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.

La Grand Georgette, Reims, France

This was our first stop after landing in Paris. Originally we had planned to take the train to Alsace and rent a car from there, taking advantage of both the high speed nature of train travel in France as well as having an opportunity to nap a bit after a relatively sleepless night. Unexpectedly, between buying the airplane tickets and the actual trip I had a shoulder replacement surgery. It was perhaps both equal parts optimism and naïveté to follow through with with long ago planned travel to France when I was 7 weeks post-op, but after 5 weeks of doing not much but nurse my bum shoulder followed by 3 weeks of struggling to be back at work, I was ready for a bit of a vacation. Concessions were made and instead of taking a train to Alsace we opted instead to drive to Champagne (less chance of jostling on public transport) and we chose Reims! All I knew of the town is the 30 or so paintings Monet did of the cathedral here—I had postcards of 2 of them in my office forever after seeing them in a Monet exhibit long ago. What I did not know was that he was commissioned to paint them after it was bombed in WWI. The cathedral dates back to the 5th century and the current restored is a great example of Gothic architecture —with over 2,000 statues.

So it is all about the church--we stayed a block away and we ate in a restaurant in view of it. The meal was a bit fussier than what we usually aim for on the first day, and it was slow going between courses--a blessing and a curse when you are trying to stay awake, but this was a very good meal, well prepared, and with a glass of champagne each, of course. We were definitely not up for a bottle and what they had by the glass was less unique than their bottle selections, but overall I would recommend this.

John and Paul by Ian Leslie

This is an iconic duo in an epically iconic band. The Beatles created music you have had in your head since childhood reveal new and unsuspected shades of meaning 50 years later. Beatles songs aren’t like most pop songs; instead of fading, they take on a richer color and nuance with time, not least because new generations of fans inquire more deeply into what previous listeners might have overlooked or simply misunderstood. One twist of the kaleidoscope and a song we thought we knew suddenly sounds even better than it did the first 100 times we heard it. The author argues that there was “no John without Paul, and vice versa”. This is about the songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and the unprecedented peaks the two of them scaled in remaking English popular music. This is about going deeper than the myth about the pair--he tries to figure out what their chemistry was and why it fell apart. After the Beatles finally disbanded, the author challenges the consensus that formed that Paul was the straight man to John’s rebel bohemian – vanilla against brimstone – which hardened into holy writ on Lennon’s murder in 1980. Their collaboration was as tight and co-dependent as two climbers roped together on a mountain face. They each went on to do more but there was never the same magic, and this is an interesting take on what that was all about.

You, Always (2026)

This is pretty straight ahead fare in the romantic comedy genre. A reviewer described it as disposable, which I guess I agree with, in that it is very light, very predctable, and there is nothing to strain your brain here. It is also completely unrealistic, but this is not a genre where the brain is much engaged, and I like it for that. It is a sun-drenched, predictable "friends-to-lovers" story set in Far North Queensland, Australia--so undeniably gorgeous, and not your standard back drop. The film follows Dr. Jen Bell, a local doctor and marine rescue volunteer who has come home after some time away, amarriage that ended acrimoniously, and a daughter, and her high-school best friend Ethan, who has inherited a house in his part time home town after his fahter's death. They work together on marine rescues as well as a lot of co-parenting of Jen's daughter, who they are both quite attached to--this is the point at which any parent sees where this is going. Finding someone who can care for your child at approximately the same level of commitment that you have is a winning hand. Both have sworn off dating following rough divorces. Just as Ethan realizes he has been in love with Jen all along, her life is upended by the arrival of Patrick, a charismatic romance novelist who literally sweeps Jen off her feet--but notably more or less ignores her daughter. He is not weird or difficult about it, and definitely not creepy, but, well, they are a package deal and he is placing Jen in a romance novel and wants to close the deal on it. Nothing surprising happens-- It offers a comforting, feel-good escape with beautiful coastal scenery.

You Think It I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld

I do not like short stories as a rule, but I have been a long term fan of this author, and it is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, so I traded in the print version for an audio version, and listened to it while I was recovering from shoulder replacement surgery. One of the things I do not care for about short stories is that there just isn't enough time to get to know people. The social and domestic relationships of the characters, figuratively speaking, all sound the same because of time constraints. They are of a type, cut from the same piece of cloth – not genuinely reflective of that real frisson of weirdness and fear that can ensue when you realise you have no comprehension either of what someone else is thinking or what they are capable of thinking. This author's stories and their inhabitants don’t feel like that: they are much less tidy and, consequently, riskier. They explore what are frequently unresolvable tensions, especially between women: the journalist (another) who leaves her breastfeeding baby with a sitter in order to interview an actress, only for the interviewee to reveal her traumatic miscarriage. The tragicomic setup – the writer conceals her motherhood but is then exposed by her leaking breasts and the sitter’s panicked calls – leads to an impossible complex of competing empathies and sympathies. The situations of your past catching up with you run through this collection, and there is a lot to think about here.

Swapped (2026)

My youngest son and I watched this one evening when my spouse was on call and we both really enjoyed it. To be fair, we like animation, even when the story is a bit weak, so long as the animation is strong, but with this one, we enjoyed it as a whole. The animation is lush and gorgeous, and since it is an action movie that spans a whole magical environment, with one of the main characters able to fly, there is a lot to be awed by when it comes to that. The story takes place in an imaginary place called the Valley, where different types of woodland creatures don’t live together harmoniously. Ollie is a Pookoo, who looks like a sea otter, and is afraid of Javans. They are a hybrid version of owls and parrots. Ollie has always been a curious Pookoo, willing to help others and see beyond what the Valley offers. Things take a turn for the worse for Pookoos when Ollie helpsIvy, a tired, young Javan find food, which happens to be Pookoo’s only source of food. Ollie teaches the young Javan to open a seed. This puts the Pookoo’s in danger as the Javans take the seeds, leaving the Pookoo’s with very little for their survival and they go underground for safety. Fast forward and Ollie gets changed in a Java when he stumbles upon some miracle pods, and he gets taken in by Ivy and her sisters, who team up to restore him to his original Pookoo self. This is a movie about perspective and empathy, most importantly, the latter. It’s a story that revolves around two beings and learning to understand their worlds when the roles are switched. But the twist is that the two central characters swap bodies and team up to save their homes before an evil creature destroys them. It’s not just about empathy; it’s also about survival.

The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan

This is a bit of a story within a story, which seems to be cloaked in some kind of back story related to the author. As the title states, Cate Kay has lived three lives. Now it’s time for her to open up and reveal the truth--at least some of it. We never quite see what makes Cate tick, just the things that drive her to change her identity. The book starts in 1991, in her early youth. Gradually, we learn more about her and why she adopted three different identities and how now, in 2013, she lives a reclusive life. The book goes on to more or less unravel the layers of Cate’s life, revealing the aspirations of a young dreamer who once envisioned Hollywood stardom alongside her best friend and the love of her life, Amanda. Their plans, brimming with hope and ambition, are derailed by an unnamed tragedy that sends our protagonist fleeing into a life of aliases and secrets. Throughout Cate’s life, she experiences several relationships, maybe love and definitely manipulation, yet her one true love remains elusive. I would also say that the deceptions also leave Cate Kay as more two dimentional than is ideal in a character we are meant to at least sympathize with if not identify with--she doesn't come out of it with much in the way of depth, and it was a disappointing read from the Reese Book club oeuvre for me.

Love, Again (2023)

This is an old school romance story that is elevated by the presence of Celine Dion--both her person and her songs. The story is that both sides of this romance have had love and lost. Mira lost the lost of her life in a horrific pedestrian vs. car accident that happened in her presence and she has not been able to move on. Her family is urging her to at least try to date, and so she dips a toe into the dating app morass but oddly, also starts texting her dead love's old phone number. Thing is, unbeknownst to her, it has been reassigned to someone else. That someone is Rob. Rob’s a (severely underworked) music critic, heartbroken in his own way, who’s still getting over being dumped by his fiancée on the eve of their wedding. Instead of being annoyed by the messages, he’s touched by their sincerity, to the extent that he may even be falling for whoever’s sending them. He then goes about trying to figure out who she is based on clues in her texts, and meets success when he attends every performance of an opera in hopes of a chance encounter. All of which would have a creepy stalker quality except for Celine Dion's presence in the story. Eighteen years after “Titanic” made her a mega-star, Dion lost her husband and manager, René Angélil, and the singer has made no secret of her struggle to move on since. She helps bridge the gap between the two, and with a few bumps along the road, the inevitable happens. If you like this sort of unrealistic genre of romantic comedy--and in small doses, I most certainly do--this is a fine option, streaming on Netflix.

Kin by Tayari Jones

Two motherless children grow up as close as siblings. Vernice and Annie have been friends since they were babes in the same cradle, growing up in Honeysuckle, Louisiana. When Annie was only three days old, her mother, Hattie Lee, nursed her one last time before handing her over to her grandmother and leaving town. Meanwhile, when Vernice was only a couple of months old, her father killed her mother and her very reluctant aun raised her. It is with these losses that Niecy and Annie are bound together, yet they are total opposites in almost every other way. Annie is the stormier of the two and headstrong in finding her mother one day, while Vernice is always more careful and guarded. The former heads off in search of her mother--and in ways, in search of herself as well, while Vernice goes to college--they struggle with identity, racism, and what it means to have and be a family. This is another great book from this author.