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Books and films consumed since the previous post on 13th September.

A Walk in the Woods – A film based on the mid-life crisis book by Bill Bryson. Alarmed by attending funerals of his peers, Bryson decides to hike the Appalachian Trail to prove to himself he isn’t past it. His wife, who thinks the idea is mad, reads up on the route and upon discovering how many people get injured or die on the trail, tells him he isn’t doing it alone. Bryson tries to enlist his closest friends to walk the trail with him. With no success but much derision. Finally a friend from decades past calls and volunteers to go. When he turns up he isn’t in the best shape. They head out on the trail anyway. It then becomes a film about their reminiscences, tribulations on the trail, and their interactions with who they meet. I liked it. A bit like Wild, but with old men! The performance by Kristen Schaal as a manic hiker they run into is brilliant. Nike Nolte is great too. I rated it 6/10.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials – There was nothing else I wanted to see for my OneFilmPerWeek pick the last week in September. So I selected the 2nd Maze Runner film. I hadn’t seen the original when it was in cinemas (missing films like this is why I started the OneFilmPerWeek project) so I watched the first one on AppleTV the night before seeing The Scorch Trials in the cinema. I liked them both. It’s a good dystopian Sci-fi story with a back story that is slowly being revealed. Looking forward to the next instalment in the franchise. Gave it 7/10. Same for the original.

Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software – Scott Rosenberg. A really enjoyable audiobook about the failed development process for the Chandler Personal Information Manager. Probably my favourite book that is about technology industry. Everyone involved in software and technology should read this book. I liked Rosenberg’s Law.

The Martian – The much anticipated film adaptation of the self published book of the same name. The book is very nerdy. Science porn in places. A lot of that info was rightly chopped from the film. This is a good film in it’s own right. A bit compressed towards the end on the trek to Schiaparelli Crater. The only thing I would have liked done better was to depict lighter gravity on Mars. But hard to simulate that, and probably not worth the effort. Well worth seeing. I rated it 8/10.

The Intern – Story of a retiree, played by Robert De Niro, who having exhausted all the activities you would expect to keep busy during the day, gets a position as a senior Intern in an Internet fashion startup near his home. Great story about how his years of experience in business, and life, help many people employed at the company. Including the founder played by Anne Hathaway. Loved it. Oscar material IMHO. Rated it 8/10.

Doughnut – Tom Holt. Comedic science fiction novel. The main character is a brilliant physicist who makes a mistake that causes the Very, Very Large Hadron Collider to explode. He is ostracised for this. Then he loses his inheritance in a bad business deal and has to take odd jobs to survive. Until he gets bequeathed some intriguing items in a safety deposit box. Story unfolds slowly at start but is great in the 2nd half. Well worth sticking with as the final quarter might even explain the Universe.

Macbeth – I might have mild post-traumatic stress syndrome after watching the new Macbeth film adaptation. Not unlike Macbeth it turns out. What a nutter. It’s violent and stylised, with some quite disturbing scenes. The first half was poor. A couple walked out off the cinema. A mistake. Second half was very good. I even dreamt about it last night. I gave it 6/10.

Someone asked my advice about whether to take a new job they have been offered. I told them:

You need to decide what you want to do for the next 5 years, 10 years. Will other thing allow you to do that better than current job? Don’t wait for people to give you work. Find out what needs done and do it. People will notice and you will get more responsibility, authority and reward. 

That’s worked for me for 30 years.

Culture consumed since the last list on 23rd August.

Trainwreck – I’d never seen Amy Schumer in her Comedy Central TV show. So I went in to this not knowing what she was like. Both she and the film as a whole were really good. Funny, poignant, mostly well written and acted. Maybe a bit too much monologuing in places. I rated it 8/10.

How To Write Everything – David Quantick. A short, funny book from a writer who has lots of experience of writing. Having written in most areas professionally, including for The Thick Of It and Veep television shows. The book contains good advice, and some great anecdotes. I liked the one about how long it can be when a TV script is sent to producers until the time the writers hear anything back. In one case a writing pair waited a year and then sent a one year birthday card to the script, care off the producers. Brilliant.

The Long Mars – Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. I liked this more than The Long War. But it still seemed to be an exercise in world building at times. It all went a bit Midwich Cuckoos alike in later parts of the book. Knowing that won’t detract from the book. Now I’ve read The Long Utopia (see below) that story line makes more sense.

Paper Towns – I really enjoyed this. It’s a good Young Adult story. It has good music, comedy, a road trip, lots of coming of age within the group, pathos, and a believable real world ending. Rated it 8/10.

Irrational Man – New Woody Allen film. He wrote and directed and it stars Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey and Jamie Blackley. I love Woody Allen’s work, especially the early funny stuff 😉 So I’m predisposed to like his films. Even taking that bias into account I have to say that this was a magical film. It doesn’t tread any new ground for Allen. Other films like Match Point (which is also brilliant) deal with much the same ideas. But so what. Good stories are good stories. And this is a good story. Plus no one writes existential angst dialogue like Woody Allen. This was a good script that was well interpreted and acted by the cast. The locations were beautiful, and the cinematography, lighting and colour hue of the sets was great. As usual with Woody Allen films the jazz, piano and orchestral soundtrack was great too. Definitely a 9/10 rating. Came close to giving it the maximum!

The Long Utopia – Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. The fourth book in The Long Earth Series. I enjoyed this one the most from the four published so far. It has less world building and more story and character interaction. Plus some threads woven in the previous books come together here in a nice, fulfilling tapestry in the last few chapters. With some surprises and a few outcomes that made my eyes smart a little. Looking forward to the conclusion of the series in June next year when The Long Cosmos is published.

Culture consumed this week. See previous post for more.

Absolutely Anything – This was a bit erratic. The acting was good but the script was weak in places. Editing was weird. Liked the music though. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Roger Taylor singing the opening song. Rated 6/10.

Pixels – The reviews for this were poor. I decided to go anyway. I don’t know what the people giving it poor reviews were expecting. I liked it. It’s a fun, brash, tongue-in-cheek, sci-fi comedy film. If you are a certain age and remember the games from the early 1980’s then that will add some extra bits into your enjoyment. But it’s still good fun without having lived through that decade. I rated it 8/10.

The Long War – Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. The second book in the Long Earth series. Rereading this and the eponymous one before reading The Long Mars and the just published The Long Utopia. The Long War dragged a bit in the middle I thought. Perhaps too much world building. But given the point of the series is the huge number of Earths available, that might be a stupid criticism. Still, I enjoyed the first and last thirds of the book. Endured the middle. Sets up some interesting ideas to be explored in the next books. Reading the The Long Mars now. The final book in the series is due next year I think.

Another short culture consumed. As promised trying to avoid another monster post like the ninth one. Again, as stated in the last post, I need to get more reading done.

Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time – Sean Carroll. Brilliant series of lectures on Time and how it’s interwoven into theories of modern physics and is crucial to our understanding of how the Universe works. If you want an overview of current thinking about entropy, the arrow of time and physics then listen to these.

Hot Pursuit – This was okay. Funny in bits. Outtakes in credits funniest bit. You could see worse in cinemas any week of the year. Rated it 7/10.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E – Okay as a secret agent film. Had all the tropes, but nothing outstanding and new. Kingsman, Spy & Mission Impossible all better films in the same genre from this year. Alicia Vikander was great. She looked good in the 1960’s garb. 6/10

Half the ceiling in the downstairs room I use as a study fell down yesterday. I was in bed about 06:50 and I heard a noise. Then another noise. Then a big thud. It sounded like snow sliding off a roof. Now I know our summer has been disappointing, but snow in August? I got up and had a look out the front and back of my house. Nothing untoward to be seen. I heard another noise whilst doing this so I went downstairs into the kitchen. Nothing there either. Then it dawned on me; the back room! When I opened the door I was greeted with this:

The reason that the back room had dawned on me was that the ceiling in there had been damaged by water in the past. About 12 years ago I got a lot of work done to my house. The electrical wiring was all replaced, the plumbing was replaced, about 80% of the wall and ceiling surfaces were ripped off and replaced with new plastered ones, new doors and door frame throughout, plus I got new wooden floors everywhere except kitchen, bathroom and stairs. The only room that didn’t get a lot of work done to it was the downstairs back room that I now use as a study. It was where all the furniture and stuff from the other rooms was piled when the work was being done.

During the plumbing work there was a leak that soaked the ceiling of that room. It had a huge bulge in it for a few weeks after that as it dried. The ceiling had paper over the plaster and as it all dried the bulge diminished, but never went away. I put repair tape over the joins of the paper and painted over the whole thing. And it survived. Until yesterday when gravity finally won the battle. I’m just glad it was at 06:50 and not when I was sitting there!

I’m making a spare bedroom into a new study today. I’ll take the opportunity to get the downstairs back room gutted and plastered anew like the rest of the house was last decade.