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aaronstveit · 10 months ago

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read in 2024!

it's that time again! i loved doing reading threads in 2022 and 2023 so i will definitely be carrying on the tradition this year. as always, you can find me on goodreads and storygraph, and you're always welcome to message me about books!

Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu* (★★★★★)

Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks and Stones by Ngozi Ukazu* (★★★★★)

Check, Please! Chirpbook by Ngozi Ukazu* (★★★★★)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (★★★★★)

The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert** (★★★★☆)

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (★★★★★)

None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell (★★★☆☆)

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (★★★☆☆)

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett (★★★★☆)

Dream Work by Mary Oliver (★★★★☆)

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson (★★★★☆)

Cain’s Jawbone by E. Powys Mathers

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (★★★★★)

You’ve Been Summoned by Lindsey Lamar** (★★☆☆☆)

The Seven Ages by Louise Glück (★★★★☆)

The Last Girl Left by A.M. Strong & Sonya Sargent** (★★★☆☆)

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang (★★★★★)

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Normal People by Sally Rooney (★★★★★)

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin** (★★★☆☆)

She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen (★★☆☆☆)

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (★★★☆☆)

The Drowning Faith by R.F. Kuang (★★★★★)

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (★★★★★)

The Burning God by R.F. Kuang (★★★★★)

King Lear by William Shakespeare (★★★★☆)

All These Sunken Souls by assorted authors, edited by Circe Moskowitz (★★★★☆)

The Big Four by Agatha Christie (★★★☆☆)

The Avant-Guards, Vol. 1 by Carly Usdin, Noah Hayes (★★★★☆)

That Was Then, This Is Now by S.E. Hinton (★★☆☆☆)

The Avant-Guards, Vol. 2 by Carly Usdin, Noah Hayes (★★★★☆)

Jurassic Park by Michael (★★★☆☆)

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis (★★★☆☆)

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (★★★★★)

Violeta by Isabel Allende (★★★☆☆)

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister (★★★★☆)

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (★★★★☆)

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (★★★★☆)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (★★★★★)

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes (★★★★★)

Third Girl by Agatha Christie (★★★☆☆)

The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis (★★★☆☆)

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (★★★★★)

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (★★★★★)

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis (★★★☆☆)

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz (★★★★★)

Persuasion by Jane Austen (★★★★★)

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore & David Lloyd (★★★★☆)

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall (★★★☆☆)

We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir by Raja Shehadeh

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie* (★★★★★)

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (★★★★☆)

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin* (★★★★★)

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (★★★★☆)

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (★★★★☆)

An Education in Malice by S.T. Gibson (★★★☆☆)

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard (★★★★☆)

You Shouldn’t Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose (★☆☆☆☆)

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (★★★★☆)

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston (★★★★☆)

An asterisk (*) indicates a reread. A double asterisk (**) indicates an ARC.

#talking to strangers #reading thread

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readingoals · 1 year ago

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#booklr #frankenstein #mary shelley #brigid speaks #can you tell what my special interest is lmao #i was going to hold off posting this for another week but I'm CURIOUS

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jxrm · 2 months ago

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book log - 2024 (so far)

diva by daisy goodwin

the heiress by rachel hawkins

only if you’re lucky by stacy willingham

the chateau by jaclyn goldis

just stay away by tony wirt

the other mothers by katherine faulker

middle of the night by riley sager

the disappearance of astrid bricard by natasha lester

every time i go in vacation, someone dies by catherine mack

the last caretaker by jessica strawser

just for the summer by abby jimenez

house of glass by sarah pekkanen

the mayor of maxwell street by avery cunningham

first lie wins by ashley elston

the phoenix crown by kate quinn

murder road by simone st. james

the fury by alex michaelides

happiness falls by angie kim

the house of last resort by christopher golden

run rose run by dolly parton

the chalice of the gods by rick riordan

there should have been right by nalini singh

the mysterious case of the alperton angels by janice hallet

darling girls by sally hepworth

the pieces around us by leigh fields

love, theoretically by ali hazelwood

the teacher by frieda mcfadden

x by jack croxell

iron flame by rebecca yarros

the only suspect by louise candlish

throwback by maurene goo

the housemaid is watching by frieda mcfadden

zara hossain is here by sabina khan

slice by angie caedis

the ways of the dead by neely tucker

orphan train by christina baker

a court of silver flames by sarah j. mass

come and get it by kiley reid

the drowning woman by robyn harding

when i bleed: poems about endometriosis by maggie bowyer

the house in the pines by ana reyes

only say good things by crystal hefner

the mother-in-law by sally hepworth

daughter of mine by megan miranda

lore olympus: volume four by rachel smythe

this time it’s real by ann liang

anna o by matthew blake

the girl with the louding voice by abi dare

where the forest meets the stars by glendy vanderah

a friend in the dark by samantha m. bailey

the wife app by carolyn mackler

howl’s moving castle by diana wynne jones

the spanish love deception by elena armas

divide by jessa russo

lies and weddings by kevin kwan

the foxhole victory tour by amy lynn green

dying to tell by keri beevis

my father, the panda killer by jamie jo hoang

the wedding party by l.r. jones

girl gone mad by avery bishop

starter wife by bethany lopez

the queens of new york by e.l. shen

theater lovers by ciara blume

once upon a broken heart by stephanie garber

the surrogate mother by frieda mcfadden

crying in h mart by michelle zauner

don’t forget to write by sara goldman confino

the next girl by carla kovach

the paradise problem by christina lauren

ivy league liars by grace costello

every summer after by carley fortune

the ballad of never after by stephanie garber

a curse of true love by stephanie garber

the devil’s storybooks by natalie babbit

expiration dates by rebecca serle

the murmur of bees by sofia segovia

growing up hadley by dana harp

the vacation by john marrs

rum punch regrets by anna kemp

the five-star weekend by elin hilderbrand

people to follow by olivia worley

the treasure hunters club by tom ryan

you shouldn’t be here by lauren thoman

trophy wife by bethany lopez

seven summers by paige toon

veridian sterling fakes it by jennifer gooch

the friendship club by robyn carr

women of good fortune by sophie wan

the smuggler’s apprentice of guatemala by lachlan page

this summer will be different by carley fortune

natural selection by elin hilderbrand

the passengers by john marrs

asap by axie oh

island of shadows by christopher kvintus

swan song by elin hilderbrand

lore olympus: volume five by rachel smythe

blue hawaiian by carla luna

the villain edit by laurie devore

hermione granger and the order of the phoenix by sara baines-miller

the hotel nantucket by elin hilderbrand

bummer camp by ann garvin

pink glass houses by asha elias

cut and thirst by margaret atwood

the exception to the rule by christina lauren

#crimetime by jeneva rose

incidents around the house by josh malerman

the mistress by valerie keogh

kiki’s delivery service by eiko kadono

when we were friends by jane green

the honey-don’t list by christina lauren

worst wingman ever by abby jimenez

the perfect couple by elin hilderbrand

home is where the bodies are by jeneva rose

the only good indians by stephen graham jones

roar by cecelia ahern

the wedding people by alison espach

look in the mirror by catherine steadman

fit to die by daniel kalla

uglies by scott westerfield

hideaway by nicole lundrigan

the fortune teller by natasha boydell

crazy rich asians by kevin kwan

the wish by nicholas sparks

how the penguins saved veronica by hazel prior

the plus one by s. c. lalli

the haters by robyn harding

china rich girlfriend by kevin kwan

rich people problems by kevin kwan

the haunting of moscow house by olesya salnikova gilmore

the lonely hearts book club by lucy gilmore

the measure by nikki erlick

somewhere beyond the sea by tj klume

adam and evie’s matchmaking tour by nora nguyen

i was a teenage slasher by stephen graham jones

here one moment by liane moriarity

badass bonita by kim guerra

zetas till we die by amber and danielle brown

shred sisters by betsy learner

one of the girls by lucy clarke

society of lies by lauren ling brown

the radius of us by marie marquardt

fantasticland by mike bockoven

sheets by brenna thummler

the boyfriend by frieda mcfadden

delicates by brenna thummler

no one will know by rose carlyle

lights by brenna thummler

counting miracles by nicholas sparks

the night we lost him by laura dave

ghost stories by ron ripley

the hitchcock hotel by stephanie wrobel

for better or cursed by kate williams

the last one at the wedding by jason rekulak

creation lake by rachel kushner

like mother, like daughter by kimberly mccreight

libby lost and found by stephanie booth

the nosy neighbour by nita prose

needy little things by channelle desamours

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signalwatch · 1 year ago

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Godzilla (2014)

Watched: 11/04/2023

Format: BluRay

Viewing: Second, I think

Director: Gareth Edwards

In a couple of weeks, Apple+ is dropping their decade-spanning, genre-mixing show about the Monarch organization, which is the group that.... something something.... in a world of giant beasties, based on Godzilla (2014) and the series of attached movies. I've heard where in the movie timeline the show takes place - just after this movie, and it had been a while, so I finally rewatched the first of the Monsterverse films to remind myself what the hell happens in the flick.

I remember going into Godzilla (2014) with some trepidation. The last American-made Godzilla movie I'd seen was the 1998 trainwreck that just piled on all the worst habits of 1990's-era blockbuster entertainment, and then curb-stomped you with them.*

The trailers for the 2014 edition certainly looked cool, but the fact is that at the time of the film's release, Hollywood was doing this thing where they would come up with cool stuff for trailers and then maybe make a movie that tied those scenes and lines together.

It was promising a movie for all-ages, including adults - casting thinking-person's stars like Bryan Cranston, Juliet Binoche, Ken Watanabe, David Strathairn and Sally Hawkins (a curious trend that has continued through Godzilla v. Kong with Rebecca Hall as our lead). So it was literally *buying* gravitas with the casting choices. Which was maybe needed after the 1998 debacle.

Leaving the movie, I remember a vague sense of disappointment, but wasn't blogging at the time, so there's no record of what I was thinking. In the 9 years since I've re-watched the movie, I'd kind of forgotten what the deal was. Certainly I remembered them bumping off Binoche in the film's first five minutes, and that Cranston similarly exits the film in the first act, when I thought he was going to be our lead.

Instead, we are handed Aaron Taylor-Johnson in a thankless, vague and personality-free role of "Ford Brody" - a US soldier of some sort (I'm pretty sure I heard him say "navy" at some point, but that seemed weird) who specializes in defusing bombs. He's supposedly partnered with Elizabeth Olsen as his wife, Elle, but the two get maybe three minutes together in the whole film - a film that depends entirely on you caring about Ford's return to his family (why he leaves actually makes zero sense, but whatever). At no point will the audience care about this other than "oh, I guess that's why he's there/ doing that".

The problem with all that all-star casting is that in 2014, neither Olsen nor Taylor-Johnson were the people many of us showed up to see. So when those stars you came to see start getting bumped off, or get relegated to exposition-spouting background characters (sorry, Sally Hawkins), you aren't really sure why you're supposed to be following the blank-space-of a character in a motorcycle jacket that is Taylor-Johnson's character. You'll want to spend time with literally everyone else on screen.

However, the entire movie is set up - much to my surprise the first time - to be Ford's story. We're intended to find out *why* he's invested in the events, and - because this is an American movie - has a deeply personal stake in what is happening. Which means the first twenty minutes could possibly be lopped off the film and conveyed via two or three lines of dialog. But, instead, we're shown everything, which sets up the audience to care about and to wish to follow entirely the wrong characters.

Once we're in 2014, fortunately, the movie fates place Ford just right in the world, in a series of increasingly unlikely events, to be exactly where he needs to be at any given time to be a part of the movie's globetrotting events. Also, not because he did any work, but happened to overhear something, he's the person with the required knowledge at least once. And we're told he apparently set up a nuclear weapon, but that happened off-screen?

This is as good a segue as any to talk about how you can cast the best actors, get cool-as-hell FX departments, etc... but this is, in fact, a very, very badly written movie.

The scenes that do work are very much written to be teaser trailers and worked backward into the movie. The halo jumping sequence is absolute, illogical nonsense, but looks cool as hell, and may have been what was pitched to execs. Godzilla coming onto the beach in Honolulu, same. But they aren't cohesive as a story, and there's no real characters to get invested in to make you care if the monsters destroy the world or not.

Retro-engineering the movie, given what we know now about Legendary's plans, this is really just all set-up for getting an audience invested in the world that we now refer to as The Monsterverse. The movie cares more about sequels than itself - a problem with a lot of media in a post-Lost world, and misunderstanding how Marvel was working. It wants us to understand that there's an expert agency that looks into Godzilla-type happenings, and - working with the military? sometimes? - takes care of the issues, but is really mostly standing around being very concerned, while also hiding the fact that Godzillas exist. Which seems like a very tall order, indeed.

I'll be honest, I had no memory of Monarch by the the time I saw the sequel, so excellent job, my dudes.

From a story perspective, it's the kind of movie where we find out that the people who have spent 15 years, every day, studying the monster who has taken over a nuclear power plant have somehow learned nothing, pondered nothing, done no basic science, and so it is that Ford Brody has all the info they could ever need as person who showed up on the scene 4 hours ago (and you will also wonder why they didn't just hire Cranston). It's the kind of movie that says "we evacuated a whole small city by pretending there was a nuclear disaster, but we didn't kill the monster in the middle of the evacuated area because we thought that would actually radiate the area everyone already was not living in." Which... amazing logic.

The most baffling decision by the movie is that it's absolutely, deeply against actually caring about why you bought your ticket (to see Godzilla). There are multiple battles between Godzilla and the stupid stink-bug looking MUTOs, and fuck you if you would have liked to have seen those, because this movie is convinced that's like putting the camera on the clouds for several minutes in a movie about people surviving a storm.

But it is not. Our monsters are the main event. I don't care if it's the Rockettes performing while firing muskets into the air while the ghost of George Washington tap dances around - my eyes is going to be drawn to the behemoths destroying city blocks by turning around.

What happened in Hawaii? We had minutes of build up featuring huge set-pieces and POV characters. We get our first glimpses of G himself and his incredibly fat ankles. But when the fight kicks in, it's shown as maybe three shots on a 13" TV in other scenes in Elizabeth Olsen's apartment.

You want to see the rampage through Vegas? Eat my butt. We're showing the aftermath.

You want to see the monsters actually engaging in San Francisco? You're just a fool for thinking that will happen. We will show the humans doing their shit, and cut away just as the monsters engage time and time again. And when we DO finally show it, it will be so dark, you'll be wondering if something went wrong with how you're viewing the movie.

Like, I don't understand how one decides that they're making a movie about gigantic monsters fighting and thinks what we want to see is soldiers planning a parachute jump, not "in addition to" but "instead of" monster fights.

Consequently, the movie is weirdly boring. We're just going from place to place, being denied better characters and dialog while gesturing at who they cast.

I've seen, I believe, all but two Godzilla films (three if you count the one that hasn't been released yet), and I can tell you, no matter how goofy or dumb most of these movies are, they know why you paid your dollars for a seat. So they may be a confusing mess of sub-plots, but they WILL show you Godzilla and an enemy or three mixing it up for long stretches. And they do not think you only need to see glimpses of the monster fights in the background as someone ties their shoes in the foreground.

I may think Skull Island is an affront to the legacy of King Kong, but no one is going to call that movie boring or suggest it under delivers on crazy monster stuff. So someone figured this out.

What I don't get is why they went with *this* design for Godzilla. Why the stumpy avocado look? Look, nothing was going to look worse than the 1998 trainwreck, so by that measure, it's an improvement. My assumption is that Toho doesn't want for US-made Godzilla to look like their Godzilla, but I have no evidence that's true. What I generally believe is that there is science that talks about how animals would be shaped if they scaled up, and the larger an animal gets, the more it has to be shaped wider rather than taller - ie: you get a pyramid at some point. And this is that. But, my guys, this is about an amphibious monster king who shoots atomic rays from his tummy out his mouth, so maybe we go for "cool" instead of "will please my Bio 301 TA".

I guess kids like it, because those toys do move, but I gotta say, I think the Final Wars Godzilla looked rad as hell and would have been nice to see as a CGI adaptation. It's not really til they made adjustments to Avocadozilla in Gozilla v Kong that I was onboard with this design.

But, maybe the greatest bit to make you wonder what the hell was going on at Legendary when making this movie occurs in the he final moments.

After Godzilla has managed to help level Honolulu and most of San Francisco, he needs a nap, and takes one in the middle of the city, waiting a couple of days before he wakes up again, fresh as a daisy. As he's leaving, the TV screens have "Godzilla, King of the Monsters: Our Savior?" on the chyron.

That's like.... one day you're at home and two mountain lions and a bear enter your home, destroying pretty much everything you own and killing your family dog. The bear manages to finish off the mountain lions and then naps for a bit on your couch. I really don't think you're looking at that bear and thinking "wow, he really did it. He really helped me out."

I haven't even got into how the 25-story-tall monsters keep sneaking around silently and keep surprising our heroes. Nor why the answer of the military to 25 story monsters is "send in foot soldiers with machine guns" instead of "pound these things with our gigantic cannons mounted on battleships that can hit a target miles away".

The movie finally, finally remembers in the last ten minutes that you can do more with a character in a movie than have them either deliver information or look bewildered when we see Ford decide "if Godzilla can go above and beyond, so, too, can I!" using, like, legit film language. The moment is the only one to convey that anyone would see Godzilla as anything other than a pants-dumping terror instigator, so it does help the point of "our hero?" but it's also entirely singular to the experience of Ford and like 2 other people.

When given an opportunity for real, human moments - like Ford being reunited with his child - we just don't show it. It happens off screen, and that may be the most telling moment for how this movie sees character, story, emotional beats, etc... We don't care. All we care about is making sure the audience has seen Godzilla, knows he's there to fight monsters, monsters don't give a shit about humans, and that Monarch is there to look concerned and wear their IDs on lanyards when the monsters show up.

It's just such a weird movie.

One could easily say "you dismiss all of the nonsense in the Japanese films" - but, two things. (1) It's largely arguable that the movies after 1954 are for pre-teens, and not pulling in big-name stars to sell us on the idea that this is a movie is something not dumb. And (2) Their storylines may be nonsense, but the plots, no matter how insane, have an internal logic that holds. This movie can't even do that. Nothing really makes any sense, it all just keeps unfolding and hoping you don't notice "hey, this is dumb as hell". Unfortunately, that requires actually seeing the monsters, to which this movie stands in violent opposition.

What do I like?

Well, it's nice to see the talent assembled in front of the camera, I guess. I wish they'd been given literally anything to do but exposit. The effects are ok, and the final monster fight - what you can see of it - is nicely framed in bits like a classic Godzilla film, pulling back to let you see how tiny the city is against the creatures. I don't mind the insertion of Monarch into the movie as a concept - I wish they'd explained in the slightest what they were, why and what they hoped to do. It's a nice hardware porn movie, with jets, helicopters, battleships, etc... It's nice to see a pre-super-famous Elizabeth Olsen. She's as good as one could hope for given her five lines in the movie.

But for the most part, the movie was pretty much how I remembered.

Kids seemed to like it, and everyone has done well selling the toys (which may also be why the Godzilla in this movie looks how it does, so Bandai doesn't get a cut). But kids don't give a shit who Juliet Binoche and Ken Watanabe are, so. For the teen to 20-somethings, it did fine, but I was surprised it launched a franchise. There's a lot about movies and budgets and who gets paid that I don't understand. But I don't know anyone who *loves* this movie. It just kind of exists.

To their credit, these movies do seem to be getting better with each movie, but what a weird way to workshop concepts already sorted out by our friends in Japan.

*I saw the movie twice in theaters at the time - once to see it, and a second time to take my brother so he could see the awfulness with his own eyes

#godzilla #gojira #movies #kaiju #monsterverse #movie review

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