How Did We Get Here (2022): A documentary about Jacksepticeye's background and rise to Youtube star.
Replicas (2018): In which brilliant scientist Will Foster (Keanu Reeves) loses his wife and three kids in a car accident and jumps straight to cloning them and transfering their minds to the new bodies, acting as if the accident and their deaths never happened, and also there's the evil company Will works for who want to see the secret and illegal results. Plot and theme wise, it's very much a disjointed B-movie: it juggles cloning, mind transference, and androids without really diving deep into analyzing any of them. The strongest element I feel (in contrast to a lot of reviews apparently) is Keanu Reeves' acting. The scene where Will realizes they only have three usable clone pods and he has to choose one of his kids to leave dead and then erase from the others' memories is a standout for me. The rest is otherwise forgettable. More of a movie you let play while doing the dishes or folding laundry.
The Madman's Tale (John Katzenbach, 2004): 5 star book. A man who has struggled with schizophrenia reflects back on his time in a mental asylum as a younger man, and feels compelled to write the truth about the unsolved murder of a nurse during his time there. I do have small quibbles (like the reveal of who the killer is feels a little contrived) but not big enough to knock it down a star. The language is definitely dated but makes sense for a book with scenes set in 1979 and in the mid-2000s, and it wins strong points for challenging the "mentally ill means dangerous" stereotype and showing the characters as people.
Anna and the Swallow Man (Gavriel Savit, 2016): 4 star book. A solid example of an author's debut book. It contains beautiful prose and weaves WWII-era Polish history with folktale. Definitely a tear jerker but not overly cynical. The ending is ambiguous in a way that isn't entirely satisfying.
The Accountant 2 (2025): 4 star movie. A years-late sequel that I really enjoyed with an interesting plot and good action. A highlight is the strained but funny dynamic between brothers Christian and Braxton. While Christian's autism still plays a role in story and interactions, it isn't a focus of the movie like it was in the first one; ymmv on whether this is a plus or minus.
