july

Books

Adventure Zone: There Be Gerblins

A masterful adaptation of the podcast D&D romp into a graphic novel. I absolutely loved this. I’m not sure if this would be as fun if you hadn’t listened to the podcast, but if you haven’t, get on it… it’s free and it’s delightful.

La Bastarda ###*

A lesbian novel from Equatorial Guinea that tells a short story of a woman abandoned by her father, and orphaned by her mother who finds herself falling for another woman. The first half was full of build-up and world-building, but the back half felt like a very rushed piece, as though Trifonia was hoping to get it all out in a final effort. I enjoyed this book, but the bits that were glossed over about Okomo’s journeys, her grandfather’s death, and other scenes could’ve been fleshed-out.

Blackfish City ### ***

This book ruled, and I was super surprised at how much I loved it. Absolutely riveting, and a blast. The individual characters felt very distict, and were easy to follow, and the world felt really interesting.

Movies

Drive Angry

There are probably worse Nic Cage movies, but this is the worst one I’ve seen. Every scene is painfully bad.

Tomb Raider

Fun, and very surprisingly entertaining for a video game movie. Lots of “oh, I could see how this would play in the game,” scenes. Alicia Vikander is a much better Lara Croft too, imo.

Sorry to Bother You

This is the movie Idiocracy wishes it were. Sorry to Bother You skewers tech culture, bay-area poverty, racial injustice, and so much more. Throughout, Tessa, Lakeith, and the rest of the cast deliver awesome performances. A mix of chilling and laugh-inducing. One of the best films I’ve seen this year.

Tragedy Girls

What a wild, fucked-up movie about social media, murder, and friendship. Don’t do it for the gram.

I, Tonya

Finally watched this with a friend, and wow, it was good but full of very violent abuse stuff. Growing up in the 80s/90s, Tonya Harding was in a lot of news, but this definitely filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge of her story.

Villainess

What a wonderfully bonkers movie. It kicks off with wild first-person murder fest, and just goes off-the-rails from there. One of the bloodier and wilder action films I’ve seen in a long time. Loved it.

The Incredibles 2

Watched this a few hours after the first one. The animation has gotten a LOT better, even though the first one honestly aged pretty well, since they didn’t try to make it photorealistic. The plot was ridiculous again, and they definitely leaned hard into the “men are bad at childcare” shit that I suspected they would. Fun enough though anyways.

The Incredibles

The animation holds up surprisingly well for a few year-old movie, even if the plot depends on some pretty annoying misogynist tropes. I watched this to prep for the new movie, and overall it was a fun, if ridiculous, movie.

Ant Man & the Wasp

This was a hoot. Very silly, and pretty PG, but above all else, this felt like a comic movie. I’d compare this to Spiderman Homecoming or a less stylish Thor Ragnarok. Great summer night movie.

Sicario

What a wild movie, in which I needed to completely suspend all of my feelings about America, the “drug war” and Thanos. If you can attempt to not emotionally connect to the actual monsters in this movie, it’s kinda fun in a “tense film where things blow up” kind of way.

Gemini

Lesbian murder mystery? Yes. This was fun, even if the music felt super weird at times. Good bangs. Cool cars. A movie where men are the worst. Also this seems consistent with the choices and habits of geminis, so, lol. shots fired.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Lol, this movie was absurd. They rushed off the island and so many of the subplots never really paid off? I can’t forget that Pratt is a conservative, and I didn’t really care much about anyone in this film, except for the dinosaurs. I guess I was rooting for the dinosaurs, and I figure they probably came out ahead.