TV: Angel - Season 4

It's not Buffy, but it's the best of Angel

While Angel has never been as good as Buffy (in my opinion), Season 4 is the best season I’ve seen. For the first time we burned through the discs similar to how we do with Buffy. In previous seasons, Angel seemed to take about 10x longer to get through than Buffy.

In Season 4 things were really happening and the pace was good. The ongoing story was compelling and there were a couple of Buffy character crossovers that made our day since we’ve already finished the entire Buffy series and we’re jonesing for more (that doesn’t exist).

We just started season 5 and so far it’s a big disappointment. I’m going to persevere and watch it all, but it’s looking like the show many have “jumped the shark.” If that’s the case I’ll end up recommending to others that they just stop at the end of Season 4 and call it good. I hope I’m wrong—stay tuned.

TV: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Complete Seventh Season

Last night Benjamin and I watched the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s so sad it’s over. It was great fun to watch and I imagine we’ll always associate it with this pregnancy since we watched it from start to finish since I got pregnant.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Complete Seventh Season

Book: Small Wonder: Essays

Barbara Kingsolver is a lyrical writer with a musical voice. This book is a treat to listen to as an audio book. Listening to her read makes me at once sad, elated, quiet, and humble.

Here’s a beautiful quote from the first chapter:

“God is in the details, the completely unnecessary miracles some tossed up as stars to guide us. They are the promise of fortune in a cloudless day, and the animals in the clouds; look hard enough, and you’ll see them. Don’t ask if they’re real.”

Movie: A Prairie Home Companion

Boring

I am not a huge fan of the Prairie Home Companion radio show, but I like it okay. If you are a fan and expect nothing more from the movie, then you might enjoy it. Otherwise, don’t bother. As mentioned by other reviewers, the movie was boring with no strong plot and not enough character development. The majority of the movie takes place during a single radio show and you just see little bits and pieces of what’s happening backstage.

Book: Homeland and other stories

Not good as an audio book

I listened to this book as a Chivers audio book and I didn’t think it was well-suited to listening. The short stories were fairly long, but since it was an audio book I had no sense of how long each story was and how far along I was in it. Also, there was no substantive pause between stories, so you didn’t get the natural resting period you would normally allow in a book of short stories. This was one audio book where I would have liked to have music between sections (and I don’t usually like that).

Book: A Spot of Bother

Nothing special

This book pales in comparison to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, also written by Mark Haddon. There’s really nothing alike about them. I found this book to be a largely pointless and rambling tale of a man struggling with retirement, his life, and hypochondriasis. The payoff wasn't worth the price for me on this one. It's not terrible, I just can't recommend it.

TV: 24 - Season Five

More of the same

Some parts of this season were very good and enthralling while other parts were not. In all cases, it was more of the same. Take it or leave it accordingly.

Movie: The Good Shepherd

Very well done, but meandering

This movie runs nearly three hours and it’s difficult to track the plot and characters through all the twists and turns (and the spy speak). It beautifully shot and well acted. The story isn’t one with a clear message (trust no one?) and it’s a bit dark. That seems to be a theme in our movie selections lately. Oh well. I guess I should move a comedy to the top of our Netflix list. ;)

Movie: Spider-Man 3

Enjoyable continuation of the Spider-Man story

I was happy with Spidey 3. It was corny and the very last scene felt like it was added in response to audience pre-tests, but it was good. Don’t go in expecting the world, but if you liked the first two I think you’ll like #3 as well.

Movie: Chicken Little

Cute, but not great

I thought this was a cute, fun take on an old story. It’s not the best kids’ movie ever, but it’s fun.

Movie: Babel

Well executed, but perhaps pointless

This is an extremely well acted and well executed film full of great actors. The plot demonstrates both the interconnectedness of the world and the randomness of unfortunate events. However, it’s extremely dark and the previously described plot points may not be enough of a payoff for me after all that misery.

(POSSIBLE SPOILER.) Benjamin pointed out that the white people all end up okay in the end while the brown folks don’t. It’s true, but I think it might be true-to-life rather than true-to-Hollywood.

If you’re the kind of person who likes well done films no matter how depressing, then this is for you. If you can only stand depressing films with a big payoff, then skip this one.

Movie: Stranger Than Fiction

Very, very good

This movie far surpassed my expectations. It was fabulous and unexpectedly included a unique use of a graphic design “GUI” as its CGI. If you don’t like Will Ferrell, don’t let that keep you away. He does a shockingly good job and I don’t normally like him. Check out Jayme’s review on All Consuming for more info.

Book: Night Fall

Decent suspense story

This book is part of a series of mysteries starring the same detective. In that way, it’s formulaic and like many other mysteries. On the other hand, this book prominently features real facts from the TWA Flight 800 crash. It’s where fact meets fiction that’s sometimes unclear. I’m not sure how I feel about present-day novels that mix fact and fiction so freely. Somehow it seems less of an issue with historical fiction since history is somehow more fixed and known, but I think that’s just an illusion anyway. So, easy mystery to read and enjoy? Yes. Expose about TWA 800? No.

Book: Blink

Excellent read

Like James, I read this as an audio book and I agree Gladwell was a good reader. I also agree that it warranted all the attention I could give it, which can be difficult with audio books since I usually listen to them while multi-tasking or falling asleep. In fact, I might listen to the last chapter again since I was distracted.

Anyway, this book was fantastic. I even wished it was longer. The diversity of examples made it a really interesting read. The downside I guess is that there wasn’t a strong, cohesive takeaway (unlike The Long Tail). When the book is done, I know that intuition and thin-slicing are critical and can provide a much more reliable basis for decision-making than we give them credit form. But it’s clear that these techniques don’t apply in many, many cases and I’m not certain where to apply them. I guess what I know is that I should not apply them to the way people look and that thin-slicing is most valuable in an area where you are an expert, whether that’s professionally or personally.

Regardless of all that, Blink reaffirmed my need to consider intuition heavily in a decision I need to make this week. I am very happy about the timing of the read. :)

Book: Making and Breaking the Grid

Excellent reference for designers

Caveat: I read this book in one afternoon at the hair salon, so I would have to say I perused it more than I read it. However, the book consists largely of a collection of visual examples and evaluations of grid types, so that was an effective way to consume the book.

I am not sure if this book is the best primer if you’ve never used or read about grids in graphic design before. But if you know how grids work, then this is an excellent way to expand your ideas about them and see real-world design examples of many grid types, along with their underlying structure and a discussion of their components.

This is a book I’ll consider buying as a reference for myself. I can imagine revisiting it periodically for inspiration and ideas when designing with (or without) grids.

Book: Angels Fall

Entertaining fluff

This was an enjoyable novel without a ton of depth. It’s a typical Nora Roberts book—a mixture of intrigue and romance that is better than a typical romance novel, but is still fairly predictable. You can be sure that the romance will come to fruition eventually and that the heroine will prevail in the end. And yet, I enjoyed it. Sometimes my brain needs a break from stress and deep thought. ;-)

TV: Ergo Proxy

This is the series we’re currently watching at our monthly anime nights. Ergo Proxy.

Book: Before You Know Kindness

I'm indifferent, but I think it was pretty good

For some reason I believe this book was good even though I am somewhat indifferent to it. I think it’s trying to make a significant statement about veganism and animal rights, but it got lost for me. Or maybe it’s as simple as “don’t let your passion to protect animals or eat a certain way overshadow the needs of your loved ones and compassion for humankind.

Movie: The Pursuit of Happyness

Sweet, enjoyable movie Benjamin bought a copy of this DVD at Starbucks on Sunday because he knew I wanted to see it and that I needed an uplifting movie on Sunday to prepare me for a big week. We watched it Sunday night and enjoyed it. I can’t say it’s one of the greats, but still it was worthwhile.

Book: Dirty Blonde

Decent little mystery

This wasn’t my favorite Scottoline mystery to date and hers aren’t the highest caliber to begin with. However, it was a brief entertainment and a nice break from my other reads. I like light mysteries and this fit the bill. It’s annoying that much of the mystery stemmed around her being a slut (sorry, but that’s how they make it out), but it’s not bad nonetheless.

Book: Freakonomics

Entertaining and informative

This book was very interesting to listen to and had a ton of great, unexpected information. In a few cases I wanted more supporting data to convince me of the argument or I wanted an argument taken to the next logical step (for example, adding a comparison of homes sold by the owner to the real estate agent section) but overall it was a very worthwhile read.

Oh. And by the way, I'm able to blog from All Consuming again. You can check out the books from the interim at http://www.allconsuming.net/person/StarGirl/.

Movie: Pan's Labyrinth

Very good, but brutal I saw this movie last night with Benjamin and my in-laws. It was beautiful and amazing. The young star actress did a fabulous job. A couple of things I didn’t know about the movie before I saw it: it’s in Spanish with English subtitles and it’s surprisingly, brutally violent at several points. Regardless of that, it’s still very worth watching.

Book: Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works

Why I gave up consuming this

My typography teacher LOVED this book. Most designers I know (that I’ve asked) think it’s a great book. I think one designer even told me that it helped him understand how to discuss design with non-designers. Whatever people.

I got to page 67 in this book, which is nearly half way, and I did it mostly in one sitting (at least half the book is images). After that I couldn’t motivate myself to go back and finish it. While the book contains good, albeit basic, information about typography, I couldn’t take the unending sweeping statements unsupported by anything other than the author’s high opinion of typography. Here’s an example from page 19: “Given the typographic choices available, there is no excuse for producing bad business forms, illegible invoices, awkward applications, ridiculous receipts, or bewildering ballots.”

That’s some cute alliteration and I agree with the sentiment that the user experience should be a top priority, but give me a freakin’ break. As is typography alone creates a good form, application, and ballot. Never mind the actual text, the layout, or any other usability concern or principle of good user experience design. Erik Spiekermann needs to learn that too much overstatement diminishes your credibility and eventually makes what you have to say meaningless. I have an acquaintance like that: everything is always horrible. Then nothing is really horrible.

TV: Dexter

I'm still unable to post my All Consuming reviews to my blog automagically, so I am copying this one over manually because it's just such an f'ing good show. Excellent, dark, dark, show This is an amazing show – incredibly well done and about as dark as it gets. I don’t think it can possibly maintain the same level of quality and uniqueness in a season season, but I look forward to seeing the attempt nonetheless. Season 2 will be out sometime in 2007. Links to learn more: Showtime, IMDB, All Consuming

Movie: The Holiday

Yesterday I saw Claire for the first time in forever. We met for lunch downtown and then saw a matinee of The Holiday. It was really good to see her and hang out, though it's never enough time. Here's my review of the flick: Completely entertaining, completely predictable This was a fun, enjoyable movie that entertained me the whole time (despite the fact that it was longer than average). It’s a fluffy, sentimental, unrealistic, chick flick. But if that is what you’re looking for, like me, then you’ll enjoy it.