Pop Culture Round-up: Spring 2015 (Angsty Parentheses Edition)

Spring, glorious spring! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming... so why not stay inside and enjoy some pop culture fun?

Here's what I've been digging lately:

Photo credit: Marvel.com

Marvel on TV
Marvel's Daredevil and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

I've wondered for a long time why Charlie Cox isn't a big star -- he's handsome, British, and a great actor (if you haven't seen Stardust, go watch it now - unless you hate fun.). Hopefully he'll get all the attention he deserves now that he's in the very hot Netflix property, Marvel's Daredevil (I'm going to drop the Marvel now, mkay?). This is basically the super-hero show I've always wanted: it has heft - thanks to great writing, themes of sin and redemption, and the acting chops of Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll, and Vondie Curtis-Hall -- plus amazing fight choreography and a film noir vibe. I'm hoping that Netflix's upcoming Marvel-collab AKA Jessica Jones does for another fave, Krysten Ritter, what Daredevil has done for Cox: given a little-known actor the part they deserve. (And if you think all of that sounds a lot like Batman, The Mary Sue did a great article on how Daredevil earns its angst.)

And if you're one of those who dropped Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D in its first season, it's definitely worth catching up now. With the introduction of Marvel's Inhuman mythology (yeah, wikipedia is essential for me in catch up with Marvel mythology since I'm not a big fan of superhero comics) S.H.I.E.L.D has added rich new dimentions. Basically - Inhumans are powered people. In the first year, S.H.I.E.L.D stayed away from putting powered people front and center, because it was about how humans deal in a world where there are superheroes. However, they've been able to introduce the Inhumans - and make some major characters Inhumans -- without sacrificing the humanity. Plus, who doesn't love Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen, the actors who play the beating heart of the show?

I've been pretty impressed with the expansion of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" (that's what you're supposed to call it). It gives me hope that if anyone ever does buckle down and adapt Stephen King's The Dark Tower into a group of films and TV properties, it will go OK. 

(Seriously, what's with my use of parentheticals today?)

Concept poster by Franco Francavilla

Ex Machina

If there's one thing we should learn from comics and sci-fi, it's that creating conscious robots is NOT a good idea... or is it? In the new movie Ex Machina, artificial intelligence comes in the form of a robot with the face of Alicia Vikander and the body of the inside of a vacuum -- she clicks and whirs as she moves. The movie centers around the young man who is testing whether Ava is actually conscious, and her mad scientist creator, played brilliantly by Oscar Isaac with a super-cool beard. With only four characters, Ex Machina is an antidote to the current cinema's preoccupation with over-long, over-stuffed science fiction. As true fans know, the best sci-fi asks us to interrogate our current society to help us determine what kind of future we want to live in.



Kintsugi, Death Cab For Cutie

I know this girl who went to college with the members of Death Cab, and because indie music kids of the 90's were fiercely territorial, I've always thought of Death Cab as her band. Hence, it took me a long time to actually start listening to them. Like 17 years. Kintsugi is the perfect album for the moment we're living in right now. It's all about the existential angst of living in a world where experience is mediated through technology. (Apparently, along with parentheses, I'm really into angst right now). I'm particularly fond of "Little Wanderer," a song with beautiful metaphors about being the one who stays home and gets those digital pictures while a loved one is traveling. I also love "Binary Sea," the album's last song, which takes the existential angst to its logical conclusion, asking if we ever existed if there's no record of us.

Hozier with George Ezra, Warehouse Live, Houston TX

I was lucky enough to get tickets to Hozier's first Houston show, which he played at a fairly small club ballroom venue. George Ezra opened two weeks before his SNL appearance and before his song "Budapest" was on the radio constantly. Despite the annoyances of seeing an artist on a high from a hit single (lots of teen girls, way too many people watching the whole thing through their phones. See: Kintsugi for commentary on our need for mediated experience), it was a fantastic show. Hozier had a surprisingly delightful persona, given the (yes!) angst of many of his songs. He seemed genuinely happy that the show was going well, and his mostly-female band was excellent. I do find his fame somewhat odd, given his allusion-heavy album which references the abuses of the Irish-Catholic church, 50's rock and roll, and Plato's Cave, but I'm glad that his popularity gave me the chance to see him in person. 

To All the Fandoms I've Loved Before...

If you're a proud feminist fanwoman,
you can buy this at lookhuman.com

When I was about seven, I held an established and respected place in the playground hierarchy: I was the only girl who played Star Wars every day at recess. This meant that I always got to be Princess Leia, no matter the occasional girlish interloper who got tired of whatever girls do and decided to play with us for one or two days. She could be my handmaiden.

Playing Star Wars was a demanding pastime. You had to remember where you hid your stick that looked like a blaster so you could come back to it from one recess to another. You had to weave your way around other kids who didn't know the monkey bars were the Millenium Falcon. If you were the only girl who was Princess Leia, you had to transfer your burgeoning geek girl crush from the kid who was Luke to the kid who was Han because (spoiler alert from 1983) Luke was your brother. You also had to wear Princess Leia buns to school sometimes.

Being a fan is not easy.

This is Nathan Fillion,
and this was huge news in the geekoverse.

This past weekend was Comic-Con, the four days when every geek's heart beats in San Diego. For those four summer days, the city that's always 75 degrees and sunny becomes the capitol of all fandoms. Hobbits mix with Avengers, and Avengers hug it out with Westerosi. Westerosi give the appreciative head nod to Whovians. Nathan Fillion dresses like Captain Kirk.

For non-fans (one might call them Muggles, mundanes, etc.) this all sounds as indecipherable and pointless as the NFL draft does to me. Google "psychology of fandom" and you get a whole mess of articles about fandom as coping mechanism, fandom as outlet for personality type, and on and on. For fans of genre entertainment (that's what all that Comic-Con stuff is), I think there's an alternate explanation: we're narrative junkies.

Very rarely does someone become a rabid fan of something one-off. If they do, they often clamor for more. (Visit the Twitter profile of Rainbow Rowell, author of the near-perfect Eleanor and Park and you'll see how many people want a sequel, even though it's the ending that makes the book so amazing. You know, according to me.) Ongoing entertainments (comics/book series/TV/multiple movies) provoke our deepest fan-love. We become fans of expansive universes with multiple ongoing narrative threads, histories only-hinted-at, minor characters who have their own back stories and favorite breakfast cereals. And because of this expansiveness, there's always more to explore.

Supernatural fans have a reputation for being able to make
any conversation on the internet about Supernatural.
It's actually pretty impressive.

Critics of genre fictions call this escapism. There can certainly be an element of that. As a fan, I'm pretty fan-lite. I may pin a few Doctor Who-related jokes on Pinterest, but that's about the extent of my extra-curricular fannishness. However, there are plenty of fans who write fan-fiction and go to conventions and talk on forums about their fandoms and sort Supernatural characters into Hogwarts houses. They continue the narratives, analyze them, build their own corners of the stories. Escapism? Yes. But no more so than calling radio shows to talk about sports teams or visiting all the Major League baseball stadiums in a summer (something friends of mine did), which is considered mainstream.

Many say that escapism is all there is to genre fandom. Consider the following quote from Steven Petite at the Huffington Post:

"The main reason for a person to read Genre Fiction is for entertainment, for a riveting story, an escape from reality. Literary Fiction separates itself from Genre because it is not about escaping from reality, instead, it provides a means to better understand the world and delivers real emotional responses."

Petite states that one is not better than the other, just different. However, saying that literary fictions provoke "real" emotional responses implies something ... that our emotional responses to our genre stories are not real. Anyone who has watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Doctor Who knows that there are real emotional responses to be had in these stories.  Just because the world of Buffy has vampires in it, doesn't mean that it's not also our world, and that it can't help us navigate the world around us.

That's what narrative does. Our brains are hard-wired to make sense of the world in stories, and the narratives we love most help us figure out how to be in the world. From Buffy we learn what it means to be a woman with power, and what it means to accept and choose that power. From Who we learn that no matter who we are, we have a responsibility to make our own story great by helping to make the world better. From Supernatural we learn what it means to strive to be a man and fall short, and then keep striving. At least, those are the things I learned. Because each of these stories has its own universe, fans will pull universes of meaning from them.  Stories are meant to be our teachers.

But even after all that, I still don't get the Sherlock fandom.

Pop Culture Round-Up: Sick in Bed Edition

Wow! It's been awhile. I can't really blame anything...

Well, I was sick for a week. During which time I watched all the TV. Not only did I clear my DVR, I enjoyed entire seasons of some shows, which are now being added to said DVR. I also watched a bunch of rom-coms, which I only watch when I'm sick. However, I wouldn't particularly recommend any of them. (OK, I thought Austenland was pretty cute.)

So what did I watch?

Gimme some TV that
goes down easy!

Arrow, The CW
Over the past few months, I'd slowly been catching up with Arrow (The CW's pretty-person reboot of DC Comics' Green Arrow). However, while sick I binge-watched the end of Season 1 and caught up with Season 2. Yes, it follows the CW's formula: people who all look sort of alike and yet are better actors than you expect, enacting adventurous yet preposterous tales. I like the CW formula, however. It's sort of a less-witty play on the Joss Whedon formula. No one will ever accuse Arrow of being anything but candy, but it's the Lindt truffles, rather than the Whitman's sampler, of teen TV.

The Americans, FX
Last year I DVRed The Americans but never watched it. In preparation for Season 2 (which begins tonight!), the first season was released free for Amazon Prime members. The Americans might be compared to FX/AMC/HBO shows that are about tough people doing tough things, but frankly I don't feel like I'm giving up my feminism to watch it (I'm looking at you, Mad Men.) The show centers on two Russian spies embedded in suburban DC, who pretend to be a clean-cut American family. Keri Russell and Margo Martindale play a couple of TV's biggest badasses, and all the women on the show (even the woman who is seduced into a sham marriage by one of the spies) are more complex than on your average television show.

Plus, it brilliantly evokes the early 80's, and that feeling that the world was balanced on the head of a nuclear pin. I remember how frightening it was too be a kid at that time, how central the USSR was to the news, how many of us worried that the world could end tomorrow. The Americans capitalizes on that paranoia brilliantly, and it's suspenseful even though we know the world didn't end.

True Detective, HBO

Now that's haggard!

What was that about feminism? Oh, hey Emily Nussbaum from The New Yorker, calling out True Detective for its thin female characters. 

I haven't thought in depth about whether I agree with Emily (maybe she's right; but it's also a story told in the voices of White, Southern men in a rural area - so, this criticism seems more like criticism of the POV choice... whatever). I just know that I am absolutely mesmerized by this show. It is, in many ways, about what it means to truly live one's philosophy, even if that philosophy is brutal and nihilistic. Shot beautifully, with a stunning, haggard central performance by Matthew McConaughey, it's one of the best things I've seen all year.

See. Cute as a bug in a backpack.

Looking, HBO
Lots of folks have called Looking the gay Girls. It's totally not. I hate Girls. I want to punch all the characters. I gave up on it at the beginning of Season 3. I might end up watching it (although I resisted all through my illness) because it totally sucks you in, but I'll feel guilty about it.

Looking is not like that. Looking makes me want to hug all the characters, even that poopy-pants Augustin. It is, quite simply, the most romantic show on TV right now. Yes, it's a kind of romance that will make the Fox News crowd uncomfortable (one whole episode centers around whether the main character can get over his shame of being a bottom), but it's romance all the same. Jonathan Groff, as usual, is too cute for words. If only he got to sing!

Speaking of Fox News and feminism...

I'll continue to watch The Mindy Project
as an act of resistance.

Is it just me, or is Fox totally undermining the ideals of Fox News? (The answer is YES). Although they have the same parent company (21st Century Fox), Fox has been quietly filling its prime-time slate with shows featuring strong, diverse female characters. In particular, their programming features women of color prominently: on Sleepy Hollow, The Mindy Project, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The New Girl (no, I don't mean Jess), Glee, and Enlisted. The White female characters often come from diverse income backgrounds, ranging from Bones (tough crime-fighting anthropologist who  grew up in the foster system) to Raising Hope (the family matriarch is a house cleaner who is a well-rounded, strong female character and has one of the best marriages on TV). While Fox News is consistently making statements that undercut women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community, their sister company is doing something much more powerful: telling stories that portray people from these backgrounds as agents of their own fates. I know that Fox is just trying to make a profit, but it makes me happy that they are participating in the unraveling of the prejudice that Fox News tries to sell.

My Pop Culture Christmas Vacation

Yes, I'm a geek girl, an inside kid, a pop culture vulture. I like TV and I'm not ashamed. Christmas vacation offers mucho free time to indulge in collecting new obsessions.

What did I watch, read, or listen to?

What I Watched:

Vikings, History Channel, available on Amazon Prime Streaming
This show is about Vikings. Not Minnesota Vikings, not metaphorical Vikings who kill it in the board room, but actual Vikings. I'm sure it's not as historically accurate as being on the History Channel would suggest, but it has one thing going for it that Downton Abbey doesn't: a truly alien psychology (and axes. Downton doesn't have axes). Most historical fiction has characters with modern psychology living in a historical world - it makes them easier for us to understand. But on Vikings the characters have a truly different psychology, guided by living in a world that they believe is directed by multiple gods. Gustaf Skarsgard has gotten a lot of (deserved) attention for his deeply weird performance as the boatbuilder Floki, but Travis Fimmel, who plays the lead Ragnar Lodbrok, deserves just as many accolades. He plays the rare lead character whose motives you truly can't discern, bringing surprises throughout the viewing. Add in a kick-ass heroine in Katheryn Winnick's shield-maiden Lagertha, some great Viking-Christian humor, and some truly punk rock hairstyles, and you've got a television experience like nothing else on TV.

Plus, I just love this teaser for season 2:

Hemlock Grove, Netflix
Hemlock Grove has vampires, werewolves, a creepy science institute, a creepy Catholic order, a girl impregnated by an angel, gypsies, a phosphorescent giant ... and a lot of vomiting, guts spilling out, and some naked boobs and butts. So, you probably don't want to watch this one with your grandma over the next holiday that comes around. Hemlock Grove is so stuffed with kitschy Gothic tropes that it shouldn't work -- and it probably wouldn't before the era of binge watching. However, Netflix understands how people watch on their platform, and Hemlock Grove goes down easy ... well, as easy as a show can where a gypsy channels a spirit by eating a giant grub that's been feasting on blood. Anchored by a murder mystery and a surprisingly sweet love story, Hemlock Grove is like what the CW would be it didn't have a standards and practices department. And that's a compliment. (Bonus points for great turns by Dougray Scott and (a super-campy and gorgeous) Famke Janssen, two actors that I would watch do almost anything.)

What I Read: 

Cinder and Scarlet, by Marissa Meyer
At work, we have a book club that only reads young adult books. Because we're mature like that. One of the books we read was Cinder, a re-telling of Cinderella tales that's set in a future city called New Beijing. In it, Cinder is a cyborg and is trying to save her world from an evil queen of the moon. (Yep.) Scarlet takes off where Cinder ended, weaving in a re-telling of the Red Riding Hood legends. While dystopian fantasy is all the rage these days, most of the hot authors skate over some of the sci-fi influences, so I enjoyed that Meyer seems to jump right into the sci-fi waters, with spaceships, genetic engineering, and half-robot girls. It still has the romance and "chosen one" elements that young girls like, but this series feels fresher than most of what's in the genre.

Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell
This is truly one of the best books I've read in awhile. Set in 1986 (with lots of Smiths and Alan Moore references for geeks like me), it tells the unlikely love story of two young people who meet on the school bus. Eleanor has recently moved back in with her mother and stepfather after being thrown out of the house a year earlier. Park is trying to deal with his identity as a half-Korean comic book nerd in a family where his dad is an all-American tough guy. They meet when Eleanor reads Watchmen over Park's shoulder on the bus (italics used to emphasize that's like the nerd Olympic gold medal for love stories). There are so many relatable incidents and moments in this book; it's sweet without being sappy; and Park's family is truly one of YA lit's best pictures of loving and flawed parents. This is one reason that grown-ups shouldn't pooh pooh Young Adult books.


What I Listened To:

This video is gorgeous, as is Chvrches' full album, The Bones of What You Believe.

Why We Need the Doctor

50 years ago, two British schoolteachers began looking into the mysterious life of one of their students, and one of television's longest-running phenomena was born. The birth of that phenomenon is being celebrated today with a Google doodle and a globally simulcast television special, and lots and lots of Tweeting.

The First Doctor, courtesy of Doctor Who Image Archive.

It turned out that the student lived with her grandfather, The Doctor - played by the redoubtable William Hartnell - in a police box (basically a phone booth) that was bigger on the inside than on the outside. 

The show was, of course, Doctor Who, which is the story of a Time Lord who can travel anywhere in time and space in the police box, which is actually a T.A.R.D.I.S (Time And Relative Dimension in Space). The TARDIS makes a whooshing noise, a little like a plunger and water rushing through pipes. To those who dub themselves "Whovians" it is one of the most magical sounds in the world.

I became a fan of Who a few years ago, when my friend Kelly went through one of those obsessive chains of fandom that geeks go through - we pity those who don't have the experience of fandom. (If anyone is wondering, the chain went like this: I turned her onto Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which led to being a fan of James Marsters > Torchwood > Who.) Who is ostensibly a show for children; British urban legend speaks of kids in the 60's hiding behind their sofas because of the scary monsters on Who.

It is a very British show. In America, Superman ducks into a phone booth and comes out ready to put his strength and power to use; in Britain, The Doctor ducks into a phone booth and comes out with a good idea.  American heroes have muscles, The Doctor has a fez. In the words of Craig Ferguson, Doctor Who is, at its heart, a show about the triumph of "intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism." 

In a world that seems to be overrun with brute force and cynicism, that kind of message is welcome. But the story is not one that shies away from harder truths - if it was, there would be no need to hide behind sofas. The Doctor is a warrior who lost everything in a terrible battle, and his greatest enemies are cold and emotionless. Most of the show's plots go like this:

• The Doctor and his companion land the TARDIS somewhere in space and time; usually they are planning on having a fascinating time but to stay out of trouble.
• Trouble arrives. 
• Everyone runs around.
• Things look dire.
• The Doctor thinks of a clever idea to save the day.
• He gives his enemies the chance to turn away from their destruction.
• They scoff at him and refuse to turn back.
• He defeats them, using sciencey jargon and a tool called the sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor was played by many actors; Time Lords can
regenerate when near death, but they take a new form,
leaving room for a new actor.
This is the Tenth, David Tennant.
Courtesy of the Doctor Who Image Archive

Those who travel with The Doctor (he has a series of companions; most are young women but they also include an omnisexual space captain, a married couple, and a Scottish Highlander, to name a few) become better versions of themselves. Although no one is allowed to travel with him forever, during the time that they do, they learn what it means to fight for what's right, to stand by your friends, and to maintain a sense of childlike wonder in the face of a universe that is vaster than they can comprehend. To comprehend that universe, as a few companions have found, strips one of her basic humanity and that comprehension must be forgotten.

We need a story like The Doctor's the way we need Santa Claus: to weave a narrative that shows us, like The Doctor shows his companions, that there are higher and finer things than those we might see in our daily lives, to give us a glimpse of a world that we will never quite attain. C.S. Lewis called the emotion evoked by these kinds of stories joy. He did not mean happiness. Instead, he meant "an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction."  Children can hide behind their sofas and long for the whooshing sound of the TARDIS's engines, but they will never hear that sound in their own gardens.  It's better that they don't. The longing is what keeps our imaginations humming in time with those engines, sparking us to strive to create the world our better selves would wish for.

Pop Culture Update: Spring 2013

The theme of this pop culture round up is "Grrrrl Power", as I realized that every one of the pop gems I'm featuring this season has a strong woman (or more than one) at the center, from a tough little girl to a spy to a   powerful wizard.

I also got wise to the fact that the categories of "Movies" and "TV" and "Books" that I've been using make absolutely no sense in this crazy, mixed-up, interweb universe we live in. When I organize drawers I tend to organize by function (things that adhere; things that cut). So I've decided to take a similar approach to the categories below. Each title will include how I accessed the media - although there may be other ways to access these.

Things to Watch (Non-Serialized Variety)

Upstream Color, available OnDemand

It's impossible to describe writer/director/actor Shane Carruth's new film, Upstream Color, without sounding ridiculous. As evidence: it's about worms that get in your bloodstream and make you susceptible to brainwashing. And pigs. And orchids. See? Ridiculous. But wade in.  You won't regret it. If you watch it at home, I recommend turning off all the lights and turning off the phone, so you can get washed away just like you would in a real theater.

What Maisie Knew, in theaters
Maisie is a little girl with terrible parents who love her in the way that utterly self-absorbed people love others. She has two beautiful, young, and kind stepparents who are caught in the torrent of these terrible parents. Some awful yet ordinary things happen to her. If What Maisie Knew (based on the Henry James novella), was told with any distance, it would be hard to watch. It's told from Maisie's perspective, however, and you're brought into her world of toy animals and fabric crowns. Grounded by a remarkable performance by Onata Aprile, as Maisie, this is the kind of portrait of childhood that I haven't seen since 1996's Ponette (another stunner, if you haven't seen it).

Things to Listen To
I do almost all of my listening on Spotify these days. The premium account is around $10 a month and allows you to listen to playlists offline. I like having a steady stream of all the music on my phone.

I Was an Eagle, Laura Marling
Laura Marling's world is one of devils and angels. It's also a world of old-fashioned-style folk music: a girl and a guitar and her declarations and confessions. This isn't any harmonizey post-Mumford stuff (although, fun fact: Marling used to date the Mumford in charge). While nothing quite lives up to my favorite Marling song, "The Beast" (which is just scary), the album, particularly it's title track has been getting a work out on my computer headphones lately.

Things to Watch (Serialized)

Covert Affairs, Season 3, available on Amazon Streaming
When I was a kid, I made up stories about a girl spy named Jamie Pond, double-oh-six. So I'm basically the target audience for Covert Affairs, a show about a young female spy named Annie Walker. I recently started watching past seasons on Amazon. Seasons 1 and 2 were decent fun, like most USA summer shows. And then season 3 broke the case-of-the-week structure in favor of a season-long arc, dealing with what it means to be a woman staking claim to power, loneliness and loss, helplessness when our loved ones are in pain. I'd recommend the first two seasons to get to know the characters - particularly leads Annie and Auggie, played sympathetically by Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham; and Oded Fehr as the recurring character of Mossad agent Eyal Levine. Once you're all caught up, though, you'll find that Season 3 is a whole different beast - stronger, darker, and deeper.

Orphan Black, BBCAmerica and Amazon Streaming
A young, punkish woman named Sarah stands on a train platform. She watches as another woman - this one well-dressed and business-like - jumps in front of a train. But just before the woman jumps, Sarah sees that they have ... the same face. This is the high concept beginning of Orphan Black. As Sarah investigates, she begins to find other women who look exactly like her. Each woman is played by Tatiana Maslany, who has got to be one of the most talented actresses working today. Playing a suburban housewife, a hippie scientist, an insane Ukrainian - just to name a few -- Maslany pulls off an incredible string of performances. Each woman is distinct from the others, and all of them are critical to the plot. My only
quibble with the show is that sometimes it's Canada-as-New-York production values are a little sloppy. Would an American husband use "I got up early to watch cricket" as an excuse for why he wasn't in bed? Probably not, but it's easy to brush nitpicking aside when the action and characters are so brilliant.

Top of The Lake, Netflix Streaming
Jane Campion's seven-part mystery series completely gets the dichotomy of living on the frontier. Though surrounded by beautiful scenery, you're also surrounded by poverty, crime, and lack of options. Those who choose to live in that rough world are often rough themselves. The series reminds me of the Northern Idaho country where I lived as a child, but in this case, it's New Zealand's lake country we are talking about. Elisabeth Moss (yes, from Mad Men, which I have not been watching this season) plays Robin, a detective who has returned to her home town to visit her dying mother. While she's back in town, she is called in to work on the case of a missing little girl. As the mystery deepens, Robin is forced to confront her past. Sounds familiar, right? You've seen this tale before. But the setting, the acting, and of course, the Jane Campion touches of weirdness, put Top of the Lake above your typical procedural. I wish that the final chapter wasn't quite so overwrought, but you can't do gothic without some twists and family mysteries.

Things to Read

Siege and Storm, by Leigh Bardugo
Siege and Storm is the second book in Bardugo's "Grisha Trilogy," a series about a young woman living in a kind of alternate version of Tsarist Russia called Ravka. In Shadow and Bone, we learned that Alina is a wizard with a unique power. In Siege and Storm, multiple players are after that power. Alina is a likeable character to whom many a geek girl will relate. Even better, Bardugo's writing has become more lyrical and self-assured. With snappy dialogue, clearly-described action sequences, and lovely descriptions, Siege and Storm should bring the Grisha Trilogy above other similar YA novels, particularly those about glittery vampires.

TheMarySue.Com - A Guide to Girl Geek Culture
Why didn't I know about The Mary Sue earlier? It's a website about geek pop culture for girls! It's got articles about why Alice Eve had to take off her clothes in Star Trek: Into Darkness for no reason! It's my new favorite website.

Pop Culture Round-Up: Autumn 2012

I realize that I did a pop-culture round up no long ago, but there is SO MUCH that I want to share with you, and so many great pop culture goodies. Because my list is long, I'm going with mini-reviews this time around. I hope these little tastes are enough to interest you in checking out these gems.

Movies: It's all meta, all the time in your cineplex this autumn. 

Looper: A near-future mob hit man kills targets sent from the future (no fuss, no muss, when the corpse didn't technically exist in your time). When his next target turns out to be his older self, things go off the rails. Joseph Gordon-Levitt once again proves he's pretty much the most interesting actor of his generation, and the snaky twists and turns keep you on the edge of your seat until the devastating ending.

Christopher Walken:
created one of my new
favorite film characters
in this movie.

Seven Psychopaths: Playwright Martin McDonagh and actor Colin Farrell teamed up a few years ago for the beautifully elegiac In Bruges. In Seven Psychopaths, they collaborate again in a story about writing movies, the efficacy of violence for solving problems, dog-napping, friendship, the treatment of women in film, and ... oh yeah, psychopaths. It's the kind of movie that makes me say things like: beautiful, wonderful, I just loved it. It's a move with heart for people who hate movies with heart.

Cloud Atlas: You've seen the ads, you don't know what it's about. Suffice to say, Cloud Atlas, based on David Mitchell's mind-bending novel, is the most ambitious film you'll see this year. While it may not be perfect, it's a balls-out attempt to weave together stories in a new way. With three directors and lead actors taking multiple roles, Cloud Atlas is nothing you've ever seen before.

TV: This TV season has brought us only a few real gems. Here's to mid-season!

Nashville: Nashville is a soap opera about country music. There. I said it. But despite that fact, I find that it's one of the first things I watch when it's on my DVR. With the first lady of TV, Connie Britton, suffusing the whole screen with a golden glow, as country music's reigning queen, Nashville never fails to engage. And there's great music to boot.

American Horror Story: Asylum: If you thought American Horror Story: Regular Flavor was scary, wait until you get committed to Briarcliff Mental Institution. So far: we've got a bloody-faced killer, aliens, exorcism - plus, the regular ol' garden variety terror of being locked up for no reason.

Books: Move aside Stephanie Meyer. There are some great new young adult novels out now, and they don't involve sparkly vampires.

Angelfall, by Susan Ee: Are angels the new vampires? Possibly, if Ee's young adult novel is any indication. However, Angelfall has something that Twilight doesn't: an utterly awesome heroine in Penryn. Penryn kicks ass (which is explained by years of martial arts training, rather than any cliched "chosen one" powers), she cares about her family, and she's funny. The fact that she hangs out with a beautiful angel who's lost his wings? That's just icing.

The Diviners, by Libba Bray: If you're easily creeped out, The Diviners is not for you. Telling the story of a group of young people with extra-sensory powers, as they try to stop a series of occult-related murders, The Diviners feels fresh in the world of YA fiction. From its setting (1920's Manhattan), to its roaming perspectives (we get inside the heads of many characters, as well as getting a birds-eye view of the larger American scene) The Diviners grips you from the very beginning. I could use with fewer 1920's references (you don't have to put all your research into your book), but a few exclamations of "bees' knees!" can be forgiven.

Music: Two girls with pretty voices, and a British rapper

Halcyon, Ellie Goulding: It took Americans an inexplicably long time to catch on to Ellie Goulding, and so by the time everyone was jumping up and down to the sounds of her hit dance number, "Lights", Ellie was about to release a new album. While there are a few dancehall rave-ups (sure to be made ravier in the re-mix phase), Halcyon is filled mostly with beautiful songs about broken hearts and re-finding oneself after those broken hearts. Plus, there's just a hint of weirdness to help Halcyon rise above your typical girl pop albums. It's been on near-constant repeat in my car this fall.

Pines, A Fine Frenzy: Let's get this out of the way: Pines is a concept album about a sentient tree. Allison Sudol, who is A Fine Frenzy, was inspired by the forests of my home state, Washington (as anyone would be) and created a lush, beautiful trip into the woods. Sudol has always included natural images in her lyrics, but Pines takes this a step further, bringing us inside the mind of the tree. It sounds a little kooky, but Sudol pulls it off. When I haven't been listening to Halcyon, I've been listening to Pines.

Ill Manors, Plan B: And now for something completely different... I love folk music (see above) AND I love hip-hop. A girl's gotta be diverse. I discovered Plan B on the "We Are Hunted" app for Spotify (highly recommend), sucked in by the gorgeous arrangements and the speedy, British-accented raps about life in the housing estates of the country that just hosted the Olympics but has trouble finding a place for the poor, immigrants, the young and the old. Ill Manors appeals both to the side of me that's built a career on social justice work, and to the side of me that loves a good beat. 

Live Entertainment: wait? You can still see LIVE entertainment?

Louis C.K. at Jones Hall, Houston TX: I know that I've mentioned Louis C.K. in a previous Pop Culture Round-Up, and I try not to repeat myself too often. However, I just have to bring up the sheer genius that Louis brought to the stage at Jones Hall. C.K. is a modern Mark Twain. Yes, he makes us laugh, but he's also holding a mirror up to our society by illuminating his own failings and flaws. 

Pop Culture Round-Up

Oh, autumn. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Autumn isn't very autumnal here in Houston. We don't get warm fuzzy sweaters or turning leaves or apple cider (although we are supposed to have highs in the 70's this weekend - yippee!). We do get to share in all the great fall entertainment, however, which is good enough for me.

Here's what I've been loving lately:

He's a genius, so he
gets to throw his books on the floor.
Photo: CBS

Elementary (CBS), with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu
It's Sherlock Holmes! In New York! And Watson is a woman! And she's Holmes's sober companion! Yep, that's the premise of Elementary, which is enough to make a person groan, especially those people who love the BBC's update of Sherlock. But c'mon, there's enough Sherlock Holmes to go around - a person can love both. As Sherlock, Jonny Lee Miller (one big reason I watched Mansfield Park a thousand times) brings a manic energy - you can practically see the deductive wheels turning in his brain. And Lucy Liu gives a great, glam-free performance as Joan Watson. There's been a lot of talk about how the actors' unexpected chemistry may create some Holmes-Watson 'shippers, but right now, there's enough going on in watching the little mysteries of their personalities unfold. So far, the actual mysteries have been a bit underwhelming, but since CBS knows its way around a procedural, I'm not worried.

Unfortunately, that's the only new show I'm really loving right now. Although I do have some hopes for the CW's Arrow.

Fiona Apple, Bayou Music Center, Houston TX
The day before Fiona Apple was scheduled for a show in Houston, she was arrested for hash possession in West Texas.  I was terrified the show would be canceled, because Fiona was top of my "Gotta See Live" list, and had been for years. Luckily, she was free on bond and made it to Houston in time for the show. It was definitely worth the wait. She was predictably circumspect when it came to saying anything too revealing about the arrest. It didn't really matter. I was there for music and Fiona delivered with a long, raging set that showed off her great band, including her opener Blake Mills on guitar. The only downside was the chatty crowd. Despite them, I was in a concert-goer's heaven. Sometimes, the things you wait for turn out to be even better than expected.

Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo
The makers of the Harry Potter movies have already optioned Shadow and Bone for a movie, and it definitely has some Potteresque qualities (magic school, anyone?). And it has more than a passing resemblance to many of the YA books out recently: young girl realizes she's "special" and is torn between a mysterious dark lover boy and the boy she's loved since childhood. However, one has to tip the fur hat to Bardugo, who takes familiar elements and mixes them up with an unfamiliar setting: a magical version of Czarist Russia. Bardugo's descriptions of life in the magical country of Ravka give a new twist to YA tropes. Check out Bardugo's Pinterest page for a look at her inspirations.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (in theaters)
Remember when the kind of music you liked meant everything? When finding other kids who liked The Smiths was like figuring out the password to a secret society that you created on the spot? The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about that time in your life. It's also one of the best movies I've seen about living with mental illness, about having teenage crushes, about the friends you'll remember forever. And it features David Bowie's "Heroes." So basically, it rocks.

"The Garden Rules", by Snow Patrol, live at RAK Studios
I want to live in this song.

Late Summer Pop Culture Round-Up

What am I loving this August? If there's a theme, it's: let's be grown ups and enjoy grown up entertainment.

Photo courtesy of Showtime.

Episodes:
Sunday night is a HUGE TV night this summer - so much so that I find it takes me two or three nights to get through everything on the DVR. When I open the list of Sunday-night recordings, one of the first things I find myself watching each week is Episodes, the Showtime comedy in which Matt LeBlanc plays a wily, washed-up (yet still ridiculously-wealthy) version of himself.  This Matt LeBlanc manages to wreak havoc on everyone around him, particularly on the lives of Beverly and Sean, the two British writers who have crossed the pond to create an American version of their British boarding school comedy. As you might imagine, their show becomes a different animal in the U.S. Episodes may sound high concept, and it is. But it's hilarious, grown-up fun even if you're not into all the meta-ness. But if you are, it's even better.




Spotify
Knowing some of you readers personally, I'm pretty sure that there's a segment of the readership that will be thinking: Spotify? That's old news. And there's another portion that will be thinking: what the heck is Spotify? I've never even heard of it. Well, Spotify is an app for your phone or computer that basically makes all of the music in the world available to you. That'a a bit of exaggeration. But it's not far off. The free app allows you to listen on your computer with occasional ads. If you pay about $10 a month, you can listen on your phone and computer, and make playlists available offline. You can also share playlists, and there's a radio feature just like on Pandora. It's as easy to use as iTunes, and it allows you to sample much more music than you would if you had to pay per track (I still often buy tunes I really like.) Spotify feels like one of those things that's going to change everything about the way you interact with media. Of course, Europeans have had it available for years.

The Bourne Legacy

See, a ponytail and hoodie are very practical fashion
choices when on the run.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures.

I get a little thrill at the end of every Bourne movie, when the trills of Moby's "Extreme Ways" wind up. It's a movie moment that's becoming as iconic as Bond's "shaken, not stirred."  The Bourne Legacy takes those iconic Bourne elements and mixes them up with a new special agent and a new director. The result is the perfect late summer movie. As agent Aaron Cross, who is trying to figure out why the government is gunning for him, Jeremy Renner is a bit like an Everyman Daniel Craig - he's got the brutal features and economy of movement, but there's a twinkle in his eye that brings him down to earth. Cross is aided in his personal mission by Marta, played by Rachel Weisz. She's the kind of heroine women can actually see themselves in. Of course she's beautiful, but she's also incredibly freaked out by what's happening around her - but in a smart, practical way. She needs a secret agent to help her, but he needs her too.
Director Tony Gilroy gets all the notes just right, including the love story (pulling back from action movie cliches), the frakking awesome motorcycle chase, and the camera angles. We can all be happy that he's abandoned one of Bourne series' icons -- nausea-inducing super-close jump cuts of violence. Owen Gleiberman has said that Bourne movies are really about nothing, but I think he's wrong. We flock to the Bourne films because they aren't about an idea, they are about a feeling: the existential panic of living in a world where we are watched and tracked every moment. These movies give us the sense that if we're very clever, we might slip under the radar for just a few moments.

Broken Harbor, by Tana French
I anxiously await every one of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad books. If you haven't read any of them, I recommend starting with In the Woods, which remains the best. Anyone could jump into the series at any point, however, because the linked mysteries work as stand-alone stories also. Each successive book is told in the voice of a minor character from the previous books. With Broken Harbor, French takes a risk by choosing a character who was a huge jackanape in the last story - "Scorcher" Kennedy is an egotistical jerk. But as we get inside his mind, we begin to see that his exterior is a tightly-controlled defense mechanism (isn't that always the way?) The mystery, about a murdered suburban family, is genuinely creepy, and French is such a good writer that you can pretend that you're not reading a beach book.

And here's one for the kid in all of us...

Curiosity's shadow
on the red rocks of Mars.
Photo courtesy of NASA.

Mars Rover Curiosity
As I mentioned recently, I'm not really into the Olympics. But I am excited by the Nerd-lympics going on right now -- the landing of Mars rover Curiosity, and the subsequent pictures that Curiosity has been sending back to Earth. As a child, I was fascinated by the space program. Then, there didn't seem to be doubt in anyone's mind that pushing further toward the stars was our human destiny; it was understood that exploration was in our DNA. But now, space travel feels old hat and politicians are debating whether we should spend money on expensive science programs (mostly people who don't accept a lot of what science has to tell us). We can only hope that the children today who see those pictures sent by Curiosity are dreaming of casting their own shadows on the soil of distant worlds.

Pop Culture Round-up: Spring 2012

It's been awhile since there was a pop culture round-up, but trust me - I still love pop culture. Here are the things that you should get out there and enjoy right NOW.


This song:

I'm trying to think of something to say about it, but I can't. So I'll just listen to it again.


Don and His Women
Um... how did Don Draper become the least misogynistic guy at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce? Sure, he's still a product of his time and history (I mean, they're still HIS women, let's face it), but 1967 seems to have brought the winds of change even to Mad Men's Don. He's in love with Megan, he loves Peggy (not THAT way, but in the way that a father loves a child who must inevitably leave a comfortable home to see beyond the mountains), and he may be the only one who understands the kind of love that Joan needs. I once read that the character of Peggy represents "a new spirit in women" that took hold in the 60's. 40-some-odd years later, in a world that seems to be trying anew to crush that spirit, Don Draper is giving me a little hope that the spark can survive.


Speaking of surviving...

My latest BBC fixation on Netflix
My favorite genre is what I call "Random People Come Together to Form a Family." Yes, I made this genre up, but once you know about it, you'll find it everywhere. It probably speaks to me because I'm pretty good at quickly forming a family wherever I go.


This makes me think that, should I survive a flu pandemic like the characters on Survivors, a British TV series that lasted only 12 episodes, I will be able to make my way. Survivors is about how we survive disaster by forging connections, but it's also about freedom vs. safety, men vs. women, and nature vs. man. I especially appreciate the characters; my favorite is Tom Price, a convict who survives the plague. He's sort of an anti-hero, but of the kind that you don't usually find in the U.S. (except maybe on The Wire.) He's a thief and a murderer, and he's not secretly-educated, not secretly-sorry. He's not redeemed. As played by the bullet-headed Max Beesley (sort of a cross between Daniel Craig and a pitbull) Tom draws your sympathy, even as you know that if the world wasn't ending, you would run from him in fear.


Speaking of apocalypses (apocalypi? apocalypto?)...


The Declaration
I'm an adult person, but for the last year or so I've been digging the rush of post-Hunger-Games apocalyptic YA fiction that's been gracing the shelves of the Amazon kindle store. I'm down for anything that leads to a world of more geek girls, but very few of these books are as good as The Hunger Games. However, I recently discovered The Declaration, by Gemma Malley. It's more like 1984 or Brave New World than a teen novel. It reminds me of  Meg Rosoff's haunting How I Live Now - it's  a young adult novel that can cross marketing boundaries. Written in spare prose, telling the story of a world where people live forever and so have banned children, The Declaration is a gem. And since it was published in 2007, the sequels can be enjoyed with no waiting.
Post-Apocalyptic Runner-up: I've also been following the Matched and Delirium trilogies. I find Matched to be the superior. No, it's no masterpiece, but the plot hurtles along at breakneck speed. I'll be reading the third novel, Reached, when it comes out in November.


What's your pop culture fixation these days?

Hey!


One reason I like The Voice is that I don't have to give it my full attention, so I can do things like blog while I'm watching it. Like right now. I'm listening to Ashley de la Rosa tear up Jewel's "Foolish Games," which I think my sister must have listened to 5,000 times when she was younger. Go listen to Ashley's rendition right now. It was fabulous.


Coming up soon, I think I'll have some big news to share, but until then, I'm just going to share a few things I'm loving these days (besides The Voice).


HERE
I'm sort of obsessed with this trailer for a movie called HERE. I think that possibly it's because the Peter Coyote narration reminds me of his days narrating on Lost. Don't you think that Peter Coyote should be hired by the government to read bedtime stories over loudspeakers every night?

There
That picture at the beginning of the post? And this one here? I took those at Girl Scout camp this past weekend. I think camp is basically the best place in the universe.


I've written more about it, and you can read it here.


Over There
I don't really watch Law and Order any more, but I do like a well-done procedural from time to time. So on Wednesday nights I've been tuning into the BBCA show Whitechapel. It's made me like Rupert Penry-Jones, who I'd never forgiven for taking over for Matthew MacFadyen on MI-5. He plays an obsessive-compulsive detective inspector, and Phil Davis (you'll recognize him from a million British dramas) is his kind detective sergeant. These are two guys you really root for.


Scare
After camp ended, my friend Kelly and I put on our matching Scooby gang shirts and headed out to see Cabin in the Woods. (The Scooby gang is a reference to Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Joss co-wrote the movie.)  Another guy walked into the theater wearing the same Scooby gang shirt, but he didn't notice us.

The movie was great fun, very meta as all Whedon tales are. And gosh, Jesse Williams -- who played one of the college students spending the weekend at a spooky cabin -- sure is pretty.


What are you loving these days?

20+11 Things I Liked in 2011: Part 3

And so... we come to the end of the list of 31 things I liked in 2011. Even though I put these in no particular order, I find that many of my absolute favorites are ending up on this last segment, which seems fitting.


This weekend, you can expect my post about New Year's intentions for 2012.  Maybe I should resolve to be more timely with my posts in 2012!


As always, if there's stuff you liked in 2011, leave a comment!


George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones, Dance with Dragons)
Geeks, rejoice! Geekery went mainstream this year, as Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series made headlines as an HBO series (of course, many geeks don't rejoice when their hidden gems become mainstream, but this geek is OK with it, because popularity begets the longevity that most of my geek favorites never receive). The TV series --beautifully acted, bloody; and of course, nakeddy, being on HBO -- inspired many, including me, to pick up the books that it is based on. All just in time for the arrival of the fifth book in the series, Dance with Dragons, which left readers with impossible cliffhangers. Here's hoping that Martin doesn't take six years to write book six, as he did with Dance.


Supernatural Saturday: BBCA
To continue with the geekery ... nothing is geekier than Doctor Who. Let's just face up to it, Whovians. Yes, that's what we call ourselves, we who love the Doctor. It was a great year for the Doctor, with a twisty-turny ongoing plot about a stolen baby, melting doppelgangers, and headless (literally) monks. When the Doctor wasn't visiting Earth, BBC America ran its other sci-fi/fantasy offerings on Saturday nights; my favorite was Primeval. Best episodes: "A Good Man Goes to War" (Doctor Who); "Episode Three" (Primeval) -- which was about spring-heeled Jack!

Katy Perry and Floria Sigismondi
I'm sure that you know who Katy Perry is. You know, that busty gal with candy-apple-red lips? You may not know Sigismondi's name, but she's the director responsible for two of Perry's gorgeous videos: "E.T." and "The One That Got Away." I love these lush, story-telling videos because they hark back to the days when music videos seemed deeply profound, or at least deeply crazy (see: Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer, A-Ha's "Take on Me"). I find the video for "E.T." to be especially beautiful. Props to Perry for allowing herself to go weird in this one. (But no props to Kanye West for phoning in his "feat." role. Really, Yeezy? "Imma disrobe you/ Then Imma probe you"? A dirty-minded twelve-year-old could have written that).

Neville!!! (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2)

Cardigan. Clumsiness. Heck... his name is Neville. But the alternate "boy who lived" kicked it in the final installment of Harry Potter, proving to be the most loyal, most effective member of Dubledore's Army.

The Magician King, by Lev Grossman

Grossman continued his meditation on children's fantasy novels (like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia) with The Magician King. Like in his previous novel, The Magicians, Grossman went beyond simple satire to give us a portrait of what it might look like if the guy down the street ended up in a fantasy world. The results are devastating. And ever since I read it, I can't think about foxes without cringing (actually, Grossman seems to have a thing about fox sex ... shudder)

Melanie Moore (So You Think You Can Dance)

This summer I went to a wedding, and a good friend brought his girlfriend, who's a dancer. The two of us discovered that we were both fans of SYTYCD and proceeded to annoy the other passengers in our car with our rhapsodizing about Melanie Moore, the eventual winner of Dance's 2011 season. My new friend said, "she has such energy, even in her stillness." And that is exactly right. To any of you who have taken a dance or a yoga class, you know that stillness and small, slow movements are incredibly difficult. Moore made every moment a joy, whether standing still or launching herself fearlessly into the air. 

Justified (FX)
As a child of rural America, sometimes when I'm watching Justified, I get really depressed. It's so spot-on in its depiction of the edge of American society that I can't help but get a little chill. There but for the grace... and all that. In 2011, Justified took its portrait of backwoods America to new heights with the introduction of Margo Martindale as a villain who was truly a match for the super-cool Raylan, played by Timothy Olyphant. Even as I cringes, I couldn't look away. To me, it's a portrait of law and disorder that hits closer than the much-lauded Breaking Bad... but that might be the difference between growing up scared of bears and growing up scared of Volvos.

HitRecord Hits Publish (hitrecord.org)
HitRecord is the brainchild (such a weird term) of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (yes, that kid from Third Rock from the Sun, but if that's your picture of him, I recommend you watch Brick, Mysterious Skin, or The Lookout). HitRecord is an online collaborative art space, where artists post media and freely allow others to take their work and remix it. This year, HitRecord released two "mainstream" collections of work: Recollection, Vol. 1 and The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Vol. 1. Make no mistake. HitRecord is the future of art: a collaborative, royalty-free zone of equality. With really cute illustrations.


The Deschanel sisters (Bones, The New Girl)
Zooey and Emily. Wow. What a pair. In The New Girl, Zooey took her cute quirkiness to a new high. And should anyone say her quirk is unrealistic ... well, you obviously haven't met my sister and me. On Bones, Emily Deschanel navigated a tricky high-wire act as she played out the results of her show's lengthy "will-they-won't-they" dance. They did. And Emily remained true to her character, even as the character went through life-changing events.


Homeland (Showtime)
Full disclosure: I watched the entire first season of Homeland in two days. And I really don't know what to say. Watch it. Just watch it. Homeland is about the way that war ravages us; in a world where we're taught to believe that war bestows glory upon us, no one comes out clean. Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, and Mandy Patinkin (squee! says my Broadway fangirl) are the standouts in this meditation on honor, duty, religion, and madness. Did I mention that you should watch it?

20+11 Things I Liked in 2011: Part 2

The second annual Light Green pop culture round-up! If you liked stuff too, share in the comments!

Bromances: Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, Crazy Stupid Love, A Dangerous Method

I actually hate the term bromance, but it does evoke what I mean: complicated, loving friendships between men. In the past year, it’s as if Hollywood finally realized that men’s friendships can be as deep and rich as women’s; and are not only forged through war, sports, or when a black cop and a white cop are paired together. In the second Sherlock Holmes film, Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law re-kindled the crazy chemistry they displayed in the first one. Crazy Stupid Love was a little lame when it came to boy-girl stuff, but the friendship between Ryan Gosling and Steve Carrell was the heart of the film. And in A Dangerous Method’s advertising campaign, they featured Keira Knightley, but the movie was really a love story about Freud and Jung.

“Civilian”, by Wye Oak

I haven’t fallen this hard for a song since I was a teenager and songs meant everything. “Holy Holy” from the same album is pretty damn great as well.

Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig, in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Let me just be honest, I think Stieg Larsson wrote awkwardly, and plotted clunkily. I got so bored reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest that I just quit reading it. But he did create one of the greatest modern literary characters in Lisbeth Salander. Rooney Mara, playing Salander in the American film based on the book, is a revelation, completely inhabiting the hunch-shouldered hacker punk. And with Daniel Craig playing Mikael Blomkvist, the character finally seems like he’s a match for Lisbeth. The two duet perfectly, giving performances that are marvels of interiority. As an added bonus, the movie’s soundtrack kicks ass.

Camp, by Childish Gambino

For a while, hip-hop has felt a little stale to me. I mean, I don’t get all of the end-of-the-year praise for Jay-Z and Kanye’s Watch the Throne, when it seemed like folks weren’t too blown away by it when it first came out. And Drake, c’mon… speed it up a little bit, friend. Then along came Camp, by Childish Gambino (the alter ego of comedian and actor Donald Glover). And suddenly, rap felt fresh again. The rhymes are clever and reward close listening; Glover’s flow is smooth as needed and pleasantly chunky at other times; the music is awesome.  The subject matter of Camp feels new too. It’s about insecurity, forming your identity, and coping by turning to performance. Best tracks: The first five songs are great, and I particularly like the fifth, “Heartbeat.”

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t want a magic circus to suddenly appear in his or her town. A circus with labyrinths and ice gardens, wishing trees and glass bottles holding scents that tell stories. A circus where magicians duel and fall in love. Where kittens do tricks, and the air smells of caramel. The night circus isn’t coming to your town, so you’ll have to sink into the world of Morgenstern’s lovely book. I’m sure it will be made into a movie, but I’m just as sure that when committed to the screen, the circus will lose some of the magic it has in our imaginations.

Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt, Young Adult

I’m not gonna lie, I have a huge crush on Patton Oswalt, so I was pretty excited to see him in Young Adult. I knew he was going to be good. What surprised me, however, was how good Charlize Theron was opposite him. I know she’s a good actress, but her taste in projects doesn’t seem to ever line up with my taste in movie-going. Playing a high school mean girl who never moved past the binge drinking or the entitlement of senior year, Theron goes all in to create a character who isn’t saved and doesn’t learn lessons. She and Oswalt are pure, cringe-inducing pleasure every time they’re on screen together.

Drive

If Ryan Gosling’s character, Driver, ever met Lisbeth Salander, we’d probably have an incredibly violent silent film on our hands. Driver takes taciturnity to a new high. He’s a stunt driver for the movies who moonlights as a getaway driver. Drive is super-cool, hearkening back to those L.A. movies where the city’s pavement plays a supporting role.  Other cool things about the movie: Albert Brooks, playing a pure badass; Gosling’s satin scorpion jacket; the movie’s soundtrack. Warning, however: this is not a film for the squeamish.

Moves Like Jagger, by Maroon 5

Granted, if there weren’t actual moves by Jagger in this video, it would just be Adam Levine without a shirt (again… seriously, Adam, there are children in the Philippines who are trying to feed their families. Buy some shirts, man). But there are moves by Jagger.

Bad Lip-Reading, the internet

Because those Republican candidates deserve it. Special bonus points for the bad lip-reading of Michael Buble’s song, “Haven’t Met You Yet”, transforming it into the hilarious “Russian Unicorn.”

Vampire Diaries, the CW

You know how most shows save their big plot twists for sweeps months? Well, the producers and writers of The Vampire Diaries have totally thrown out that playbook. Instead, they have the confidence to give us major plot developments every week – sometimes two or three per episode (they usually have a big reveal around minute 48, and you’re sure the episode will end, then they give you 5 or 6 more minutes). Sure, this strategy is risky. You could jump the shark. But so far, there’s no sign of water skis in sight, as the excellent cast races right along with the breathless plotting.

Seeing Stars: Visionary Drawing from the Collection, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX

I got to see my first, real Henry Darger drawing.  I think my heart might have stopped. Collecting works by folk, naïve, and outsider artists, this exhibit is both one of the loveliest and one of the saddest things I have ever seen.