Miscellany: 2019 Lexus ES350 review - Granny Car 2.0

When it comes to car-buying, Mom is of the old-school, brand loyal, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. So, when her old Lexus ES350 got rear-ended by an inattentive driver, she went back to the well and bought a more recent version of the same thing:

How does the 2019 model year car compare with the old? Mostly favorably. The engine is the same smooth V6 Toyota's been using since the Bush administration, but it develops more horsepower in this iteration and feels a little peppier overall. In "Sport" mode with the pedal to the metal, the new ES can keep pace with my BMW F30 328i.

The 2019 ES also handles a bit better. While it's not as nimble as a true sport sedan, the turn-in is sharper and the car feels less like a boat.  Brakes are solid and stopping on a highway off-ramp is a lot less nerve-wracking. 

That's not to say the car is any smaller. Actually, this year's frame grew by several inches, and the sucker just barely fits in Mom's garage. That means rear seat space is pretty good, though:

Perhaps the only remaining complaint I have about the car is the infotainment system - it was outdated in 2019, and it's even more behind-the-times now. I really don't like the trackpad Lexus foists on us, and the system as a whole lacks responsiveness, to the point of being distracting. If you can deal with that foible, the 2019 ES is a fine car for the granny in all of us.

TV: Streaming Adaptation Triple Feature

It's always tough adapting a story into a TV show, and doubly hard when the original source material has a devoted fandom. How can you possibly match the expectations of millions of people who each have their own vision of what the adaptation should be like? These three new streaming shows try their best, with varying results:

Arcane: League of Legends (Netflix)

Of the shows in today's post, the animated series Arcane had the blankest slate to work with, as it's based on Riot Games' MOBA League of Legends.  Though that game is super-popular, it doesn't place much emphasis on narrative, and I'd wager the backstories of the "champions" featured in Arcane were only known to the most diehard League fans.

An empty canvas can be both a blessing and a curse, but creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee have done a great job making you care about what were formerly tiny figures stalking around the lanes. The emotional focal points of the series are the strained sibling-ish relationships between Vi and Powder from the poor undercity of Zaun, and between Jayce and Viktor from the gleaming utopia of Piltover. Couple that with some stylish action sequences and top-notch animation from French studio Fortiche, and you have one heckuva show.

Cowboy Bebop (Netflix)

I remember watching the first American broadcast of Shinichirō Watanabe's anime masterwork, Cowboy Bebop, on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in my college dorm room.  Everything about it was impressive - the noir-infused animation, the offbeat characters, and especially Yoko Kanno's eclectic jazz-heavy soundtrack.  Netflix's live-action adaptation brought on Watanabe to consult and Kanno to compose, but the enterprise often feels like a hollow imitation of its predecessor:

Which is not to say cast and crew didn't try their damnedest to make the show work. John Cho's Spike Spiegel and Mustafa Shakir's Jet Black have pretty good buddy-cop chemistry, and the series inserts some twists on classic Bebop episodes (most notably in the season finale).  But for all the reverence shown to the source, Cowboy Bebop lacks the imagination and soul of the original.  That might be something that gets better in future seasons, but it's a tough show to recommend as it is now.

The Wheel of Time (Amazon)

I read the first entry in Robert Jordan's fantasy epic The Wheel of Time in middle school, and the last entry several years after becoming a lawyer, so I can say without exaggeration that the series has been with me my whole life. Now, a few of the books aren't particularly good, but the story as a whole is a classic.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the The Wheel of Time was finally completed by Brandon Sanderson, years after Jordan's untimely death. My relief ebbed when I learned they were adapting the books - all 12,000 pages of them - into a TV show on Amazon Video meant to be Jeff Bezos's answer to Game of Thrones:

So is this version of The Wheel of Time any good? Yes and no. Some aspects of the story and some characters are well done - Rosamund Pike's Moiraine is a standout, and Eamon Valda and Liandrin are as suitably slimy.  However, some portions are radically changed from what a reader of the books might expect (Perrin has a wife named Laila? The Dragon can be reborn as a woman?!). The sets and effects generally look good, but other times resemble Renaissance fair rejects. 

The three episodes out now are worth a watch, but I'm reserving judgment.

Music: All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version) (From the Vault)

"Red (Taylor's Version)" is the second outing in Taylor Swift's bid to re-record her first six records, and it's a sprawling, made-for-the-streaming-era two-hour-plus odyssey into the fragmented mind of a young woman. 

The climax of the album is an expanded version of "All Too Well," Taylor's lament for her short-lived relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal.  The long-rumored, much-anticipated track has a truly bonkers, borderline-incomprehensible title ("All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version) (From the Vault)") and all the songcraft Swift can pack in its 10:13 runtime:

All in all, I prefer the more concise original, but the expanded version has plenty of interesting melodic turns and lyrics, all in service of burning the ever-living hell out of Mr. Gyllenhaal: 

They say all's well that ends well, but I'm in a new hell

Every time you double-cross my mind

You said if we had been closer in age, maybe it would've been fine

And that made me want to die

Is that a little petty and obsessive? Maybe - but it's obvious that Swift is playing with the audience, and she (and us) are having a lot of fun toying with the memories.