Alan & Jono's Watching/Reading List: April 2024

Alan:

Hello Heroes!

April! The sun hid for three minutes and forty-three seconds. It was awe-inspiring and life-changing. Seriously. I’d head that my whole life until 7 years ago when I saw my first totality. Now I’m going to chase them for the rest of my life. Feels like seeing the face of God.

What I’m reading!

• Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World by William Alexander. A very talented writer with too much time on his hands, and a strange obsession with vegetables, writes a fascinating history of tomatoes. The vegetable that I thought I hated when I was a kid, until I had a good one finally in mid-late adolescence. This book tells the story of why I hated tomatoes (American factory farming created the worst tomato, then made sure that was the only one you could get) and lots of other tomatoes besides! I loved it!

• Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution by Michael Rubin. I read this more than 10 years ago, but I needed a refresher since I’m going to the Bay Area, and I’m going to take some time to pay homage to the old home of ILM and Lucasfilm (before the buildings all get torn down). Basically, tons of the technology you use every day, and like most of the technology I use to make movies, was invented or improved by people working for George Lucas in the late '70s/early '80s. It was a fascinating time, if you’re a big-ol’ nerd like me.

• Closure, Limited & Other Zombie Tales by Max Brooks. I’ll be totally honest, I don’t know if Max Brooks actually wrote these or not. The whole experience gave strong bootleg vibes. But the writing was at least in the ballpark of Max Brooks, and the stories were fun and grim. And who doesn’t love a good zed-head story every now and again?

What I’m watching!

• Civil War. Woof. Really great film. Extremely powerful. Not a fun-time action-adventure. But very effective at making its point, at least to me—I’ve seen a lot of weird takes online—which is: DON’T DO THIS. A modern American civil war would just be a tragedy. Nobody would win. Because nobody wins in war. People die. Masses suffer. Safety is gone. Don’t do this. Trying to map your own politics onto this movie is a waste of time. That’s not what it’s about. Alex Garland at the height of his powers, and nihilism.

What I’m playing!

• I honestly haven’t had time to play things. But maybe someday I will?

Watch Movies! (And television, and read books, and play video games)

Jono:

Hi all! How's April been treating you? I've been enjoying the final set of episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, getting my Gilmore Girls on, and was absolutely blown away by Civil War (caught it with Alan). I also caught a double-feature of Star Trek: First Contact and Speed at the local revival theater, and that may be the best double-bill I've ever watched.

I've been reading Secure Love by Julie Menanno, LMFT, all about attachment theory and building secure attachments. I'm on a classic novel kick as well, so I've been enjoying Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

What have you been watching and reading this month?