Unbreakable Series (or the Eastrail 177 Trilogy)

I saw Unbreakable, the first movie in what turned out to be a trilogy from M. Night Shyamalan back when it came out in 2000. I was still in high school, and I remember thinking the movie was cool, but that I wasn't particularly wowed. Shyamalan was riding high in popularity after The Sixth Sense 1999, but I don't think Unbreakable captured the magic he'd found in The Sixth Sense. Sixteen years later, Shyamalan released Split 2016 with James McAvoy. I have a lot of respect for McAvoy and was interested in the movie as a thriller, only to later learn it tied into Unbreakable. Perhaps it was that tie-in that kept me from seeing it right away. Then, of course, Glass came out last year (2019), which unmistakably referred to Samuel L. Jackson's character from Unbreakable. I'm a fan of Jackson and remember thinking his role was the most interesting of the first film. At that point, I was pretty sure I'd watch the series, it just took me a while to get to it.

Now 20 years out from seeing Unbreakable, I thought it was best to go back to the beginning. I'm glad I did, but it meant finding 6-7 hours to dedicate to the series. Altogether, I think the trilogy works very well, and I really enjoyed it. Unbreakable holds up. McAvoy was great in Split. Anya Taylor-Joy, who some might know from The Witch, was an unforeseen delight in Split.  Bringing all the fascinating characters crafted through the first two movies, including Taylor-Joy's, to a collective head in Glass was fantastic.  On top of that, without giving any spoilers, it's worth discussing the series connection to comic books and, in turn, comic book movies. Obviously, comic book movies have dominated the box office over the last ten years, with Marvel's colossal franchise.

The Unbreakable trilogy is meta, unlike the blockbusters. They're internally aware of comic books and of comic book culture. Marvel and DC movies aren't. Once more, similar to Watchmen (Both the movie and series), Unbreakable takes a dark but realistic look at how regular people react to superpowers or superheroes when they encounter them. In Marvel's movies, the government wants to control the Avengers so that there are some restrictions and accountability for the team's actions. That's a fair notion. In some Batman and Spiderman movies, the police or governments all the heroes vigilantes.  However, the people, and secretly some of the authorities all root for them.

In the Unbreakable series, people are not so welcoming. They're more likely to be scared and label "super" differences as marks of insanity.  This fear-driven reaction to something different comes off as far more realistic, sadly, in our worlds, making this series of films feel quite a bit more mature than other big-name franchise installments. The X-Men series also shines a light on how people treat those with differences poorly, and people who are radically different terribly, which is why I've enjoyed some of that franchise. It just feels a bit more grown-up. James McAvoy appears in that one too...coincidence?

My enjoyment of the series also forces me to look back at why I wasn't so impressed with Unbreakable back in '99, and I think there are a lot of problems. First, the movie revolves around David Dunn (Bruce Willis) realizing his unusual strength and health, being told by Jackson's character, Mr. Glass that he is a superhero like in a comic book, and then wrestling with whether or not to believe it. It seems like Dunn is in limbo and wrestling with many things in his life, including his marriage. If that is the story, seeing him either reject the idea and willfully go back to a mediocre existence, or seeing him accept it, and become the hero seems to be the endings the movie is building toward, but that is not where the movie ends.

Dunn does go out and do one heroic act, using his powers to save a pair of endangered teens and catch a killer, but we get no indication that is what he plans to keep doing. The movie ends (spoilers) with Dunn telling Glass, and then a big Shymalan, quintessential twist, where Glass reveals he committed mass murders in order to find Dunn, and that Glass is essentially a comic book mastermind type villain. The movie, for me, just ends but does not finish. And that is not better illustration than that the last minute is literally, paragraphs on the screen telling us that Dunn had Glass arrested and sent to jail. Dunn can become a hero, Glass believes himself a supervillain, and all we get is a few paragraphs telling us Dunn reported Glass. It was just a big let down. I think, just five more minutes showing Dunn deciding to become a hero, and acting like one; or, showing Glass and Dunn in conflict, and then GLass flee, so we know the story will continue, would have been far better.

Now, once the other films are taken into account, this ending isn't such a big problem. We know the story is just getting started. The end of Unbreakable just signals the intermission, so to speak, before act two. In this way, it now serves as a setup to a larger story, and it works far better.

In short, Unbreakable was so-so as a stand-alone in 2000, but it turns out it was a compelling start to an exciting and deep trilogy.

Everything just comes together so well on RTJ4 by Run the Jewels.

I've been a Run the Jewels fan for quite a few years now. First, Killer Mike and EL-P are exceptional musicians. It's been true of the other Run the Jewels albums and of each's solo work. That said, I feel like RTJ is more than the sum of its parts. The rappers complement and play off one another to reach a higher level. One gets the impression that the two rappers are truly and deeply friends, as interested in supporting one another as they are in taking the spotlight, and that comradery comes off as unique, refreshing, and uplifting.

Second, the beats are fantastic. Each track grabs your attention and makes you want to bob your head, but each has a distinct sound. This is another type of musicianship, but I see it as distinct from the vocal performance. For some tracks, this probably means they reached out to other collaborators to bring new or refine sounds, but to me, this means Killer Mike and EL-P picked the right collaborators and put in clear effort to make every track pop.

Speaking of collaborators, RTJ4 calls on a handful of heavy hitters who dip in to compliment the duo perfectly. Sometimes it seems like groups, hip-hop groups, in particular, rely too heavily on guest appearances and featured artists. On this album, you'll see names like Pharrell Williams, Zach de la Rocha, and DJ Premier, and while their contributions are distinct, to my ears, they're low key. In some cases providing a back-ground hook or beat. In others, providing reinforcing the lyrics, but only after Killer Mike and EL-P have developed a song. In short, you never hear the guest upstage the artist, but rather lift them up, and it's wonderful.

One couldn't talk about RTJ without mentioning their social and political relevance. You won't hear bragging about how dangerous or cool they are as a lot of rappers lean on. Instead, RTJ 4, as with previous albums, Killer Mike and EL-P seem to want to look at society. This album speaks to racial issues, speaks to the power struggle between people and authorities, and speaks to poverty and income inequality. It really couldn't be more politically or socially topical.

That said, what really sets RTJ apart, is that with all their earnest and serious topics and feelings, they are masterfully humorous. It is a fine line to walk when coupling social problems and trying to be funny, think Dave Chappel, etc. But RTJ does just that. On the one hand, they ask you to "look at all these slave masters posin' on yo' dollar," on the other, they have a tough deep-voiced refrain chanting a very silly "ooh la la, ah, oui oui."

For RTJ, these are serious matters and serious times, but they can't help but be goof-balls, and boy, it makes it easier to swallow.

To date, I had read all four novellas in Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries series. I mostly enjoyed them. They definitely have a unique protagonist in the form of a rogue AI, but not just any bot, a security behemoth. As sci-fi classically has taught us, if we have anything to fear from AI turning sentient, it's the Terminator-like killbots that will be our undoing. Yet Wells asks us to empathize with this tortured soul who just wants to live its life and maybe watch some TV.  On the other hand, the character is very sarcastic and cynical. It's funny to see human behavior judged through the eyes of a being intimate with us. And while it's blessed with a more pragmatic mind, it's irritated continuously with our shortcomings.

Murderbot's cynicism often results in humor, but it can also become overwhelming to go through an entire story with this disparaging monologue. I've mentioned before that writing this character in novellas has been a plus, as a novel from Murderbot's POV would be a bit too much. 

Enter book five, the first novel-length installment in the Murderbot series, called Network Effect. I picked it up with mixed feelings. The world-building, secondary characters, and the protagonist have all been creative. The plots have been compelling. But, I was concerned about the length, given this particular character. To my relief, Wells handled this perfectly.

We still get to experience this story through the view of the sarcastic Murderbot, but in addition, we now have a character, his employer who has known Murderbot through the entire time period of the series, and who can cut through Murderbot's facade, to put the light of criticism back on it. We get a teenage character, who like most teenagers, manages to turn judgment back on Murderbot. And, we get other sentient AIs who, for all practical purposes, start to populate family rolls for Murderbot, and they don't take Murderbot's grief quietly. In short, they won't take his crap.

I think this story works well for a couple of reasons. First, we see more viewpoints in general. In turn, we get more breaks from Murderbot's attitude. Second, we get active tit for tat on Murderbot's judgmental voice. It makes this sort of character more palatable. Finally, we really see Murderbot forced to grow. The character has to reluctantly accept that its life is changing, and has to change itself to accommodate. In many ways, the character is becoming more human, more vulnerable, more relatable, and it's endearing.

I recently binged an unconventional series from amazon prime video called Hunters, and it was an odd delight. On the one hand, with a talent like Al Pacino, the series has respectability. But on the other, the series does bizarre things like breaking the narrative, and even the fourth wall to throw in a two-minute mock, antisemitic gameshow clip.

The premise: a teen, working in a comic book store, gets pulled into a dark, secretive world of vigilante Nazi-hunting after the untimely death of his grandmother. While that is fantastic, Hunters pits the Nazi-hunting team, not only against German Nazi defectors, living in hiding in the US, but a sophisticated, clandestine organization of Nazis trying to reestablish their former power.

Sometimes the show is over-the-top. Many of the characters are exaggerated stereotypes, and it has an air of catharsis to it as the Nazis are slain, and viewers get an "oh wouldn't it be nice" sort of feeling of justice. But for all its quirks, it does weave a tangled web of suspense as the Hunters uncover more villains, the Nazi organization uncover the Hunters, and an FBI agent uncovers both. Whether it's the fantastic suspense or the fantasy aspect of the storytelling, it's hard to take your eyes away.

I enjoy some hip-hop music, but I'm far from having my thumb on the pulse of the genre. I wasn't aware of Mac Miller until the news of his untimely death hit the headlines in 2018.  Still, I didn't encounter much of his music, at least that I knew of, and didn't go seek it out. But there I was taking an extra lap around the neighborhood in my car, with the SXM coffeehouse radio station on, hoping my crazy, soon-to-be three-year-old might go ahead and doze off when "Good News" came on. If you're not familiar, that music station is mostly singer-songwriter, acoustic sort of chill music. Perfect for reading and sipping coffee by, and not where you'd expect to find chart-topping hip-hop musicians.

"Good News" is a single of Miller's 2020 album, Circles, which was released posthumously. Apparently, a work in progress that the musician's family oversaw to completion with some notable collaborators. The sound is mellow but and often soulful, and I suspect that is what attracted me. It has an air of exhaustion to it that given Miller's death seem prophetic. But, it's hard to say how much that is due to others' work after his passing. It certainly seems a more mature, life-warn piece. It's well worth a listen.

I finally finished The Stone Sky, book three of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series. When I say finally, I don't want it to sound like it was some chore to accomplish. The labor was in finding the time to read now that my six-year-old and two-year-old are at home 24-7.  So it took me a bit longer than it might otherwise have. That out of the way, I was pleased with the story.

As with any solid series, finally, most of the groundwork has been laid, and rather than introducing loads of new characters and setting up new conflicts, in this book, we get lots of explanations, outcomes, and tying up of loose ends.

Ultimately, the main character arc came to an excellent close. Several characters had their backstories expanded upon fantastically. We felt the loss of some likable characters, and the entire world Jemisin spent three books developing, was forever changed by the epic climax. The series had posed what might be the ending since midway through the second book, and while it didn't go down as I might have thought, it landed just about where I hoped. And that's just satisfying.

Through the other two books, Jemisin has woven social themes, such as prejudice and inequality, which I've appreciated. This continued into The Stone Sky and served the story well.

I've had other series come in with a bit of a letdown in the finale as if the author's never really had an ending in mind as they turned out volumes. I don't think that is true for Jemisin and the Broken Earth series. So, kudos on a find conclusion. I'm sure I'll look into more books by this author.

I started watching the Star Trek Picard series pretty much right when it came out and was keeping up week to week. I am a long time Star Trek fan. Sadly, I got sidetracked before watching the last couple of episodes, thanks to COVID and kids. But, I recently set out to remedy the situation.

I have mixed feelings about this series. There are lots of things I like, and some not so much. However, in the end, I think I'd rather have it than have nothing.

For me, the genius in Start Trek is that besides being cool sci-fi with good storytelling, it has tried to cast a critical eye on social problems. Some obvious and contemporary, such as racism. Other cases have been more abstract such as what rights an artificial intelligence might be entitled too.  Then, such real-world importance has been paired with exhibiting forefront scientific and engineering thinking. Sure, there is artistic license, and sure, some things are wrong in retrospect. But, it is easy to see how Star Trek has tried to come up with as realistic of scientific ground for the sci-fi fantasy as possible. From warp drive to replicators, and sometimes Trek has been remarkably prophetic, such as computer voice interaction and tablet computers. Heck, in my experience, few sci-fi properties have even tried to explain how they achieve faster than light speeds. And of the few that do, none have been more realistic than Trek's warp drive.

Now, much of that went out the window in the JJ Abrams Trek movies. They were first and foremost action movies. While much of the cast was great, I wasn't especially thrilled with rehashing old characters or throwing out the Trek fidelity to science. Still, after years without a new Star Trek, I could at least take some satisfaction in the property being revitalized. And to give credit where it is due, I don't imagine it would have been as easy, perhaps not even possible to have the Discover series or the new Picard series without the Abram's Trek movies. So at least there's that.

With that in mind, where does Picard fall? For me, the series is all about character. The Picard character is beloved, and now we get to bring him back and double down on his screen time. With that, we get to revisit a few other beloved characters along his journey and meet a few new ones. This is different from previous movies and series, which have been rather ensemble-driven, maybe more like many of the Star Trek books over the years. And I can buy into it. I, too, love Captain Picard.

It's the rest where I have some trouble. Rather than weight what remains aside from Picard's life in realistic science, we get a lot more action. In fact, what technology can do or cannot do seems entirely dependent on what is easiest for the story. (Spoiler Ahead) If the science and tech exist to recreate Data's consciousness form one positronic neuron and taking for granted all the miracle medical advancements we've seen in Trek, how the heck can Picard be so fragile to a brain abnormality? It's just total disregard for any realism and, in many places, a move backward in technology. Another example, now the ships are controlled through holographic interphase. Is there some reason to think this is an advancement? They've had holograms since TNG began. I guess it looks more futuristic, but that's not the Star Trek way to me.

Next, there's the social conscious. The entire season arc is based on the rights and treatment of synthetic life. Now, this on its own is a Trek worthy idea. So much so, that we've seen it explored more than once on TNG through Data-centric and Borg-centric episodes and even movies. Revisiting it alone doesn't bother me, but the notion that somehow Starfleet has taken huge steps backward in this area is hard to swallow, and the explanations seem more convenient then well thought out and intelligently explored.

I wanted to love this series, but instead, I just like it.

That's right, I still really like it. I am a fanboy in some regards here, so see Picard in any way is delightful. Getting throwbacks to Riker and Troy, 7 of 9, and Hugh, that's right the borg Hugh. These are all wonderful. And a season 2 promises more. I also very much liked most of the new characters.  I'd like to have seen better fidelity to the Trek of old in spirit, but Picard is superior to the recent movies, and I'll take it. See you for season 2.

Reggae music.

I used to live in Houston, and have one of those stop-and-go, 12-standstill-lanes sorts of commutes that took an hour to travel less than 15 miles. I often found myself pretty worked up and even downright angry during the drives. That's when I discovered that jamming to some reggae along the way helped ease my mood. Like a little mental teleport to a laid back beach somewhere. Who cares about traffic then?

Between COVID-19 driven change in my life and household, struggling daily with disappointment over finding next to no time to work on my writing, and with little loved ones seemingly going out of their way to try my every last nerve, I've returned to relying on island grooves to keep me sane. From roots stuff like Marley, Toots, Tosh, and Jimmy Cliff, to modern stuff like Ziggy, Damian, Tribal Seed, Soja, and Natural Vibes, to outliers like Joss Stone's "Water for Soul" album, and much in between, I'm pretty much spanning the genre.

Maybe you didn't know I was such a connoisseur.

Over the last year or so, I've read the first three installments in Martha Wells's Murderbot Diaries series. I've mentioned how the main character is fascinating, but that his sarcasm can get a little grating as everything is seen through his POV. Still, I like the concept and enjoy the world. I just can't read them back to back. It would be too much murderbot. But, as it's been a few months, I picked up the fourth in the series, Exit Strategy (Wells 2018), and gave it a read.

Some positives form this installment: I liked the external character development for Ren (the murderbot). We've seen (slight series spoiler ahead) Ren transition from an autonomous tool to a feeling and reasoning lifeform, but most of that development has come inside his head. He has also been mostly cautious and distancing with the humans around him. He has developed a few relationships with other digital systems, such as another bot, and the controlling AI for a space ship. In exit strategies, we see Ren's relationship with some of the humans around him proliferate, mostly getting stronger. In a way, in turn, we see him becoming more human, or at least more emotionally like us. It's good. It helps us care for him.

What I didn't like: the plot doesn't advance the series storyline very much. Ren is mostly out of danger in this book, and his overarching goal of uncovering his own memory-wiped history has just fallen away. He gets himself into danger by endeavoring to help the humans he was first liberated with, his wards from the first book. The danger they're in is clear but not largely compelling. The plot is more of a simple frame on which to build the character growth. These books are short, so I understand there is a challenge in having a great plot and excellent character development in limited pages, but I still found myself drifting on the storyline and struggling to keep my focus on it.

The fifth Murderbot Diaries book, Network Effect, is due out in May. So, I can forgive that this book is a bit transitional. Book 1 introduces the Ren and some important supporting characters, plus some action. The next two books let Ren out on his own, to try to uncover his history, and in turn gaining himself a big political enemy, plus lots more action. Now with four, we develop his relationships while stocking the fire of how powerful and far-reaching his big enemy really is. Thus, I'm giving Exit Strategies some extra credit on good faith, securing a solid four stars in my mind.

Certainly, I'll be sticking around for the fifth installment. I've come this far...

I read Stephen King's The Outsider about a year ago, which HBO adapted into a miniseries. The show began in January and recently aired its 10th and final episode (I'm assuming). Thus, I gave it a watch.

Let me start with a look back on the book. I enjoyed quite a bit about it. The story had a lot of cool and fascinating, dark ideas. But there was something I didn't at the time quite put my finger on that I think detracted from it. Ultimately, I have the book four stars. Now that I've seen the TV adaptation, I think I've sorted it out.

But let me mention some high lights. First, the mood in the series was spot on. I was attracted to the talent involved. I like Jason Bateman, who played a key role and directed a couple of episodes. The rest of the cast is excellent, particularly Cynthia Erivo. I also found the adaptation to have a lot of fidelity to the book. There were some superficial changes. The adaptation took place in Georgia while the book was set in Oklahoma. (I'm sure production incentives are responsible for that,) There were also a few secondary characters altered. One secondary character had a mother in the book with a tiny part, which they shifted to a brother in the adaptation. I don't consider fidelity necessarily a defining point of quality in an adaptation, mostly I feel that the changes are valid so long as they bring something new. Still, in this case, where the changes are small and mostly insignificant, it can be a positive. At least they didn't change something radically and not deliver added value with the change. Altogether, I'd say its a good adaptation and an entertaining watch.

But here's the trouble, I think this story, both book, and adaptation, fail in two key points—first, the suspension of disbelief. When you tell a story, if you are going to have magic or creatures, or anything supernatural, you have to control the suspension of disbelief for the audience. If you don't, you can give them a shock that kills that story, a surprise that is too out of left-field to swallow. If magic is going to play a part in your story, you can't introduce it in the last act; it's off-putting. You have to suggest that possibility at least early in the story. Imagine reading a mystery, something like a police procedural, trying to figure out who killed so and so, only to have a new character show up in the last 20 pages, who ends up being guilty. You'd be angry that you never heard of the character. It's the same with the supernatural. In The Outsider, there is a supernatural element in the story, but it starts as a murder mystery from the POV of the detective trying to close the case. It doesn't really give us a peek at the supernatural element for a while. It's not so bad as to not appear until the last act, but probably not until a quarter of the way into the story, and I think it still manages to be problematic.


Second, one of the book's strengths is in character development. We get to know the lives of something in the range of a dozen characters who are either the people hunting the bad guy or a few who are his victims. But this proves to be a weakness as well, because the antagonist, the bad guy, who is essentially a boogie man, is almost completely undeveloped. By contrast, this, too, is awkward. He's not a creature who we might think of as animalistic. He posses as and acts like a regular person, and thus we can presume he has human intellect at the least. Yet, about the only motive we're given for his terrible acts is that he's hungry. We know he's capable of really horrific acts, but have no real understanding of why he's ok with doing them. Thus the character falls flat, and it's hard to endure through a long book or 10 hours of a tv series.

In short, the adaptation captures the novel well, but in turn shares the books weaknesses.