Squid's Reading List

2024-05

• Challengers (2024)

  I enjoyed Challengers a lot more than I expected to given that it's a heterosexual romantic drama. The pacing felt a little slow at the start, and the jumping around in the timeline was hard to get used to, but it didn't stop me from getting invested. The male leads' eye candy was not unwelcome, but I am glad that all the sex scenes served the plot; despite being explicit and numerous, they never felt gratuitous.

• Chicken Little by Cory Doctorow

  Holy shit. I scarcely breathed throughout the entire climax. I don't know how Doctorow does it.

• Plagiarism and You(Tube) by hbomberguy

  I'm half a year late to the drama, as usual (not that I was watching for the drama anyway). I had never been a fan or subscriber of Somerton, but I did watch a few of his videos several years ago. They made me uncomfortable for reasons I couldn't quite identify. In hindsight, though, it's obvious it was the misogyny. I've never been that good at media literacy. Hopefully I'll learn from this example.

2024-03

• Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023)

  I really enjoyed pausing the movie and discussing our analyses of what had just happened. Being an extremely transparent allegory, It's the kind of text that I think benefits from interpretation. It doesn't have all the trappings of a standard plot structure, but plot isn't really the point. I do wish the subplot with the father had more of a resolution, though.

• Aging Liberal Confuses Self, Blames Left by Yirmeyahu Wedgewood

  I don't particularly care about Baddiel or his book, but I found the article helpful to clarify and organize some of my own thoughts and feelings about the differences between antisemitism and other types of racism as actually experienced.