What I'm Enjoying Lately

I've been making the most of my summer in the San Francisco bay area by watching a lot of television and seeing a lot of movies. I spend my days taking people's money in exchange for books and every once in a while I even read a few of them. Some of my favorite authors released some new books this summer, including Reed Farrell Coleman, whose novel, The Hollow Girl gave us one final go'round with Moe Prager, Coleman's weary traveler whose regrets and personal tragedies are countless, who bears the weight of every lost partner, every senseless murder, every tragedy life brought to his doors on his shoulders. I kept this one for almost a month, taking it slow to savor every last page I had left with Prager. Another favorite of mine, Stephen Hunter, released Sniper's Honor, the latest in the Bob Lee Swagger series. Swagger, now a bored old man, jumps at the chance to tag along with an old reporter friend around Russia on the trail of a WWII-era sniper nicknamed the White Witch, a beautiful, crack-shot sniper on a personal mission to eradicate the Germans from her homeland. While in Russia, Sniper opens some old case files and some old wounds and is forced once again to use his skills honed in Vietnam as Bob The Nailer, one of our most decorated and feared snipers. On another end of the literary spectrum, one of my favorite reads lately was Bryan Lee O'Malley's Seconds. The book is great at getting at the restlessness that twenty-somethings like me live with, the feeling that whatever we have now isn't good enough and that if maybe, just maybe we try this thing instead of that thing, it'll change everything. It doesn't, not usually. It just creates the same different problems. The book is a fun little jaunt down the rabbit hole with O'Malley's heroine, an increasingly unstable restauranteur trying to grasp for a hold on her own life.

The summer TV schedule, while full of shows about vampires, plagues and rapture, has one very bright spot. Masters Of Sex is the most human, the most interesting and the best show on TV right now. The show plumbs the depths of human emotion, to get to the bottom of not just how we interact sexually with each other, but how we get through life with each other. Michael Sheen, as William Masters, is a humorless, brilliant, troubled man who is struggling to see his vision fulfilled and in the meantime, explores his relationship with his secretary/partner/lover Virginia Johnson, played by the radiant, gorgeous, amazing Lizzie Caplan, in every imaginable way, not to mention every imaginable position. The third episode of season 2, a locked room story that takes place almost in real time, lets us be a fly on the wall as the two of them discuss their relationship, break it down, examine the pieces, role play, and attempt to put them back together in any way that fits. A televised boxing match mirrors their night in the hotel room, as Bill teaches Virginia the subtleties of boxing and how maybe, just maybe, the old-timer on his last legs in the ring, might just pull off the victory in the end, against all odds. Segues be damned, over on FX, the one-two punch of You're The Worst and Married on Thursday nights is one of the most pleasant surprises of summer TV. Here are two shows who test the limits of what can be shown and talked about on television in hilarious fashion, two shows that explore relationships at two very different points in their existence. With the end of Justified and Sons Of Anarchy, it's good to know that FX has a few shows to build future schedules on, in addition to shows like The Bridge and The Strain. Two more shows I've been very excited about are The Knick, on suddenly exciting and relevant network Cinemax and Hell On Wheels, the closest thing we have to a good western on television (maybe Longmire as well). The first episode of The Knick was fantastic, and from what I've heard, it's only going to get better. Stephen Soderbergh's distinctive visual style seems so fresh compared to other period shows. The man's own camera movement, choice of music and flat-out flair gives life to all the cases of death in the Knickerbocker Hospital.

On the big screen this summer, my tastes have been varied. For all the times I went to see movies like Neighbors and 22 Jump Street, I tried to balance things by checking out things like Snowpiercer and Mood Indigo. This week, I saw the much anticipated James Gunn directed Guardians Of The Galaxy, featuring instant movie star Chris Pratt, who has toiled away on screen as goofy best friends and transformed himself from irritating hole-dweller Andy on Parks & Recreation to lovable buffoon Andy on Parks & Recreation. The film is full of all the humor, inside and nerd jokes that one would expect from Gunn, who, like Joss Whedon, understands what it takes to helm a giant comic book adaptation and make it good. Speaking of comic book adaptations, Snowpiercer, which can be described as Hunger Games On A Train, is a modern-bloody-masterpiece. In my opinion, the politics take second billing to the incredible visual style Bong Joon-Ho exhibits here, similar to what he did in his other excellent films, including Mother and The Host. The fight in the car with the butchers in masks in the dark is one of the most amazing things I've seen on screen all year. It rivals fellow Korean auteur Park Chan-Wook's single shot fight scene in Oldboy, where an army of henchmen are dispatched with a hammer. Mood Indigo is the latest from Michel Gondry, who is back in full form, after a documentary and a somewhat ill-advised foray into the world of Hollywood superhero films, with this film about a man whose life is turned around when he meets a beautiful, radiant, fun-loving woman (Audrey Tautou, *swoon*) and what happens when she is diagnosed with a mysterious, Gondry-like malady, one which sees a flower growing in her lungs, slowly killing her. The fun, goofy playfulness with visuals that he is known for gives way to some real tragedy that brings the mood down a little, but you're used to it if you've seen any of Gondry's other work. It's good to have the man back. Other highlights lately include Lucy and the previously discussed Cold In July.