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.

Mulliga's Tribute to '80s Horror Paperbacks (Part 3) - The Vampire Tapestry

Halloween is finally here, and this year Shangrila Towers is paying tribute to the gory, grotesque, and sometimes goofy world of 1980s horror fiction. For the last night of spooky season, let's dive into a book endorsed by the likes of Stephen King and Peter S. Beagle: The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas.

Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire launched a craze of vampire fiction that has arguably lasted to this day, and The Vampire Tapestry represents a thoughtful take on the vampire myth. It's a set of connected novellas (hence the title) about Dr. Edward Weyland, a centuries-old vampire trying to survive in 20th century America. Ironically, Weyland is an anthropologist, and he studies humans with the eye of an outsider (or, less charitably, a predator). Pure blind luck sometimes casts him as the hunter, sometimes the hunted, with the bloodlust always at his heels.

There isn't much action or gore to speak of, but the book is pretty well-written, and has some interesting thoughts about the standard tropes - the search for emotional connection, the burden of immortality, etc. Charnas's background in history and her Peace Corps work inform some of the book's comments on the human (and inhuman) condition, and her native New Mexico provides the backdrop for a vivid sequence in the Santa Fe opera house. If you're cruising for '80s horror books, you could do a lot worse than The Vampire Tapestry.

Music: Mulliga's Halloween Horrorfest (2024 update)

Happy Halloween everyone! Here are some of the latest tracks added to my master Halloween music playlist in 2024 - just in time for All Hallows' Eve:

"Halloweenie VI: Possess Me," Ashnikko

Ashnikko has released a Halloween-themed track every October for awhile now, but "Halloweenie VI: Possess Me" apparently marks the final release in the series:

"Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein and Dracula," LVCRFT

Pop collective LVCRFT is a fixture on my playlist because they do a great job of covering novelty Halloween songs, such as this obscure 1959 tune from The Diamonds:

"The Ballad of the Witches' Road (Sacred Chant Version)," from Agatha All Along

By most accounts, the Agatha Harkness-centric spinoff Agatha All Along underwhelmed, but this track from the series seems pretty good:

"Fangtasy," Bambie Thug

I always struggle with including songs on the playlist that are ambiguous in their Halloween references ("haunted" by the ghost of your ex, "bewitched" by the magic of your love, etc.), but the music video for this one puts it over the top:

"Living Dead Girl," izzy reign

A good cover of Rob Zombie's classic track:

The entire 10-year-old playlist is below for your enjoyment:

Movies: Smile 2

I never saw the first Smile, but I had heard good things, so I went to catch the sequel in the theater:

Smile 2 follows new protagonist Skye Riley (portrayed with frazzled intensity by Naomi Scott), a troubled pop superstar embarking on a comeback world tour. As you might imagine, Skye comes across a malevolent entity, and starts seeing horrible smiling people everywhere she goes. Can Skye find a way to escape the entity's clutches before she goes insane?

Director Parker Finn has been milking the Smile premise since his 2020 short film Laura Hasn't Slept, and Smile 2 is a bigger, louder version of the first movie, with similar story beats and jump scares.  Sometimes the visuals are exceptional (there are memorable scenes of Skye being menaced by smiling fans and creepy backup dancers).

However, unlike other movie monsters, there doesn't seem to be any real way to resist the Smile entity, and Skye seems an easy target, already damaged by the pressures of fame.  That all brings an inevitability to the proceedings that dampens the fun...after all, music stars commit suicide or die of drug overdoses all the time, even without a demon hunting them.

Rating: 6/10

Tech: 2024 Tesla Model 3 Review, Part 2 - Adventures in Charging

One of the biggest questions a new EV owner has is, "How do I charge this thing?" It turns out there are a few options, all of which have pros and cons:

Level 1 charging: This is a fancy way of saying, "plug the car into a standard 120V outlet." While you can find such an outlet in almost every garage in America, level 1 charging is incredibly slow. Using Tesla's mobile connector, for instance, you will probably be relegated to adding only a few miles of range per hour of charging. 

I have never bothered with this kind of charging, but might be necessary if you find yourself stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Level 2 charging: The main way most people will be charging their cars, encompassing both typical home charging equipment and most "destination" chargers at parking garages and municipal buildings. Level 2 charging is faster (for almost any EV, it can fully charge a car overnight), enough so that it makes sense to plug in whenever you anticipate spending an hour or two at a location. Some caveats: most destination chargers require payment, and the chargers can be occupied for a long time. 

I am lucky enough to have a level 2 charger at work, so I always leave the office with a full "tank," and I've also been able to charge for free at certain chargers (usually owned by the city).

Level 3 charging: This is DC fast charging, including both Tesla's famous "Superchargers" and chargers provided by other networks. Level 3 charging is orders of magnitude faster because it dumps power directly into your battery; it can usually add hundreds of miles of range in 10-20 minutes. There are a host of problems with DC fast charging, though - it costs more money (sometimes as much as gas), it's bad for the long-term health of the battery, and the charger itself is harder to maintain, meaning that non-Tesla DC chargers are often broken.

I've only used Tesla's Superchargers, which offer a very simple, user-friendly experience - no apps, no credit cards, just plug in, and your account is charged automatically.

Mulliga's Tribute to '80s Horror Paperbacks (Part 2) - House of Illusions

Halloween is coming, and this year Shangrila Towers is paying tribute to the gory, grotesque, and sometimes goofy world of 1980s horror fiction. Today's post will look at House of Illusions, a 1988 novel by Ruby Jean Jensen:

Killer clowns have been a staple of horror for decades, whether we're talking about Pennywise from Stephen King's It or Art from the Terrifier films. House of Illusions features a whole gang of them, who proceed to menace the inhabitants of a travelling carnival. Throw in a magician-who-might-be-a-demon, a mysterious house of mirrors, and a passel of picaresque carnie folk, and you have the prototypical '80s chiller, complete with an eye-catching all-hologram cover.

House of Illusions was published by Zebra Books, the paperback imprint of Kensington Publishing. Jensen was one of Zebra's most prolific writers, and she cranked out 20 books with the publisher, usually featuring evil children. In House of Illusions, the children aren't exactly evil, but they aren't safe, either; the story goes to some gonzo places that more mainstream horror novels would never touch. While the book is a bit light on plot and sags around the midway point, it does offer a few memorable images...blighted mirrors, shadows moving in the tents behind the midway, and clowns - so many clowns.

Tech: 2024 Tesla Model 3 Review, Part 1 - A Self-Driving Car?

With Tesla demonstrating its robotaxi tech to mixed reviews, I thought it was a good time to test out the "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" 30-day trial on my new Model 3.  Does it work? It sure does...mostly:

I've heard people describe FSD as being driven around by a 16-year-old who just got his learner's permit, and they're right.  FSD will amaze you with its ability to stop at red lights, signal lane changes, turn into shopping centers, and merge into light traffic. 10 seconds later, it might hit the brakes a little too early, misread a traffic sign, or "freak out" when confronted with a poorly marked road.  Like a novice driver, the system performs best on lightly populated highways, and worst in crowded, chaotic city streets.

Tesla would have gotten a lot less flak if they called the feature something else ("Driving Assistant"? "Ultra Autopilot"?), but FSD is still apparently the most advanced consumer self-driving tech out there.  Just keep a close eye on it.