On That Salty Air, Why We Write About Ourselves, The Legend of Tarzan, Etc.

That Salty Air by Tim Sievert (Graphic Novel, 2007) - First off, the artwork in this book is gorgeous. Done in black and white, it perfectly fits the theme of the story. Turning the pages, I felt like I'm swimming through an ocean of black and white ink. Unfortunately, that's just about the only thing that I liked about this graphic novel. Sievert touches on a lot of themes with his sparse story - love, loss, redemption, and nature's wrath. Sounds good but the two main characters in the story didn't really connect with me. Hugh is a jerk and his wife is too soft on him. I agree with a good number of reviewers who say that the book has amazing artwork but has bad writing. If you check out Tim Sievert's website, it can't be denied that he has mad talent. Apparently, he has written a good number of books. Here's to hoping that these have better stories than That Salty Air. I already ordered a couple of the titles because I love his artwork. 

Why We Write About Ourselves by Meredith Maran (Editor) (Book, 2016) - I understand that this book was written for aspiring writers who wish to one day write their own memoirs. I have no intention of writing a memoir but I picked up this book because I've always been fascinated by writers and their process in creating their works. It's an easy read and brimming with anecdotes, tips, and advice from 20 well-known memoirists. Each writer has his own unique tricks of the trade so they often contradict each other. That's one of the beauties of writing, I must say. There are hundreds of ways to cook a chicken. There are hundreds of ways to write a memoir. Consider reading this book if (1) you are planning to be a memoirist or  if (2) you are interested in how memoirists approach their craft.

Anna Quindlen on Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time - I came across a 2007 edition of A Wrinkle in Time which contains "An Appreciation" by the American author Anna Quindlen. Here's a quote from the piece that I found really beautiful: "The most memorable books from our childhoods are those that make us feel less alone, convince us that our own foibles and quirks are both as individual as a fingerprint and as universal as an open hand. That's why I still have the copy of A Wrinkle in Time that was given to me when I was twelve years old." Quindlen adds: "On its surface this is a book about three children who fight an evil force threatening their planet. But it is really about a more primal battle all human beings face, to respect, defend, and love themselves."

The Legend of Tarzan (Movie, 2016) - This movie has an average rating of 35% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's a well-deserved rating because it's a truly terrible movie. It bit more than it can chew. In its nearly two-hour run time, never did I feel invested in the story. Why? There's like a dozen storylines going on in the movie. The film kept jumping from one plot point to another. Just when you start to get invested in a story, the film jumps to another storyline. The picture has above-average special effects and some great action scenes. That's just about it. 

The Dig (Movie, 2021) - When I sat down to watch the film, I didn't know that it was based on a book. I also didn't know that it was inspired by actual events. I didn't even watch the trailer nor read the synopsis. I went in blind. I enjoyed the movie a lot. The story was paper-thin but the narrative was handled so well that I remained interested from the first minute until the last. The lead actors, Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan, are in their element. They're great. If actors with lesser talent were allowed to take on their roles, this movie most likely would have been a bore fest. Fiennes and Mulligan elevated the film with their acting chops. Great supporting cast as well. 

Call Me By Your Name (Movie, 2017) - Based on a novel by Andre Aciman (also called Call Me by Your Name), this is a coming-of-age drama about a young man falling in love with his father's research assistant. I haven't read the book so I am in no position to comment if the film did it justice. The film itself is very well-made. The acting is there. The cinematography is there. The pacing is there. It's the perfect drama movie. It doesn't feel like a movie. It feels like you are watching the video diaries of a family. 

Comedy Techniques for Writers and Performers by Melvin Helitzer (Book, 1984) - A good number of the best books I've ever read were written by comedians, humorists, and satirists. So it was with great interest that I delved into this book. This is an old book having been published back in 1984 so chunks of the content may be grossly outdated. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from the book. I was expecting something technical and dense. But it's an easy-to-read book filled with jokes and anecdotes from great and well-respected comics and humorists. The book is divided into several sections covering various topics about comedy - speechwriting, writing for magazines and newspapers, writing for stand-up comics, writing for sitcoms, writing for print cartoons, writing for greeting cards, and writing for advertising.

The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck (Poetry Collection, 1992) - Gluck received the Pulitzer Prize for this collection. This is the first book of poetry by Gluck that I read. And to be honest, I didn't get it. I really didn't understand all, yes all, of the poems in the collection. It's a thin book so I went through the poems two or three times in an attempt to understand them (and like them). Nothing. I still don't get most of them. But to be fair to Gluck, 99% of the poems I've ever read have confused me. I'm reminded of Doug Stanhope's joke about poems: "Children are like poems. They are beautiful to their creators but to others they're just silly and f_ _ _ _ _ _ annoying."

On Breaking Boundaries, 14 Peaks, Cargo, The Power of the Dog, Etc.

Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet (documentary) - We humans are the main drivers of climate change and if we don't rethink/stop our harmful ways, the earth which we call home may be heading towards a point of no return. A point where undoing the damage of what we've done will be mission impossible. That's the core message of this Netflix documentary narrated by Sir David Attenborrough and featuring scientists such as Johan Rockström and Terry Hughes. Generally speaking, the documentary doesn't offer anything that we don't already know. Its message is something we've been hearing for decades already. But it's another documentary on climate change so it's a good thing. More documentaries on the climate crisis means more people getting the message. 

One scene in the documentary that struck me the most was an analogy made by Rockstrom. Imagine planet earth as a truck going up a mountain through a rough and winding road at night. One wrong move and the truck will plunge down the mountain. If the truck is to make it to the top without falling, it must have a good set of lights. In the analogy, this set of lights is science. Planet earth can survive the climate crisis through the guiding light of science. 7/10

14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (documentary) - If you are looking for inspiration to get off the couch and go climb a mountain, this documentary by Torquil Jones should do the trick. It follows the seemingly impossible goal of a team of Nepalese climbers to make it to the summit of 14 of the highest mountains in the world in record time. The previous record was more than 7 years. 

The team summitted all 14 peaks in under 7 months. This should put Nirmal Purja (the leader) and his team up there with the likes of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Legends of the sport of mountaineering. The great Italian mountaineer and explorer Reinhold Messner also makes an appearance in the film. Purja has also written a book about the journey. It's set to be released in January next year. It's called Beyond Possible: One Man, Fourteen Peaks, and the Mountaineering Achievement of a Lifetime. 8/10

Cargo (movie) - This film offers a fresh take on the zombie apocalypse genre by setting it in Australia. It's a low-budget picture so I wasn't expecting it to go full zombie mode. If you've seen the movie The Road (a film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel), Cargo follows the same vein with the addition of zombies. It's about a father looking for a better place for his offspring. It's a film that relies on drama to propel the narrative forward. So it's definitely not for everyone. If you're expecting World War Z, you are going to be very disappointed. I also found the movie too long. I feel like a good 30 minutes of the film should've been left on the cutting floor. Martin Freeman played the main role. It was a commendable performance. 6/10

One Championship Winter Warriors 2 (MMA) - Four fighters under the Team Lakay banner saw action here. In the main event, Danny Kingad lost via unanimous decision to Kairat Akhmetov. Akhmetov dominated the bout with his world-class wrestling. Kingad had his moments in the third and final round. He was winning the striking match when he mind-bogglingly decided to clinch Akhmetov, pin him to the fence, and just stay there. I felt like he had the opportunity to disengage and try to knock Akhmetov out because that was his only chance of winning the fight. It was frustrating to watch. One of the worst examples of fight IQ I've ever seen in One Championship.

In the undercard, Kevin Belingon lost via TKO in the second round. He folded from a well-placed liver shot. With the loss, Belingon has been winless in his last four fights. Fortunately for Team Lakay, two of their fighters won early in the card. Both were making their One debuts as well. Jhanlo Sangiao submitted his opponent in the very first round. Stephen Loman TKOed his also in the first round. Two impressive debuts from two prospects. The future looks bright for these two. Can't wait to see them enter the cage again.

The Power of the Dog (Movie) - This film has been receiving awards left and right. And deservedly so. It's a well-crafted work of art. Everything about it is great - the acting, the cinematography, the pace, the story, everything. The four main leads are in their element - Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee. This is a western drama that will have the viewer thinking about it long after the end credits rolled. The film is an adaptation of the novel The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage. The movie also marks the return of New Zealand-based director Jane Campion (The Piano, An Angel at My Table, Holy Smoke!, Bright Star) whose last feature film was released back in 2009. 8/10

On Jack London, Jason Bourne, Extinction, In the Heart of the Sea, Etc.

Eugene Burdick on Jack London - The collection The Best Short Stories of Jack London which was published by Ballantine Books opens with an Introduction by Eugene Burdick. It's a short but meaty Introduction. The last paragraph was particularly insightful. Burdick wrote: "London's world will never exist again. The web of law is too tightly drawn, science has made us too invulnerable to the way of nature. But it is precisely for this reason that London's stature as a writer has grown. He can take that lost and savage world and make it live and move for a modern reader. For this reason, if no other, he will not soon be forgotten. It is the mark of the master writer." Burdick's not wrong.

Jason Bourne (Movie) - This is the 5th installment in the Jason Bourne film series. I don't know why they went with the character's name as the title of the movie. If I'm going to make a guess, it was probably a marketing decision. Some marketing monkeys in a glitzy office somewhere did some surveys, collected data, combed through the data, made charts and graphs and came up with the conclusion that more people will watch the movie if it's titled Jason Bourne, not The Bourne Redundancy. 

As to the movie itself, it was good. But it was not great. It has all the ingredients from the previous films in the series. Herein lies the problem, methinks. The franchise has become repetitive. It was cool to watch someone say "Jesus Christ, that's Jason Bourne" the first time. To hear someone make the same quip four movies later borders on annoying. And I didn't like the plot of Jason Bourne. The writers were lazy. They brought nothing new to the table. Ah yes, I take that back, they introduced something new to the plot - something about a social media platform called Deep Dream. Unfortunately, this was a completely useless subplot. It accomplished nothing. It was so detached from the main plot that if they removed all the Deep Dream scenes on the cutting floor, Jason Bourne would've been the same movie.

Destination Io (Movie) - In his review of this sci-fi picture, Nick Allen gave it 2 stars out of a possible 5. I agree with his rating. He also described the film as "genre minimalism to a fault". I again agree. Io is a movie with great ideas. Unfortunately, with the way the film was handled, these ideas weren't fully brought out. This is one of those movies that make you feel like you should be amazed but you're not. There's this feeling that there's a great movie in it but you're not seeing it. The actors gave commendable performances. The cinematography was great. Unfortunately, the film felt empty. As empty as the dying Earth that served as the setting for the film.

Extinction (Movie) - Michael Pena is a very capable actor but he looks very out-of-place in this sci-fi drama about a civil war between humans and synthetics (robots). This movie is bad. There's a reason it was scheduled for a theatrical run only to be pulled out before it's scheduled release. From the film's Wikipedia page: "It received negative reviews, with criticism for its confused and weak storyline, character development and pacing." 

People say Wikipedia is not a very reliable source. In this particular case, Wikipedia is 200% correct. Extinction is beyond confused. It's rife with head-scratching scenes. There's this scene where Pena's character and his wife were being pursued by men with guns. The pursuers were literally seconds behind them. When Pena and his wife reunite with their children on a train station platform, they took the time to stop and hug. Their pursuers were just seconds away from blasting them to pieces. Yet they still have the time for hugs and kisses. It was at this moment that I mulled turning the movie off. But it was already too late. The movie was minutes away from the ending.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Movie) - Adam Sandler is a great actor. That is if he's in a movie where he's actually required to act and not play the stereotyped character he has portrayed in most of his movies. His performance in The Meyerowitz Stories is one of his best, if not his best. The man held his ground against Dustin Hoffman. That says a lot. And of course, Sandler wouldn't have shined here without the help of a great cast which included Ben Stiller, Elizabeth Marvel, Emma Thompson, and Grace Van Patten. I would also like to take this opportunity to plug Uncut Gems, another movie starring Adam Sandler, the capable thespian, not Adam Sandler, the goof from Grown Ups.

In the Heart of the Sea (Movie) - I found this movie very entertaining. In some ways, it reminded me of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. It has the ingredients of a good film - a capable director in Ron Howard, beautiful cinematography, fantastic soundtrack and an A-list cast comprised of Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Benjamin Walker, Tom Holland and Brendan Gleeson. So I was surprised to learn that the film bombed at the box-office. It had a production budget of $100 million. It only earned about $94 million. Oof. 

Those aside, there's a web of interesting stories behind the plot of the film. The movie's an adaptation of the book of the same name (In the Heart of the Sea: the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex) by Nathaniel Philbrick. The book tells the true story of a whaling ship sunk by a whale in the South Pacific. The story of the Essex partly inspired Herman Melville in writing Moby Dick. 

To those interested in reading more about the Essex tragedy, a book you should read is The Loss of the Ship Essex, Sunk by a Whale: First-Person Accounts. The book contains the accounts of Owen Chase (the ship's first mate) and Thomas Nickerson (the cabin boy).

The Commuter (Movie) - When you sit to watch a Liam Neeson movie, you are going to get one of three things - Neeson the serious actor, Neeson the voice actor in an animated movie, or Neeson the action star. 

In The Commuter, Neeson puts on his Taken hat, gets on a train, and beats everybody who gets in his way. I expected this to be another mindless action flick but it surpassed my expectations. I won't go as far as to call it an intelligent movie but it had parts that will have you thinking. It's not that hard to like a movie where the writers actually tried to make the plot smart, original and interesting. As a bonus, The Commuter has a good cast - Vera Farmiga, Sam Neill, and Patrick Wilson.

The Birth of Jesus Christ in History and Legend (Podcast/YouTube) - In this one-hour long podcast, professional skeptic Michael Shermer talks with the American historian and scholar Bart D. Ehrman. Ehrman is well-known for his scholarly books that focused on textual criticism of the New Testament. 

His most famous books are Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, Forged, God's Problem, Jesus Interrupted, and How Jesus Became God. In this episode, Shermer and Ehrman cover a lot of topics like the historicity of Jesus Christ, reconciling the Gospel accounts, the probability of the resurrection, theodicy, the problem of evil, why Muslims and Jews do not believe in Jesus, and more.