12 Days of Giving (A Very Hallmark Christmas Day Five)

Cut straight to the chase, it's

12 DAYS OF GIVING

In Which - A man wins $50k and gives a bunch of it away, re-igniting the world's sense of Christmas Cheer and helping him understand He Never Actually Loved His Fiancee and He Should Get With This Single Mom He Meets Instead. 

I kept wanting to call the main guy Riley for some reason. No his actual name is Baxter. And he is a really mediocre photographer who likes taking pictures of branches, well, no wonder you can't sell any photos at your gallery showing, Baxter, your pictures kinda suck! But you have a good heart, and this is evident when you win a sweepstakes drawing and take the $50k cash payout instead of the new Corvette and then start secretly giving it away to people to make their Christmases awesome. What a nice dude!

However geez you have a toxic relationship with your fiance who just wants mo' money for like...fancy dresses and a big honeymoon and a nicer wedding and I mean I guess those are good things to do with money but she just gives me really weird vibes. Why are you with he-ohhh wait I bet you won't be for long! (I'm getting better at predicting these things!)

Riley/Baxter does start creepily taking pictures of people he gives away his money too and that seems a little strange, but he's a photographer so I guess that's okay?

Hey in just 5 movies we have our second movie where the Main Guy is going to Fall In Love with the Single Mom because Her Son is Really Into Hockey and the Main Guy Can Help With That. This is the trope I didn't see coming, but here we go. 

Also a trope is characters talking about the "the big concert/event/play coming up!" and then it's at the end of the movie and it's just the tiniest little room with about 8 people in this room for this Big Christmas Event, look, I get it, movie extras are expensive when you're on that Hallmark Movie Budget, it just makes me chuckle. 

Baxter definitely engages in some light emotional cheating with Single Mom for a couple days before admitting oh yeah wait I'm actually engaged to someone else (cue Act 2-3 romantic confusion) but all is saved in the end as the Single Mom's Son pulls childlike shenanigans to get them back together again. Nice and simple to have Baxter's fiancee break up with him because he's giving too much money away to strangers, that was convenient and he didn't even have to play the "Hey I have a Single Mom Side Chick I'm Trynna Get With" card. 

Nothing fancy, nothing special, I give it 6 Polaroid Pictures out of 10. 

Christmas In Vermont (A Very Hallmark Christmas Day Four)

Watched this one at my parents house and didn't really take many notes so it'll be a short recap of

CHRISTMAS IN VERMONT 

In Which - A no-nonsense Business Executive Girl travels to Vermont from NYC to shut down a failing clothing store, only to fall for both the Guy who runs the business AND soft and cozy cashmere!

Mom always wants to watch some Hallmark movies at Christmas. I have to choose them carefully so both she and Dad are entertained. This was an easy pick because it was set in Vermont (for Mom) and had Chevy Chase and Howard Hesseman in supporting roles!

Chevy Chase plays the NYC boss of the Main Girl who sends her on the Shutdown Mission up to Vermont. He has a half dozen scenes, and holy crap I've never seen a more phoned in performance. It's rare that you can tell that an actor is just reading cue cards positioned just off-camera, but I would be absolute money that was the case here. Chevy couldn't care less about anything happening in his scenes. Hilarious. 

An absolute delight, though, is Howard Hesseman (known to my family as the crazy DJ Dr. Johnny Fever from WKRP in Cincinnati, a TV show from the late 70s I watched re-runs of growing up. He's the Wise Old Man in this plot and really carries a lot of humble charm. 

The Business Executive Girl is a little scary, not gonna lie, also she looks about six foot three in heels and towers over everyone else in scene. She has her cold dead heart warmed by the joy and hospitality of this small Vermont Town (filmed in upstate New York of course) and eventually connives to come up with a new product that saves the business in time for Christmas and falls in love with the guy who runs it blah blah blah you know how it ends. 

The Business Owner guy had a real nice-guy charm to him (not in a bad way). 

It's okay, didn't change my life, I'll give it 6 Soft Cashmere Christmas Sweaters out of 10. 

Angels and Ornaments (A Very Hallmark Christmas Day Three)

Today we have

ANGELS AND ORNAMENTS

In Which - A Mysterious (Angel?) Character must help two music-store co-workers find love before the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve!

One good thing about Hallmark movies - they know they have an 84-87 minute runtime and there's not a MOMENT to spare. From the very get-go we have a quirky character who lays out in pretty plain speak that He Is An Angel and He's Here On A Mission From God (or at least, "The Man Upstairs"). Leaning into the predictive nature of these stories actually help them feel a little more honest, they ain't trying to fool you, they know what they are!

The Main Girl in this one looks so familiar and I have to IMDB her to realize she played one of the adult characters on Glee. She didn't sing on Glee. She sings here. Take that as you will. 

Harold the Angel is just the right amount of Quirky and Charming as he befriends and then plays matchmaker for the Main Girl and Guy. It takes me the entire movie to figure out who he reminds me of, then I finally put it together, he's a perfect blend of Tobey Maguire and Adam Sandler, but somehow his earnest-oddball-man routine really works!

Carey did call it thought because in Act Two Harold the Angel is just a hardcore Creepy Stalker watching the main characters Discover Themselves and Their Love for Each Other through a series of peering-through-window montages. 

Set in a music store and with the finale based around an original piece of music being sung at a Christmas Concert - honestly Hallmark should lean into doing musicals or musical-esque stories more often. You can cover a multitude of cheesy love story sins with a little tear-jerker music to play on the ol' heartstrings. 

Best Quotes:

"You know I saw him in Macy's the other day flirting with one of those perfume spraying...harlots!"

"Cliches are important when forming a narrative - they tap into the universality of mankind!"

The Peacock App crashed during the middle of the final heartfelt monologue. Bad Form, Peacock. 

This was nice, the music definitely bumped it up a few notches for me. 8 Christmas Carols out of 10. 

Lucky Christmas (A Very Hallmark Christmas Day Two)

I'm already falling off the pace as I had to watch this movie split over two days. And this blog is a few days late. Christmas will be enjoyed at it's own pace this year I just hope I don't get to Christmas Eve and have to spend 9 hours watching Hallmark movies that day because look they have a certain charm - but ONLY a certain charm. 

Anyway today it's

LUCKY CHRISTMAS

In Which - A single mother's winning lottery ticket is nowhere to be found after her car is stolen - she must try to find it back (and possibly fall in love with the thief!) before the clock strikes midnight on Christmas Eve!

The setup of this one really made me question wow, how are they going to justify the Mom falling for such a Bad Boy who would steal her car? But it's all mostly a comedy of non-malicious errors - her car is "borrowed" by the comic relief friend of the Main Guy when his truck is impounded, and by the time they try to return it it's been reported as stolen with the lottery ticket inside! Talk about a CRISIS!

- The First Act of this movie didn't really draw me in. Unique setup aside, nothing was really compelling in terms of the characters and the pacing was a little draggy

- Also in trying to paint the characters as flawed and desperate though well-meaning people, the writing makes them mostly come off as jerks through the first half of the movie. 

- Single Mom is a wannabe chef with big dreams of owning a cafe - also her 12 year old son Max sounds like he's going through auto-tune puberty - maybe his voice changed halfway through filming and they had to digitally synthesize his voice. It's kind of in the audio uncanney valley. 

- There is a certain charm in Hallmark movies of the actors struggling to remember and delivery their awkwardly written lines, which makes their performances (sometimes) come across as natural and realistic. 

- Act Two gets much better. The Main Dude is trying to find a way to return the lottery ticket secretly to the Single Mom, and he sets up meet cutes and some flirty flirt that turns into some genuine feelings on both sides. He bonds over hockey with Max as well! Further proof these movies are all shot in Canada. 

- It's nice when supporting characters get right to the point and tell main characters they are being stupid / have trust issues / are making terrible decisions. I like that economy of writing. 

- The Main Dude works for his brother in construction but also secretly has an architecture degree and wants to build stuff with recycled materials and green energy? That's cool but also why does he launch a website with his designs that looks T E R R I B L E? Don't you tell me you're suddenly getting "lots of hits and even some orders!" on that janky-ass website. I refuse to believe it. 

- Everything falls apart at just over an hour in when the Single Mom realizes the Main Dude was the one who (accidentally?) stole her car. It feels pretty justifiable. Honesty is the best policy kids!

- But, in a matter of 20 minutes, he finds a way to win back her heart through methods such as helping Single Mom's son with the local derby car race, doing some free design work for her someday-cafe, and...installing an incredibly gaudy light display on her landlord's front lawn? Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess. 

Best Quotes

Single Mom: "Don't buy lottery tickets...they'll break your heart." 

Convenience Store Owner: "She's right - buy Double A batteries instead! We're having a Super Sale!"

"It's Christmas. Get over it! Go find him!"

"I love you too, Holly"

"Are you sure you're not just saying that because I won the lottery, Mike?"

Mike: "Nervous Laughter"

*End of Movie*

I give this one 5 out of 10 Lottery Tickets. 

Christmas In The Rockies (A Very Hallmark Christmas Day One)

Ha ha! You thought I'd forgotten all about this blog! 

I never forgot, I just stopped caring. 

But I like symmetry, and bookends, and when the thought of a movie project to end the year in December popped into my head, it seemed a fine way to go out to complement the James Bond movie project we did in January. So here we are, watching 12 Hallmark (or Hallmark-esque) Christmas movies in the 12 days leading up to Christmas. All these selections will be movies I have not seen before, and I go into them with an open heart and mind, prepared to be warmed and filled by holiday cheer, terrible acting, and more establishing scenic shots than you can throw a snowball at. 

Today's Entry - CHRISTMAS IN THE ROCKIES

In Which - A young woman must enter a lumberjack competition in order to save her injured father's failing sawmill business while competing against (and falling in love with!) the new-to-town paramedic who saved her father's life!

It took me a good chunk of this movie to recalibrate my brain into Hallmark Movie mode. This is a skill I've developed over the last few years watching a couple every year at my mother's insistence, and mostly involves lowering your expectations into the basement in order to widen the threshold of your heart to be filled with joy at this highly questionable artistic endeavor. But look, it's off to a strong start with 30 seconds of stock footage of the Rocky Mountains covered in snow!

I'm still figuring out the format of how I want to talk about these movies. For now, I'm just going to detail out the bullet points my brain jotted down as I watched the movie

- We are introduced to the main character's dog 2 minutes into the movie - Bear, a Husky - and he is criminally underused for the rest of the movie, only showing up in one mid-story montage scene. Come on Hallmark! I want more dogs!

- We meet a character that I think is the father figure but no wait it's actually the grandfather. A kindly only mildly-crazed looking white haired old man, who says - direct quote - "I'm an old man, so what I say must be true!" in his opening scene. I like Grandpa Sam energy. He tells it like it is

- Our main character Katie Jolly (yes, her actual name) narrowly avoids taking a prestigious job with a law firm in New York because her MeanGirl almost-boss apparently wants to save the planet (environmental law?) but doesn't want to save Katie's almost job offer for a few days while Katie works through a family emergency. Honestly, Katie, you dodged a bullet there. Don't work for employers like that!

- Katie's actual dad looks like he's only 10 years older than her, a stoic small business owner named GORDON JOLLY. You can't make this up. He also gives me a vibe that is a cross between my childhood neighbour Mr. Whitney and Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer. Huh. 

- We go 23 minutes before we hit our first montage and it's a training montage as Katie prepares for the lumberjack contest that will close out the movie. 

- Why is the audio mixing so terrible? There are scenes where I can't hear the dialogue for the loud background music. Early theory - Hallmark movies are edited where the addition and relative volume of music is tied to the terrible writing or cringe-inducing level of the scene being played out. 

- The runtime on this movie is 87 minutes - we go 48 minutes before we get our first "Miss-Kiss", as I've newly dubbed them - the moment when the love couple alllllmost kiss but then are interrupted by a convenient plot device. This time it's a buzzing cell phone. I estimate this will happen in 7/12 of the movies I watch this season. 

- At 51 minutes we get our classic Rom Com movie device in which a simple misunderstanding develops that could just be resolved by BASIC COMMUNICATION. Come on people. However - remarkably, and refreshingly - only 12 minutes later (which granted, is several scenes) - the two main characters actually do simply talk it out over dinner and the simple misunderstanding is quickly and easily resolved. This was honestly so simply and well done I was astonished and almost applauded. 

- Speaking of gut reaction, I counted four times in this movie where I simply guffawed at something that happened or was said, it was so silly. I didn't write down what those moments were, though. 

- At 84 minutes in, we finally see our characters kiss, and 90 seconds later there is an accepted marriage proposal. We gotta wrap things up fast in this movie and bring it in under runtime and budget, folks

- Grandpa Sam alarmingly disappeared from the final act of the movie, and I didn't realize it til after, and I was NOT HAPPY with this. He was a main supporting character throughout and then he just...disappears in the last 20 minutes of the movie?? What the heck? #JUSTICEFORGRANDPASAM

- Best Quotes, Provided Context-Free

"I can't bring my mom back, or fix my dad's leg...but I can swing an axe!"

"I am sweating in places I have never sweated before!"

"No...it was a medium bonk"

End of the Day, it was cheesy, it was silly, and I kinda loved it. I don't know how to rate these movies yet. It's a relative scale. But I'm giving this one 8 out of 10 Pine Trees. 

Monthly Round Up Reviews - 4.2.22

Holy Crap Guys it's been a month since I posted. My bad. I meant to be more regular with this although - March was not a big media consumption month. A few real gems, but not a huge glut of backlog to talk about. 

3.5.22 - Can't Buy Me Love - Jonathan Gould (Book) - If you want to read one book about The Beatles - it's this one. Gould spent years and years writing this book and it shows - this is the book about The Beatles I'd been looking for for years. Of particular note is that this book is a bio of the group in great detail, but also spends a TON of time discussing the social, musical and historical context in which the Beatles entered and proceeded to reign supreme for a decade. There were a couple chapters - in a book about the Beatles - that didn't mention the Beatles at all. I've always wanted to know more about the context surrounding them, and here it is in absolutely terrific detail. Gould also goes into a lot of depth for each song - the sections which go almost track-by-track through the Beatles' albums had me listening while reading in a sort of music-commentary sort of hodge podge that was really enjoyable. 

3.5.22 - Tick Tick Boom (Movie) - I'll never be a Rent fan, so by extent the figure and story of composer Jonathan Larsen doesn't hold any real emotional depth for me, but this is still a good movie. Props to Lin Manuel Miranda in his directorial debut for making a fine film. Real props to Andrew Garfield, his performance really sold this movie for me. A lot of the tunes are absolutely forgettable, but a few of them are real gems. Took me 2 weeks to get 30/90 out of my head. 

3.8.22 - Breaking Bad Season 1 (TV) - Time to finally begin the rewatch. It's been what, over 7 years since I started this show, and very interesting to step back for a rewatch of what was really my first step into the New Golden Age of 21st Century Television. I remember so much of the show - maybe not the order in which things happen, but almost every scene is a familiar old friend. My measuring stick has certainly changed by all the TV I've watched since then. Season One holds up so well - what a pilot episode, what exquisite world building in these first few episodes - but I'm a little more critical of clunky dialogue or flat acting than I think I was 7-8 years ago. Doesn't make this show any less of a banger. I can't wait for more. 

3.11.22 - End of Watch - Stephen King (Book) - Stephen King's first real detective-hero-trilogy comes to an end as we read the final chapter of the Bill Hodges series. This final installment stands on its own but connects so thoroughly to the first book it's remarkable as I think back how much an aberration the second book feels now. Not that the second book was bad it was just totally unconnected to the "main villain" of 1 and 3. I will miss Bill Hodges, he was a great character to ride along with, but I'm pleased to know that his sidekick Holly is getting her own ongoing trilogy/series that I can look forward to reaching before too long. 

3.18.22 - Turning Red (Movie) - Pixar makes another great movie. This one - like Encanto but even more so - I can look at and acknowledge as Good Movies, Well Made, and Saying Important Things - but just Things that Do Not Connect With Me Personally On Almost Any Level. So - a good movie, but not that I will be really musing on further. 

3.19.22 - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Movie) - Tarantino does it again! After waiting for two years I finally get around to this epic. Very enjoyable from start to finish. The various threads all hold great interest, and Leo DiCaprio really surprised me in places with his character. Classic Tarantino to rewrite history at the end re: the Sharon Tate murders (or lack thereof) - I didn't even know he was going full revisionist until we got there and then it was just a wild Act 5 rollercoaster that couldn't have ended any better for me. 

3.20.22 - West Side Story (Movie) - Watched this with the family and enjoyed it a great deal. I knew before, but really drove home for me again what a strong nostalgic connection I have to the music of this story after growing up listening to the OBC soundtrack over and over and over. I still say that about 1/3 of the music I just absolutely don't care for, but the pieces that are good are just BANGERS. And what a beautifully shot movie, gorgeous cinematography and Spieilberg really nailed every aspect on this one. A well deserved Oscar win for Ariana Debose as Anita.

3.25.22 - Breaking Bad Season 2 (TV) - Season 2 - immediate hot take - is this the weakest season? We're past the crazy highs of kicking things off, but we're not to full Bad Guy Gangster Walt yet - this season just has SO MUCH family drama and I tire of that sometimes after a while. Jesse's season long arc with Jane is good and necessary but it's far from my favorite arcs of the story. Still a lot of great moments, and the appearances of Gus and Saul lay the foundation for the goodness I know is coming next.  

4.2.22 - The Alpinest (Documentary) - A documentary about the alpine climbing of Marc-Andre LeClerc, a mountain climbing wonderchild who made some crazy ascents and built quite a rep in the climbing community in his early 20s. I knew the end of the story in brief, but what a real tragedy in how his story ends, truly bittersweet the filmmakers got the chance to close his story so definitively in the work. 

Another Week (and a Half) Roundup Reviews - 3.2.22

I always intend to get these done on the weekends but here we are on Wednesday again. 

2.19.22 - Rain Man (Movie) - A semi-impulsive rewatch that I had been wanting to get around to for a while. Why? I don't know, it's a great movie and it had been several years since I watched it last. Young Tom Cruise is great and Dustin Hoffman is even better in this brotherly road trip story. This is such a well-paced film. Nothing is wasted, every scene is either touching, comedic, or dynamic and the story moves along so efficiently you don't even realize how moved you are until you get to the end. I don't know where this movie stands on my All Time List but I would watch this every 5 years or so, easily.

2.25.22 - Uncharted (Movie) - I didn't have any plans to watch this but it was showing at the drive in theatre that Lindsay and I enjoy frequenting so - why not. You know, it wasn't as bad as I expected. Thankfully I knew just what to expect - it's a pretty generic feeling action/adventure movie, with two characters that by name come from a video game series although they bear absolutely no resemblance to those characters whatsoever. The best part of this movie is Nolan North's cameo. Although the absolutely bonkers final action sequence deserves some praise as well - I felt like that sequence hewed closer to the video game origins of this franchise than anything else we saw in the entire film. 

2.25.22 - American Crime Story: Impeachment (TV) - A ten episode miniseries (third season in the ACS franchise) focusing on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal of the mid-90s. This show really did a great job of fleshing out the narrative for me. From cursory reading, I knew a lot of the names and general ideas of the scandal, but now I have a lot of depth in my understanding. The human element is really leaned into very heavily and that makes for good dramatic entertainment. Can't pretend there is no bias (Lewinsky was a consulting co-producer on the show), but even with that understanding, this show really hammered home the point that in this whole multi-year situation, it's safe to say that There Were No Good Guys - everyone was just a terrible person to more or less extent, and that's depressing in a way, but like I said, it also makes for great dramatic TV. Really good casting as well, Sarah Paulson is unrecognizable as Linda Tripp, Clive Owens turns in a solid if at-times one note performance as Bill Clinton, it's great to see Edie Falco again (fresh off my binge of Sopranos!) in the under-utilized role of Hillary, and even the B and C tier character level casting was terrific (Coby Smulders as Ann Coulter and Billy Eichner as Matt Drudge were two particular highlights). 

2.26.22 - The Postmortal - Drew Magary (Book) - Going backwards in Magary's bibliography after last year's The Hike and The Night the Lights Went Out. This book falls into that old category of "not unenjoyable, but kind of a mess". The concept is good - Science discovers the cure for aging and it becomes widely available. The narrative unspools through a series of journals/record-type entries by a main character who gets The Cure and then lives through the next 80 years of human history, and we see just how civilization handles this radical change through his eyes and experiences. The first half - the setup - was all pretty interesting, but as the narrative gets larger and larger it feels like Magary can't control where he's going - even what could be several threads of interesting main-character growth/introspection feel painfully shallow and weak as we reach the climax. Not one I'd widely recommend. 

Week (And a Half) Round Up Reviews - 2.17.22

It was a busy weekend, okay?

2.10.22 - The Book of Boba Fett (TV) - As Micah artfully pointed out, this was an anthology show masquerading as a show about Boba Fett. This wasn't a bad show, it just didn't have much going for it outside of those two episodes that furthered the big-picture lore for Star Wars right now that people are really interested in. The problem is that everytime we see Boba Fett without his helmet on, he becomes less interesting. Some characters are destined to be the greatest when they're at their most mysterious, and we lose more and more of that mystery here. 

2.11.22 - Man In The Arena: Tom Brady (TV) - A nine (soon to be 10 in the spring) episode look back at Tom Brady's career. I don't know if TB will ever get around to writing a book, but if he doesn't this will stand in as a pretty good memoir of sorts. A recap of his career focusing primarily on the seasons he led the Patriots to the Super Bowl, but with good chunks of time dealing with all sorts of various elements of his life. At times I felt this series could have been shorter, but parts of it I loved and wanted to go on forever, so it's complex. Easily one of the strongest parts were the unique "guests" brought on as additional talking heads for each episode. 

2.12.22 - Don't Look Up (Movie) - Satire is always going to be divisive, but I'm firmly on the side of really enjoying this one. It works on a lot of levels, not just the obvious metaphor of an impending asteroid strike on Earth for climate change, but in the way it sends up a lot of different personas, ideas, and political aspects that we all are forced to laugh at these days, lest we cry. Great well-rounded cast - Jonah Hill as the Chief of Staff was particular enjoyable. 

2.13.22 - The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles (Book) - After the masterpiece that was A Gentleman in Moscow, I was very excited for Towels' fresh new fiction, and it delivered quite nicely. It feels both very different and yet the same from AGIM. A lot is different - a wider ensemble cast, with changing POV, lots of movement and travel - but Towles' prose is just as eminently readable as AGIM. It is what I could call "comforting" prose. It's just delightful to read. It doesn't challenge me, or blow my mind, but it feels so very nice, like a warm bath. I like the story a lot, it never bogs down or gets comfortable, although the POV switching sometimes feels a bit herky-jerky in ways I'm not sure were intentional. The characters have stayed with me in the days after reading it, and I'm glad I went on this journey with them. 

2.13.22 - Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years (Movie/Documentary) - A documentary regarding the first half of the Beatles' career on the public-performance circuit before they become reclusive studio musical hobos. It was well put together but I didn't feel like this docu did much for me in the way of new or even newly-presented info - so it was enjoyable but ultimately unmemorable. 

2.14.22 - Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause - Ty Seidule (Book) - Ty Seidule is three things - 1) A career Army man, 2) a West Point historian, and 3) Mad as Hell that he grew up in the South swallowing the Lost Cause narrative wholesale. This book, while working to discuss historical truth, mostly feels like Seidule's personal reckoning (or perhaps longform written therapy session) with the mythology he grew up believing. There's a lot of good historical information in this book, but Seidule's tone (he self-acknowledges at least twice that "my passion can verge on self-righteousness", and I couldn't agree more) isn't going to do anything more effective than preach full-throated to the choir. 

2.16.22 - What If...? (TV) - This was a pretty entertaining Marvel show - and easily the best part was how all the disparate episodes came together in a united thread over the last couple of episodes. I did not see that coming at all, and I REALLY enjoyed it. Fun animation, compact episodes, good voice acting, not afraid to be a little goofy at times - this was a delightful little show.

Weekly Round Up Reviews - 2.6.22

2.6.22 -  The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger - Marc Levinson (Book)

Whew, what a title. And what a book of similar stature. This wasn't the longest book ever but it sure felt like it in places. Levinson tells the highlighted history of the intermodal shipping container, with a big focus on the two decade period from the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s. This was a very intelligent book, but it was not....always the most interesting. In places it really shined. The focus on Malcolm McLean, a key figure in the development of container shipping, was great, and the overarching threads of "what the big picture of large-scale freight was, and what it transformed into during this key period of history", was really interesting in a lot of ways. But Levinson is not afraid to get into the nitty gritty details, and some of these gets more than a little dry. Even within each chapter I felt like there would be 5 pages that were engrossing, and then another 10 pages that dragggged on, and back and forth and back and forth. I would have loved a more Rich-Cohen-Banana-Republic style of narrative here (still my gold standard for how historical-topical non-fiction books can be as thrilling as well-written fiction). Read a good synopsis of this book, but I won't recommend it except to the most devoted of product-transportation nerds. 

Weekly Round Up Reviews - 1.30.22

1.28.22 - A Night To Remember - Walter Lord (Book)

Finally got around to reading Lord's definitive 1955 retelling of the sinking of the Titanic. How it took me this long to finally pick this one, I'll never know. I understand why - even though movies, documentaries, even the discovery of the wreck all happened well after this book came out - it's considered so definitive. Lord tells a brisk but incredibly detailed story of the event, absolutely packed with what feels like hundreds of tiny anecdotes and stories that create a much fuller picture than any other overview has ever done for me. I think Lord interviewed some 50+ survivors from the tragedy and weaves together their stories into a fascinating mosaic. What interested me the most was not the actual stories of the sinking themselves, but the extensive recaps of the survivors in the lifeboats and how they managed the night until other ships came to rescue them. This was a part of the story that had only ever been glossed over for me. Now I want to go back to the Titanic museum all over again. 

1.28.22 - Gwendy's Button Box - Stephen King (Book)

Really a novella, this was co-written by King and Richard Chizmar, and is a fun little fast paced read. Gwendy is gifted a magical box with strange, mysterious, and largely unknown powers by a man in black with initials R.F. (hmm, King, where have we heard these elements before?) and must navigate through her teen years as a guardian of this strange power. A nice simple concept and a nicely sized story, I didn't want it any longer or shorter.