Category: Reviews

Distraction in the form of City-Building

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Life, ReviewsLeave a comment

I am already exhausted by the news cycle from the previous week. Potential overturning of abortion rights. Legitimate threats to privacy rights and same-sex marriage on the horizon. This week has been a lot for me mentally and emotionally. I was straight-up infuriated for about four days.

I’m still angry, and I’m not letting go of that. I’m just trying to step back and evaluate what exactly I can do with this anger, aside rom throwing money at a political super-pac that might not get anything done.

In any case, I downloaded a new mobile game this week, and that has largely been keeping me sane.

Distracted in Designer City

I don’t play a lot of mobile games, aside from Pokemon Go while I walk my dog, but this past week I needed something to occupy my mind.

I looked at the mobile Sim City, but I didn’t want to download an EA game, under the assumption that I would have to suffer through endless ads or pay for in-game upgrades to really enjoy it, which I don’t do as a general rule.

Then I came upon Designer City, which was incredibly highly rated on Google Play. I downloaded it, played through a brief tutorial in which a small town was already built for me, and have since expanded this small town into a bustling cosmopolis.

Am I going to tell you about it? You bet I am. My city includes:

  • a central downtown that probably needs more love
  • a lakeside resort/campground at the western edge
  • an area of mixed agriculture, industrial, and residential use along the southwest
  • a posh urbanized neighborhood on the south end with tons of parks and a monorail station
  • a quaint suburb in the southeast
  • a nascent but expanding NEW downtown area with high-rise residences, museums, theaters, and other communal affects
  • and a more commercial-industrial northern end
  • a monorail connecting all of these neighborhoods
  • Oh, and I’ve expanded my land ownership halfway across the map to build a commercial port, some industrial buildings, and a railway connecting it to the city

I will definitely be adding a medieval castle district and a creepy haunted house-type district, because this game has those types of structures.

I might be addicted to this game, but it’s easy to play, completely unintrusive in terms of ads or asking you to spend real money, and can be creatively engaging if you allow it.

So what started as a political rant ended up as a positive review for Designer City. I’m going to call it a day.

Steve D

Spare Parts for Broken Hearts: Songs that Stick to my Brain part 1

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

See part 2 here.

I’ve spent the last several days listening ad nauseum to eight songs by Spare Parts for Broken Hearts, an LA-based rock band about whom I’ve been aware for at least a year, but had neglected to spend any significant time with. I’ve been missing out.

Last week I finally bought all eight singles that are available for download from their website. From what I can tell, they have yet to put out an EP or LP, but I’m still pleased with their eight-song playlist on my phone. (Reading the about page on their site, they plan to release an LP this year!)

Today, I’m going to take the first four songs from my playlist and look at them a little more closely. I’ll do the other four songs I have in a follow-up. I’m just doing these in the order they appear on my phone. If you’ve never read one of my album reviews before, I like to review the musical and lyrical tones of the songs and try to interpret them together. So this is not a critique so much as an attempt at understanding this music.

“I don’t want to be the voice of your prophet, your profit”

“Dirty Milk” opens with a fast, distorted bass line, feedback chords, and ringing cymbals. Lead Singer Sarah Green’s voice is melodic with just the right bit of scratchiness: “I am anonymous / Are you just like me / I need a friend”. And the refrain: “I don’t wanna be the voice of your prophet / I just want to be alone”

The song repeats its only verse and refrain twice each, never relenting until an abrupt ending that briefly fades out with squealing distortion feedback. This pace is more what you would expect from a heavy post-grunge band, but it’s not what Spare Parts for Broken Hearts typically do.

“Tell me the story from a different angle”

“Big Win” is more of a slow burn to start that builds into a soaring chorus: “All that I want from you / You can’t take back”

Even as Green’s voice rattles and nearly drowns out the dirty guitar chords, she still finds the space to lower her refrain to a gentle, almost sweet level, only to come back to a final chorus with fury and anguish. Spare Parts, or perhaps Green herself, perfectly blend these opposite emotional levels in most of their songs.

This is easily my favorite song of the bunch.

“I could swim til the bitter end”

“Cold Wave” similarly transitions from floating verse to torrential chorus and back. These transitions are jarring in that the listener feels the sudden weight of Green’s pain. Her first belting cry of “With no air” is powerful on its own, but its true meaning is only revealed when she growls: “I’m holding my breath / With no air”.

These songs run 3-4 minutes each– an average length– but each one is so full of sound and feeling that they feel like frozen moments.

“Where you end I begin / Severed”

Most of SPFBH’s songs are laden with inner turmoil, but perhaps none feels as forceful as “Ever”. Green’s wail on the first word of the chorus is a challenge and a rebuke: “What you can’t give / You can’t take from anyone.”

Plucking strings and distortion-rended chords. Soft hi-hat and crashing cymbals. Airy verses and wailing choruses.

All of these elements mingle throughout most songs for Spare Parts for Broken Hearts, and they never feel out of place or forced.

That the band can embody these dichotomies so completely is a testament to their songwriting skill and their authenticity. Whatever inspired these songs, I believe it, and that’s part of what makes them unforgettable.

I’ll come back with the other four songs in a couple weeks.

How do you like Spare Parts for Broken Hearts so far?

Steve D

Trailer Hype for THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER

On By Steven D'AdamoIn Reviews2 Comments

Welp, I’m stoked. Marvel finally released a teaser for the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder. I’ve been waiting for news on this film for what feels like two years, and it’s set to be released in July.

I’m not going to go through the trailer frame by frame and try to theorize about what it might be. I’m just happy that we’ve reached this point. This is the most excited I’ve been for an MCU property since Endgame.

As any MCU fans would probably tell you, Thor’s character made a gigantic leap into the forefront of the collective consciousness in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, in which Thor became the funny but super-powerful God of Thunder we always wanted. Of the original Avengers, Thor had the weakest standalone films through his first two (Thor and Thor: The Dark World). Iron Man had the best introduction, and Captain America had the best trilogy.

I might hedge and say that there’s a valid argument for Captain America having the best intro and the best trilogy…

In any case, Thor’s revitalization in Ragnarok and subsequent claiming of the superhero championship belt in the Infinity War saga has left him atop the original cast. That might be recency bias and the fact that Iron Man and Steve Rogers’s Captain America have parted ways, but Thor is also the only character who has gotten a fourth standalone film to this point.

The return of Natalie Portman as Jane Foster – and her very own level-up to the Mighty Thor, teased briefly at the end of that trailer – is the other big reason I’m excited for this film. I had started reading the Jason Aaron run of Thor: God of Thunder specifically because I wanted to see the comic-book lead-up to Jane Foster taking up Mjollnir.

I read the first three volumes last year, and all of a sudden, I’m behind schedule! Excuse me while I go look for copies of volumes four and five.

Are you excited for Thor: Love and Thunder?

Steve D

THE LAST KINGDOM Finale: Epic TV storytelling

On By Steven D'AdamoIn On Storytelling, ReviewsLeave a comment

The Last Kingdom TV series recently debuted its fifth and final season, which I caught on Netflix.

The show follows Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a Saxon lordling captured and raised by Danes who rises to become an important warrior and warlord during the reigns of Kings Alfred and Edward of Wessex. This show is the reason I’ve started reading the book series by Bernard Cornwell that it’s based on.

Having now finished season 5 and gotten confirmation that it is, indeed, the last of the series, I find myself reflecting on what, to me, has been a truly great show.

While much of the story of Uhtred himself is fictionalized, the show is realized with impeccable detail in the settings, the sets, and the costumes. Individual fight scenes are well choreographed and the battle scenes are mostly good if not great.

I’ve watched this show from the beginning, and had eagerly anticipated each of the last three seasons in particular as the show really hit its stride. Alexander Dreymon’s portrayal of Uhtred evolved from that of an arrogant, if skilled, young warrior into a admirable, honorable, and relentless lord who manages to fight both for what is right and for what he is owed.

The rest of the cast is stellar to the point that you might as well read through the cast list on IMDB, because I don’t think there is a poor actor in the entire series. This is the type of show where I recognized basically none of the actors when I first saw them, and now I can only think many of them will go on to do incredible things in television and film.

Alright, that’s enough reflecting. The main element of this show I wanted to call out is the storytelling.

Beware spoilers for season 5, including the season and series finale.

The Last Kingdom’s Epic Storytelling

The main arc of the story centers on Uhtred in his quest to reclaim his ancestral seat as the lord of Bebbanburg. Throughout the first four seasons of the show, Uhtred is desperate to retake his homeland, but is always called by duty, by oath, by extortion, or by his heart to fight different battles. These are so often at the behest of King Alfred of Wessex that by season four, it is almost laughable, except the relationship between Alfred and Uhtred has grown into the dearest of friendships, and you can’t really blame Uhtred for being loyal to one of his biggest patrons.

Season 5 presents a key opportunity for Uhtred to attack Bebbanburg – held by his estranged cousin – at the head of the armies of Wessex and Mercia, now joined under King Edward (Alfred’s son and Uhtred’s liege lord).

In the season and series finale, Uhtred fights to take Bebbanburg, Edward’s armies are nearly thrown over a cliff into the sea, and the enemy they fight tries to burn Bebbanburg to the ground.

This is the moment that any long-time watcher of this show has been waiting for, and recognizes what the show is doing. They literally and figuratively bring Uhtred to his knees, so close to achieving his lifelong destiny, within the walls of his home, and it burns to ashes in front of him.

And then the show takes another predictable turn that is just perfect. They show a montage of previous scenes from the show, focusing on Uhtred’s friends, allies, family, all lost in the turmoil of the previous five seasons (and some 20 years) of Uhtred’s life.

Going into this episode, I was not aware that season five was to be the final chapter of this show. But this montage was so perfectly executed and attuned to the emotional weight of the moment that I immediately knew that this was the end of the series.

After the montage, the sky breaks open into rain, drowning out the flames that would engulf Uhtred’s home, and in a last desperate act, Uhtred and King Edward’s forces emerge victorious. Uhtred claims Bebbanburg and becomes Lord of Northumbria.

This moment would have been meaningless – or perhaps cheap – if the show had not had the patience to lead the viewer through five seasons of loss, failure, and shortcomings with Uhtred. Or if they had tried to drag the show out to extra seasons for no reason. They chose their moment to end the story, and they stuck the landing, something that more than a few shows in recent memory have failed to accomplish.

Finale Thoughts

I did not go into season 5 of this show expecting to write a review on it. I think I’ve only mentioned it in passing before on this site. That finale hit home to me, to the point that I’d like to rewatch the entire show at some point.

I’m also even more stoked to continue my read of the book series.

Please watch this show, if for nothing else, to give me someone to talk about it with!

Steve D

10 Things I Loved about THE BATMAN

On By Steven D'AdamoIn ReviewsLeave a comment

I had the pleasure of seeing The Batman with a friend on Sunday. Not only was it my first theater experience in over two years, it was one hell of a movie. I loved it.

Coming into this movie with no expectations, I didn’t know what to expect, in a lot of ways. I’ve been lukewarm on the DC universe’s approach to its movies, never quite knowing what their goal is for a given movie, so I didn’t pay much attention to the press tour leading up to this release.

Having seen the film now, I can safely and excitedly say that The Batman is a great movie from beginning to end, and Robert Pattinson is a great Batman.

I’m going to run down my favorite things about this movie, without spoilers. If you watch (or have already seen) the trailer below, nothing on my list will be a surprise to you.

My 10 Favorite Things about THE BATMAN

I’m going to say this is in no particular order, except the order that these are flying off my fingertips.

  1. Robert Pattinson’s brooding Batman and Bruce Wayne. Without speaking to the movie’s plot, I will say that I loved Pattinson’s portrayal of the Dark Knight in this film. He was brooding and tortured and honestly intimidating. I don’t know that any previous live-action Batman has felt as menacing to me as this character.
  2. Bruce Wayne’s relationship with Alfred. I had no idea Andy Serkis was playing Alfred in this film, and he was amazing.
  3. Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon. He was smart and subtly charismatic in the way you expect a younger Jim Gordon to be.
  4. The gritty Gotham. This was one of the more unique Gotham settings we’ve gotten in a Batman film, at least recently. The setting felt more like a comic book version of Gotham while still being believable. It seemed like it could still be a real city without feeling generic.
  5. The interplay of the various villain characters. This is a hallmark of Batman films, where multiple villains are bound to show up in big power plays. One thing that stuck out to me was the surprisingly personal moments that a few of the villains share with our titular character. These were not bland archetypal evil-doers with outlandish schemes. These were people with goals and motivations and fears, and that really helped to sell the plot.
  6. Cat Woman. Zoe Kravitz’s Selena Kyle was dynamic, could hold her own, and had incredible chemistry with Robert Pattinson’s Batman. I’m all in on those two.
  7. The Bat-mobile and car chase. You saw a piece of this in the trailer above, where the person Batman is chasing is shown in an over-the-shoulder POV. This is used to great effect during a car chase scene that is perhaps the most visceral car chase I’ve ever watched.
  8. The music. Again, the trailer shows some of the movie’s hand here, but there are two famous songs that are used and melded with a riveting hook to incredible effect that never gets old throughout the film.
  9. The details. This is the type of movie that has a lot going on to direct the viewer’s attention — lighting, silhouettes of characters, colors, and emotional facial close-ups. But there’s also a lot going on in the background. There are no extras looking awkward in any scene in this movie. Even in random corners of the frame, the actors are making it feel like a live scene, rather than a staged frame.
  10. The tone. I think the gritty, dark films can too easily fall victim to trying too hard to be edgy. It’s not trying to shock the audience with unnecessary gore or brutality, and it doesn’t drown the viewer in a cynical worldview. The grittiness envelopes the characters and drives a lot of the suspense and foreboding, but it’s beside the point. There is a lot more to this story than its gritty tones.
  11. One more for good measure! The mystery. This film is framed as a noir detective story, and Batman makes a convincing problem-solver. This style of storytelling helps to drive the plot and much of the suspense leading up to the final sequence, when the hero’s journey is ultimately revealed.

Well, those are my brief thoughts about THE BATMAN. I’m thinking I might need to see this in theaters again, because I can’t stop thinking about it.

Have you seen it? What did you think?!

Steve D

Review: PLAIN ENGLISH Podcast’s coverage of the war in Ukraine

On By Steven D'AdamoIn ReviewsLeave a comment

I’ve never reviewed a podcast here before, but the more I find myself needing interesting and engaging information about in-depth topics, the more I turn to podcasts to get it. I simultaneously need to feel connected with what’s going on in the world without being inundated with opinion pieces, social media blather, and obnoxious punditry.

I was not following the major news outlets on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead, I had been getting bite-sized analysis notifications about once daily, but I needed more.

Plain English is a podcast on the Ringer where host Derek Thompson deep-dives into interesting topics. I had never listened to his podcast before, but after hearing about it from other Ringer shows (of which I listen to several) I noticed that he had done more than one episode on the ongoing war.

https://www.theringer.com/plain-english-with-derek-thompson-podcast

As it turns out, Thompson has done seven episodes on the war in Ukraine since its outbreak on Feb 25, speaking with military analysts, financial analysts, and even local Ukrainians about the war, its immediate impact, and its wider and longer-term implications.

I have listened to all seven episodes over the last four days, and I’m eager for more. Thompson takes a very complex subject that is destined to be shredded into a thousand opinions by a thousand talking heads on every network, and asks basic yet direct questions in his interviews with experts.

In the March 1 episode, for instance, Thompson speaks with two different financial analysts about the sanctions that the US and EU have slammed upon Russia, what they are really aimed to accomplish, and what the medium- to long-term impact could be.

What I particularly appreciate about Thompson’s concise narrative style is that he never loses sight of the very human tragedy that is unfolding in this conflict. Ukrainian citizens being targeted and killed in the action. And yes, Russian citizens’ outcries of protest being stamped out by their government, and the potential ruin that Russia’s economic crash could wreak upon people all over the world. (Listen to that March 1 episode).

This is not a case of “both sides”. Putin and the Russian government and military are obviously in the wrong, but their war, and the world’s sanctions against Russia will have real consequences for real people.

Thompson explains these points and much more without talking down to his audience, and with the goal of understanding above anything else. His discussions have made me feel like I can contextualize this conflict in more tangible terms without having to sift through the noise of an online news search or broadcast news clips.

Whether you are already well-informed on this conflict or not, I highly recommend this series of episodes on the Plain English podcast.

Слава Україні

Steve D

Book Review: THE ANCIENT CELTS builds a framework for Ancient European history

On By Steven D'AdamoIn ReviewsLeave a comment

The Ancient Celts audiobook occupied my listening time during a couple of recent weekend road trips, and it turned out to be enjoyable and informative.

The Ancient Celts is an excellent historical framework through which to view and discuss the identity and meaning of the term Celtic and the ancient peoples to whom it can be applied. This is the type of history where author Barry Cunliffe strays into several other topics in order to build his primary case.

Ancient Greece, Rome, the Scythians, and Phoenicians all make appearances as Cunliffe traces a millennium of migrations and conflicts across Europe involving various Celtic groups. Cunliffe focuses on the material archaeological record for his study, but he does not hesitate to pull in writings of the Classical era, and previously established linguistic evidence to build his case.

Cunliffe’s ultimate case is that the Celts can be identified as a distinct cultural and linguistic group from the Middle Danube region from the end of the Bronze Age, who had a stark impact on the Classical civilizations of Europe and spread as far south as Egypt, as far East as modern Turkey, and as far west as the Atlantic coast of Europe, and whose cultural remnants can still be seen today.

Interestingly, Cunliffe bookends his study with discussions on the revival of Celtic identity over the last few centuries, and what this might mean in relation to the Ancient Celts he tries to understand. He posits the subjective question of who the Celts were and who they are today, and answers with a surprisingly simple, yet effective statement: anyone who considers themselves Celtic, whether that is through spoken language, material culture, or more ephemeral forms of identity.

Steve D

Book Review: THE GATHERING STORM sets WoT series back on track

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The Gathering Storm may be the best novel of The Wheel of Time series to this point (book 12 of 14). This is the first book Brandon Sanderson co-authored after Robert Jordan’s passing, and it is simply incredible.

While Sanderson’s own writing style is markedly different from that of Jordan’s, the climactic narratives of two of the most important characters in the series are what stand out about this volume. The Gathering Storm soars as it brings the arcs of two of its primary characters to stunning crescendos.

Sanderson’s writing style is more befitting a modern fantasy audience, which is likely why he is one of the most popular fantasy authors of the last decade, if not longer. Compared to Jordan’s verbose prose that strains the limits of sentence structure and pays homage to the classical high fantasy authors that preceded him, Sanderson’s writing is concise and emotive. I don’t necessarily prefer Sanderson’s writing style to Jordan, but his punchier phrasing lends a sense of urgency to the story.

The Gathering Storm is ultimately the first part of a three-part conclusion to this epic series. Sanderson wrote it this way intentionally, taking Jordan’s outline for his finale, A Memory of Light, and splitting it into three volumes to capture all of the threads that Jordan wanted to weave into the final tapestry.

This is seen most starkly in the stories of Rand and Egwene. I will not go into detail, but I will say that The Gathering Storm really focuses on these two, separated geographically by hundreds of leagues or more, and narratively by nine or ten books, but linked as they each approach the Last Battle. It can easily be argued that they are the two most important characters in the series, and Sanderson and Jordan emphasize their place by weaving their first steps in the final act of the series together, independently, but in duality.

Several of the dragging plot lines of the middle part of this series are also tied off, often in ways that are surprising or shocking, but that serve the story and the characters. I’ve questioned all along how such a sprawling series could be ended cleanly, and with two books to go I can already see the blueprint. Sanderson utilizes all of the characters Jordan created, the minute storylines he laid out, to push the main groups of characters in the same direction: towards the Last Battle.

The reader feels the impending doom of this legendary confrontation laced throughout the book, throughout each character’s interactions with the others. Everyone, including the reader, knows what’s coming, and we collectively dread the moment and quiver in anticipation. The Gathering Storm is triumphant, even as it tells of only the opening salvos of the final conflicts to come.

I’ve already started reading Towers of Midnight.

Steve D

Book Review: THE LAST KINGDOM and engrossing characters and story

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After years of watching the show and hearing from my father-in-law that I would love Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories series — now more famously known as The Last Kingdom series — I finally listened to the first story, The Last Kingdom, on Audible.

This was my first introduction to Cornwell’s writing, having watched all of the TV adaptation of “The Last Kingdom” previously. Even though I came into this book with inflated expectations, I was definitely not disappointed.

The Last Kingdom follows young Uhtred, the son of an English noble, from the time he is kidnapped by a Danish earl, Ragnar, until he becomes a man. This first installment is effectively a coming-of-age story, where Uhtred learns how to live like a Dane and how to be a true warrior. He learns early on that he has a strong lust for battle and killing, and he chooses the warrior’s path for himself, becoming caught between his Saxon heritage and his Danish upbringing.

Cornwell’s story is exciting, and his plot is punctuated by thrilling action sequences and scenes of dialogue that do most of the heavy lifting in revealing the characters. Many of the names would be familiar to those who had watched the titular Netflix show, but the story is far more in depth.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing more of Uhtred’s early years, which are largely glossed over in the show. The reader gets to see more of the relationship between Uhtred and Ragnar, which truly becomes a father-son bond as the young Uhtred grows. This story lays a strong foundation for Uhtred to constantly be pulled between the two halves of his heart — the half that wants to help Ragnar the Younger in avenging the death of their father, and the half that wants to reclaim his birthright as lord of Bebbanburg.

This story also sets up what is sure to be a fiery relationship/rivalry between Uhtred and King Alfred of Wessex, as Alfred ensnares Uhtred deeper and deeper in the politics of Wessex (and his liege-ship), and Uhtred tries to angle for a chance to see his homeland in Northumbria reclaimed. The dialogue scenes between Uhtred and King Alfred crackle with tension.

If I had one gripe against this story, it’s that I don’t know if I would enjoy it as much if I didn’t already know the characters. Being able to see the actors’ faces in my mind as I listened brought this story to life in a way that many others cannot be.

Can’t wait to start the next one.

Steve D

Book Review: INTERIOR CHINATOWN and commentary on Othering in America

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Charles Yu exposes a ton of insight into what it’s like to be a “Generic Asian Man” in America. In Interior Chinatown he tells the story of an actor, Willis Wu, trying to work his way up the ladder, advancing from Generic Asian Man #3, to #2, through several intermediary roles, until at last he gets the chance to play the dream role: Kung Fu Guy.

That is all Willis thinks he is capable of becoming, a trope of cinema and a caricature of himself.

Through this experience, and with some much needed help from his family, Willis comes to realize that Kung Fu Guy is still just another version of Generic Asian Man, just like Old Asian Man or Asian Seductress.

In a strange but emotionally stirring scene in which Willis is “on trial” for boxing himself in racially and socially, he (and the reader) learn some tragic tidbits about how the US has treated immigrants from East Asia, and especially China throughout its history.

This is yet another side of history that we don’t often find in American textbooks; policies like the Page Act of 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which took steps to effectively ban all immigration to the US from China. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first of its kind to ban immigration based on race or country of origin. There were also a series of Supreme Court rulings in the 1920s which sought to exclude Asians from naturalization in the US. (Read more here).

Ultimately, Willis realizes that he is playing into a system which exacerbates his own place as Asian Man; a role which continues to flummox American society at large, even after 200 years of immigration (particularly from China).

I found the structure of this story odd at first. It read like a TV script, with characters delivering lines to each other in such a way that it was difficult to tell at times when Willis was actually acting in a scene for one of his roles, versus when he was “playing” a role as Asian Man in his everyday life. This storytelling mechanism is intentional, of course, and does lend to the author’s crucial commentary, in the form of the protagonist’s monologues.

Overall enjoyed this, but more than anything, Yu makes me want to read more about the Chinese American experience, and the US’s abominable history, distant and not so distant, in this (and many other) regards.

Steve D