Category: Torg Stories podcast

7 Movies to Watch, The Menu, East of Eden, Rotten Tomatoes, an SNL Report, and the Colts in London

If you sit down to watch a movie, but you don’t know what you’re going to watch, how do you figure it out? In this post we look for a new process, identify 7 movies worth watching, discuss East of Eden, the yogurt shop murders, the Colts in London, an SNL report, and Izzy’s upcoming West Coast Road Trip!

Click above to listen to the episode. Video is at bottom of the page.

Bill Torg’s Topics for Discussion 

When you want to watch a movie but don’t know what you’re going to watch, how do you find one? 

  • Frustration of trying to click around on the platforms we subscribe to: Netflix, HBO, Apple, Amazon (Fandango) 
  • What reviews, if any, do you take into account when picking? Amazon stars from those who watch and the Tomatometer / Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes. 
  • For the first time, I used the Rotten Tomatoes “watch at home” page where I could toggle to the platform (Netflix, Prime, HBOMax, etc) and look at ratings that way. Click here for that page. 
  • Should I try Letterboxd? They talk about it on The Big Picture podcast. Looks like a sort of Goodreads for movies. I think we could explore it for next time. Click here to access Letterboxd. 

We narrowed it down to these seven movies to watch:

Squid and The Whale on Netflix 

  • From RT: A pair of brothers living in Brooklyn are caught in the middle of, and deeply affected by, the divorce of their erudite parents, Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan Berkman (Laura Linney). Older sibling Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) sides with dad and acts out at school, while younger brother Frank (Owen Kline) quietly backs up mom. The household tension rises further when Joan’s writing career takes off and surpasses the failed ambitions of her professor ex-husband.
  • Directed by Noah Baumbach. One of the producers is Wes Anderson. Baumbach is 57. Was married to Jennifer Jason Leigh and now married to Greta Gerwig. Co wrote Barbie screenplay. White Noise. 

The Menu on Netflix. 

  • From RT: A couple (Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult) travels to a coastal island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef (Ralph Fiennes) has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.
  • Also starred John Leguizamo and Hong Chau 
  • Directed by Mark Mylod. He’s done episodes of Entourage, Game of Thrones 
  • One of the producers was Will Ferrell. 

The Invite (coming soon) on HBO 

  • From RT: Joe and Angela’s marriage is on thin ice. When they invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors for a dinner party, the night spirals into unexpected places. Have they reignited the spark or the lit the match that burns it all down?
  • Stars Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz, and Edward Norton 
  • Directed by Olivia Wilde 

End of Oak Street (rental on Amazon) 

  • From RT: After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.
  • Starring Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor
  • Directed by David Robert Mitchell (also It Follows) 

Obsession (rental on Amazon)  

  • From RT: After breaking the mysterious “One Wish Willow” to win his crush’s heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.
  • Starring Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson
  • Directed by Curry Barker (YouTube channel “that’s a bad idea” 1.62 million) 27 years old

Blackberry on Netflix

  • ‘BlackBerry’ tells the story of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the two men that charted the course of the spectacular rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone.
  • Starring Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, rich Sommer
  • Directed by Matt Johnson. He’s Canadian, MFA from York University, started in independent docufiction. Did Nirvanna the Band the Show. 
  • Izzy, how aware are you of an MFA in filmmaking or screenwriting are you after Utah? 

X on HBO. 

  • From RT: In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, but when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the cast find themselves fighting for their lives.
  • Starring Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow 
  • Directed by Ti West. Drinking Buddies, The ABCs of Death and his movie MaXXXine gets tomato numbers in the 70s. 

Megan picked The Menu. We recommend it. Why? 

  • Very unusual: we get a menu that is an outline that the film follows. We get the ingredients on the screen which is sometimes crass and funny. 
  • It is in the spirit of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Passenger 10, The Knives Out movies. Suspenseful. Pretty gory but not over the top. 
  • Satire of foodies, critics of all kinds, and the ultra rich. 

Honorable Mention Stuff to Read or Watch: 

  • Ted Lasso Season 4, Episode 9 was the best of the season. Heart wrenching with Mae and tribute to Anthony Head. Roy and Keeley! Roy’s reenactment of the game. Finally know why Tracey Ullman is on the show. 
  • Fever’s season ends: Mitchell and Clark couldn’t make enough of their threes / finishes. Wilson and Gray make more mid range tough jumpers than Fever can hit threes. They get calls but they also are attacking the rim and defender more. A’ja Wilson really bothers everyone around the rim. (the league is tough, Clark can get better, not sure of the ceiling of this team, parity) 
  • NoDa and Camp North End in Charlotte. Tipsy Pickle. Cabo Fish Taco. Vintage stores. Hardy Boys Records. 

Anne’s Discussion Topics

“East of Eden” on Netflix 

  • Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott. Showrunner/writer Zoe Kazan, granddaughter to movie director Elia Kazan
  • Florence was great. Most characters are hard to like or at least very frustrating. Have you read John Steinbeck book? I’ve read zero books by him.
  • Secrets, parents expectations, fate, making your own choices, “thou mayest”, tell your kids the truth!
  • From the book preface: East of Eden hit the bookstores in midsummer of 1952. The 602-page novel sold for $4.50. By November it had become the nation’s number-one best-seller. A limited edition of 750 copies had been distributed to “important reviewers” and was followed by a run of 110,000, what Steinbeck called “one hell of a big first edition.”
  • The opening two paragraphs of the novel: The Salinas Valley is in Northern California. It is a long narrow swale between two ranges of mountains, and the Salinas River winds and twists up the center until it falls at last into Monterey Bay. I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer—and what trees and seasons smelled like—how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of 
  • odors is very rich.
  • East of Eden
  • Click here for the novel on Amazon. We are an Amazon affiliate. 

“He Was a Suspect in the Yogurt Shop Murders for Thirty Years. He Can’t Forget” by Michael Hall in Texas Monthly

  • Forrest Welborn was a suspect as his best friend implicated him in a confession. Later DNA revealed the real killer.
  • Pressured confessions…need actual evidence, pressure to solve murders, public outcry
  • Would you stick around in the area you live if this happened to you? Google your name and you are always linked.
  • He Was A Suspect…

Izzy’s Discussion Topics 

  • Izzy is going on a West coast road trip! Stops: Oregon Coast, Redwood National Park and San Francisco!
  • Working on my film! It is “due” Monday so today will be spent all on that. 
  • Recent SNL update: Dakota Johnson hosted, James and I fell asleep. She threw shade at my man Role Model. “Bad in bed” and “lame breakups.” Taylor came on. Next week: Shane Gillis with musical guest Rosalia. 
  • Upcoming concerts: Hey, Nothing, Big Thief and maybe Malcom Todd. I recommend End of Oak Street. A family is mysteriously transported with their entire neighborhood to an unknown, dangerous world. They must stick together and uncover what happened while fighting to survive.

Thanks for checking out this Torg Stories Post!

Short Film Production, Scheming Artificial Intelligence, and The Secret History of Gold

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. We’re recording Sunday, September 27, 2026. Topics for this episode include Izzy’s first day of shooting on her short film, AI Models that scheme, the Hulu show Adults, Apple’s The Gorge, an SNL report, and Anne finished her history of Gold book. It’s also a big NFL today and the WNBA playoffs kick off. Anne, you’re in Boone, North Carolina! 

Click the player above to listen to the episode.

Bill Torg’s Topics for Discussion 

  1. “AI Models That Lie, Cheat and Plot Murder: Just How Risky are LLMS?” by Matthew Hutson published in Nature on October 9, 2025
  • In my classes at App State. We work a lot with peer-reviewed journals. I have never felt more like what’s in there is old. 2025 is a long time ago when it comes to AI. 
  • Are either of you familiar with that term, “LLM”? 
  • An LLM is an AI system trained on enormous amounts of text. This article calls LLMS “the brains behind the chatbots.” 
  • From the article: “Whatever the level of selfhood among LLMs, researchers think it’s urgent to understand scheming like behaviours before these models pose much more dire risks.” I hadn’t heard the word “scheming” applied to AIs before. 
  • Quote: Some LLMs are “agentic” – they are granted access to extra software tools that can take actions, such as surfing the web, modifying files or running code. 
  • Agentic meaning the AI works toward a goal rather than just responding to prompts. A goal such as making the business or US businesses profitable. 
  • Scheming example in tests: AI acted in alignment with the user’s goal during supposed evaluation, but in alignment with their original goal during supposed deployment. (a phenomena known as alignment faking) 
  1. “WNBA Playoffs 2026: How all eight teams could win the title” by Michael Voepel on ESPN. 
  1. The Minnesota Lynx are the big favorite to win the title. They were good already and now they Notre Dame then TCU’s Olivia Miles. 
  2. All teams playing today. Let’s go over the game real quick: 
  •  Liberty with a bunch of well known players including Stewart and Ionescu at the Lynx with Collier and Miles at 2PM. 
  •  Fever with Clark, Mitchell and Boston at Aces with A’ja Wilson at 4PM. Boston is questionable with right lower leg injury. 
  • Mystics with Notre Dame’s Sonia Citron, Shakira Austin, and Va Tech’s Georgia Amoore at the Dream with Rhyne Howard and Angel Reese at 7PM. 
  • Wings with Bueckers and Arike Ogunbowale vs. the Valkyries with Gabby Williams and Kiah Stokes. I don’t know the Valkyries players and I will continue not to see them much because this game is on too late. 
  • Click here for article. 
  1. The Gorge movie on Apple TV starring Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy and Sigourney Weaver 
  1. Best part is mystery of what is in the gorge. 
  2. Shot in Norway. Stunning scenery. 
  3. Rough middle where everything is dark and the main characters are trying to get out of the gorge. 
  4. Satisfying ending with pretty good twist. Felt a little like Bourne movie endings, which I really like.  

Anne Torg’s Topics for Discussion 

  1. “Adults” – Hulu show Izzy asked us to watch 
  • I liked how it points out the the generation’s tendency of taking political correctness too far, they focused on this in the 2nd episode
  • 3rd episode is too contrived to me – colonoscopy 
  • Actors are good
  1. The Secret History of Gold by Dominic Frisby
  • “No other substance is as long-lasting as gold – not diamonds, not tungsten carbide, not boron nitride. Gold does not corrode; it does not tarnish or decay; it does not break down over time. This sets it apart from every other substance. Iron rusts, wood rots, silver tarnishes.”
  • Do you ever see yourself buying a gold coin or bar? 
  • Click here for Amazon link to the book. 
  1. “I used to get paid to hang out with famous people” by Jonah Winer
  1. I Used to Get Paid to Hang Out  with Famous People
  2. Are profiles dead? Do you like reading profiles? Do you prefer videos or podcasts?
  3. Contract w/Rolling Stone for $90K in 90s not bad.
  4. Lived in Kimmels house for 3 days, thats crazy
  5. Reminds me of Cameron Crowe spending everyday with David Bowie. Travelling with bands. 
  6. Really long profile on Fever Coach Stephanie White on ESPN this week. Click here for article. 

Izzy Torg’s Topics for Discussion 

  • SNL first episode 
  • Grace Reiter new cast member. She in my opinion had the best first episode of anyone. She did a Katsye music video and looked so comfortable. Also Jalen is a very good actor. 

Adults TV show 

  1. I love this show. It’s so fun and the acting feels so natural. I aspire to have a silly friend group like this. 
  2. Ask about Anne and bill college friend group. 
  3. Talk about mine 

Thanks for checking out Torg Stories!

SNL Lorne-isms, Tom Cruise’s Big Week, and Izzy Reports on the Role Model Concert

This week on the Torg Stories Podcast, we’ve got some SNL Lorne-isms, Tom Cruise had a big week, Anne and I both saw the film The Whisper Man, and Izzy gives a report from the Role Model concert. 

Stories Bill Read or Watched: 

  1. SNL Lorne Michaels biography. Here are some work. I’m doing interesting work how do other people feel you know his answer is just didn’t reveal a lot. Did you happen to read it to but golden lines: 
  • Remember Podunk! You’ve got audience in all fifty states.
  • The quickest way to kill off somebody talented is to let him do everything he wants. 
  • Cocaine is God’s way of telling you you have too much money. 
  • One of the unusual things about SNL is that the writers are in charge of producing their own pieces. 
  • When there are too many things going on in a scene, he says, “You’re putting a hat on a hat.” (Another term for this is premise overload). 
  • When the details are accurate, your brain goes, “Somebody’s taken care of this.” 
  • “Do it in sunshine,” which means, don’t forget that comedy is an entertainment. Colors should be bright, costumes flattering.
  • Michaels dropped in and out, and at one session he made a plea: “Please don’t use cocaine. It doesn’t make you funnier. It only makes you think you’re funnier.”
  • It’s a 672 page paperback. I just made it to the 50% mark. 
  1. The 2026 Emmys! 
  • A fun freshman show, the Apple TV horror-comedy “Widow’s Bay,” nearly ran the table on the comedy side.
  • Matthew Rhys (Rees) is a beast after all. Rhys made history on Monday by becoming the first person to win two lead acting Emmys in one night. He took home prizes for the Netflix crime thriller mini-series “The Beast in Me” and the Apple TV horror-comedy hit “Widow’s Bay.”
  • But Parton also received her own dedicated tribute from Reba McEntire, another beloved country music superstar, who shared a decades-long friendship with Parton in which they sometimes sang and acted together. McEntire performed one of Parton’s songs, “Appalachian Memories,” a ballad about the region’s cultural heritage.
  • Click here for NY Times article. 

Anne’s Read or Watched This Week: 

  1. “Tom Cruise: Hollywood’s Most Elusive Star Speaks” by Zach Baron Interview in GQ
  • Tom Cruise Interview
  • Interesting how he answers questions – he kind of ignores it and answers it by saying he loves working with people and figuring out how to make the best movie.
  • Talks a lot about having personal goals and challenging
  • When asked if he fears death in regards to doing stunts like in MI films:   “But here’s the thing: How do we use these tools to create an emotional effect on an audience? And is it communicating what we want to communicate? So do I fear death? No. I don’t. It’s not like I’m not afraid. I don’t mind the feeling. I understand life has certainties and uncertainties. And in making movies and living life, what interests me is: Let’s move the uncertainties more into the certainties, but I want to create other uncertainties, so that we’re moving forward and it’s part of the adventure of it.” Are you ever afraid onscreen or off? TC: There’s stuff where you want to feel that. You want to feel that uncertainty. But I’m not afraid to feel afraid. I don’t know how else to say it. I’m not afraid to go, “Okay, I know this is a leap and let’s take the jump. Let’s go.” And I try to recognize things that I don’t know, and I don’t pretend to know things that I know and things that I don’t know. So that’s how I feel about it. Are you afraid of death? Are you afraid to be afraid?
  • A Cruise line that makes me think of Izzy: “I mean, these guys that are painting backgrounds and building the sets and moving the cameras, lighting, every area of making a movie—it’s light, architecture, the design, all of it, to entertain audiences,”
  1. The Death of Trotsky by Josh Ireland
  • The Death of Trotsky
  • Interesting, easy to read. Gives some nice insight to Trotsky/Stalin plus the guy (Ramon Mercader agent for NKVD) who ultimately killed Trotsky with an ice pick. Plus some Frida Kahlo and Diego Revera mentions.
  • How far will you go for your beliefs? Political or otherwise. Most of us think it is wrong to murder, but some people have such strong belief in the moral rightness they will do anything.
  • Good exchange illuminating Stalin that Kamenev related, the group is day drinking and talking with each other (all communist party leaders), answering the question “What is the finest thing in the world?”
    • Kamenev: “Books”
    • Radek: “A woman, your woman”
    • Rykov: “Cognac”
    • Stalin: “The greatest delight is to mark one’s enemy, prepare everything, avenge oneself thoroughly, and then go to sleep.”
  1. The Whisper Man on Netflix directed by James Ashcroft
  • Starring Robert De Niro
  • The Whisper Man
  • Avg movie, did creep me out
  • Never live in a big old house with creepy open windows and mail slots in the door

Izzy Podcast Agenda and Notes 

  1. Role model concert 
  • He did not play the Wedding which is very important 
  • He is just as amazing and beautiful in person 
  1. Watched the film Obsession finally
  • It was made so so well for the budget of 740,000 and on a 20 day schedule. Did not like the story line, thought writing got weird at the end. 
  1. Started watching Gilmore Girls for the 7th time because fall has begun. 
  • Talk about Rory’s boyfriend controversy 
  • I have no alone time at school but I create moments to watch now 

Honorable Mention

  • learned that the secret lives of Mormon wives are a big deal and people in Utah see them around with other men and gossip about it 

Thanks for checking out our Torg Stories page!

Stories We Read and Watched from the Week of Sept 7, 2026

Stories We Read and Watched for Week of Sept 7, 2026 Podcast Episode

3 Stories Bill Read or Watched

  1. Sing Street is a coming of age musical drama film directed by John Carney. Click here for the trailer. 
  • It’s about a boy who starts a band to impress a girl. 
  • Filmed in Dublin. Synge Street CBS is a real school and the kids name their band Sing as a pun on the school they go to. 
  • 95% on the Tomatometer and 92% on the Popcorn meter
  • It’s got honest dialogue that rings true of how teenagers behave and talk. Grittier than something glib such as Weird Science or “out there” as Ferris Bueller. 
  • It has a boy after the girl that I care about. Guy just tells girl he’s in a band and then sings “Take on Me” by a-ha 
  • Great scenes about how songs get written. 
  • Funny. What are you doing? Rabbit stuff. 
  • Heavy themes: parents divorce, abusive priests, bullying
  • Great music! “Rio” by Duran Duran, “In Between Days” by The Cure, “Maneater” by Hall & Oates, “I Fought the Law” by the Clash, “Paperlate” Genesis, “Take on Me” by a-ha, 
  • Original music!
  • All these good actors who I’d never seen before: Lucy Boynton (NYC with Rami Malek), Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (Ireland age 26 now) 
  • Budget $4 million and box office $13.6 million. 
  • You can stream it on HBO Max if you’re a subscriber and cheap rental on Amazon.
  1. “The Los Angeles Rams Are Trying to Defeat Time: Welcome to the Super Bowl of jet lag” by Hana Kiros. 
  • From the article: The two teams have taken diametrically opposite approaches to preventing the 8,000-mile journey from disorienting their stars. The 49ers boarded their 16-hour flight to Melbourne nine days ago and have spent the intervening time training, watching Aussie rules football, and winning the majority of local support. The Rams landed yesterday, just 24 hours before the game. They’re betting on being in Australia so briefly that players’ brains and bodies won’t notice the difference. That makes the game the most high-profile test of jet-lag-evasion techniques in American sports history.
  • From the article: Teams at a circadian disadvantage tend to play worse. One study that analyzed every NFL game from 1970 to 2011 with a kickoff after 8 p.m. ET found that West Coast teams did better than oddsmakers expected in two out of every three games, regardless of whether they were home or away. Head coaches are also more likely to make the risky call to attempt an offensive play on a fourth down during evening games when they travel west compared with any other direction.
  • From the article: Many NFL teams now have a sleep specialist and a performance-science team working on circumventing jet lag. To prep players for time shifts before they depart, 14 NFL teams, including the 49ers, have installed in their training facilities lighting systems designed to mold circadian rhythms. The system, called BrainLit, mimics daylight according to a “recipe” that each team specifies, Kyle Harris, the CEO of the company, told me.
  • 49ers won the game 27-7. 
  • Anne, you fly some red eyes to come see us and then you stay up. 
  • What are some of the times you stayed awake the longest? Maui arriving the day of the fires. That was long flights + can’t go to the hotel. (2) Thirty-six hours coming home from the hurricane. 
  • Click here to link to the article on The Atlantic. 
  1. Ted Lasso S4. E6 – “Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore.” 
  • The title comes from House of Pain’s song “Jump Around.” Jamie was back for this episode and very funny. He launched a vodka brand. Roy came to support, and he blew out his knee. 
  • The show seemed to put a wrap on Ted and his wife not being together. 
  • Coach Chilton seems to be growing and I’m enjoying that but she and Gemma’s characters are so inconsistent. 
  • Thought Roy had a great doctor girlfriend. Keeley heard Roy tell her he loved her but she missed that he thought she was talking to Keeley. 
  • New Year’s Eve and winter was a stretch during an eighty degree week in September. 
  • Pros: just glad to hang with the group again, still moves me emotionally, Jaimie very funny, love Beard, Jane’s one man show funny, real moment with Ted and his wife
  • Cons: underdeveloped players and women’s team, Tracy Ullman character just inexplicable why any of them would be around her, inconsistent Chilton character, yanking us around too much with Roy and Keely 
  • The season is 10 episodes so we’re down to four to go. 

3 Stories Anne Read or Watched

  1. From Curbed “When Offices Don’t Want Their Furniture, She Brings It to Public-Housing Residents” By Anne Kadet
  • Regina Carter organically created a charity thru her experiences being in foster care and then working at local tenant association – she got an email from an org saying they had 15 racks of clothing – she arranged to distribute and then reached out to a company that disposes of used office furniture / supplies.
  • Offices dump tons of furniture, I have seen friends mention monitor giveaways a lot, chairs, etc. All that is waste but is perfectly good to be used.
  • Before you throw something away, I will try to think if it can be re-used by someone else or repurposed.
  • The Woman Who Brings Discarded Office Furniture to NYCHA 
  1. From the Intelligencer (New York Mag) “New From Apple: Extremely Pricey iPhones and a Watch That Eavesdrops” by John Herrman
  • Annual Sept Apple announcements include a watch that eavesdrops. What do we think about this: “Audio Intelligence” uses mic to “Make sense of things you hear”. “Live Rewind recalls what was just said in the last 15 seconds by showing a text snippet on your Apple Watch when you double-press the Digital Crown, so you can catch something you missed or are less familiar with,” the company says. Beyond that, the Apple Watch now offers an always-on meeting notes feature: Siri Recap ambiently takes notes on your conversations throughout your day and creates high-level Apple Intelligence–generated summaries that you can use later to jog your memory, so you can stay present in the moment.
  • Our company uses MS Teams which auto transcribes calls.
  • Also foldable iphone – $2,000. Samsung has had one since 2019.
  • Memory shortages driven by AI are driven up prices.
  • New at Apple: Pricey iPhones and a Watch That Eavesdrops 
  1. Hulu Series: “Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel” 
  • A Florida attorney/law professor Dan Markel murdered in his driveway
  • 4 Episodes, watched all on a rainy Sunday
  • Divorced, his wife wants to move to Miami with children and he doesn’t want it. What will her controlling family do?
  • The ex-wife’s Mom and one of her brothers – they order the hit, now the two hired hitmen are in jail, the baby momma of one of the hitmen who brokered the deal is in jail, the brother is in jail and the mother is in jail. All their kids/families missing their parents etc, how many lives were altered forever?
  • Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel  

Honorable Mention Stories: 

Thanks for checking out this Torg Stories post!

10 Books We Want to Read

Click to listen to 10 books to read podcsast

We’d love to hear from you! 

  • Tell us about books you want to read
  • Do you think you might take us up on any of our recommendations below?

5 Books Bill Wants to Read 

  1. The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence–Before It’s Too Late by Cory Doctorow
  • Heard about this book when Cory was a guest on the Jon Stewart Podcast 
  • How people knew the freelance writer used GenAI: We know this is true for two reasons. First, because ten of the fifteen books on the list were nonexistent. They were AI “hallucinations” (a term that AI boosters use because it sounds sexier than “errors”). Second, because Buscaglia confessed to using a chatbot, in an interview with the veteran tech reporter Jason Koebler, who cofounded the journalist-owned news site 404 Media.
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino 
  • I like this because of where you live and my memory of walking this area a couple of times: The Sunset Strip was famous for its rock clubs (the Whisky a Go Go, the London Fog, Pandora’s Box).* And right there among the rock clubs and across the street from Ben Frank’s Coffee Shop sat the Tiffany Theater. The Tiffany didn’t show films like Oliver!, Airport, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Love Bug, or even Thunderball. The Tiffany was the home of Woodstock, Gimme Shelter, Yellow Submarine, Alice’s Restaurant, Andy Warhol’s Trash, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, and Robert Downey’s Pound.
  • Causes me to check out a trailer from a movie such as Bullitt starring Steve McQueen: Bullitt is about action, atmosphere, San Francisco, Yates’ great location photography, Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy score, and Steve McQueen, his haircut and wardrobe. Nothing else matters.
  • Click here for Bullitt trailer. 
  • Click here  for Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper (novel) 
  • More LA Anne! This is the narrator talking to his audience as he drives and livestreams his driving: He tells them, “LA is a Frankenstein’s monster—all these felonies sewn together into something like a city. Stolen land gulping stolen water. Streets paved with corpses. We even went and massacred the sky: smog strangles the air; light pollution buries the stars.” He tilts the dashcam to show the starless night. A plane coming in for a landing at LAX swoops down low and huge—you could reach up and touch it. It slices through the shot like he planned it. Gooseflesh blooms; clap emojis scroll up the comment bar on the laptop riding shotgun. 
  • I’ve watched Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler twice. The novel references that here: They used to call it nightcrawling, like in that movie—driving LA at high speed, looking for footage, looking for blood on the streets, broken glass, car fires, and corpses. Back then you’d sell the footage to the local TV news departments for Los Angeles to wake up to—murder and mayhem as part of a healthy breakfast. It used to be a living, back before everybody in the world had a phone with a camera. Nowadays footage is cheap; nowadays tragedy is a buyer’s market.
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage by Anne Lamott 
  • The opening of the book: Here we are, older, scared, numb on some days, enraged on others, with even less trust than we had a year ago. The devastating pandemic, and the federal government’s confused and deadly response, was simply the final straw to a few years of crushing developments. A UN report on climate catastrophe was published months before my wedding in 2019, the report of the extinction of one million species three weeks after. Major buzzkill.
  • I’ve just barely started watching and not only listening to podcasts. Heard her on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast. Liked it so much showed it to Megan. Megan liked it so much she wanted to start buying her books. 
  • Click here for Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris 
  • From Cleveland to Vermont to grad school. Thought about marrying a cattle guy but instead this: I made up my mind to move to New York in the fall of 1977. I drove there in my 1965 Plymouth Fury II, with my cat, my books pared down to the bare essentials, and two hundred dollars.
  • Anne, makes me wonder about the day and week after you left for LA. 
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 

Anne’s 5 Books She Wants to Read

  1. Eternity Street by John Mack Faragher
  • This is about 19th century Los Angeles
  • Heard it recommended by this TikTok creator who talks about history of LA landmarks.
  • Murder and mayhem! Also interested about the history of LA
  • I have this on hold in the LA library.
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
  • Fiction. Saw this book on some recommendation list, currently have it on hold at the LA library
  • The summary: The narrator is a hospital nurse in Nigeria and her younger sister has a habit of killing her boyfriends and claiming self-defence.
  • I like a thriller and I think Nigeria is a new setting for me and I am interested to read about how that looks.
  • It is also supposed to have good dark humor
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution, A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson
  • This seems like it can help my understanding of how modern day Iran was founded.
  • I have a very limited view of the revolution and am interested in the events that led to it, how the US was involved in the regime that was overthrown
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. 38 Londres Street by Phillipe Sands
  • Traces the intertwined stories of Nazi commander Walter Rauff and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
  • I know little of this, never even heard of Rauff, I am interested Nazi-South America links.
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. The Secret History of Gold by Dominic Frisby
  • I saw this when googling best history books of 2026, and it is something I never considered.
  • Why gold? Where does gold come from? When did humans attach value to it?
  • How has it shaped our financial markets?
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 

Honorable Mentions: The Women of Troy & The Voyage Home by Pat Barker, this is continuing the series of the book I read earlier this summer – a women’s point of view in classical history. The Death of Trotsky by Josh Ireland. The Blood in Winter by Jonathan Healey (Charles 1 – English Civil war), The Rule of Lies by Jamison R. Firestone (Putin)

Thanks for checking out this Torg Stories post. We appreciate you!