July was about big journeys and messy people. Gods and warriors, thieves and spies, chefs and families; all trying to find their way through worlds that are bigger, stranger, and more complicated than they expected.
I gotta say, when I first saw that there was a movie being made of The Odyssey, I wasn’t super excited. I felt like it’s such a pervasive story, that there wasn’t anything new to be mined from the source material.
I was wrong.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Christopher Nolan and the cast and crew have created an absolutely phenomenal movie.
The storytelling was amazing, and the pacing was as close to perfect as any movie I’ve ever seen. There were so many intense scenes, yet the quieter moments were so well acted and written that nothing felt slow or burdened by unnecessary exposition.
What I appreciated most was how the movie captures the epic nature of the story without the need to manufacture the epic feeling. So many movies get lost in the epicness of the visuals, soundtrack, and dialogue that they forget to make an actual movie.
The Odyssey, rather, was grand while having the most understated feeling of grandiosity. For example, the practical, grounded feel of the visual effects was palpable. The use of close-up shots—letting the actors convey the dread and horror of watching the gods pull apart their world—felt loud, powerful, and real. In the words of Da Vinci, nothing was lacking and nothing was superfluous.
The film didn’t pander either. The audience felt just as lost as Odysseus and his men: Who are the giant knights? Who is the Cyclops? Who is Calypso? We can infer—as the characters do—but we don’t get answers. Nor do we need them.
In a rare instance of storytelling, the audience is truly on the journey. We are just another of Odysseus’s crew: hopeful, terrified, lost, and at the mercy of the gods.
I came to this later than I probably should have. After years of watching No Reservations and Parts Unknown, I’m not sure why it took me even more years to finally pick up this audiobook. It is rawer, funnier, and more intimate than I expected. It’s not merely an account of restaurant kitchens at their most chaotic, but an early glimpse of the sharp, restless storyteller Bourdain would become.
What stayed with me was his attention to the people behind the meal: cooks, servers, misfits, travelers, and strangers briefly brought together at a table. I have more to say about Bourdain than will fit in this short summary, but for now: this book reminded me that curiosity is often less about having a plan than being willing to step outside one.
After finishing the core Red Rising trilogy, I wondered if this series still had anything to say.
Turns out it does.
The world gets bigger, messier, and more politically complicated.
What I liked most was the shift in perspective. The first three books tell the story exclusively from a single viewpoint, so it’s interesting to view the revolution and rebuilding of society through the eyes of different characters, with different backgrounds. As my friend Ryan put it, these books bring us into the horrors of war through the different perspectives of a revolution.
I’m glad Brown wrote it, and I’m glad to be reading it. It’s a distinctly different feeling from how I feel about Rings of Power or the last season of Game of Thrones (I don’t like them). The original Red Rising trilogy will always be the heart of the story, but these follow-ups provide a great continuation of the story, even if they don’t hit with quite the same weight.
I came to Schitt’s Creek late, and honestly… I did not immediately understand the devotion. The show made me laugh, but for a while I found the Roses more exhausting than endearing. I kept waiting for the moment when the series would click for me.
It did, eventually. By the end, I understood why people speak about this show with such affection. And why its finale inspires such strong feelings. It is funny, warm, and far more emotionally perceptive than its premise initially suggests. I have more thoughts on exactly why it worked for me coming soon, but for now: give it time.
Watched this on a recommendation from Shea Serrano, who always has great recs. It felt like a more modern version of Heat, without trying to overshadow that masterpiece.
Chris Hemsworth plays a high-end diamond thief pursued by Mark Ruffalo’s relentless detective. Barry Keoghan steals the show as Hemsworth’s unhinged, psychopathic rival. The story was nothing groundbreaking, but the brilliance was in the execution, which was exactly what one hopes for in a solid heist movie.
I had not seen this movie in probably twenty years, and it was still as good as I remembered it. I love a good espionage story, and I’ve always appreciated this film’s unusual approach to the genre.
First off: Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch are phenomenal in this movie. Luckily, the writing was almost as good as their acting. It’s a fairly dark comedy about a couple who begins to drift apart as one suffers an abrupt fall from grace while the other finds new success.
It took me a while to realize that the story is in the same vein as Succession: you’re not really rooting for either character. They’re both equally, at times, terrible people. And it takes their children (the Brian Cox figures in this metaphor) to say, “I love you all, but you are not serious people.” There’s less a message to be conveyed than the experience of watching a car crash unfold over an hour and a half, albeit with some very good comedy along the way.
A Final Note
What I’m currently reading
Dark Age by Pierce Brown. Still working my way through the Red Rising series. The post-trilogy books do not quite have the same punch and momentum as the original trilogy, but they’re still keeping me engaged. I’m eager to see where it all goes next.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It’s been on my bookshelf forever. I’ve always loved storytelling as an art form, and so far this book is really meeting that love with some wonderful commentary on what makes storytelling such a universal part of our species.
A quote I’m pondering:
Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds?
Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head?
I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.
Until next time
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