Book #37 of 2016: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff I like that this book spans decades while focusing closely on only two characters, so that you get a strong sense of how their lives change over time. And the central gimmick is neat: the first half of the novel shows the marriage of these …
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Movie #10 of 2016: Ghostbusters (1984) My wife had never seen Ghostbusters before, so her family insisted on fixing that. (She seemed to like it a lot, especially when Rick Moranis ended up having a bigger part than she initially thought he was going to.) As for me, I saw this movie all the time …
Movie #9 of 2016: Captain America: Civil War (2016) Simply outstanding. The last two MCU movies (Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man) left me somewhat cold, so it was great to see that Marvel hasn’t lost the magic altogether. The writers of this one did a great job at balancing such a large cast of …
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TV #24 of 2016: Elementary, season 4 This show definitely peaked with its first season, but it’s been a reliable procedural ever since and there are no signs in this latest season that things are running out of steam. As always I have minor quibbles with plotting decisions – not enough focus on Joan, not …
TV #23 of 2016: The Good Wife, season 7 The Good Wife’s seventh season was also its last one, which makes it hard to reflect just on this season and not on the show as a whole. (Especially when so many parts of the finale are pitched to mirror / echo moments from the pilot.) …
TV #22 of 2016: Veep, season 2 This season’s humor is sharper than the first, and the characters are better-realized. But they’re still all terrible people, to the point where I’m not really rooting for anyone while watching. (If anything, I’m sometimes rooting against one character more than another based on who’s been relatively more …
Book #36 of 2016: Daughter of Deep Silence by Carrie Ryan Another take on the Count of Monte Cristo bit, where a person who’s been presumed dead actually survives and takes on a new identity in order to enact revenge. In this case, that person is a teenage girl, one of only three passengers to …
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Book #35 of 2016: Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub (The Talisman #2) Most of Stephen King’s books connect to his other stories in one way or another, a process that’s aided by his Dark Tower series positing that all worlds are intertwined. Sometimes these connections between stories can be as simple as …
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TV #21 of 2016: Star Trek, season 2 I’m still liking TOS, and still spotting some major influences on the TV shows and movies I’ve liked from the past half-century. This season also did a lot to establish the idea of the Prime Directive, which feels quintessentially Star Trek but wasn’t really a thing in …
Book #34 of 2016: Golden Son by Pierce Brown (Red Rising #2) Given their common themes of dystopian wargames and rebellion against a corrupt government, The Hunger Games remains the go-to comparison for the Red Rising series of books. But this second novel of the series deepens the plot outside of the arena far more …
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