Movies: A Real Pain

Jesse Eisenberg is best known for playing awkward billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Lex Luthor, but he proves to be a fairly capable director in his sophomore outing, A Real Pain:

The film is a quiet slice-of-life dramedy following two cousins trying to reconnect with their late grandmother's Jewish heritage during a Polish tour group. David (Eisenberg) is the staider and more successful of the two, while Benji (Kieran Culkin) is a free-spirited drifter with serious mental health issues. As this odd couple clashes and bonds with each other, secrets come to light and a legacy of grief is examined.

Trauma forms the core of A Real Pain, but it's rarely out in the open - even an emotional visit to the Majdanek concentration camp is limned in sunlight, the better to contrast with the atrocities that took place there. Small gestures, like evading a train fare or placing a stone on a grave, take on weighty significance, though the plot and supporting cast are too thin to carry much deeper meaning. The movie's trump card is an astonishing performance by Kieran Culkin, who infuses Benji with charm and pathos that should be recognized during awards season.

Rating: 7/10

Music: Samantha Fish

I had the good fortune of catching the Boca Blues Festival last weekend, and I went mostly to see the headlining performer, blues singer-songwriter Samantha Fish:

Samantha Fish's appeal is obvious - she combines sizzling guitar chops honed in KC's Knuckleheads Saloon with vocals that can wail with the best of them (Exhibit A: her cover of "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins "I Put a Spell on You"). This being a festival setting, her set only lasted an hour or so, but it was wall-to-wall music, featuring everything from uptempo rockers to extended jam sessions. 

Fish still has plenty of tour dates this year, so if she's in your neck of the woods, go out and see her.

TV: Ranma ½ (2024 series)

Ranma ½ is both the first manga I ever read and the first anime my sister and I watched together, so it has always been a sentimental favorite of mine, warts and all.  When I heard they were remaking the anime and releasing it worldwide on Netflix, I feared the worst.  Would they change the classic martial arts comedy of the sexes to reflect today's sensibilities?

Produced by animation studio MAPPA (best known for Jujutsu Kaisen), this new Ranma is a very faithful adaptation of the original comic, perhaps even more so than the original TV series. Practically every story beat, line of dialogue, and sight gag has been brought to screen.  It's even set in '80s Japan rather than the modern day, so there's no Internet or social media to speak of.

For diehard fans like me, this approach is both good and bad. The animation is very well done (the fight scenes in particular are better than anything Studio DEEN ever put out), but if you read the manga, there really are no surprises in the story. Still, I'm impressed that they didn't mess with their gender-swapping, mildly misogynistic main character to accommodate "modern audiences," which is more than can be said for a lot of things these days.

Tech: 2024 Tesla Model 3 Review, Part 3 - "Accessories" for a Tesla

Tesla has been scrupulous about getting the Model 3 down to that magical $35,000 price point (after the federal EV tax credit).  In doing so, however, they've stripped the car down to the bone.  This post will review all the "accessories" that I bought for my Model 3 Long Range RWD...really, stuff that probably should've been included in the first place:

Floormats

This to me was the most puzzling omission, because they seem like such an essential part of the interior. Tesla sells carpeted mats on their website for $80, but I opted for the Lasfit all-weather TPE mats, which cover not only the footwells, but also the trunk, frunk, and subtrunk, all for less than $200.

Mobile Connector

The Mobile Connector allows you to charge your car from almost any household outlet. Standard outlets will work (albeit very slowly), but it's best to use one of those big dryer outlets, the kind you find in a laundry room. I believe the Mobile Connector used to be included with new Teslas, but now they make you buy it.

CCS Combo 1 Adapter

I regularly travel to Florida's small towns and rural areas for work, and while the Tesla Supercharger network is widespread, it isn't everywhere.  In case I have to fast charge using a third-party network like Electrify America, I grabbed a CCS-to-Tesla adapter.

J1772 Adapter Lock

Tesla does still include a J1772 adapter with every vehicle, since such charging stations are ubiquitous, but the design of the adapter allows anyone to just walk up to your car and remove the J1772 cable. To prevent this, I got a plastic adapter lock. It's not foolproof, but it's mostly there to deter funny business.

Cabin and trunk bins

The Model 3 has a fair amount of storage space, with cavernous center console bins and fairly deep storage pockets at the sides of the trunk. To keep things organized, you'll probably want center divider bins and bins for the trunk pockets.