media of the moment

Midnight Mass. Loved this Netflix limited series for the same reason I love Darren Aronofsky’s Noah: it takes literally all the Bible’s very goth elements (“drink my blood”, the terror of angels, etc.) and transposes it into a deeply human modern story.

Didi. This coming-of-age story set in 2008 featuring a teenager only a few years younger than I was at the time, so you know the use of AIM and Motion City Soundtrack songs were a bullseye for me.

Nosferatu. Been knocking off a lot of classic horror blindspots and this 1922 F.W. Murnau silent version definitely qualifies. One favorite intertitle: “The Death Ship has a new captain.” 🤘

Challengers. Just your typical sports movie featuring a throuple of sweaty, smirking scumbags swirling into a sadomasochistic, psychosexual spiral.

Fear Not!: A Christian Appreciation of Horror Movies by Josh Larsen. Strongly respect Josh’s perspective as a critic and Filmspotting host, so amidst my recent foray into horror movies I thought this short book was a helpful primer on the redemptive aspects of the genre.

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen. Appreciated some historical bits in this but also skimmed over a bunch. Will it inspire me to get back into paper journaling? TBD.

Night of the Living Dead. Some wild swings between “this looks like a terrible student film” and “holy schnikes”. I knew nothing of it besides being considered the godfather of zombie movies, so all the social commentary and 1968 of it all really hit.

The Thing. My first John Carpenter movie and it was, uh, rather horrifying.

October 28, 2024 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson. Another brilliant narrative nonfiction saga from Steven Johnson that weaves multiple historical threads together to tell the riveting story of how dynamite, fingerprinting, anarchism, information science and other seemingly disparate forces all conspired to create what would become the modern surveillance state.

BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman. Highly recommend this new book for my fellow parents of boys especially, but also anyone interested and invested in a more wholehearted masculinity.

The Bear season 3. Carmy needs to chill out and call Claire.

Civil War. Alex Garland’s latest and rather (unfortunately) timely dystopian drama shows what would happen if Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation became president instead of Leslie Knope.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. I’d have to do some research on this, but I suspect the five-act structure of this saga could align rather nicely with the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible. Furiosa? More like Mad Moses.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Might be the most ’70s New York City movie ever?

July 15, 2024 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Dune: Part Two. I couldn’t see Dune on the big screen so I was glad to catch this one. Anytime I can see a big, weird, tactile, religion-infused spectacle like this is a good time for me.

Masters of the Air. Produced by the same people behind Band of Brothers and The Pacific, this miniseries on Apple TV+ focuses on the airmen of the 100th Bomb Group during World War II and is well worth your time.

Molli and Max in the Future. Delightful revamp of When Harry Met Sally with a sardonic, sci-fi twist.

The Cranes Are Flying. Rather astounding 1957 Soviet movie about the ramifications of war.

A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next by Tom Standage. From the author of The Victorian Internet, this hit the spot for millennia-spanning history, trivia, and troublesome truisms about transportation.

Devil in a Blue Dress. A Denzel noir? I’m down.

March 13, 2024 1 Comment

My sons’ media of the moment

A spinoff of an ongoing series

Raffi. His greatest hits have been on heavy rotation as it seems to be the only music that calms down our 8 month old when he’s upset, which is often.

Hamster maze videos on YouTube. The 4 year old is delighted by these. Random but could be a lot worse.

Who Smarted? A fun and educational podcast for kids about all kinds of topics.

Toniebox. As audio players for kids go, we’ve hitherto been a hardcore Yoto family. But several characters the 4 year old loves are only available as Tonies (Wild Kratts among them), so he got several for Christmas. It’s nice to have more variety for listening, even if the overall experience is less ideal than Yoto.

Mr. Men and Little Miss. The 4 year old has been on a kick with this book series. We own an old copy of Little Miss Scatterbrain but we got more of them from the library and he just loves them. He especially loves looking at the grid of characters on the back covers and asking us what each of their names are.

February 2, 2024 Add Comment

Podcasts of the moment

It’s been over two years since my last podcast lineup check-in, and as usual some things have changed while some things remain.

Changes: Many of the shows in my last update have either stopped publishing or lost my interest, and I’ve stepped away from the political ones. I’m also thrilled I was finally able to ditch Spotify once Armchair Expert went back to being non-exclusive, so I’m back in Apple Podcasts full time (along with Google Podcasts when listening on desktop).

The Same: I still listen at 1.5x speed. And I still greatly enjoy the parasocial pleasures and intellectual stimulation of podcast listening, even if it does severely reduce my audiobook reading.

My Current Lineup

Regular Listens

Armchair Expert
The Big Picture
Filmspotting
Judge John Hodgman
Office Ladies
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Town with Matthew Belloni

Depends on the Subject/Guest

The Rewatchables
Pivot
Unspooled
Pod Meets World
The Letterboxd Show
SmartLess

November 27, 2023 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

The Arcadian Wild. Heard about this folk/bluegrass trio recently and got immediately obsessed with “Big Sky, MT”.

Scream. Somehow I’d never seen this, though I was familiar enough with it based on its cultural ubiquity. Kinda wish the conclusion was a little tighter so it could be a perfect 90 minutes, but campy fun overall.

White Savior. This 3-part docuseries on Max is a rich text for those of us who grew up in a conservative Christian milieu and went on international missions/service trips.

The Witch. I like this Robert Eggers lite-horror joint for the same reason I liked Darren Aronofsky’s Noah: it takes its Old Testament inspiration and sensibility seriously, fully committing to a weird and very metal religiosity that too often gets sanded down for popular palatability.

Oppenheimer. “Men talking in rooms” is a common theme in a lot of the history books I’ve read, but I didn’t expect it to also work as a big-screen epic from Christopher Nolan. I’ll take it!

The Wager by David Grann. This new book from the Killers of the Flower Moon author makes me very glad I’m not an 18th-century sailor.

Emergency NYC. Stumbled upon this fascinating Netflix docuseries that follows surgeons, ER staff, flight nurses, and other emergency responders as they treat patients and balance their work with their personal lives.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. A great coming of age story, family dramedy, exploration of religion, female-centric story, and year-in-the-life movie all in one.

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. Surprisingly funny and a nice pairing with Are You There, God?

October 11, 2023 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Reality. Riveting recreation of the arrest of whistleblower Reality Winner, played by Sydney Sweeney. This was my first encounter of Sweeney and was thoroughly impressed. Just released on (HBO) Max.

Queer Eye season 7. A quality hang as usual.

Ted Lasso season 3. Hard to top season 1 but have enjoyed watching this story play out. Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca

Prey. I’ve never seen Predator so this was my first foray into the franchise. Found it to be a riveting, admirably lo-fi thriller, combining the violence of a western with the constant peril of Gravity.

The Art and Science of Arrival by Tanya Lapointe. Gorgeous coffee-table book about Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece.

The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton. Got to talk with Shelton about this book and his career.

Confess, Fletch. This was a damn fun time.

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. Really creative use of Fox’s memoirs, his TV and movie appearances, and reenactments to tell his life story. He’s also still funny as hell despite the effects of Parkinson’s.

June 3, 2023 Add Comment

My son’s media of the moment

A spinoff of an ongoing series

Yoto. He uses his mini Yoto audio player every day, which is an excellent screen-free source of “edutainment”. He’s always ready to spout facts he’s learned from the many nonfiction cards he enjoys. (Some terms he’s learned and repeated: hominid, pyroclastic flow, and bioluminescence among others.) Current favorite cards on repeat these days include Volcanos, Creepy Crawlies, Ancient Egypt, and many more.

Prehistoric Planet. This Apple TV+ documentary series is just Planet Earth with dinosaurs (David Attenborough narration included), therefore it rules.

Floor Is Lava. Since he was really getting into volcanoes, we gave this Netflix game show a spin and found it to be goofy fun. He started making his own courses at home and implementing the rules and tropes from the show, like the teams cheering for themselves.

Paw Patrol. Welp, it finally happened. We’d avoided exposing him to this until he listened to a Paw Patrol Yoto card, and now he’s all about it—even sometimes above Bluey.

The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak. This isn’t a new one for him but we checked it out from the library recently and he’s fallen in love again.

February 7, 2023 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. Hilarious and insightful memoir/biography of Lockwood’s Catholic priest father and her experience living with her parents.

Blankets by Craig Thompson. A stunning graphic novel memoir about small-town life, religion, young love, winter, and so many more things.

The Climb. An excellent indie film told through episodic, slice-of-life sequences that add up to a deeply funny and humane portrait of male friendship.

Jurassic Park. Amazing just how leisurely this feels compared to modern action blockbusters, with its long shots and deliberate storytelling pace. Yet still thrilling and not a wasted minute. So refreshing!

Babylon. A great prequel to (and double feature with) The Fabelmans.

Arrival. Masterful work from Denis Villeneuve and Amy Adams, and an excellent metaphor for the creative life.

The Twilight World by Werner Herzog. Happened to stumble upon this bewitching creative-nonfiction novel on a Best Books of 2022 list. In my mind I read it in Herzog’s iconic voice, so that probably made it even better.

Yojimbo. Some incredible shots sprinkled throughout this 1961 Kurosawa classic. “Whether you kill one or one hundred, you only hang once.”

February 3, 2023

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Athena. Come for the gangbusters opening 10 minutes—stay for the tense, heart-pounding drama of Children of Men-meets-The Battle of Algiers in a French apartment complex. (Streaming on Netflix.)

The End of Education by Neil Postman. My third Postman book after Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly. Would probably rank it below those two but still a barnburner.

The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone by Edward Dolnick. The story of discovering the Rosetta Stone (thanks Napoleon!) and the decades it took to decipher it, thus unlocking the secrets of ancient Egypt to modernity.

The Hunt for Red October. Finally got around to see this. Enjoyed it but still have to give the ’90s submarine action thriller edge to Crimson Tide.

Kiki’s Delivery Service. Been going through the Miyazaki oeuvre with the 3 year old and some, like this one, are first watches for both of us. Love being able to show him animated movies with a completely different pace and style than what he’s used to with Bluey/Curious George/Disney, etc.

The World’s Worst Assistant by Sona Movsessian. Sona is a key part of the success of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast so I’m glad she’s able to cash in on it.

Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Story of Life by Lulu Miller. A remarkable memoir/biography hybrid that reminded me of The Feather Thief with its nature/animals obsessives at the center and the ethical dilemmas they encounter (and create).

November 17, 2022 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Barbarian. Despite being a big baby about horror films, I went to see this opening weekend when I came into some unexpected free time. To say it’s surprising in many ways is a gross understatement.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Thus far it’s managing to strike the right balance of serving a global audience, LOTR trilogy fans, and Tolkien nerds. I quit on House of the Dragon after one episode because I’ve had my fill of Game of Thrones content, but I’m all in on this one.

Bluey season 3. Every season of this show (the best on TV) has a handful of episodes that are stone-cold masterpieces, and thus far “Rain” is holding the championship belt.

Nope. With this and Barbarian, it’s been a delightfully horrific summer at the movies.

The Last Movie Stars. A documentary miniseries about fame, love, art, and work.

Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women by Alissa Wilkinson. A delectable book about food, activism, art, and work.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon. Just straight-up funny for any age. They don’t talk the whole time and my 3 year old loved it!

September 14, 2022 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan. An excellent oral history of one of the greatest films ever made. One of the many tidbits: George Miller’s first choice to play Max was Heath Ledger, which I now can’t stop thinking about.

The Northman. A brutal, heavy-metal fever dream from Robert Eggers.

A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Published thirty years ago, its scholarship is out of date and perspective rather flippant, but the writing remains spicy and illuminating.

We Own This City. A sequel of sorts to The Wire that was just as compelling with a much shorter runtime. Gotta hand it to HBO Max, which has accounted for pretty much all of my TV viewing over the last year or so between this, Winning Time, Minx, and Station Eleven.

Top Gun: Maverick. The first Top Gun is kinda bad. This one is not.

The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. I’ve listened to the Office Ladies podcast since the beginning—where much of the book’s content has been covered previously—but still found this enjoyable and informative.

How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. This fits into a nonfiction genre I really enjoy, where the author visits various places/people that connect to the book’s central theme and explores their histories. Smith covers some stuff I was already familiar with but much I wasn’t—including that the Statue of Liberty has shackled feet.

July 8, 2022 Add Comment

My son’s media of the moment

A spinoff of an ongoing series

Bluey. A not-small number of times after watching an episode I’ve thought, “Was that one of the greatest episodes of TV ever?” Hot take: the only TV shows a kid needs, really, are this and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood—the yin and yang of instructive, high-quality children’s entertainment.

Picture books aplenty. A few he and I have enjoyed in equal measure lately: Creepy Carrots and Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds, Jazz for Lunch by Jarrett Dapier, and Up the Mountain Path by Marianne Dubuc.

Our Planet. Gave this Planet Earth spinoff on Netflix a whirl with him and he was mesmerized. Nature is so metal.

YouTube. An amazing learning tool. He learns about volcanoes in a book; check out this compilation of eruptions. He starts t-ball class but has never played baseball before; let’s pull up some highlights of a random game.

The Okee Dokee Brothers. Always and forever.

May 24, 2022 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Jackass Forever. A dirty, cringey, gut-bustingly funny cinematic soul-cleanse. Bound for my end-of-year top 10 just like the other Jackass movies.

Everything Everywhere All At Once. I think I need to see this at least twice to fully appreciate it, not for any plot reasons but because it really lives up to its title.

Winning Time. I enjoyed this HBO Max show enough to keep watching, but not enough to stick with it after the first season ends next week.

A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Just started reading this and know already it will be a feast. More to come.

Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood. Richard Linklater’s latest film synthesizes elements from two of his previous ones: the quotidian nostalgia of Boyhood and the rotoscope animation style of A Waking Life.

Summer of Soul. The two words that came to me after watching this concert documentary: exuberance and excellence.

Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan. Three stars for the book itself, five stars for the title.

May 4, 2022 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer by Steven Johnson. My favorite author does it again, using his signature storytelling savvy to explain how human life expectancy has doubled in the last century. Vaccines, epidemiology, pasteurization, drug regulation, penicillin, and automobile safety sound like dry topics, but how they came to be is anything but.

KIMI. A lean techno-thriller from Steven Soderbergh. It’s like Searching meets Rear Window with a dollop of COVID paranoia.

Station Eleven. The book was on my list of favorite books of the 2010s, so I was cautiously optimistic about this limited series adaptation. Glad to find it totally lived up to the spirit of the book while thriving as its own thing. Special shout-out to episodes 1 and 9 for being exceptional television.

Hud. That Paul Newman was a gosh-darn movie star.

We Had A Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff. Told in rotating vignettes, this book spotlights Native American performers and comedians who have used comedy to cope and reckon with the shameful abuse of Native Americans throughout history.

The Tender Bar. A likable coming-of-age story, with Ben Affleck as the wise and weathered uncle.

The Last Duel. A stellar cast and interesting premise, telling the story and fallout of a rape in medieval France from multiple perspectives. It’s good but also a tough sit.

February 16, 2022 Add Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series

Everything my son consumes. Obvs.

Love on the Spectrum. Just finished the second season of this heart-warming and instructive Australian reality dating show on Netflix featuring people on the autism spectrum. The delightful dynamic between Michael and his mom should be its own show.

Abbey Road. I previously wrote about encountering the super deluxe remastered edition of Sgt. Pepper’s and, by Jove, it happened again with my favorite Beatles record on a recent drive home. Luscious.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Finally read Miller’s debut novel after loving Circe, and she is now two for two in my book.

The Great British Baking Show. The current season is only the second we’ve seen, the first being last year’s COVID-bubble season. Mr. Almost-3 has started saying “Mmmmm, yummmm” every time the food drawings appear, which is (almost) always correct.

The Green Knight. Thought this was just OK for a large chunk of it, until the ending, which made me want to rewatch it immediately.

Witness for the Prosecution. Similar to The Green Knight, this was fine for a while until the end, when it became great. The acting was a bit over-the-top, even for the 1950s, but Charles Laughton was the tops throughout.

Shiva Baby. Nothing quite like seeing a writer-director absolutely nail the cringey-funny tone required to make this work.

Dune. Started watching as a Dune newbie and finished as a believer. Don’t think I’ll read the books though.

November 20, 2021 Add Comment

My son’s media of the moment

A spinoff of an ongoing series

Library books galore. Between my work library and the two public libraries close to home, we’ve established a pretty regular rotation of titles old and new. Recent hits include The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak and Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons by Sara Levine.

Bluey. The first-ever clip I saw of Bluey was the claw game and it made me literally LOL. The best kids TV show, period.

“Dem Bones”. He really got into spooky season this year. He’s especially obsessed with all things bones and skeletons, so this old traditional was and remains a hit.

Pixar movies. Approaching 3 years old, he’s enjoyed and (mostly) stuck with the Disney/Pixar movies we’ve tried with him so far. My guess at his ranking (starting with the most loved): WALL-E, Moana, Luca, Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, Coco. Still not sure how far back in the Disney canon I want to bring him even as he gets older. There’s a lot of good stuff—though I would say that as a Millennial, wouldn’t I?—but in general Pixar is higher quality and a lot less dicey.

The Okee Dokee Brothers. Specifically “Haul Away Joe” and “Jamboree” and a few other songs on seemingly infinite rotation. Good thing I love them too.

November 16, 2021 1 Comment

Media of the moment

An ongoing series of what I’ve read, seen, and heard lately

Schmigadoon. Though its story is a little loose at the edges throughout the show’s short six-episode run, the central conceit of a couple getting stuck inside the world of an old-timey musical was a fun journey. Watch out for “Corn Puddin’” because it’s an earworm. More TV musicals please!

Ted Lasso, season 2. Will be curious to see how this season fills out as a whole, but nothing can damper my love of the best show on TV. We really enjoyed the stretch of a couple weeks in July and August when we could watch the latest episodes of this and Schmigadoon as an uplifting and wholesome Friday night double feature.

Crimson Tide. So, this ruled. And made me really miss seeing Gene Hackman in movies.

In the Heights (movie and soundtrack). Seeing this was my first time back in the theater since February 2020, and I’ve had the soundtrack pretty much on repeat since. Favorite little moments: “damn, we only jokin’, stay broke then” and the It’s A Wonderful Life reference.

Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic by Steven Johnson. My favorite author strikes again.

A Quiet Place / A Quiet Place Part II. Being horror-averse I put off the first one for a while, basically until I saw the excellent reviews for Part II and realized they’re not actually horror but more of the “momentarily scary well-made thriller” variety, which I’m down with.

Paper Trails: The US Post and the Making of the American West by Cameron Blevins. Shoutout to the post office.

Showbiz Kids. Affecting documentary on HBO Max featuring former child actors talking about their past and present struggles.

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. I’ve never listened to the podcast this book is based on, but still enjoyed Green’s unique, earnest, and wry literary voice shining through this collection of essays.

August 25, 2021 Add Comment

Podcasts of the moment

I won’t do this quite as often as Media of the Moment, but I think it’s interesting to check in every once in a while with my podcast lineup and habits, since they do change over time for various reasons.

What hasn’t changed since my last dispatch: I listen to too many podcasts, and/but I’m still quick to skip episodes as desired.

What has changed: I’ve transitioned to Spotify (free version), and I listen at 1.5x speed.

I’m not super happy about the first one, but once four of my regular listens went Spotify-exclusive I decided to bite the bullet for the sake of a unified podcast listening experience, however frustrating it can be. There’s still one holdout stranded in Apple Podcasts because Spotify doesn’t allow for adding podcasts by custom URL, but otherwise that’s where I live.

Anyway, here’s the current lineup:

Regular Listens

Armchair Expert
The Big Picture
Dare to Lead with Brene Brown
Filmspotting
Judge John Hodgman
The Office Deep Dive
Office Ladies
The Rewatchables
10 Questions with Kyle Brandt
Unlocking Us with Brene Brown

Depends on the Subject/Guest

The Bill Simmons Podcast
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan
The Dispatch Podcast
The Ezra Klein Show
On Being
Revisionist History
Slate Political Gabfest
SmartLess
Typology

August 7, 2021 2 Comments

Media of the moment

An ongoing series of what I’ve read, seen, and heard recently

The Good Lord Bird. The limited series really captures the book’s madcap and dramatic spirit. Ethan Hawke is so delightfully committed to the dead-serious absurdity of John Brown.

The Underground Railroad. Two of my main takeaways while watching this 10-episode limited series: 1. I can’t believe I get to watch essentially 10 new Barry Jenkins movies! And 2. That’s a few too many given the heavy subject matter!

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, A Night in Tunisia. Recently my wife asked me to “get some jazz” from the library, so right before I left I grabbed a few albums more or less at random. Struck gold with this one.

Benny Goodman, Mozart at Tanglewood. Wanted to find some good concertos and heard good things about this one. Those good things were right.

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps: Designing Graphic Props for Filmmaking by Annie Atkins. A cool visual compendium and behind-the-scenes exploration of a film graphic prop designer’s impressive work, including lots from Wes Anderson movies.

May 31, 2021 Add Comment