2010 Movie List

Once again, I pledged to read a book a week and watch a movie a week. Just like last year, I wound up watching far more movies than books, although this year I separated my television watching out from the rest of my viewing. Don’t worry, it’ll be included in another list. I have notes besides most of the films, and a few thoughts about each film. Bold means I saw the film in theatres, and if I re-watched or saw something more than once, I’ll note it.

Dr. Horrible (re-watch) (x2) The last thing I watched in 2009, turned out to be the first thing I watched in 2010, and then later (in sing along format!) in the summer.
Up in the Air (theatres) (re-watch on DVD) I like Jason Reitman films, I think he can coax some excellent performances out of actors, but none of his films stay with me.
Rosemary’s Baby. Man, this movie was all sorts of fucked up.
Bad Lieutenant Port of Call: New Orleans (theatre). Nicolas Cage being batshit crazy, but in a good way.
Moon A good movie, but not as good as I was hoping for.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God. What I learned: The Jungle hates Germans, and the Germans hate the Jungle.
Duplicity. (Disappointed) Charming people doing hack espionage work with weird twists I saw coming.
Shutter Island (theatres) A film I liked a lot at the time, but looking back I liked less. I think it’s a lesser Scorsese film, but still good.
The Prestige (re-watch). Still good when you know what’s coming.
Bonnie and Clyde. The first part of this movie is much better than the back half.
Julie and Julia. Like everyone else, I like the Julia Child parts, and didn’t like the Julie parts. Amy Adams, you could be doing so much better.
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (re-watch). I watched this while I made a meal, and then sat down for the big fight at the end.
The Bourne Ultimatium (didn’t care for). The first Bourne movie is the only one worth its salt, I don’t give a damn about any rooftop chase scenes. Jittery and one dimensional.
Monster’s Inc. I had never seen Monster’s Inc. all the way through before. Pixar wins again.
Fuck: A Documentary. I think this was the first thing I watched after being unemployed. Interesting to note the word’s history through film.
Broadcast News. Some great dialogue, some predicable plotting. Why doesn’t Holly Hunter do more stuff?
Sita Sings the Blues A break up film. The best parts were the Indians attempting to recall the myths of their childhood. I wasn’t sold on the actual singing.
World’s Greatest Dad (didn’t care for). Awful, plodding, predictable, but shot in Seattle.
Back to the Future (re-watch) When Kate came to visit, she said she had never seen Back to the Future Part II. We wound up watching both. I still love both.
Back to the Future Part II (e-watch). Not quite as good as the first, but not as bad as the third.
Iron Man 2 (theatres). More action, less witty dialogue.
Shampoo. Funny, but weird and totally 60’s and 70’s. Warren Beatty is attractive, but he mumbles. I don’t know women were soooo attracted to him back in the day.
Man on Wire (documentary, liked). A heist film, as a documentary. Tense and excellent.
Once Upon a Time in the West (loved). Probably, in a bunch of ways, better than The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, making it Sergio Leone’s best western. Although, it happens to be three hours long.
Return of the Jedi (re-watch). Watched this with Kate, I think?
Leon (re-watch). Kate had never seen it, so I showed it to her. Natalie Portman is good, but creepy. Jean Reno is a badass.
Casino Royale (1967 version, re-watch). God, this movie is insane. Not as good the second time around. Still need to try re-watching the insanity that is Modesty Blaise.
The Brothers Bloom. I liked Brick a lot, but The Brother’s Bloom failed to impress that much.
Punch-Drunk Love (re-watch). The last thing I watched before moving to Seattle. Showed it to Kate. Everything that makes this film worth it is in the back half of the movie, but very good.
The Hangover. Dumb, drunken fun.
All the President’s Men (enjoyed). Surprisingly small in scope, but it’s like it was tailor made for me – excellent 70’s filmmaking about good, clever journalists? Awesome.
Annie Hall (re-watch). Better than I remember.
The A-Team (theatres). Dumb, and intermittently enjoyable. The best part was when they tried to fly a tank.
Casino Royale (2006 version, re-watch). Slick and smooth still. Less of Eva Green than I remember.
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (re-watch). I can still barely believe this was a musical.
Jurassic Park (re-watch). Still tense, and the CG still holds up.
Despicable Me (theatres). I was paid to see this movie. A serviceable kids film, but lacking the heart of Pixar.
Inception (theatres, loved it). I should probably see this again. But it was totally badass (and surprisingly straight forward). Reminded me of when I saw The Matrix for the first time.
The Art of the Steal (documentary). Interesting (although totally one sided) documentary about art. Read more about it here.
O Brother Where Art Thou (re-watch). We saw this on my birthday. Better writing than I remember.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World (x3, twice in theatres, once on DVD). So. Much. Fun. Scott Pilgrim himself is a problematic character, but still the movie just propels with fun.
Zero Effect. Jake and I watched this take on Sherlock Holmes with Ben Stiller and Bill Pullman. Filmed in Portland with moody cinematography, but surprisingly good.
Mystery Men (re-watch). This movie not as enjoyable as when I saw it at 13, but still goofy.
Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory (1971) (re-watch). We watched this with Rifftrax. Recommended experience.
Star Trek (2009) (re-watch). We also watched this with Rifftrax. Not as funny. Also, so much goddamn lens flare.
The Big Lebowski (re-watch). Still a great trip.
The Social Network (theatres, liked). Tense, straight forward, and crisp writing. Good movie.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (re-watch). The best Indy movie.
Let the Right One In (really liked). Jake and I each drank a bottle of wine and watched this movie. I liked it more than he did.
Monty Python and The Holy Grail (r-ewatch). Shorter than I remember. We watched this on Halloween.
The Secret of Kells (liked). Totally badass animation movie.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? While I liked reading the play, watching George and Martha fight was much, much harder.
The Purple Rose of Cairo. A hour long of comedy book ended by 15 minutes of drama.
Big Night. This movie made me like omelets. A great movie about food. Also, Stanley Tucci with hair!
The Pink Panther. Surprisingly straight laced. Also, I love women in the movies in this time period. They are never not blistering hot.
How to Train Your Dragon (liked). A thoroughly enjoyable film. Dreamworks is getting competitive with their animation department.
The September Issue (documentary). The fashion industry is crazy.
It Might Get Loud (documentary). Guitars are cool.
The Hebrew Hammer (re-watch). They should make more movies about Chanukah.
I am Comic (documentary). Being a standup comic isn’t so funny sometimes.
Black Swan (theaters). I could go on at length about this movie. I can send you the e-mail I wrote defending the film to Maddo, who hated it.
The King’s Speech (theaters). A good movie, but I saw this and Black Swan as a double feature. I would not recommend that experience. I will say this movie is not a traditional biopic, instead choosing to be more of a character piece. It lives and dies on the strength of Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush’s relationship.
Die Hard (re-watch). The best Christmas movie. Also, such a good action movie.
Exit Through The Gift Shop (documentary). Crazy people and street art. Also, I believe this is not a hoax.
Scrooged. Not as funny as I was hoping, but still good.
A Streetcar Named Desire. All the good bits are in the back half. Also, I can see why people loved Marlon Brando. Holy shit is he a force of nature in this.

So, this year I have seen 11 films in theaters, down from 19 last year. Also, this year, I broke out my television watching (because there was so much more of it), so last year I wound up watching 85 movies. This year I only watched 66, which is partially because I was reading more during the beginning of the year, and watching a lot more television. I re-watched 23 movies this year (including repeated viewings of films I had seen for the first time this year), which is barely over a third of all the movies I watched. I did about the same last year, with 28 movies out of 85. Also this year, I tried to watch more documentaries, having only seen one the year prior. This year I saw seven documentaries, which is a substantial improvement.

2010 Booklist

Another year, another resolution: read 52 books, or a book a week. While last year I nearly reached my goal with 51 books (including some filler like re-reading the 10 book series of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and the entire Harry Potter series), this year I tried to take my goal a little more serious. I would read fewer books in part of a series, more serious books, more non-fiction.

On whole, I think this year I’ve read more. For the first part of the year, I had more books on my list than movies or television. And while this list only reflects finished books, bound comic series, and short story collections, I also spent a lot of this year reading copies of the New Yorker (never cover to cover), a lot of online journalism (specifically The Awl, The Morning News, and of course, The Bygone Bureau), and text books. I only read one of my text books from cover to cover, but despite this, I was reading hundreds of pages a week. Somehow though, I managed to squeeze in some literature. Below, you’ll find some thoughts on what I’ve read this year.

1. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson(re-read, loved).

I began re-reading Cryptonomicon after Christmas, when I needed a pick me up. I had remembered liking the novel and finding it funny, but when I re-read it, it consumed my life. I had forgotten just how much I love Neal Stephenson when all cylinders are clicking: his one liners, his love of all things technical (and this is where he can off the rails – by being too technical, which occurs more often in the System of the World books), and the plot which can both meander and then clip along a lively pace. It’s full of intrigue and fun, and I considered re-reading it again this winter. It’s included on the list because I did not technically finish it until the first days of 2010.

2. The entire archive of Girls with Slingshots. (webcomic).

After finishing Cryptonomicon I stumbled across this website (through Hark, a Vagrant I believe) and quickly devoured everything. It’s become a little pedestrian over the past year or so – nothing quite as overtly spectacle based, but I do love to drop in at the end of the week, read a week’s worth of comics, and spirit off again. It’s less like Penny-Arcade, and more like a sitcom in comic form.

3. The Last Watch, by Sergey Lukyanenko.

I thought I had finished the Watch series last year, but I discovered there was a fourth book, which I read out of obligation. It was cyclical and didn’t explain everything, but that’s probably for the better. Also, having the character sing along to music which exposes some mood or foretells the future might work in film or television where it can be used subtly, but in a book it’s just annoyingly obvious.

4. Pictures at a Revolution, by Mark Harris (loved).

I asked for this for Christmas, Kate was kind enough to get it for me, and I devoured it. I love films, and their histories, and Mark Harris reveals the histories behind the five 1968 best picture nominees. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that the 60’s really did happen all at once, and I’m sure I’ll look back a year from now and not believe how events in my own life really happened all at once.

5. Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile.

Last year, I wanted to make an effort to read more non-fiction, and for some reason I didn’t consider the previous book non-fiction (which it was), so I borrowed this book from Peter. It was probably the book that took me the longest to read on this list, simply because there are so many facts, points of view, and stories that were interesting and relevant to today’s society. Can I remember them all of the top of my head? No, not really. But I do know more about the history of US relations with Pakistan.

6. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (re-read).

After Charlie Wilson’s War, I wanted something a bit lighter, and I spent maybe two nights re-reading what was one of my favorite books in high school, and one of the funniest I had read until that point. It’s still funny, but shorter and breezier than I remember, but somehow it wasn’t as moving, if only because I value other things more than humor than in high school. Then again, I do mix up all of the books in my head a little, so taken as a whole, I think the Hitchhiker’s Guide series might be better than its constituent books. I read most of The Restaurant At The End of the Universe during that same time, but I can’t recall if I re-read the whole book or if I got distracted with something else.

7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time, by Mark Haddon.

I heard about this book through the A.V. Club, and thought it was relevant because I have friends with Aspergers, which is a mild form of autism, and friends who are special education teachers. Because I’ve talked about the mental process of Aspergers with my friend, the novel’s point of view wasn’t as shocking to me as for some, nor were some of the depictions of classsroom events. However, there were little details about math, and significant emotional plot developments that I was not expecting that proved fascinating and moving.

8.The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.

This book also came from the A.V. Club, and also conversations I had with friends about writers who wrote genre works where the writing pushed it outside of the genre ghetto. My primary association with this book is loving the perhaps 10-20 page sections between main sections of the book, detailing the plot of a fictional book. This is also the book I read while visiting Oregon State University in mid-February to interview for graduate school. My friend Charlotte was still in class, so I camped myself in a cafe, drank a pot of a tea, and read this book while rare February afternoon sunshine found its way through the cafe’s plate glass windows. The book itself was frustrating, detailing the cloistered life of a very stubborn old woman, and the past of her life. I like it more reflecting back on it, knowing what the novel actually is, but when I went it expecting genre work, I was very frustrated with the literary fiction.

9. Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold (loved).

This book also came from the A.V. Club, and I read this when I went to visit Colorado State University. Sipping wine in the hotel bar and devouring this book is (sadly) one of my favorite memories from that trip. It’s about magic acts in the 1910’s and 20’s, but also intrigue, and identity. It’s great.

10.The entire archive of Girl Genius (re-read, webcomic).

I forgot who a bunch of the characters were, so I re-read this.

11. Y: The Last Man – Unmanned (comic, re-read).

I discovered that I could also get comic books from the library, and started reading this series again.

12. Y: The Last Man – Cycles (comic).

I don’t remember much about this. The plot advances.

13. The Devil in the White City, by Eric Larson. (Looking back, liked a great deal).

This is my third non-fiction novel, and one that I relish more looking back. Larson contrasts the 1894 Chicago World’s Fair with the emergence of one of America’s first serial killers (something most of us have never heard of, but was huge at the time). Very good, and recommended.

14.The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (Has surprisingly stayed with me).

I plucked this from The Millions, and The A.V. Club, and read Franzen’s opus. I absolutely hated one of the characters, but the rest were rich and deep, and the last 100-150 pages really bring all the strings together and knock it out of the park. It’s about family, and ambition, and well.. it’s a great American Novel, it’s about a lot of things.

15.Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie.

This novel probably would be more profound if I was more studied in India’s history as a country. Instead, it seemed like self-indulgent magic realism. Intermittently interesting, but mostly relation of the Immigrant tale (like The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, or Middlesex) but full of more self-pity and pedantry.

16. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

I liked Cloud Atlas, and remember reading it out on the balcony of our house on warm April afternoons with tiny glasses of wine, but the ingenious construction of the novel also turned me off, because there was a sense of artificiality and fatalism inherent in that construction that dampened my affection for the excellent and varied writing.

17. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon.

Probably the worst thing I’ve read by Chabon – a mediocre take on Sherlock Holmes. Even as a novella, it felt plodding and long.

18.Y: The Last Man – One Small Step(comic).

This one was about space and pregnancy and some other stuff.

19. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman (essays).

I mentioned this book in a piece I wrote about unemployment. I was reading a lot of The Awl, and this at the same time, thinking about cultural criticisms and the way in which even the most mundane pop-culture artifacts can speak volumes about our lives. These are the interesting kinds of conversations I like to have with friends.

20. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, by John le Carre (loved).

The first book I bought in 2010. Did not regret it, read it in a day. Loved it. Will probably re-read. It helped me acknowledge that growing up in a post-Cold War environment is different in such a radical way that our parents care barely describe.

21. Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser.

I knew a lot of the periphery information, but I thought I should read the actual famed book. I’m glad I don’t eat as much fast food as I used to. Highly recommended.

22.Y: The Last Man – Safeword (comic).

Kinky! Also, I couldn’t more of the comic before moving to Seattle.

23. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower (short stories).

These stories are largely about loss and divorce, and most aren’t worth your time, except for the title story, which is the last story, and is about Vikings, and is awesome.

24. Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Very different than the movie (which I loved), but also, in some ways, funnier, more touching, and more real. Also, way, way more Jewish.

25. The Know-It-All, by A.J. Jacobs.

More non-fiction, but the lighter side, and to be truthful, kind of boring. A man reads the Encyclopedia Britannica, questions purpose of dream, knowledge in general, relationship with father.

26. The Somnambulist, by Jonathan Barnes.

This novel was bad in a good way. Goofy plot, memorable characters, semi-hack writing, but entertaining.

27. The Domino Men, by Jonathan Barnes.

This novel was bad in a bad way. Goofy plot, flat characters, hack writing, not entertaining

28. The Lost City of Z by by David Grann.

The Heart of Darkness as investigative journalism in the Amazon. Revealing and fascinating about our relationship with nature, with foreignness, and the spirit of adventure. I finished most of this on a bus to Portland.

29. The Last Good Kiss, by James Crumley (god damn loved it).

Holy shit. Probably my favorite thing that I read all year. The gritty private eye, but in the wide open west, in the morally ambiguous 70’s. The writing slinks off the page, onto a bar stool and relates it’s sad, strange, gripping tale. If you like crime novels, read this.

30. ;The City and The City by China Mieville.

Aside from Franzen, probably the most technically proficient novel I read all year, simply on a diction and syntax level, using word choice and rhythm to dictate foreignness better than any description. A deeper analysis here.

31 Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis.

I hated this book. More here!

32. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.

This was more Young Adult fiction that I was expecting, but it was nice to read a book set in Seattle, even if it was Seattle in the early 1900’s, in an alternate history, with zombies and a 200 foot wall. Go local authors!

33. The Pedagogy of Oppression by Paulo Friere.

I read this for class. It’s the only book I read cover to cover for class, which is why it’s on this list. It’s the only book of philosophy I read this year, and inspired some of my best class discussions.

34. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.

This was one of the few other books I bought this year, and I did not regret it. Like William Gibson’s Nueromancer, but updated for our current technology, and set in Thailand. Fast paced, even handed (protagonist? eh…), and well written.

35.Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and Amerca, by Paul Tough.
I am not a fan of charter schools in general, but there is more at work in this documentation of a radical plan to lift one famous neighborhood out the grip of poverty. I sincerely hope the Harlem Children’s Zone continues, as it should be a model for neighborhood development, supporting the community, and the impact of education. Definitely worth the read, and a recommendation to people interested in education (I even have a copy to loan out to interested parties).

Abandoned books: The History of the Siege of Lisbon by Jose Saramago (boring), The Quiet American by Graham Greene (ran out of time on the library loan), Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan (boring), Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (saw where it was going, and I ran out of time on my library loan), The Muse Asylum by David Czuchlewski (pretentious), Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake (ran out of time on my library rental, but want to revisit).

So, in total I read 35 books this year, much less than last year. This year I only read 6 comics as opposed to 14. I only read two non-comic books that were part of a series, although several of the books I read this year occur in the sam ewriting universe, or share minor characters with other novels by the same author. I read nine non fiction books, as compared to 1-2 from last year. I read more books that took place in America (although few solely took place in Amerca), and overall my quota for American authors has increased dramatically.

This next year, I’d just like to keep up an appetite for reading outside of graduate school, which might be difficult. But we’ll see what happens!

Buffy Season 3: Anne; Dead Man’s Party; Faith, Hope and Trick

After Season 2’s climactic and heartbreaking finale, I had to spend some time away from Buffy. Admittedly, it was only about a week, which is nothing like my Doctor Who breaks, which sometimes spanned into months. But I dived back in because I know that Joss Whedon will pick up where he left off, telling a grand meta-narrative. Whereas Doctor Who producer Russell T. Davies was never terribly likely to re-visit his plotlines and characters, which made departing more bitter sweet. So, I queued up Netflix and forged ahead.

Anne

Because Season 2 ended so climatically, Season 3 still has a lot to wrap up. At the end of Season 2 Buffy has been kicked out of her house, expelled from school, and killed her boyfriend. She’s on a bus to nowhere, and things look grim. Whedon is not going to immediately disperse that feeling, as some other shows might, there is no dues ex machina to make everything automatically better for our characters, they too have soldier on. While Xander, Willow, and Oz are slaying what vampires they can (roughly 5 out of 10 on a good week, according to Willow), Buffy is going by Anne, waitressing in a bad part of LA, and trying to deal with the fact she can’t go home again. School starts, and Buffy does not magically reappear. From the very beginning we know then, that things are not going to be okay.

But, it’s not before long that Buffy encounters someone who recognizes her: a girl named Lily, who was known as Chantrelle in Season 2’s Lie to Me. She’s living the life of a drifter, scraping together food, shelter, and doting on her boyfriend. When he invariably goes missing, she turns to Buffy because Buffy knows to do “stuff.” Like, you know, kill vampires.

There are some refreshing scenes of Buffy doing the research and questioning on her own. But this is a different kind of Buffy, a no nonsense Buffy. When investigating a dodgy blood bank, Buffy immediately cops to breaking and entering, and when the nurse threatens to call the police, Buffy rips the phone of the wall. This not someone to be trifled with. She quickly abandons an undercover attempt to kick butt, and when sucked into a demon world, she seems to take a fair amount of joy in disrupting the nefarious deeds of demons, and getting back into the groove of fighting evil.

Admittedly, there are some problems. The Demon’s plot is never fully explored — people are toiling doing…what? They seem to work in one of the factories from an 80’s metal video that just makes sparks. Much of the action doesn’t serve too much of a purpose except to have Buffy look good, and throw some good action material in for the opening credits. There’s also some heavy handed “hopeless, you are nobody” identity crisis stuff that prompts Buffy to abandon Anne and embrace her own identity. I won’t deny, it was fun watching her say “Hi, I’m Buffy the Vampire Slayer” but it actual thematic buildup was a little hokey.

As Xander predicted early in the episode, Buffy comes back when she wants to be found, and we end with Joyce opening the door to find her daughter. The episode isn’t a bad start to the season, I like a lot of the Buffy action, and I like that Whedon spends some time dwelling on Buffy getting back into the mood, but at the same time, I’m impatient for the next chapter to start, whatever that may be. Also, I don’t think the Scooby Gang is as strong without Buffy around. They deal with staking some vampires, some missed connections (Oz didn’t finish school, Xander and Cordelia aren’t clicking back together) which is all very amusing, but I felt lacked real weight because we know what’s going to happen.

Dead Man’s Party

We pick right back up where we left off on Buffy, with her homecoming. The meaty part of this episodes is the emotional conflict coming to head during a Buffy coming back party. The whole monster part is a African Mask that allows some great lines from Buffy: “It’s angry at the room. It wants the room to suffer.” and an absolutely wonderful quote from Giles, mocking Joyce: “Do you like my mask? Isn’t it pretty? It raises the dead! Stupid Americans.”

Some Zombies show up, but what really threatens to tear our heroes apart is not dealing with their emotional conflicts: Everyone feels abandoned by Buffy at a very difficult point in their lives, where as Buffy carries a weight few can truly understand. Joyce has joined a book club, made a friend (conveniently turned into a monster and slain by Buffy), and the Scooby Gang has call signs, walky talkies, and a method for murdering vampires. But Buffy’s return disturbs those coping mechanisms, and forces everyone to re-evaluate their feelings. Then zombies are coming up the hell right now, so we join forces, takes a lot of tension out of situation (at least the emotional tension). Everyone is pretty much on Buffy’s side by the end of the episode, but they have yet to re-enroll her in school, and as always, there are demons to fight. Things are different than before, but it’s episode three, which means time to establish the big bad.

Faith, Hope, and Trick

Now we’re back into the meta-narrative, which is confounding because at the end of the episode, I’m not quite sure who the Big Bad is. Each word in the title corresponds with a character, so let’s examine:

Faith is a fellow slayer. Due to Buffy’s resurrection, there are now two slayers in the world. Where as Kendra was a nice guest star last season, she was killed off before the dual slayer dichotomy had anywhere to go. But the idea is still interesting, so we get to meet Faith, played by Eliza Dushku. She’s from Boston, she’s a wild girl (Wrestling Alligators! Naked!), she’s cute, she’s footloose and fancy free, she’s taking over Buffy’s life. Everyone immediately takes a shine to the live wire, but Buffy is immediately suspicious, and with some cause.

Hope is actually Scott Hope, a romantic interest for Buffy. But he’s not really framed in the story to be a recurring character, more like another diversion for Buffy from her Angel hangover. He’s alive, he’s cute, he’s witty, he’ll be around for a few episodes, but the writing (and plotting) never insinuates that he’ll be around for too long. Scott is a narrative device to confront Buffy’s feelings about Angel. She’s having dreams about him, she still feels guilty, and now she’s the only single one of her friends. Giles meanwhile is trying to figure out exactly what happened that night, so as to cast a spell of binding on Acathala to prevent him from returning. This is a bit of hokum as it turns out, and has everything to do with discovering the true nature of what happened.

Trick is Mr. Trick it seems, lieutenant to Kakistos, a vampire so old that he has cloven hands and feet. Where as Kakistos is all about revenge on Faith (hey, Buffy isn’t the only one with enemies!), Mr. Trick likes the death rate, he wants to set up shop. But Kakistos wants revenge and revenge is what he shall have, until a more battle ready Buffy helps Faith stave off attacks, revealing that Kakistos killed her family, killed her watcher, and is ready to kill her. Faith is a bit more scarred than Buffy, going totally nuts on vampire, beating him instead of slaying him, basically throwing Buffy to the wolves. We haven’t seen much more of Mr. Trick besides from letting Kakistos get the stake but I have a feeling he’ll crop back up.

I have a feeling about Faith, I think something bad is going to happen to her. She doesn’t have the same support group that Buffy has (which has been instrumental in keeping her sane, and successful), where as the other slayers are usually loners. That gets people killed, and I’m worried that Faith may have a bad future ahead of her, but it’s made clear that she’s in it for the long haul (or at least the season).

Overall I think this episode negotiates the meta narrative and the monster of the week requirements skillfully, while also rounding out the new relationships. I’m excited to see where we go from here.

The City and The City: Choosing What to See

It’s been a long time since I’ve read something that surprised me, but China Miéville’s The City & The City is full of surprises. I’ve been hearing about this book for a while now — some comparisons to Neil Gaiman’s Neverworld, a fair amount of praise — but nothing truly prepared me for reading this book. The City and The City is a mindfuck book, at least for first 50 pages.

Often when we talk about structurally or narratively complicated movies we call them, in the parlance of our times, mindfuck movies. You know the ones: Fight Club, Memento, Labyrinth, Dark Side of the Moon, most anything by David Lynch. (And for whatever reason, I’ve seen most of mindfuck movies late at night.) Having studied film, enjoyed these movies, and re-watched most of them, it’s easy for me to reconcile diverging plot lines, mingling characters, and other such complications. But while I can see film evolving, I tend to think of literature as already having most of its revolutions.

When I think about experimental literature, I think of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, which has been recommended to me several times, or perhaps William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch. I’ve studied the history of literature, so I know that Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Virginia Woolf were all considered experimental in their times, and are now hailed for their far flung ideas — pushing the boundaries of taste, narrative structure, and dialogue. But in the Post-Modernism age, it’s rare that I find fiction that challenges my intellect, or changes how I read a book.

Structurally The City and The City isn’t that risque, but the idea, well, that’s something very different. The central idea behind The City & The City is two cities occupying a single geographic location. We learn that the cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma are two separate cities due to an ancient and forgotten rift. They have different police forces, different governments, different relationships with foreign countries, despite being quite literally the same city. Citizens keep up this facade through rigorous self-policed perception filters, learning to keep everything foreign unseen and unheard, relegated to background noise. The only thing separating Besźel and Ul Qoma is a state of mind.

However, people are fallible, which is why Breach exists. Breach is like the Stasi of East Germany. They are the much feared secret police: all seeing, all hearing, all knowing powers that be. They are described as an “alien power,” at one point, and until their agents make an appearance, for all the reader knows, they are boogie men come to life. The language describing them conjures the image of a great vampire bat swooping up out of the sky and plucking offenders off the street.

However, Miéville works very hard to set this novel in reality. Everything that blocks the investigation, everything that prevents these cities from seeing one another is a result of manipulating a mental point of view. There is a wealth of evidence for this kind of behavior in history: During the Cold War the CIA convinced natives in the Philippines that communist insurgents were vampires, The SS and later the Stasi were perceived as omnipresent. Big Brother is watching, and people will believe what their told. If one city is now two cities, then so be it.

The first fifty pages of the novel really make you work as Miéville explores the world he’s created using Eastern European inflected sentences and word choice. Our tentative guide is Inspector Tyador Borlú of Besźel as he attempts to solve a Jane Doe murder case, which of course leads us across the border, and eventually to Breach itself. Through this tour we get to explore the politics that affect the daily lives of citizens in this strange place.

All while reading this, I couldn’t stop thinking about what we do and don’t see in our own lives. What do we ignore? The homeless, the panhandlers, the boring houses on the commute to work, the fine print. We don’t deem these things as part of our lives, so they become a part of the background. The City and The City made me wonder, what am I not seeing? What am I not looking at? Billboards, advertising, people on the street — all of this has been trained out of me. But from my walks to and from work, and on errands, if I take the time to look around, I’m almost always rewarded with a quirky bit of architecture, a fun people watching story, something that makes me appreciate the varied culture that I live in.

Miéville plays illustrates this change of pace when Inspector Borlú goes to Ul Qoma, he must unsee everything he is accustomed to seeing, which becomes a greater metaphor for seeing his murder case anew, and his own views on his world. Would Besźel and Ul Qoma be better as one city, or would chaos break out, and nationalist groups on each side begin indiscriminate killing? What about the agents of Breach — are they covertly manipulating the cities for their own gain? To what end?

In a certain genre of fiction, these leaps of logic — the government is secretly manipulating us! — are expected, but framed in this weird world with an excess of rules, Miéville allows the reader to more closely connect to their own city, its own process, quirks, and diversions. Having moved back to Seattle, I’m all that more excited to find out new places I still haven’t been.