Anaconda (2026)

Let's start off by acknowledging that this movie is really awful. I watched it on a Transatlantic flight, which is the ideal setting for slightly less than spectacular movies whose main goal is to pass the time--so even in an ideal detting the end result is that this movie was terrible. It is billed as a meta-reboot of the original Anaconda, and aims to trade earnest horror for goofy self-aware comedy. It stars Jack Black as Doug and Paul Rudd as Griff and with their down-on-their-luck friends who set out to make an indie reboot of the 1997 classic, only to get trapped in the jungle with a real, giant CGI snake. Their partners in this endeavor are film making friends from their high school days, also with star power (Thandie Newton and Steve Zahn) and nothing, not even them, can save this. The original was (reportedly) a silly movie that knew it was silly. This new Anaconda begins life as a silly movie but then turns less silly and more absurd, and that’s when it becomes even less compelling than wehre is started. When the focus is on the scrappy movie within the movie, it’s good for the occasional laugh. However, throughout the movie the dialogue is terrible, and the acting is unable to save it, despite the presense of actors that I usually find entertaining.

Familia by Laura Rico

This was a The Community Reads book for my town, where there are unlimited electronic copies of the book for a period of time, and I was able to listen to it while I was doing (and am doing ) extensive PT after surgery, and I enjoyed it in a light fiction sort of genre. Here's the story: Gabby is an aspiring writer who lives in Brooklyn and works for the feature magazine Flux, where she and other staff members are offered the opportunity to take free familial DNA tests. Gabby’s charming boss, Max, hopes that some of the results will lead to a story of some sort. And they do: though Gabby insists that she is of Italian heritage, her DNA profile indicates European, African, and Taino ancestry. Gabby’s parents are deceased, so she cannot discuss the perplexing results with them; she’s also unnerved by her newfound DNA link to an older sister, Isabella, in Puerto Rico whose sister was kidnapped as a baby. She is so unnerved that even though she insists that it is a mistake, she ends up quitting her job and going to Puerto Rico to look into it further. The book shifts between Gabby and Isabella’s perspectives. Gabby was raised as an adored only child in New York, Gabby attended private school and traveled in Europe--she cannot imagine that her parents would kidnap a child and raise it as their own, and her birth certificate bears that out. In Puerto Rico, Isabella grew up with an alcoholic, heroin-addicted father; she witnessed her mother’s childbirth-related death and endured a violent sexual assault when she was fifteen. Now a talented artist who also works at a tourist shop, streetwise Isabella is thrilled by the possible discovery of a long-lost sibling. Together they untangle the truth.

Domaine Marcel Deiss, Bergheim, Alsace, France

And so we start our education of Alsace wines! We are staying on the edge of the Rue du Vin, and spent the day driving through charming villages. Our first tasting was at Domaine Marcel Deiss. Domaine Marcel Deiss ranks among the great wine estates of Alsace. The Deiss family—a lineage comprising winemakers, ironworkers, and bell founders—has been established in Bergheim since 1744. This was a great introduction to the wines of Alsace--we spent almost 2 hours tasting wine, learning about the wine growing history of Alsace, and how to approach the different wines that are characteristic of the region.

Domaine Marcel Deiss was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, in 1947. The creation of the vineyard was the work of Marcel Deiss who has been joined by his son André, to establish an extensive wine estate based in Bergheim. They scoured the records left by the monks who had been growing grapes for wine for centuries, and discovered there used to be 130 different grape varieties—of which 110 survived to modern times and they grow 60 in their vineyards, bucking the trend of Alsace tradition that one grape from one vineyard makes a wine . His descendants—first Jean-Michel, then Mathieu Deiss—subsequently took over the family operation. Since 1997, every single parcel of the Domaine Marcel Deiss estate has been farmed biodynamically. We had fun, we learned a lot and I love their use of medieval art to label their wine.

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

I think this is a book that you either love or hate, and when you look at the reviews on line, you will see that it strikes hard but it is not always well received. I really enjoyed this, although I sympathize with those who do not. Theo is an elderly man who is quietly and smartly friendly, who notices things around him, and is prone to random acts of kindness in the town of Golden. He pretty quickly finds himself with a close group of friends who are as excentric as they are likable. He has an eye for art, and one of the things he sets about doing is buying portraits that have been drawn by a local artist and currently hang in a high quality coffee shop in town. He decides to buy them, a few at a time, and gift them to the subjects, who he feels should rightfully own them. They are modestly priced, and he starts with just a few, inviting the person to a mysterious but entirely public meeting to bestow them. Throughout the story we catch glimpses of who Theo was before he moved to Golden, but less about why he is there. All is revealed in the end, and I found the whole package to be enjoyable. I listened to the book, which is perhaps part of why it held my attention, but overall, I found it uplifting despite the sometimes very sad things that happen.

Solo Mio (2026)

We watched this romantic comedy on a Transatlantic flight, and if for no other reason, it should be seen because Andrea Bocelli, the celebrated Italian tenor, performs in it. As far as I can tell, this is his first appearance in a movie that is not about him or his life. Matt, played by Kevin James, is left at the alter at his destination wedding in Rome. As so often happens in a romantic comedy, even one that involves middle aged heartbreak, he goes on the honeymoon solo mio, and as luck would have it, one of the locals who is determined to salvage it for him is a relative of the famous opera singer. This is a kind of run of the mill movie for this genre, but like another movie I watched this year, the appearance of a world class musical performer helps to transform the story to another level.

Cleopatra by Saara Al-Arifi

I really enjoyed this book, which closely adheres to what is known about Cleopatra's life. I did not realize until I was halfway throught he book that the author did her thesis on Cleopatra and the impact she has had on black women. She came to rule at a precarious time in the region. Caesar was upending the order of things in the Roman Republic, and while he was initially successful as a soldier, he had trouble establishing himself as the undisputed leader under a newly established system. Egypt is in the thick of it because of their long established relationship with Rome, and it all goes wrong for Cleopatra. She was a talented leader at a time when women were not given the reigns of power, she was the beloved of both Caesar and after him Marc Anthony, her child with Caesar made her a threat to the new regime, which therefore put them both in danger, and this is a fascinating take on a well known historical figure.

Chez Yvonne, Strasbourg, France

This was the meal that my spouse wanted to have the first day but we couldn't quite swing, because for one, we were not quite in Alsace--we had a bit of a reboot on our travel plans because of my shoulder replacement surgery eight weeks before leaving me sore, winged, and uneasy of being joustled. The menu is written on a chalk board, it was heavy on tradition, and we really got a taste of regional food. In the restaurant's own words: Chez Yvonne is an iconic Winstub in the history of Strasbourg, where you can enjoy generous and traditional Alsatian cuisine in a friendly setting just steps from Strasbourg Cathedral. The establishment, founded by Eugène Jacquemet, first opened its doors in 1873 under the name "S'Burjerstuewel." In 1956, the restaurant adopted the name "Chez Yvonne," in honor of its new owner, Yvonne Haller. A prominent figure in the Alsatian capital, she gradually built the restaurant's reputation. The establishment is also renowned for the quality of its traditional dishes, appreciated by all gourmets. It has even been awarded a Bib Gourmand by the Michelin Guide. Even today, this historic restaurant of the Franco-German agreement seduces with its Alsatian dishes and its authentic atmosphere, a living reflection of the Alsatian gastronomic heritage.

All Consuming by Ruby Tandoh

I picked this book out because the New York Times put it on their Notable Books of 2025 list, and I try to read somewhere between a 1/3 and a 1/2 of their picks over the course of the following year (if I didn't manage to read them before the list came out, that is), and this was both on the list, and an intriguing idea. The author was a contestant in the Great British Bake Off and is a food writer. In this book she examines the forces shaping our appetites. What unseen cultural baggage do we bring to the table when we choose what to eat? In the 17th century eating was understood to have a transformative power on one’s character, with the constituents of food able to define and alter an individual’s constitution, an association that persisted even as its scientific underpinning faded away. Eating beef, for instance, was believed to make one strong and honest, but also violent and stupid, and was particularly associated with Englishmen. A series of 17th- and 18th-century satires contrasted the solid vigor of English beefeaters with the frog-and-soup-eating French. Food, the satires suggest, has always been about more than just taste, touching on issues of nationhood, ideology, and collective identity, and we have yet to escape that in modern times. Now we are influenced by Tik Tok and Instagram. The author contends that your great-grandmother would likely not recognize your lunch, but she certainly wouldn’t recognize the Instagram Reels recipe you followed to make it, or the multinational megacorp delivery service you ordered the ingredients from, or perhaps even the ingredients themselves, imported out of season from across the globe and repackaged by savvy marketers. She is putting a fine point on what has changed in the last 20 years, and while I still rely on cookbooks form my recipes, the breadth of those has also exploded, and the food we eat has changed in many ways worth thinking about.

The Accountant (2016)

My spouse and I watched the most recent interation of this character, a combination wizard of an accountant combined with a highly skilled killer. Luckily you do not need to see this one first, but we were on a Transatlantic flight and watched it with dinner and before trying to get a few winks in before landing. There are quite a few threads at work here, one of which is the back story on why a combination of autism and a pretty sadistic father might have combined to bring him to who he is today, and why his brother, who had to both suffer with the same parent and watch his brother struggle might have gone into security work for the bad guys. As alluded to, there’s quite a bit of stuff going on here, and for a good while the moviepercolates on its multiplicity of plot threads even as it keeps adding to them. As it happens, the “accountant” that Treasury agents are looking for is up to quite a bit more than providing tax relief for rural dwellers (which is the opening scene). He uncooks the books for a slew of deadly bad guys. Deadly bad guys who aresubsequently busted by the Treasury Department. Despite his proximity to some of the most dangerous criminals in the known universe, this man of dozens of aliases stays alive. How? Part of the answer is provided by the recurring flashbacks, in whichhis father provides young Christian with his more militaristic cure, which later manifests itself in sharpshooting and martial arts skills. While some of the material seems a bit insensitive and not altogether in keeping with mental health awareness, and does not characterize autism as an illness in any way accurately, it is a very decent action movie.

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Daves

This is what I would call a deversionary novel. It is certainly not cut from the typical murder mystery cloth--and no one dies--but it is close to that in terms of not too much going on beneath the surface of the story. I enjoyed it, I read it quickly in a "hard to put it down" kind of way, but it is light and fluffy. The story and how it rolls out is a little unusual, and held my interest. Hannah Hall’s adoring husband, coding genius Owen Michaels, vanishes on the same day that his company is raided by the FBI for massive securities fraud. He leaves behind a suspiciously large duffel bag full of cash for his 16-year-old daughter, Bailey. And for his bewildered wife, who is Bailey’s stepmother, he leaves a cryptic note with a single directive: “Protect her.” Hannah desperately wants to fulfill his request, but she also wants answers. As she searches for the truth about her missing husband and contends with the legal troubles caused by his disappearance, she also tries to nurture a stepdaughter who barely wants anything to do with her. As these events unfold in the present, flashbacks show how Hannah’s relationships have developed and offer clues about her husband’s story. Along the way, her own history also comes into play. Deep-rooted abandonment issues shape her choices in the present, and the attorney she reaches out to for help navigating these treacherous waters is her ex-fiancé. It all comes to a somewhat unexpected ending, which is a nice twist--and possibly done to set up a sequel, but that did not detract from my experience.