rrr-2022.html]

5)  ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS: Boku no Natsuyasumi – Dir. Tim Rogers (YouTube: Action Button)

The Ross McElwee/Lester Bangs of video game journalism returns with another 6+ hour opus on a video game most gamers outside of Japan may never have heard of before. Somehow, it’s his best yet. An exhaustive yet somehow never exhausting autobiographical examination of nostalgia, loss, and memory, Tim Rogers somehow finds in the act of playing a video game about a young boy’s summer vacation in the Japanese countryside a simulacrum for the universal human experience.

4)  We Met in Virtual Reality – Dir. Joe Hunting

Talk about a dark horse pick for one of the best movies of 2022. I've said it before and I'll say it again: my favorite kind of art is the art that makes me feel more human. WE MET IN VIRTUAL REALITY is a stunningly moving and sincere look at how humans have begun creating social ecosystems in virtual spaces. It would've been so easy for director Joe Hunting to play the things he found for laughs—and in fairness, it's easy to chortle at the idea of an anime couple proposing to each other after meeting in an exotic dancing class or a group of furry avatars talking about their sexual orientations around a campfire—but he looks for the human beneath and within his subjects.

3)  Mad God – Dir. Phil Tippett

A Voynich Manuscript of stop-motion blasphemies; a compendium of Švankmajer nightmares and H.R. Giger fever dreams. Hieronymus Bosch wept. If your reaction to this movie was that it didn't have enough plot, I hate you. If anything it had TOO MUCH plot. Don't be fooled by the stop-motion animation—there's more Stan Brakhage in this film's DNA than Hieronymus Bosch. I can say with no exaggeration that this film was one of the most overwhelming aesthetic experiences I've ever had in a movie theater. I could feel myself frozen to the seat for its entire runtime.

2)  Everything Everywhere All At Once – Dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

As a film critic, I've seen literally thousands of movies. But only a handful have ever given me an experience close to approximating Stendhal syndrome. I can say with some certainty that EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE is the only one to involve a sex toy kung fu fight.

1)  Glass Onion – Dir. Rian Johnson

GLASS ONION left me in a near-constant state of shock and disbelief for its last hour. I have no idea how Rian Johnson was able to outdo KNIVES OUT, but here we are. It's smarter, funnier, nastier, and proves that the first film's populist overtones were no fluke. That it wrapped BEFORE Musk bought twitter is one of the greatest acts of cinematic prognostication maybe ever? But it's so much more than just a furious defenestration of billionaire tech bros, it's another condemnation on how the uber-rich close ranks to protect their own. That whole scene where Miles' "friends" joined in Janelle Monáe's destructive rampage—but only for a little bit!—is such a powerful statement on how celebrities will performatively ape leftist politics in between private jet flights to cross union picket lines. But my favorite part of the film was watching it with my mother. She originally had no interest in it when I chose it (it was my turn to pick the movie!). I LOVED watching it cast the same spell on her that it did on me until by the end she was LITERALLY on her feet cheering! I'm sorry, but I don't know how you could look at Rian Johnson's last three films and NOT consider him one of the best filmmakers working today. I don't know if any director since the heyday of Spielberg has more perfectly mastered the art of the crowd-pleasing genre film. THE LAST JEDI then KNIVES OUT then GLASS ONION back-to-back-to-back? Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is a friggin' cinematic pedigree.

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2022 Year End Compilation

NEW RELEASES (IN ALPHABETIC ORDER OF RATING)

RRR ★★★★★

The Batman ★★★★

Tick, Tick... Boom! ★★★★

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2022 Year End Compilation

The Ancient Minstrel, Jim Harrison

Hm. A meandering, unfocused disappointment. In the introduction Harrison admitted that he surrendered to fictionalizing his autobiography. I wish he hadn’t. His fictitious flourishes only detract from his usually gorgeous prose.

Eggs, Jim Harrison

Hmmm! Considerably drier than I expected. It feels like he abandoned his usual poetic prose in favor of a more traditional―dare I say Russian―psychological study. The result is surprisingly staid.

The Case of the Howling Buddhas, Jim Harrison

HMMM!!! This was dreadful. Harrison has never been embarrassed by sex, but this novella feels like he wrote it with his penis.

Brida, Paulo Coelho

I have no idea if the magical system Coelho presents here is his own invention or not, but personally I don’t really care. I adored this book and its bizarre yet gentle syncretism of paganism and Christianity. I know many find Coelho’s books unbearably twee, but so far all the ones I’ve read have hit the sweet spot between sentimentality and sincerity. 

Undermajordomo Minor, Patrick deWitt

At a certain point this book started to feel like deWitt wrote it solely to surprise and outguess himself. That’s the only explanation I can think of for a book that takes so many surreal and thematically nonsensical turns. I enjoyed a good deal of it, but I can’t help but wish deWitt had settled it all on a central point or two. That said, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget the most bizarre secret aristocratic orgy this side of Eyes Wide Shut.

The Running Man, Stephen King [as Richard Bachman]

Deliciously, succulently furious. I had no idea King had this kind of fury in him. It made an already lean thriller absolutely propulsive. This was the pulpy palate cleanser I’ve been looking for for a long, long time.

The Far Cry, Fredric Brown

This was...very much not what I was expecting. When I picked this book up, I expected a decently entertaining crime thriller. Instead, it’s a slow-burn psychological drama of a man investigating a murder and becoming obsessed with the dead victim. So much of it predicts Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The first chunk of the book is a bit dry, but once the obsession begins to really take hold of the protagonist it becomes quite engaging.

Reality Check, Peter Abrahams

Apparently, this book won a Young Adult literary award when it was published. All I can say is that if books this dull were considered industry exemplars at the time, then losing an entire generation of young readers to Twilight and dystopian death games suddenly makes much more sense.

Roadwork, Stephen King [as Richard Bachman]

This book makes an interesting counterpoint with Pet Sematary: both films are, in their own ways, about dealing with grief. But whereas Sematary reacts passively with resignation, Roadwork reacts actively with rage. It’s a bit bloated, but the whole thing still vibrates with the anger that makes King’s Bachman books so compelling.

Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson

A brisk and snappy work of young adult historical fiction. Would be fascinated to see what this book would’ve been if it’d been written in the shadow of our current pandemic and its plague of misinformation and anti-vaxx sentiment.

The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie’s short stories all, in one way or another, see people trapped between the push and pull of different identities and cultures, whether they’re racial, ethnic, or geopolitical. The opening story, the ghastly and sad “Cell One,” even extends this to see a young man incapable of adapting to the us vs. them mentality of prisoners and prisoner guards after getting arrested over suspicions of murder. It’s a fantastic collection of stories, even if all of them don’t hit equal heights. A personal favorite is “Jumping Monkey Hill.” I could’ve easily read a book-length version of that one.

Patrimony: A True Story, Philip Roth

Knowing that I’ll probably go through something similar with my own father, reading this book was like placing my hand on a hot skillet.

A Lost Lady, Willa Cather

The elegiac downfall of a man, a house, a woman, a nation, a myth. Lovely, sad, and rich with Cather’s unmistakable sense of place.

Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson

“I had a moment’s glory that night, though. I was certain I was here in this world because I couldn’t tolerate any other place.”

The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor

Only someone with a devout faith could write a book with such venom towards organized religion.

The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon

Perhaps choosing this as my first novel to read while mentally burnt out after finishing a semester of seminary wasn’t the best idea.

Mao II, Don DeLillo

Terrifyingly prescient in its vision of a future where terrorism replaces the written word as the most effective means of mass communication. However, the book itself feels inherently disjointed, even within the context of DeLillo’s usual chronological and POV flourishes. Only the prologue and epilogue at the mass Moonie wedding and the revolutionary unrest in Beirut told from the perspectives of the book’s two central women seem to actually engage with DeLillo’s thesis of “the future belongs to crowds.” The middle clump of the book is mostly—both figuratively and literally—tortured writer porn.

Running Dog, Don DeLillo

Migraine-inducing in its byzantinism. This novel’s first half where it was just a pulpy spy thriller was more fun than the philosophically nihilistic second. The actual content of Hitler’s home movie was a brilliant coup, but it did little to relieve the overall turgidness of the overcomplicated narrative.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, Flannery O’Connor

An essential Catholic corrective to the current of gloomy Calvinism that infects so much of American literature. The title story, “The River,” and “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” are sad and beautiful while “Good Country People” and “The Displaced Person” are deliciously nasty.

The Magic Barrel, Bernard Malamud

I enjoyed the modern Jewish parables well enough, but the “American Jew in Italy” stories sapped almost all of my enthusiasm out from reading this book.

The Pale King, David Foster Wallace

Somehow, simultaneously, one of the dullest, most thrilling, most banal, and most touching novels I’ve ever read. Wallace delves into the nature of boredom, proving that the ability to navigate mundanity and monotony is just as central to the human experience as the capacity to comprehend beauty. Parts of this novel lodged into my mind like a splinter, none more than the first chapter which might be one of the single most gorgeous pieces of prose in American literature.

A Really Big Lunch: Meditations on Food and Life from the Roving Gourmand, Jim Harrison

Possibly the finest book I’ve ever read about food, eating, the love of both, and how they all inform the act of living as a bodily human being. You can taste the marrow in this book’s bones.

The Book of Daniel, E. L. Doctorow

The fact that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were later proven guilty as sin by declassified Soviet documents does nothing to lessen this book as a chilling portrait of how America scapegoats and lynches its poor, dispossessed, and racially marginalized. Also, I could read Doctorow’s descriptions of NYC crowds, streets, neighborhoods, and markets forever.

Homer & Langley, E. L. Doctorow

Oh, how I wish Doctorow had stretched his imaginary history of the Collyer brothers to include 9/11. Also, I feel like Doctorow might have fumbled a possible creative flourish by not revealing that the book itself was a copy of Langley’s fabled newspaper which, upon completion, managed to speculate on the future.

World’s Fair, E. L. Doctorow

Pleasant enough as a childhood autobiography of growing up in early twentieth century New York City, but at times it felt more like Doctorow was writing a laundry list of sense memories than he was the story of his youth. Also, it’s kind of cringy how much of it was recycled from The Book of Daniel.

The Ponder Heart, Eudora Welty

The rare Southern Gothic comedy that’s genuinely clutch-your-side funny, not the sardonic, wince-through-the-tragedy “comedy” of Flannery O’Connor.

Delta Wedding, Eudora Welty

**heavy sigh** You know what this book reminds me of? Those awful late 70s Robert Altman films where he filled his casts with too many damn characters all with barely anything to do. 

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

As amazing as everyone says it is. I was a Faulkner agnostic after reading The Sound and the Fury which I admired only on a technical level and Light in August which I didn’t like at all. But this novel was a tour de force portrait of Southern decrepitude writ large with the imagery of the Old Testament and the tragedy of the ancient Greeks.

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Delightfully morbid, thrilling, and disgusting. Was not expecting this book to go in the direction of weird science, but I’m glad it did.

Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

It was around the halfway point of this book—right when Saleem and Shiva were about to meet for the first time—that I heard the news that Salman Rushdie had been attacked and stabbed in New York. What a testament for how little has truly changed since his literary career started.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

Statler: “What was this book called again? A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?”

Waldorf: “More like Portrait of the Reader as Bored Senseless!”

Both: “D’oh-ho-ho-ho!!”

[natehoodreviews]

Reviews of films from off the beaten path, written for those who love the cinematic world and want to hear about more than mainstream movie releases.

[Review originally written for the bimonthly newsletter of the First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach]

“Don’t pay back anyone for their evil actions with evil actions, but show respect for what everyone else believes is good. If possible, to the best of your ability, live at peace with all people. Don’t try to get revenge for yourselves, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. It is written, Revenge belongs to me; I will pay it back, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:17-19 CEB)

Not including early Hollywood serials, animated films, and guest appearances in ensemble crossover movies, Matt Reeves’ The Batman is, incredibly, the ninth movie to feature DC Comics’ caped crusader. Few characters have survived for so long through so many permutations, from candy-coated camp curio in the Sixties to abrasive post-9/11 avenger in the Aughts. Reeves had his work cut out for him—how can you make an original take on a character that has been pushed, pulled, stretched, and distorted in every way imaginable? His answer wasn’t to attempt anything new with the Batman character itself. Instead, Reeves sought to interrogate the very purpose of the character, poking and prodding at the inherent moral murkiness of a billionaire who devotes his life to exacting brutal extrajudicial violence on poor and desperate criminals. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy occasionally flirted with these ideas, but it’s here in The Batman where they take center stage.

[To read more, click on the link!]

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RRR ★★★★★

Reviews of films from off the beaten path, written for those who love the cinematic world and want to hear about more than mainstream movie releases.

After years of Hollywood franchise glut—of reboots and remakes, spin-off miniseries and bloated two-part finales—watching S. S. Rajamouli’s Telugu-language epic RRR is like taking that first breath of outside air after being cooped up all day in an office building with no air conditioning. It’s like taking a long, cool sip of ice water after days in the desert with nothing to drink but lukewarm Diet Coke. It’s like being reminded for the first time since you were a child amazed by the moving pictures on the television that movies can truly do anything, say anything, and be anything. It’s not just the most triumphant, crowd-pleasing blockbuster in years, it’s the best, most exhilarating action movie from any country since George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

[To read the rest of this review, click the link above!]

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Best Films of 2021

Whenever I find myself compiling an end of the year best-of list, it’s always the prologue I dread writing the most. Is there anything more tedious than writing or reading a post-mortem eulogy of a calendar year? What do you want me to say about 2021, the second full calendar year of COVID-19? I suppose it was better than 2020, if only because it wasn’t an election year. But otherwise I don’t have any unique or pithy postgnostic wisdom. There were some damn good movies released this year, helped in no small part by a flurry of 2020 films studios only let see the light of day now that theaters have opened back up. Tragically, though, I wasn’t able to see many of them since I spent most of the year in suburban Florida far from any first-run arthouse theater. Fear of the Delta and Omicron variants also prevented me from seeing some of the biggest theatrical blockbusters of year. I guess this is all a roundabout way of explaining why certain films like West Side Story, Parallel Mothers, and Drive My Car didn’t make this list—I literally haven’t been able to see them yet. But still, I think I’ve managed to scramble together a decent enough list. A final note: readers might notice two YouTube videos have made this year’s cut. This might enrage some film purists, but I don’t care. It’s my sincere belief that given the current state of franchise-dominated Hollywood filmmaking with its disinterest in anything that can’t be merchandized, marketed to China, or cross-pollinated into the MCU, YouTube has become the new Wild West for independent filmmakers seeking both artistic freedom and mass exposure. As of this writing, YouTube hosts some of my favorite living filmmakers, artists unafraid to tackle unconventional subject matter in new and exciting ways. I easily could’ve included YouTube videos on several past best-of lists, but 2021 was the year I finally stopped caring about other peoples’ opinions enough to remember that this is my list and I don’t give a damn what film purists might think. Let them pop their monocles in shock—I’ve got good movies to watch.

16)       Zola – Dir. Janicza Bravo

I was not expecting a film based on a fictionalized tweet thread to be one of the most nuanced and compassionate examinations of sex work in recent American cinema. I also wasn't expecting it to be fantastic, but there you go. Zola is a movie that's going to pop up in future film textbooks about the depiction of social media in film—it nails an eerie feeling of disembodiment that makes the story seem both hyper-real and hyper-surreal at the same time, much like social media itself. Also, that strip club prayer sequence is one of my 3-4 favorite film moments of 2021.

15)       Playground – Dir. Laura Wandel

Yup, that's childhood for you. Maya Vanderbeque and Günter Duret give two of the best onscreen child performances in years in a film that's honest to the point of squirming discomfort about how scary, disorienting, and ultimately mercenary childhood can be. For a film that feels so loose in structure, Laura Wandel directs it with the skill of a surgeon; nary a moment or glance is wasted and every scene perfectly captures some emotional nuance or fluctuation.

14)       TIE: In the Heights/tick, tick…BOOM! – Dir. Jon M. Chu/Lin-Manuel Miranda

Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue that Lin-Manuel Miranda wasn’t the MVP of American movies in 2021. Three of his films are on this list, the first two of which are adaptations of pre-existing musicals which served as critical breakthroughs for their respective playwrights. The first is Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of Miranda’s In the Heights, a dazzling ode to Nuyorican culture and the Caribbean diaspora. In fairness, I’m somewhat biased towards this film seeing how a) it was the first I saw in a movie theater after over a year of COVID quarantining, and b) I lived in its setting of Washington Heights and recognized almost all of its shooting locations. But biases aside, In the Heights is still a bona fide crowd-pleaser. The second film, tick, tick…BOOM!, was Miranda’s directorial debut. A loving adaptation of fellow Stephen Sondheim disciple Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical not-quite-midlife crisis, it expands the original rock monologue to a full-fledged (and fully casted) barnstormer. Does Miranda occasionally let his heart get the better of him and lean on the side of unnecessary excess? Most definitely, especially in the cameo-bloated “Sunday” number. But that’s honestly part of the appeal of both the film and Miranda himself. He doesn’t make art for stoics.

13)       Last Film Show – Dir. Pan Nalin

[Excerpt from UnseenFilms review]

“Though its English title is winkingly similar to a certain Peter Bogdanovich classic, [Last Film Show] is more closely modeled on Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988). Both draw on autobiographical details to tell stories of young boys who become enraptured with movies, adopt a theater as a home-away-from-home, start friendships with kindly movie projectionists, and eventually escape from their small towns to become directors. But the two films are very consciously different in tone and execution. Whereas Tornatore’s film is a heavily melancholic meditation on memory, Nalin’s is a joyous expressionistic ode to artistic self-discovery.”

12)       Pebbles – Dir. P.S. Vinothraj

Friends and colleagues who really know me and my personal taste in movies might be surprised by this film’s inclusion on this list. Pebbles is, quite plainly, representative of what many people—myself included—resent much arthouse cinema for: intense stillness, relentless quiet, esoteric storytelling. But what can I say? It clicked for me almost immediately. An anti-road trip movie about generational misogynist violence, Pebbles is both unapologetically bleak yet beautiful. The "pebbles" of the title can, I think, refer to two things. The first are the literal pebbles collected by children strewn across the barren Indian landscape the characters navigate. The second are the metaphorical pebbles: the humans who traverse it as small parts of a very big world. It's hypnotic to watch this film dance from one human being to the next, letting us into not just their lives but their headspaces as well. I'm struggling to think of another film (other than the aforementioned Playground) that more accurately captures what it's like to see the world as a child, to experience time and empty spaces the way they do. This one requires patience, but if you click with it like I did, you'll love it.

11)       The Harder They Fall – Dir. Jeymes Samuel

Now here’s a Movie with a capital "M." 139 minutes of pure uncut celluloid. The Harder They Fall does more to emulate the visual panache of Spaghetti Westerns than any other modern imitator, including Django Unchained. Not a wasted moment, shot, or cut. Every performance a gem. It's somehow a broad, sprawling epic without an ounce of fat. That's a next-level magic trick.

10)       Annette – Dir. Leos Carax

A cunnilingual duet, a marionette libretto, and child abuse on world tour. There have been many "operatic" films before, but Leos Carax's Annette feels like an attempt to make a wholly original cinematic opera instead of just a musical with the emotions and volume turned all the way up. Death, doom, desperation; love, sex, betrayal—this film has all the disparate bits and pieces of the human experience at their most bombastic vying for our attention. And what filmmaking! This is one of those rare films that comes along and reminds us that, oh yeah, you CAN do anything in a movie.

9)         Sabaya – Dir. Hogir Hirori

The kind of documentary that leaves you feeling awe.

Awe that there is such evil in the world.

Awe that there is also such good.

Awe that this film managed to get made in a literal warzone.

Awe that one can watch it in relative comfort and safety a whole world away.

8)         Encanto – Dir. Jared Bush et al

Because they were such a formative part of my childhood, I'm very nitpicky when it comes to Disney animated movies. I fully admit that I hold them to unfairly high standards. That's why I'm delighted to say that Encanto is my favorite animated Disney musical since Tarzan. I’ve had issues one way or another with every non-Pixar animated Disney film since the end of the Disney Renaissance, but Encanto is the first one in over two decades where at the end I say back and thought to myself “I have no notes.” By nixing the traditional hero's quest narrative (which Disney honestly hasn't really nailed in a while―sorry Raya and the Last Dragon, you were fun but overstretched) in favor of a multi-faceted psychological study of a family facing intergenerational trauma, the filmmakers created something akin to Gabriel García Márquez by way of Menken/Rice. Lin-Manuel Miranda has his fingerprints all over this film, not just in its infectious lyrics and unrepentant emotionality, but because it feels like it originated in his head as a Broadway musical first and a film second: almost the whole thing takes place in one giant “set” with minor detours in two others. If you told me this was a stage musical first and a movie second, I'd believe you. In any case, it feels good to be so jazzed about a Disney movie again after all this time.

7)         The Velvet Underground – Dir. Todd Haynes

Far from a traditional talking head documentary, Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground makes you feel like you've been lowered by crane into a sensory deprivation tank where the only stimuli are Velvet Underground records. The film is a revelatory look through the looking glass at the 1960s NYC avant-garde.

6)         What the Internet Did to Garfield – Dir. John Walsh (YouTube: Super Eyepatch Wolf)

For me, one of the marks of a truly great filmmaker is the ability to make me interested in things I’d otherwise have no interest in. By this metric alone, Irish YouTuber John Walsh—AKA Super Eyepatch Wolf—might be the greatest filmmaker alive. I could just point out that his trilogy of videos on professional wrestling are what got me interested in the sport, but it goes much deeper than that. His videos on obscure manga, video games, and martial arts are uniformly fascinating and always send me down bizarre rabbit holes I never otherwise would’ve known existed. One of the keys to his talents is that he’s one of the most organically gifted storytellers on YouTube, capable of transforming something as mundane as buying a new computer into one of the funniest, most nail-biting videos of 2021 (Buying a PC With Dell: My Journey Into Hell - YouTube). But his masterpiece this year was his feature-length deep-dive into the online Garfield fandom. Part of a series of videos exploring some of the rowdiest and strangest online fandoms around (his two videos on The Simpsons are required viewing), his look at the sometimes hilarious, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes horrific fandom surrounding America’s favorite orange cat was nothing short of revelatory. I’m honestly struggling to think of a notable documentarian I can compare him to. Errol Morris? Werner Herzog? Morgan Neville? None of them fit the bill. The way Walsh approaches and presents his material is singularly unique. None of those other guys ever made me burst into tears watching someone in a cheap Garfield costume review Jon Arbuckle fanart.

5)         The French Dispatch – Dir. Wes Anderson

It’s amazing that it took Wes Anderson this long to make a Jacques Tati film, not just in its meticulous style but in its gentle, smirking weariness. The French Dispatch is his most emotionally delicate film since Moonrise Kingdom and arguably the most visually baroque of his live action films. I don't think Anderson quite stuck the landing with "Revisions to a Manifesto" despite McDormand's best efforts, but the other segments were perfectly crystalized miniatures of humanity struggling to know, understand, and express itself. Despite it being one of Anderson's most emotionally mature films, it also feels like the work of a young man eager and breathless to play with everything in the cinema's toolbox for the first time: animation, live tableaux, stage performance, etc.

4)         ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS: Tokimeki Memorial – Dir. Tim Rogers (YouTube: Action Button)

I’ve heard it said that Tim Rogers is the Lester Bangs of video game criticism. While that might not not be true—heaven knows he has the Patron Saint of Rock Journalism’s logorrhea—this past year has confirmed that he just might be video game criticism’s Ross McElwee, too. Ever since he transitioned away from writing about video games to making YouTube videos about them, his autobiographical tendencies have amplified considerably. Case in point: his herculean, jaw-dropping six-hour review of the obscure (in the West, at least) 90s Japanese dating simulator Tokimeki Memorial. What begins as a traditional diagnostic about why this innocuous little game might very well be one of the most influential ever made—no seriously, Rogers’ years of work in the Japanese video game industry provided him with plenty of compelling evidence—gradually morphs into a heart-breaking confessional about his own romantic life growing up and an examination of why so many people use video games as both emotional balm and psychological escape. Some might balk at the idea of watching a six-hour review of a video game scarcely anyone in this country has heard of. But if film buffs can watch seven hours of Hungarian peasants being miserable in Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó (1994) or thirteen hours of French actors rehearsing in Jacques Rivette and Suzanne Schiffman’s Out 1 (1971), they can quit their bitchin’ long enough to set aside an afternoon for one of the most engrossing, intriguing, and unexpectedly compassionate films of 2021.

3)         Pig – Dir. Michael Sarnoski

I don’t get outsmarted by movies much anymore. That’s not a brag that I’m particularly smarter than the average moviegoer, merely an acknowledgement that after being a film critic for several years and seeing several thousand movies, I generally know how most of them will go. That’s why when I do find the rare film that outsmarts me, I’m left feeling overjoyed and exhilarated. Michael Sarnoski’s Pig didn’t just outsmart me once, it outsmarted me every 10-15 minutes, tricking me into thinking it would go in one direction before veering into another entirely. In the first act alone the film evolves from a pseudo-Kelly Reichardt riff to a kidnapping thriller to an almost Lynchian exploration of a criminal culinary underground. The last fifteen minutes balance tragedy and tenderness in a way that would have made early Fellini jealous. As a sidenote, Pig feels like a film Anthony Bourdain would've worshipped, and not just because it's about a down-and-out chef. The whole thing captures his unique brand of rough-and-tumble sadness and camaraderie with outsiders. Also, this film just GETS the unique brand of wacko that populates the world of restaurant kitchens.

2)         Bo Burnham: Inside – Dir. Bo Burnham

[Excerpt from UnseenFilms review]

“I can’t (and shouldn’t) try to claim I understand [Bo Burnham’s] circumstances or personal pain, but I identify with how he expresses it in Inside. What makes it so transcendent is that it’s an emotional and psychological time capsule of the worst year of many peoples’ lives. It captures everything I’ve mentally associated with the pandemic and the quarantine: the fear, the anxiety, the sheer boredom; the unexpected mood swings; bursts of hyperactivity followed by bouts of lethargy; the snarling contempt towards society for allowing things to get this out of hand; the agony in knowing you truly aren’t any better or more significant than anyone else. If I’m alive in sixty years and my great-grandchildren ask me what 2020 was like, I’ll tell them to watch this film. And maybe, also, to say a prayer for Bo Burnham. I think the man can use it.”

1)         Procession – Dir. Robert Greene

[Excerpt from UnseenFilms review]

“What kind of saintly compassion does a child abuse survivor need to willingly play the role of someone else’s rapist? I’m not sure, but these six survivors have it. Their strength and bravery are nothing short of literal miraculousness. So is this film.”

[natehoodreviews]

2021 Year End Compilation

NEW RELEASES (IN ALPHABETIC ORDER OF RATING)

In & Of Itself ★★★★★

Procession ★★★★★

Bo Burnham: Inside ★★★★½

His House ★★★★½

Nomadland ★★★★½

The Last Film Show ★★★★

The Lost Leonardo ★★★★

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain ★★★★

The White Tiger ★★★★

Mission: Joy (Finding Happiness in Troubled Times) ★★★

[natehoodreviews]

2021 Year End Compilation

EDITORIALS

The 26th Verse

A biblical meditation on Genesis and Pixar’s Soul.

[natehoodreviews]

2021 Year End Compilation

CLASSIC FILM REVIEWS (IN ALPHABETIC ORDER OF RATING)

The Fate of Lee Khan [1973] ★★★½

Star Trek Beyond [2016] ★★★½

[natehoodreviews]

2021 Year End Compilation

White Noise, Don DeLillo

What’s this book “about?” I’d argue the dissipation of the individual in the face of consumerist devaluation and the commodification of sociological signifiers. In short, the revolution IS being televised and sold in shrink-wrapped six-packs in the supermarket beer aisle.  And...I'm not sure if I can 100% explain what I mean by this so don't ask me to try...but this book is exactly what I'd hoped Todd Haynes' Safe (1995) would be before I watched it.

I, Claudius, Robert Graves

“Since [the sacred chickens] do not wish to eat, let them drink!”

Chemistry, Weike Wang

A little dry, but brisk enough to not overstay its welcome. 

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the most dangerous books I’ve ever read. A step-by-step how-to guide for nonviolent revolution. I can’t believe the US government has never tried to ban and suppress it.

Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey

Charming enough lesbian reclamation of the Western genre. I do wish it had a few more drops of vinegar, though.

Pizza Girl, Jean Kyoung Frazier

It’s difficult to NOT compare this book to Weike Wang’s Chemistry: they’re both stories of second generation Asian-American women having quarter(ish) life crises despite (or because of?) having seemingly perfect white boyfriends. But this book goes darker and gets a lot nastier and meaner than Wang’s and it’s honestly all the better for it. Maybe a little TOO mean, dark, and nasty for my taste. But somehow Frazier stuck the landing well enough that I’m happy I gritted my teeth and pushed through.

Rebel Chef: In Search of What Matters, Dominique Crenn and Emma Brockes

Was it a mistake to read the biography of a 3-Michelin Star French chef chock-full of food porn in the middle of a deadly pandemic where going to ANY restaurant could potentially get you killed? Probably. Do I regret it? No. (Also, hearing Anthony Bourdain being written about in the past tense and eulogized was quite the sobering experience.)

The Sirens of Mars, Sarah Stewart Johnson

A decent enough primer on Mars exploration that shoots for the cosmological wonder of Carl Sagan...and sometimes even pulls it off.

Why We Can’t Wait, Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Birmingham counterpart to Stride Towards Freedom’s Montgomery. Essential reading, if only for its inclusion of King’s "Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

When in Romans, Beverly Roberts Gaventa

Proof that the world would be a better place if more biblical theologians used Terrence Malick films and Bruce Springsteen songs as reoccurring metaphors for explaining complicated exegesis. 

Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem

It’s interesting to compare this book with Edward Norton’s 2019 film version which turned Lethem's 80s hardboiled potboiler about mobsters and into a 50s noir fever dream about gentrification and city corruption. Norton's radical changes remind me a good deal of Herzog's NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979) which re-imagined F. W. Murnau's re-imagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula into a Teutonic parable of humanity's destined destruction at the hands of nature. Both take certain core elements from their source materials—a stuttering detective tries to solve his boss' murder; an ancient vampire attacks a modern European city—and uses them as springboards to tell their own stories exploring their own thematic obsessions. Yet both films feel like fully realized adaptations of their sources, though ones shined through a glass darkly. They would make a fascinating double feature.

Yes!: My Improbable Journey to the Main Event of WrestleMania, Craig Tello and Daniel Bryan

I have a good friend who said he didn’t like the corporate-speak prologues to each chapter, but to me they provided a fascinating kayfabe counterpoint to Daniel Bryan’s pre-2016 retirement career.

My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite

Reading this book is like slowly twisting a knife under your fingernails. You see the feel-bad ending coming a mile away, but like a boulder rolling down a hill you know you can’t stop it. Not a molecule of narrative fat on this one.

A House for Mr Biswas, V. S. Naipaul

Though this may be Naipaul’s most personal novel, my favorite parts probably had the least to do with the specific elements that were directly inspired by his family’s stories. For me, the heart of this novel is its depiction of Hindu Trinidad and Tobago in all its tragic detail: little children drinking bottles of Coca-Cola, glasses of Ovaltine, and cups of condensed milk mixed with sulfur; opulent ceremonial dishes laid out for impoverished Brahmin; rabid crowds massing into theaters to watch American Westerns. It’s a cross-segment of an entire society, warts and all.

Killing the Business, Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson

In addition to being a brisk and engrossing read, it also sorta doubles as an informal history lesson on the rise of the American indie wrestling scene in the 00s and 10s.

The Witches, Roald Dahl

I’m starting to think that the people who write the best children’s books are the ones who hate children the most. That’s certainly the case here. What a nasty, lovely little book.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey, Robert Macfarlane

Writing a book about the human concept of “underneath” or “underground” might seem as preposterous as writing a book about the color brown or the number three. Yet Macfarlane creates an encyclopedia of such hypnotic esoterica as the Parisian catacombs and hostile architecture guarding buried nuclear fallout that once you start it you’ll scarcely want to put it down. My finishing it in about a day is proof of that.

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

“I heard a man say once that Christians worship sorrow. That is by no means true. But we do believe there is a sacred mystery in it, it’s fair to say that.”

The Wapshot Chronicle, John Cheever

One day Cheever will regain his place as one of the great American prose stylists alongside Twain, Hemingway, and McCarthy. It’s simplistic to suggest that this book represents an Americanized Dickens what with its detailed sense of environment and place, its Bildungsroman structure, and its cast of exaggerated eccentrics and grotesques. But the similarities are there. What Cheever adds, however, is a twentieth century frankness about sexuality and performative masculinity as well as a distinctively New England sense of wistfulness. And again, what beautiful, beautiful language...

Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller

A paean to philosophical and sexual amorality. Monstrously misanthropic and misogynistic. Pretty words, though.

Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov

That last chapter broke my brain. Damn that Nabokov and his unreliable narrators!

Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

The short stories in this collection range from “fine” to “good.” But “The Finkelstein 5” is a scorching heat wave of fury. It’s terrifying not because the story itself is scary, but because it gives white readers like myself an unfiltered glimpse at the rage we’ve spent centuries of supremacy kindling in other people. That might be the best story here, but my favorite is “Light Spitter” which sees a college shooter and his victim meeting in the bardo. You could structure an entire novel out of the afterlife mythos presented here.

The Wings of the Dove, Henry James

James has this odd way of writing where it feels like he never knows where his sentences will end up going when he starts them. I just couldn’t get a feeling for his prose.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore

Somehow simultaneously stupider and smarter than I thought it would be.

Sisters, Daisy Johnson

Very possibly the best horror story about an evil sister dominating their sibling since We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Ghastly, hypnotic stuff.

A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, Julian Barnes

Uneven but by and large quite good. I do think it's hilarious how the last short story beat the finale of THE GOOD PLACE to the punch by over thirty years. But my favorite of these short stories was “The Wars of Religion” which had me rolling on the floor.

Dear Committee Members, Julie Schumacher

Read it in one sitting. Poisonously acerbic and wickedly funny, it’s one of the best looks at the reality of modern liberal arts colleges ever written. And talk about an ending that knows how to twist the knife in the wound...

Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches, John Hodgman

So dry it makes Garrison Keillor feel like Robin Williams. Still, it has its moments. (“I’m sorry, Pump-Daddy!”)

The White Castle, Orhan Pamuk

I can’t believe it took me this long after high school to read another Pamuk novel. Needless to say, it was fantastic.

The Elephant Vanishes, Haruki Murakami

At the very least, this short story collection gave me the opportunity to read Murakami's "Barn Burning." It definitely gave me a new appreciation for Lee Chang-dong's BURNING (2018) in that it made me realize how much he sucked all the tantalizing ambiguity out of the story. And that he, you know, adapted a brisk short story into a bloated, dreary 2½ hour slog.

Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes

Whether the assembled material was all invented, all authentic, or a mixture of the two, this book is a truly astonishing compilation of obscure miscellany concerning Gustave Flaubert. Whether or not it all adds up to a compelling novel is an entirely different matter.

A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

For a book ostensibly about Hemingway in Paris, it’s surprising how much of it doesn’t take place in or even have anything to do with the City of Lights. But then, it’s a book about Paris as a state of mind rather than as a metropolitan city. It helps that the writing is moving and beautiful and true.

If Cats Were to Disappear from the Earth, Genki Kawamura

Talk about a million dollar elevator pitch! Lovely book with an exquisite melancholy about life and death at its center.

French Exit, Patrick deWitt

DeWitt can’t seem to decide if he finds the wealthy amusing, tragic, or cruel. I think the book would have been all the stronger if he’d definitively came down on one side of the equation, but as it stands this book is still one of the most howlingly funny I’ve read in some time.

Shadows on the Rock, Willa Cather

Very little happens in this book, and I think that’s in large part why I love it. Cather creates such a vivid sense of place that you feel like you’re actually inhabiting late seventeenth century Quebec. Very few writers speak to me on such a personal emotional, spiritual, and aesthetic level, and this novel in particular felt like a balm on my mind.

The Fran Lebowitz Reader, Fran Lebowitz

Verily, Fran Lebowitz is the heir apparent to Dorothy Parker. And much like with Dorothy Parker, I have trouble reading too much of her work in one sitting. Her carefully curated self-absorbed cynicism grates after a while. I think the best way to experience Lebowitz’s writing might very well be to try and replicate its original medicinal drip in monthly publications by only reading one of her articles a week.

To Have and Have Not, Ernest Hemingway 

Dreadful. Had to force myself to keep turning pages. Howard Hawks was right to throw most of it out when he made the movie.

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell 

My goodness! I’m not sure I’ve encountered another writer who so enjoys torturing children since Edward Gorey. I really wish Russell didn’t tend to end her stories right when they seem like they’re starting their third acts. Still, it was nice to read a version of Swamplandia! that didn’t end with child rape. And the short story that gave this collection its title was positively superb.

Sold, Patricia McCormick

Jeez...this book was written for young adults?! I’m a full-ass adult and I don’t think I was old enough to read this.

In Calabria, Peter S. Beagle

Not just a superb coda to The Last Unicorn, but a stirring parable about the disruptive and soul-restoring power of faith.

Matilda, Roald Dahl

Honestly a little hard to read? Imagine if someone took all the scenes of child abuse from Stephen King’s novels and turned them into a kid’s book.

Summer Crossing, Truman Capote

So, about that ending. Did Capote always plan on it ending like that or did he just grow tired with writing the damned thing and decided the easiest way to finish it was to kill everyone off? Because I think I’d believe either answer. What a bore of a book.

Chekov—Eleven Stories, Anton Chekhov

I read a few of these stories a number of years ago. But I feel like I’m only now mature enough to truly appreciate them. “The Black Monk” is one of the finest short stories I’ve ever encountered.

The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt

A moving--if occasionally cruel and gory--story about the futility of violence as a lifestyle. The more outlandish it got the more I liked it.

Leaf Storm, Gabriel García Márquez

A morbid, macabre welcome to the village of Macondo.

Plain Song, Jim Harrison

Favorite poem: “Northern Michigan” for how it captures the spirit of rural decay.

Honorable mentions: “Lost”; “Fair/Boy Christian Takes a Break”; “Lisle’s River”; “John Severin Walgren, 1874-1962″

Revenge, Jim Harrison

I understand why some people might not like the anticlimactic ending, but I found Harrison’s subversion of traditional revenge narratives refreshing and ultimately inspiring.

The Man Who Gave Up His Name, Jim Harrison

One of the measures of Jim Harrison's genius was that he was one of the only writers who could write the phrase "he made a melancholy bouillabaisse" and not only make it seem non-pretentious but utterly essential to the story at hand.

Legends of the Fall, Jim Harrison

Fecund with the stark poetry of nature, violence, and vengeance.

[natehoodreviews]

400 Words on Star Trek BEYOND [2016] ★★★½

Reviews of films from off the beaten path, written for those who love the cinematic world and want to hear about more than mainstream movie releases.

[Originally published on UnseenFilms]

In hindsight, it took the 2009 Star Trek reboot series three films to find its sea legs. Whatever franchise grand poobah J. J. Abrams might claim, the 2009 film was obviously an audition reel for Star Wars. The film’s exaggerated iPod aesthetic did little to hide the Lucas-esque coat of paint Abrams slapped on Gene Roddenberry’s hopeful, egalitarian vision of humanity’s future. It rejected of the franchise’s philosophical and hard science foundations in favor of warring space armadas and planet-destroying super-weapons (both of which would be adopted to much better effect by the currently ongoing TV series Star Trek: Discovery). The second film Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) was a visually ugly, tonally turgid remake of The Wrath of Khan (1982) that nobody other than maybe Abrams himself actually wanted. But with Abrams surrendering the directorial chair to Justin Lin, the man who galvanized the Fast and the Furious franchise by embracing Looney Tunes physics and soap opera theatrics, the so-called “Kelvin Timeline” was finally allowed to tell a completely original story independent of anything that had come before. Go figure: the result was not only the breeziest and most enjoyable film of the Timeline, but the one most reminiscent of the beloved 1960s television show. Much like said series, the film takes place during the USS Enterprise’s five-year mission of galactic exploration. During shore leave at starbase Yorktown—a massive glass bubble with tendrilous city blocks circling the insides like ivy that stands as the best piece of imaginative engineering in the last several decades of Star Trek—Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew are summoned to an unexplored nebula to aid a marooned team of explorers. Ambushed upon arrival, the Enterprise is destroyed, the crew captured by a vicious race of not-Klingons, and the bridge team scattered on the surface of a nearby planet. Insert a genocidal tyrant, the race to recover a doomsday bioweapon, and a ticking clock to rescue the crew, repair the Enterprise, and save Yorktown and you’ve got yourself a movie. The film’s biggest problem is the thoroughly lackluster villain whose bland motivation to fight the Federation and groan-worthy twist backstory all feels perfunctory even by Star Trek standards. But as a showcase for propulsive action set-pieces, sci-fi fabulism, and charming chemistry among the impeccable casted performers (RIP Anton Yelchin), Beyond succeeds.

[natehoodreviews]

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain ★★★★

Reviews of films from off the beaten path, written for those who love the cinematic world and want to hear about more than mainstream movie releases.

[Originally published at Unseen Films]

This day was always going to come. Anthony Bourdain was too important, too beloved, and his suicide too tragic for there not to be a high-profile documentary about him. Inspired by the outlaw writers and musicians he idolized in his youth, Bourdain first gained prominence by shocking the culinary and publishing worlds with his 2000 autobiography/tell-all Kitchen Confidential where he revealed the seedy inner workings of haute cuisine kitchens. Confused by his overnight celebrity, Bourdain nevertheless parlayed his success into another book deal to be written concurrently with a Food Network television show. Armed with an abrasive foul-mouth, a no-nonsense New Yawk attitude, and a boundless, sincere compassion for people, food, and culture, Bourdain quickly became the patron saint of travel television, spending the next twenty years bouncing across networks and four wildly popular shows.

Unlike his contemporaries, Bourdain seldom limited himself to exploring the food of foreign cultures; he was a chronicler of the human condition in all its joyous, heartbreaking, and infuriating facets. A visit to Cambodia could focus as much on victims of American imperialism and the evils of Henry Kissinger as it could the local seafood. A vegan/vegetarian luncheon in Los Angeles could lead to an impassioned diatribe about said lifestyles being First World luxuries enjoyed by rich white yuppies who happily demonize Third World populations for eating meat to survive. Tuning in to one of his programs, one could expect anything from a tour of El Bulli in Spain to a tirade about how illegal Mexican immigrants formed the backbone of American restaurants. He was a man who could find as much pleasure and beauty in a bowl of noodles eaten on a Vietnam street corner as he did a 3 Michelin star tasting menu. In just a few short years, Bourdain emerged as a man who could rage against international injustice with the fire of a biblical prophet yet break bread with the poorest and meekest paupers like a saint. And he did all of this while being compulsively watchable, endlessly engaging, and boundlessly creative.

And then, at the peak of his renown and success, he hung himself in 2018 while filming for CNN in France.

To say his death rocked the world would be an understatement. There were outpourings of grief from fellow chefs, television personalities, and even world leaders like Barack Obama, to say nothing about the general public. The shuttered storefront of Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan where he’d once worked as executive chef became a impromptu shrine for mourners who plastered the windows with messages about how he’d changed their lives. Many compared his unexpected and tragic death to Robin Williams, and certainly no other recent high-profile suicide so captured the public’s imagination.

So yes, this day was always going to come. There would be a film about Anthony Bourdain, and it was going to try and grapple with his death. Thankfully, the man who’d eventually take that assignment would be Morgan Neville, the respected and Academy Award-winning director of such crowd-pleasing biopics as 20 Feet from Stardom (2013) and Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018). Those who might fear his decidedly talking heads heavy, middlebrow approach to documentary filmmaking might be surprised to find Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain one of the angriest, most tonally unstable biopics in recent history. The film’s no trite memorial, it’s an autopsy. It gets as messy and uncomfortable as the man himself.

It’s pointless to recount the ground Neville covers for most of the runtime, as it more or less follows the standard biographical details of Bourdain’s life anyone could glean for themselves from an afternoon on Wikipedia or a weekend watching clips of his shows on YouTube: his unexpected literary and television success starting in his forties, his tumultuous life on the road, his gradual emergence as pop culture phenomenon and political rabble-rouser, the dissolution of his various marriages. Where the film truly becomes extraordinary is in its desperate and ultimately futile attempts to reconstruct a psychological profile of the man, not just in his final weeks but in his preceding two decades of celebrity. What emerges is the portrait of an enigmatic man equal parts mercurial and saturnine, gregarious and aloof. We learn that he was capable of boundless warmth and casual cruelty such as when he offhandedly told friend and fellow chef David Chang that he wouldn’t be a good father. Neville interviews several members of his long-time road crew who worked with him for years, and his findings are heartbreaking. Several like producer Helen M. Cho are still visibly angry with Bourdain over both his death and his treatment of his “inner circle” in the last years of his life. Talks with Bourdain’s close friends fare little better. Neville finds some of them like celebrity chef Éric Ripert still in a state of stunned disbelief and others like artist David Choe still in mourning (the latter confesses to not having cut his hair or beard since he died).

One of the film’s most uncomfortable (but not unmerited) conclusions was that Bourdain, a former heroin addict, spent the years after kicking his habit satisfying his need for a fix with other pursuits, each of which consumed him like a narcotic and left a trail of broken relationships in his wake. At first, these obsessions emerged organically from his overnight celebrity: his love of traveling and making television led to a psychotic road schedule that saw him away from home 250 days a year. Of course his second marriage would fall apart under that strain. But as the years went by his newfound compulsions became more curiously specific and the effects on those around him more unpredictable. By the time he began dating Asia Argento in 2017 he was exasperating his friends and colleagues with his bizarre, erratic behavior. And though none of them admit it, a chilling sense emerges from the interviews that many people suspected Bourdain was self-destructing.

Which isn’t to say that the film is overwhelmingly despairing. There are moments of joy and happiness, mostly revolving around Bourdain’s relationship with his daughter Ariane (who is conspicuously missing from the interview peanut gallery). But much like the crime fiction writers and arthouse directors Bourdain adored, Neville infuses even these sequences with an undeniable melancholy. One of the most powerful moments in the film details his first forays into fatherhood set to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s theme from Nagisa Ōshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), a move one imagines Bourdain would’ve loved even more than an early montage of pre-television Tony prowling the streets of Manhattan set to Television. As I said earlier, this film isn’t a memorial, it’s an autopsy. Neville wants to know what went wrong in Bourdain’s life, and one can’t do that by dwelling overlong in its happiest parts.

When the film finally does address Bourdain’s suicide, it does so in a way I’m not entirely comfortable with. Using circumstantial evidence from his last Instagram story and a reported conversation with one of his friends, Neville hypothesizes that Bourdain hung himself after seeing tabloid photos of his beloved Asia possibly cheating on him. This is both unfair and salacious, particularly since a) the film doesn’t reach out to Asia to get her side of the story, and b) it sidesteps its own evidence that Bourdain had clearly been suffering from suicidal ideation for some time prior to his death. It’s an unfortunate misstep that mars but doesn’t discredit the overall film since it’s more interested in examining the larger miasma of disbelief and anger surrounding his passing than in clinically determining the causes of it. Here, after all, is a film that includes a photo of David Chang with his children during the end credits almost as a posthumous kiss-off responding to what Bourdain had told him about being a bad father. The Asia angle is clearly the film grasping at straws for an explanation, but so is everyone else featured in it. And so, I suppose, are the rest of us three years later. I know I am.