BBC RADIO DRAMAS - Existing somewhere between an audiobook and a live stage play, full cast dramatization radio plays are kind of like listening to a movie without watching it. Where a standard audiobook will have one voice portraying all dialogue and narration, presentations like these BBC Radio Dramatizations I've been listening to lately employ an entire voice cast along with sound effects and music to create an entire piece. This type of radio play goes way back to the time before television where audiences would tune in to serialized weekly radio shows with recurring and popular characters in all genres. Orson Welles famously adapted H.G. Wells' The War Of The Worlds into a radio production that was produced to sound so realistic that audiences actually believed that they were hearing a radio report of a real-life alien invasion. These shows I've been listening to lately include a series of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett adaptations as well as various H.P. Lovecraft stories, which are particularly enjoyable. I don't drive as much as I used to so the thought of getting through a 10 disc audiobook is now a chore rather than a treat but these fun and different 1 to 2 hour abridged stories are perfect to add to the daily playlist.
WHIPLASH - At this point, it takes a lot for a movie to stick out in my mind in a film landscape awash with movies that are cookie-cutter retreads of the same stories over and over again but every year there are a couple that make the cut. Among all the biopics and controversial films this awards season lies an arguably underappreciated, underseen film made by a first-time 28 year old director called Whiplash. The film gives you the titular sensation as it follows 19 year-old Andrew (Miles Teller) as a talented but troubled music student at a prestigious music academy in New York as he goes from practice room to classroom to stage practicing and practicing and obsessing and bleeding and crying and practicing, practicing, practicing. He wants to be great, not just great at playing the drums, but literally one of the Greats. He stares at photos of his idols tacked to the wall and listens to CDs trying to imbibe their brilliance straight from the speakers. He curses himself and sweats and bleeds all over his kit attempting to perfect his music. His dysfunctional relationship with teacher, tormentor and timekeeper Fletcher (Oscar nominee J.K. Simmons) exists as the classic protagonist v. antagonist until they inevitably realize that they are exactly what they were both looking for, even perhaps they are two sides of the same coin; Andrew wants to be Charlie Parker, Fletcher wants someone to prove they have what it takes to be the next Charlie Parker. Like the song "Caravan" that Andrew plays in the climax, the film slowly builds to a screaming boil until it finally erupts into a brilliant cacophony that literally left me in awe and short of breath. This was the film I've been waiting for Miles Teller to make, something away from the YA adaptations and frat boy schlock he's been associated with for the past few years. Like Jennifer Lawrence was able to do, I think he might be ready to become a real movie star.
THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE by Lou Berney - The Long And Faraway Gone is a novel that explores the mysteries of memory and how it plays a part in the way we see the world and remember what is important to us. The story consists of two stories told in two different time periods, the summer of 1986 in Oklahoma City and 2012. Wyatt, the only survivor of a massacre at the movie theater he worked at as a teenager and Julianna, whose older sister disappeared at the state fair never to be seen again. Wyatt, now a wiseass private detective in Las Vegas, is forced to return to Oklahoma City on a case and inevitably confront his past in an attempt to find out what really happened that day at the theater and try to find out why he was the only one spared. Julianna, now a nurse struggling to live a normal life, is thrust back into that summer years ago where she was left sitting on a curb eating cotton candy waiting for her sister to return from a chat with a carnival worker. The carny from that day has resurfaced and she is compelled to finally talk to him and find out what he really knows after all these years. What Berney excels at is finding a Dennis Lehane-type way of drawing the reader into a world that is built on the memory of events long-past, where a single act of violence continues to ring through the lives of people struggling to move past it. These two people still in limbo finally and briefly cross paths and in reminiscing about their lives long ago, they might finally be able to uncover what it takes to move on.
THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir - The Martian is a book that I was able to sit and finish in the span of two days, which is rare nowadays for me. The science, math and jargon was way over my head but Weir concocted a story so compelling and interesting that I couldn't stop reading. Mark Whatney, the 17th person in history to set foot on Mars, becomes it's sole inhabitant after his Ares 3 mission goes awry and his crewmates are forced to evacuate the planet after believing him dead. Equipped with a MacGyver-like set of skills and a gallows sense of humor, he survives for over a year and a half on the red planet by cannibalizing his habitat and using the equipment and vehicles like a mechanic uses old cars for spare parts. He builds and takes apart and re-purposes just about everything in his HAB in order to put off the inevitable day where he would run out of food, water, power or all three. The book shifts between Watney's mission logs and the goings-on of NASA back on Earth as they deal with the PR nightmare that erupts after satellite imagery reveals that Watney is, in fact, not dead and that they must now figure out a way to get him home. I have no idea how accurate the tech talk in the book is and frankly I don't really care. It's a very fun and interesting read and will hopefully become a fun, interesting film in the hands of director Ridley Scott and writer Weir. Matt Damon, playing a character noticeably similar (on paper) to the one he played in Interstellar, will anchor a cast that includes the ever-amazing Jessica Chastain as well as Michael Pena, Kate Mara and Sean Bean.
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