A Month in Review, Sep 7 to Oct 10

Oh, I just remembered I have a blog! Oops...

The month of October has been insanely good for me so far, and I haven't been sitting around doing nothing like I did for most of the past year. After the last Month in Review post, I had intended to get back into Week in Review posts, but that fell by the wayside pretty quickly. (Fuck blogging right now. Better things to do.)

The Month in Books

This month, I kept soldiering through the massive tomes that are Steven Erikson's awesome Malazan Book of the Fallen. I completed book five, Midnight Tides, and immediately jumped into book six, The Bonehunters. Midnight Tides was fantastic, dramatic but often hilarious, epic while focused (comparatively), and I read its last five hundred pages in a couple of marathon sessions. The Bonehunters has an early set-piece that is breathtaking in its scope and intensity, but since reading those incredible pages, I have been preoccupied with other things. (Fuck reading right now. Better things to do.)

The Month in Music

Two of my favourite bands released new albums in the past month. Anberlin's Dark is the Way, Light is a Place is okay, with the band taking a different somewhat disappointing approach with their sound, while Jimmy Eat World's Invented is fantastic, more than worthy of their impressive discography. The other new release for the month was Weezer's Hurley, a huge improvement over the immature Raditude, but otherwise not really worthy of my blogging effort. (Fuck blogging about Weezer right now. Better things to do.)

Anberlin has now released two less than spectacular albums since their peak with 2007's Cities, so it may be that they don't have another Cities in them. New Surrender was at least Cities-like in its structure and sound, but it felt rushed and was very inconsistent. Dark is the Way... is much more consistent, but in a poppy, boring-ish way. To go from re-recording the rocking "Feel Good Drag" for New Surrender's first single to this is particularly jarring. First single "Impossible" is a pretty good indication of what you are in for with Dark is the Way.... It's a good, light, catchy tune, but it's not great. "To the Wolves" is arguably the best track, but album closer "Depraved" continues Anberlin's trend of interesting album endings.

Jimmy Eat World slumped a little with 2007's Chase This Light, but with Invented they have found a way to successfully fuse the diverse sounds of Clarity, Futures, and Bleed American into a cohesive and interesting whole. Songs like "Heart is Hard to Find," "Coffee and Cigarettes," and the divisive "Higher Devotion" find the band experimenting with new sounds and new energy, while songs like "Movielike" and title-track "Invented" knock me over with their classic Jimmy Eat World brilliance every time. And the increased orchestral presence throughout is very welcome. I am relieved that my faith in Jimmy Eat World (as illustrated by a comment in The Albums That Always Bring Me Back For More that they are my favourite band that is still together and at the top of their game) was not at all misplaced.

The Month in Movies

I'm not going to review the first movie I saw this month, romantic comedy Going the Distance with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, because you'll never believe me when I tell you that it is actually quite respectable for its genre. This is not a movie that I would ever see by myself, but I wasn't by myself... and it served its purpose wonderfully.

I would have seen The Social Network by myself--because David Fincher! Aaron Sorkin! Facebook!--but I didn't have to. It's a terrific movie, well acted, funny, moving, frustrating, compelling, fascinating, and brilliantly structured. The bookends are perfect.

The Month in Television

Loved: Dexter (5x1/3), Fringe (3x1-3), Glee (2x3), Mad Men (4x7/9-12), Merlin (3x1/2), Modern Family (2x1-3)
Liked: 30 Rock (5x1-3), The Amazing Race (17x1-3), The Big Bang Theory (4x1-3), Bored to Death (2x3), Chuck (4x1-3), Dexter (5x2), Eureka (4x9), Glee (2x1/2), How I Met Your Mother (6x1-3), Hung (2x10), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (6x1-4), Mad Men (4x8), Merlin (3x3/4), The Office (7x1-3), So You Think You Can Dance Canada (3x12-20), South Park (14x8), Stargate Universe (2x1/2), True Blood (3x12), Warehouse 13 (2x10-12)
Meh: Bored to Death (2x1/2), Entourage (7x10), House (7x1-3)

That's a lot of fucking TV shows. Goddamn. I'm obviously only going to address the highlights and/or lowlights.

The following statement is definitely something that I never thought I would say: the best thing on TV in the past month was the two-part season three premiere of (fucking) Merlin. "The Tears of Uther Pendragon" was dramatic, game-changing (or was it?), epic, and unquestionably the best thing Merlin has ever done. Bravo! Sadly, the next couple of episodes were firmly back in the series' predictable ball-park. And I forgot to download Saturday's episode. (Fuck Merlin right now. Better things to do.)

In other good news, Fringe has been having a fantastic third season so far, awesomely alternating between universes to keep things interesting, Dexter's fifth season is off to an interesting and compelling start, Modern Family seems funnier than ever, Glee is still awesomely stupid, How I Met Your Mother is redeeming itself from a terrible fifth season, and Mad Men finally found its dramatic thrust halfway through its season and won me back in a big way.

In less good (and now old) news, True Blood's third season finale was only okay, which puts it firmly in the disappointing category. Entourage and Hung ended how they started, lame and pretty good respectively. Bored to Death's premiere episode was dumb, dumb, dumb, but episode three was borderline fantastic, so they've earned my time for the rest of the season.

30 Rock, The Office, The Big Bang Theory, and Always Sunny have been fine but otherwise unremarkable. Not the strongest seasons for these shows, but it is not unusual for comedies of this nature to run out of steam after so many seasons. I still enjoy them even if they aren't what they used to be.

Eureka went on hiatus with a strong mid-season finale, but Warehouse 13 very nearly went off the rails with its finale. Yet it was still enjoyable in that ridiculous cheeseball way. Sadly, my favourite cheeseball dramedy, Chuck, has had a disappointing fourth season so far. If it doesn't get better soon, I may have to pretend that the series was actually canceled after its fantastic third season.

I haven't watched Caprica's first couple of episodes yet. (Fuck Caprica... okay, I'm sure you get the point!)

Why do I even fucking watch House?