(yes, they are sampling Hans Zimmer’s “God Yu Tekem Laef Blong Mi” from The Thin Red Line)
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Cool Media On My Radar
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Kill the ComputerSection 230: A Primer
DevDiveThe Legacy of SimogoLindsay EllisIs There Still a Very Special Place in Hell for Matt Stone and Trey Parker?
FilmspottingWuthering Heights: How Green Was My ValleyMarya E. Gates, RogerEbertReview: The Dreadful -
Recent Media Stuff
Hover over or tap on each thumbnail to read about my experience. (Scroll for longer text).
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Immediate Reactions
“Wuthering Heights” (1847) written by Emily Bronte
I feel like I was told this would not be the stodgy 19th century romance that I expected, but I was still surprised at how much Bronte was committed to writing bad people who do bad things.
I do think my experience was helped by still finding ounces of sympathy for Heathcliff, Catherine the elder, and all of them. Even Joseph. Bronte excelled at setting up the internal motivations and the traumatic experiences that built these people up act as they do.
I was a little harangued by the narration model and I didn’t care to see the world through Lockwood’s eyes at the beginning. Thankfully, the narrator MVP is Nelly Dean, who I think should have started and ended the whole thing.
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Here, Have a Comic Strip
Originally found on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@MrLovenstein/115809498565596465
J.L. Westover’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/mrlovenstein
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A Recent Letterboxd Review
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)
Read on LetterboxdIt makes sense that Way of Water and Fire and Ash were originally one movie. There’s a key moment in the second movie where Jake tells Lo’ak that he finally understands him and loves him for who he is, unburdened of the fear triggered by his own relationship with his parents and brother (using just three words, no less). And then in this movie, it seems like Lo’ak has to somehow earn trust back again.
The evil whale harpoon guy is back. And the ethically conflicted marine biologist is still here, being ethically conflicted. There is once again a tense council of Na’Vi with Tulkun discussing the fate of Payakan. Na’Vi Quarritch once again is getting helped out and physically saved by at least one member of the Sully clan. Here’s Norm again, reiterating that Kiri will die if she tries to commune with Ewya underwater. You thought it was cool when a whale creature slammed itself on a ship? How about a dozen warships and even more whales slamming themselves in the same fashion, with similar results? You see, it’ like poetry, it rhymes.
No, but I mean that literally. They took perfectly acceptable movie setpieces and created an echo effect that makes the world more immersive.
If you’ve ever had a human relationship in your life – with a parent, a partner, whatever – you know that life is not like the movies where you have a single story moment that allows your relationship to grow and deepen. When the relationship is rocky, it’s fits and starts. Someone can see you. And then they lose sight of you, being pulled back into their own troubles and displacing it on you. This is what happens with Jake. It was never going to be just one moment of understanding. It’s a process.
In political disagreements among factions of the same group, you often end up having the same theatrics about a decision made by people in power, as you do with the Tulkun elders here. The same opponents to the decision are involved and if they’re lucky, they’ve picked up more support. Sometimes those with power double down and impose harsher versions of their decision, such as banishing Payakan farther away forcing Lo’ak into a more removed subplot. It drives Lo’ak to despair and he almost gives up utterly. Because it’s not just painful to lose once. It’s painful to keep losing, even when you thought you’d seen a way out not long ago. And it’s in those moments when you have to tap into inner strength to take the longer journey and make a bigger stand.
You condense these moments as shorthand to entertain. You stretch them out when you’ve written full characters that won’t be contained.
It’s your prerogative to disagree. I understand if you saw the potential to go somewhere different with this entry and were let down. I get that you only have so much time on this earth and 6+ hours of “can the Sullys team up with the whales to stop the decimation of a beautiful island paradise culture” asks a lot of you. But, for me, I’ve come to deeply admire what Cameron and his team have invested in building these stories. I think we’re privileged to spend time with these characters and marvel at these waters.
And I like when the whales make things go boom. Maybe some other creature will make different things go boom next time, but I love that we built up to that in two separate movies.
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My Latest Backloggd Review
Pokémon Legends: Z-A
Challenge: Engage in criticism of this game without mentioning “windows” or “voice acting.”
Legends Z-A excels as a prototype of the new kind of Pokemon city we could get. Sidequests integrated with the city. Imagine if modern cities had locations like the museum, the sewers, the abandoned laboratory and some – some – of the key wild areas.
The Battle Royale is initially an extremely compelling gameplay loop, working alongside the new battle system to create a sort of mini-stealth hunt-and-deploy tactics game. Unfortunately, LZA does not want to put in the time to keep this compelling for more than 30% of the game, so it eventually becomes a barrier to progress rather than an end unto itself. Still, I want a version of this real-time system to return.
On the whole, this does not reach the revelatory heights of Legends: Arceus. Limiting you to Lumiose shouldn’t be a main part of the reason, but the limitation is felt due to the initial lack of wild areas. Imagine if there were unique Pokemon and battles to be found in the museum, the old building, Quasartico, etcetera. But the wild areas are the limits of ingenuity for this game.
Still, if you’re a Pokemon fan who’s been enjoying the Switch era and not a weirdo who gets personally enraged whenever the Nostalgia Factory fails to hold up a mirror to your imagination and clone whatever $300 million production budget chimera you’re imagining, then Legends Z-A is worth your time. There are great Pokemon to find, a fun new battle system to engage in, and some discussion to be had about the dangers of nostalgia.
Also, I don’t care about windows. I hope the windows in Gen 10 are even worse.
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An Organizing Note
I’ve been working with some groups that try to get tenants organized to push back on the abuses of various types of landlords. This was my first campaign seen from beginning to end.
Tenants in Durham came out to City Council’s late October meeting to support an ordinance that would make it a misdemeanor for landlords to collect rent on slum-like conditions, including lack of water and multiple fire hazards.
Four members were initially skeptical and hostile to the ordinance, hemming and hawing on whether it would put Durham in conflict with the state legislature. But dozens of people came out, pushed back, and spoke out.
The ordinance passed 7-0.
This isn’t a magic wand for tenants living with these conditions. It’s not within the scope of the city’s powers to enforce a penalty for the crime of being a slumlord. But it helps tenants put such landlords on notice. It helps tenants in a lawsuit seek rent abatement. And it helps tenants in eviction court to get the resources they need.
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I read The Satanic Verses for Book Club
Our book club theme for September was “banned books” and our nominations list included this one, Looking for Alaska by John Green, Sold by Patricia McCormick, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.
Interestingly, the one we settled on by a substantial margin was the book that wasn’t banned by a typical Western and Christian-influenced censorship apparatus. Whereas books like “Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Fun Home” are banned for exploring queer identities, “Verses” was censored in over 20 countries due to controversy over its portrayal of Islamic mythology. The book’s place in history is anchored by the fatwa declared by Iranian religious leaders more than thirty years ago. The bounty placed on Rushdie’s head did eventually lead to an assassination attempt by a random New Jersey man just a few years ago. (Rushdie survived and published a memoir revolving around the violence).
The uncomfortable thing about online discourse of this book is that there seems to be a micro cottage industry of people who use this book as a way to grind an axe against Islam as a faith. Looking for videos on the book will often surface a dark muttering of commenters who say that the fatwa controversy surrounding “Verses” justifies everything they think about Islam and Muslims.
A befitting irony for the novel’s themes of narratives that are imposed on people and events is that this is hardly a book dedicated as a polemic or committed to poking a finger in the eye of Muslims. It can be irreverent – cheekily so. There’s cynicism about organized religion and since Rushdie was born into a Muslim family, he uses the backdrop of Islamic history to make some points. But if you’ve ever read a satirical retelling of Christian Biblical events, like Lamb by Christopher Moore or seen The Life of Brian movie, you’re already familiar with this approach from writers emerging from Christian worldviews.
Ultimately, my favorite chapter of Satanic Verses is one of the several allegorical visions that alternate with the main plot. It involves a village that has become extremely devout due to the power of a prophetess and is now embarking on an arduous pilgrimage on foot to Mecca. The chapter’s title, “The Parting of the Arabian Sea,” indicates what the final obstacle will be for these pilgrims. I suppose one could walk away from this chapter and say “wow, Rushdie really portrayed some truths about the darkness of religious extremism,” but I came away feeling like this was Rushdie’s acknowledgment about the power of faith and some of the downsides of steadfast skepticism.
Faith is a well. One can draw strength from it, but that well can be poisoned. In a desert with no other reservoirs, one can become so dependent that it leaves you vulnerable to corruption. But in the harsh conditions of reality, an oasis can still be the only reason we preserve and find respite.
I guess I just felt like Rushdie’s views on the faith background he came from are a little more nuanced and complex than the discourse would have you think.
