CategoryReviews

I Succeeded in Watching ‘Succession’

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I was late to Succession, the wildly successful HBO Max series that ran for four seasons. I knew eventually I’d get to it after my sister told me, “I couldn’t stop watching, and I hated every minute of it.” After working my way through the 40-episode series, I can see why she said that. Every episode was compulsively watchable, while often leaving me uncomfortable. I consider that a testament to...

Prometheus Gave Fire to Man

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Seventy-eight years ago today, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. A second bomb fell on Nagasaki on August 9. Between the two attacks, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, leading to a quick Japanese surrender in World War II, and forever changing the course of history. Theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” is...

“PAST LIVES”

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There’s nothing special or particularly inventive about starting with the ending when telling a story. We do it ourselves in the real world all the time. Who among us hasn’t started a story: “Mom, Dad, I’m calling from the police station.” “Okay, son, you better tell us what happened.” And the details leading up to that moment unfold. In the storytelling arts, beginning with the end is an...

Sharks on The Prowl

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Sharks bit three people last week off the beaches of Long Island. The Robert Moses State Park Field Beach was briefly closed on July 4 following a shark sighting. Swimming was banned at several Nantucket beaches earlier this week after great white sharks were spotted in the area. It’s Jaws all over again! Which is why H & I joined a friend to see the original movie when it was playing on the...

LIKE YOU’D UNDERSTAND, ANYWAY, Jim Shepard

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I’m not usually one for patting myself on the back, but I know I did one thing right as a parent: fostered a love of reading in both of our kids. It began with countless hours of Harriet and I reading to the kids when they were young, then came the phase of pressing upon them to read this or that book I thought they’d appreciate, and now we’re in what I call the era of reciprocity: now they’re...

“The Last of Us”

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I’m not one to gravitate toward a television series based on a video game, but I’ve looked over Owen’s shoulder a few times while he played “The Last of Us,” got absorbed in that story world, and then became interested in checking out the HBO series by the same time. I’m glad I did. Set in a post-apocalyptic world mostly destroyed by zombie-like humans who have been infected with a...

Oscar Nominated Short Films

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When I see the list of films that have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture this year, I’m dismayed. I’ve seen about half of them. They were decent, but none of them stood out to me as worthy of great honors. I believe the feature film as a storytelling device is in steep decline, replaced by the limited or recurring series streaming or on cable television. But I still love going...

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

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I’m a generation too far removed to have embraced video games. The extent of my game knowledge comes from occasionally looking over Owen’s shoulder to see what’s on the screen and asking questions about the characters and game objectives. Then I picked up the bestselling novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin. This easy-to-read and well-crafted story centers on Sadie and...

Two Books I Put Down, and One I Couldn’t

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I’m willing to put down books before I reach the end. I used to suffer from a “finish what you start” syndrome, and I would keep hoping the book would turn the corner and start to captivate me. It rarely did. One reason I’m quicker to move on to a different book is a few years back I calculated how many more books I might read in my lifetime, factoring in average male longevity and my reading...

This is No Musical or Comedy

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Last week I saw the film The Banshees of Inisherin and the other night it won the Golden Globe award for “best picture, musical or comedy.” Best musical or comedy? One of the characters plays the fiddle, but this is no musical. And I did laugh a few times during the film, although given my stunned and sad state after leaving the theater, I would never classify what I saw as a comedy. But did the...

The White Lotus: Sex and Intrigue

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The world may not need one more take on season two of Mike White’s The White Lotus, but it’s getting mine anyway. The seven-episode season on HBO lands in what I consider a sweet spot in storytelling length—about six to eight hours of programming. This length also works well for adapting novels to the screen, which rarely transfer in any satisfying way to a two-hour feature film, but gain...

The Magic of Air Travel

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What is it about air travel that makes it so ripe for speculative storytelling? Maybe it’s the improbability of flying 30,000 feet above the earth in skinny metal tubes. Or as a passenger, the complete surrendering of any sense of control over your fate.   A recent French novel and an American television series both rely on a similar premise about air travel. In the NBC series Manifest (now...

The Goddam Lousy Life of a Teenager

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Harriet’s worn copy she’s had since high school. The life of a teenager can be isolating, confusing, and painful. It was at times for me and maybe for you too. It certainly was for Holden Caulfield, the 16-year-old narrator of J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” Holden has just been kicked out of his third private boarding school and embarks on a dark night of the soul in Manhattan...

Does It Stand the Test of Time?

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When I travel, I like to bring along a favorite book to reread. I’ve been rereading from the list of The Most Important Novels in My Life (some short story collections made the list), and one of the questions I consider is whether the book stands the test of time. Almost forty years after first reading Lorrie Moore’s debut book of short stories, “Self-Help,” I realize time isn’t a test, or if it...

White Privilege on Display in “The White Lotus”

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Since we’re paying for a plethora of streaming services (HBO, Hulu, Netflix, etc.), I decided it was time to actually watch something on one of them. HBO’s “The White Lotus” was my choice. Six episodes, six hours of witnessing the power of white wealth, privilege, and entitlement, skewered and served up with huge doses of cynicism, cringe, and above all, entertainment. Entertainment because...

David Klein

Published novelist, creative writer, journalist, avid reader, discriminating screen watcher.

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