Buddy feels right at home with it’s writer/director Casper Kelly’s work with adult swim, where he got his start making cult classic short films such as Too Many Cooks, Scooby-Doo: Blair Witch Project, and Adult Swim Yule Log —an interesting film in relation to this as it plays with the idea of a themed Yule Log video you put on screen as background noise, that slowly divulges into a disturbing horror film.

Though, his shorts all bear similarity to this film. Each take this familiar concept, often something cozy and nostalgic like an 80s sitcom or scooby doo, and recontextualize it into something disturbing and uncanny. It’s no different in Buddy which resides in this fictional 90s kid show world where the children are captors to this violent mascot character, the titular Buddy.

I really love the idea behind this, and I actually the think it follows through effectively to get across what makes this idea interesting and disturbing. At least, for the most part.

What I find to be a flaw and merit to this film is it’s dedication to remaining in 90s kids show format pretty consistently. I feel like it works better and is more interesting to look at the horror from this point of view. The first what feels like 30 minutes of the film are fully set in this children’s show, and this where the filmmaking feels most creative and inventive. It feels genuine to an actual 90s kids show of the like and pretty interestingly devolves into something more frightening and uncanny. One of my favorite examples of true eeriness comes during a shot mainly focused on another side character mascot with cheery music, where dimly in the out of focus background we can hear two of the kids coming to realization that Buddy has been murdering the other children and they are captive. The kids do such an excellent job at acting as kids show extras, it’s pretty genuinely frightening to see them break into this grounded realization their lives are at stake.

But despite this impressive backdrop and storytelling, it still gets old fast. I have a similar problem with Too Many Cooks, where I love the idea they are going for but it just ends up overstaying it’s welcome. Now, Kelly was aware he couldn’t make a full length feature film like this — but before I go further, I do recommend you see this movie. I’m about to get into more spoiler territory, and I think despite some definite flaws, this a movie worth checking out. (Although warning, this thing can be pretty damn disturbing, and not always in a fun horror movie. So tread lightly)

So, go see it. If you’ve seen it already or don’t care (fine) you can scroll below the sheldon to read the rest of the review.

As I was saying, Kelly knew this wouldn’t work for the whole film. So abruptly we shift to the real world and change characters, now following the mother of one of the children captured by Buddy. It’s definitely nice they allowed us into real movie territory, but this section felt a bit played out. It already felt reminiscent of Barbarian in it’s sudden character and setting change, but the dialogue and developing plot felt too inline with the slew of studio horror flicks copying off Zach Kreggers style1 , which left it feeling corny.

So while I think keeping completely consistent with the kids show style the whole time would be torture, it isn’t really saved by having a pretty generic feeling real world plot. But I do still appreciate how long we stayed in kid world, like I said some really impressive stuff in there and even though it’s welcome wore out I would’ve liked it less if it just copped out of that after just a little bit.

The real world sections also still kind of work, because it’s dumb horror movie stuff. It’s nothing impressive but still kind of fun to watch, so that’s also not a major complaint from me. And Kelly continues to flush out his themes and give a few quick flashes of creativity. In fact, the films thematic quality I find to be one of the more interesting components of this movie.

I find this movie to reflect the horror of being a child actor on a show like this. It’s near impossible to think of the kids on those Nickelodeon sets while watching this. What particularly contributes to this is Buddy acting less like a malicious demon and more like a rapist pedophile. Yes, that’s correct. While Buddy is clearly meant to be some demon (something never fully explained, which I like) and has demon moments like his transformation to an more demon like creature, there are a handful of moments in which Buddy feels more in tune with simply a mega creepy dude.

There’s one particularly disturbing scene that nearly starts out the movie in which Buddy aggresively assaults this kid completely off camera2, which is instead focused on the sentient mail box looking on in horror — I do also think this incredibly effective in the filmmaking, a truly uncanny and disturbing scene with a black comedy cherry on top. Later on he begins molesting the mom character from earlier. He’s a creepy fucker, dude. This portrayal of him doesn’t harken anything other than this story of child actors being assaulted by their adult male costars.

This theme is really heavy, and honestly probably too heavy for this movie. It felt jarring to see these genuinely real world horrors come through in this movie. When it’s mostly funny and corny (in a good way) these scenes just come across way too real, it’s just not the movie for that in my opinion. Though, I don’t think he was coming at from any malicious angle and like I said those truly disturbing scenes are still really well done.

Performance wise, this is pretty solid in my opinion. I feel the child actors did a great job, I actually think they were able to balance the 90s kids show acting with more grounded performances impressively. Now, I didn’t really know much going into this movie, except I saw the Keegan Michael Key was in it. And I kept wondering when he would show up. And then it hit me, oh, that’s him! His performance as Buddy is actually transformative, nearly unrecognizable. And he does a great job bringing out the psychopath part of Buddy balanced with the happy-go-lucky mascot character. He plays into the idea of Buddy being a fucked up creep, he doesn’t play up the scary elements to be demonic, he just sounds like this mean, controlling, aggressive dude. Patton Oswald is fun as always, but his voice is getting too recognizable it’s starting to get a bit distracting when he’s in stuff. Cristin Milioti is very hit or miss for me. And I don’t meant from performance to performance, I mean from scene to scene, maybe even line to line. She can go from a pretty nuanced acting choice to feeling really hammy and corny on a dime. Topher Grace was like whatever. I get his character was probably meant to be an asshole, but he was just annoying to watch man.

Lastly, I enjoyed how this played with idea of a demon possessing technology. Setting aside the creep subthemes, the litereal interpretation is Buddy is a demon who captures children to put in his hell world kids show. I guess you could conspire Buddy was an actual pedophile kids show host who died and turned into demon to continue capturing children to abuse. The movie doesn’t explain that, but that’s probably what it is. I am currently reading Ring, the novel by Koji Suzuki which inspired both the japanese and american films. With that in mind, I was already thinking about this early 2000s horror theme in japanese cinema centering around technology possession, such as One Missed Call or Pulse. This era of japanese horror is one of my favorite film and media movements in art, and it’s cool to see how this movie kind of takes a premise you could see in one of these japanese films and put’s it in a more western context. This movie really excels at building the world and lore, the same way the lore behind Samara and the video tape is so classic and frightening (though not to that impressive a degree). This film really brings some impressive demon mythology into play, that it never once has to elaborate on or ever really fully explain. There’s even one scene in which the children stumple upon Buddy’s double who is old and doesn’t speak. He appears in this workshop, which features sentient and moving pieces of a mascot costume. This scene is never explained, is one of the more confounding elements of this movie. It adds this mystique and lore to the film, is this guy the creator of all the mascot characters? The movie won’t say, but it’s interesting to think about.

This movie takes a lot of big swings, and you know they don’t always hit. I appreciate the effort and idea behind this enough though, that I find it worth experiencing. And even then, it still works as a schlocky horror movie you can turn your brain off to (that is until the movie forces your brain awake with the creepy molester shit).

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After 6 years without a solo project, Phoebe Bridgers has released her third album. And it’s debatably her best to date.

Listening to this feels like it could’ve been put together fresh off of Punisher, it shows how unique and defined her style is. You can’t get Phoebe’s sound from anyone other than her (which makes those 6 years of waiting for new music even more gratifying).

Where I struggle most with Phoebe’s music is the more emo quality behind it. I find myself feeling some second hand embarrassment listening to most emo music and there are some heavy handed corny emo lines and moments on this album that do make it a little hard to listen to at times. What I do appreciate more than her previous work though is how this feels a bit more self aware. At times it feels like she’s poking more fun with her deeper moments and almost playing it up intentionally which takes away from some of that cringe.

I found on this album, there were a few lines that sounded a little bit goofy to me. Sometimes she has some kind of blatant lyrics that personally take me out of the song a bit. I also didn’t love the choices to abruptly cut off songs. There are some pretty cool creative swings on this album, but when songs abruptly cut off it feels like she's trying to play it off as something cool and creative when it kind of just feels like a cop out for not knowing how to deescalate for the next song.

With the bad out of the way, this is a pretty spectacular album. She really stretches her wings in her songwriting. This feels the most ambitious and grandiose of everything she’s done. But it doesn’t feel out of touch or like she’s doing too much, which can sometimes come with an artist seeing the attention she’s been getting. While her sound is updated, it doesn’t feel out of character or too major of a swing for her. This albums feels like the pretty natural next step to open up her songwriting for being better.

With this album she remains in the indie folk space (sometimes nearly veering into coutnry in my opinion) but I find it cool how she also includes notes of electronic and ambient music. There are some electronic synth’s and organs and modulated sounds that contribute really well to her style. If I were to describe this album visually — using the album cover as inspiration — it feels like an early 2000s horror movies shot in night vision. Her music has this eery haunted feeling to it, but there’s also this cozy nostalgia paired with that.

I also love when she builds and jams, I know some people that might not know phoebe’s music as well and upon hearing one of the more upbeat tracks from the past regarded it as her most energetic song. But if this album proves anything, she makes some really danceable tracks. Or rather not really danceable, I wouldn’t exactly dance to this music. More like music you can scream along with in the car, it’s not all exactly sad emo girl music. It can be incredibly invigorating and energizing to listen to.

I deeply appreciate Phoebe’s music, and after not really thinking about her too much after 6 years found myself feeling 16 again listening to this album. Hope I won’t have to wait until I’m 28 for her next album, but if it’s even better than this, worth the wait.

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Jane Schoenbrun graces the screen with their third feature, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which continues to show how they are one of the most interesting voices in current cinema.

I would find it fair to consider Schoenbrun part of the club of the few remaining true auteurs, over their thus far short filmography they have completely paved their own way and put forth films that are wholly unique compared to anything else coming out right now.

But, I wouldn’t say that regards their movies as free of faults. Upon seeing their previous film, I Saw The TV Glow, friends of mine found it extremely unimpressive and regarded it very fake deep. While I somewhat echo that sentiment, I think there was a lot more great about that movie they weren’t acknowledge. I find this film to be a similar case in some ways.

This isn’t exactly subtle with what it’s trying to get across, at least in a lot of ways. The parallels to queer horror are spelled out pretty constantly, even making blatant reference to the 1983 slasher film Sleepaway Camp this was clearly heavily inspired by. It pretty clearly is exploring these themes of sexual identity through media that defines us, and touches of the fetishization of slasher films and their content. But while it doesn it without tact and nuance at times, it still does it in a very thought provoking way.

Schoenbrun has been open about David Lynch acting as one of their most major inspirations1, and while I wouldn’t by any means put their filmmaking skill on the same level, I actually believe they are the only other filmmaker I’ve seen pull off what Lynch does. There is a lot of absurd choices, made in the acting, set design, story beats, that is incredibly difficult to directly or literally assign meaning to. But it’s evident that even without following logic there is meaning behind every choice here. The meta moments, the over consumption of junk food, the unclear nature of the events of the movie-within-a-movie leaking into real life, all these are difficult to quantify and make sense of in a literal way. But they have this subconscious effect that leaves the viewer reevaluating their sexual identity, the role of slasher films, and these actually deep and meaningful topics, even though sometimes it still feels heavy handed with with telling you what it’s about.

It’s an interesting balance that feels like it shouldn’t work, but kind of does. Additionally, there are blips of humor and plot moments that feel incredibly reflective of modern cinema, even modern horror. The calls with the agent, the line “I feel like there should be a jump scare”, the bisexual Thor, all kind of feel like corny staples of you’re average studio horror movie. What’s great about that though is how these things might help it appeal to that studio horror audience, and leaving them with something more to think about than the more surface level films that usually come with the genre.2

For this reason, some of the cringier, fake deep moments, and eye rolls are a bit justified for me as a way to get more people to see this and experience filmmaking on a deeper level slightly disguised as a generic comedy horror film. Though, I do wish Schoenbrun would full send. Their debut feature, We’re All Going to the Worlds Fair, is a genuinely frightening film that makes little to no concessions about what it is. I called Schoenbrun an auteur, and I stand by that as I believe they did have total control and chose to include these more studio elements3, but this first film of theirs is what really shows what their capable and I’m really craving more of that from Schoenbrun. Even I Saw The TV Glow despite it’s cringey bits takes itself more serious and is easier to sink your teeth into.

But I really find what Schoenbrun is doing here a really admirable and interesting move, that works better than it should on paper. I found this both intellectually stimulating and pretty dang entertaining, even with a few kinda cringey moments.

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Other thoughts:

• Loved seeing Kevin McDonald, that was a real pleasant surprise. and it activated my scooby doo autism (iykyk)

• Alex G’s score was pretty awesome, I’m particularly impressed with the blips of 80’s slasher soundtrack. In Worlds Fair he similarly wrote a retro video game track that sounded very authentic and of the time, and the 80s score moments similarly capture actual 80s slashers very well.

• Right off the bat the visual style of this film is immediately so cozy and so expressive. The opening credits play over a montage of memorabilia for the movie-within-a-movie Camp Miasma franchise. It’s incredibly surprising how the design of everything looks so true and accurate to actual slasher phenomenons, I’d love to have those posters up in my room. Additionally the direction is very stylized and appealing to look at, if you dislike CGI effects this might put you off, but I think the cartoony exaggerated nature they are used in this film is really put to good use. Plus the editing and in camera effects used are really creative and fun to watch. If you know me, you know I love a good split diopter shot (and I felt way too seen when a character saw this shot in the movie-within-a-movie and blurted out “SPLIT DIOPTER!”).

• The performances are pretty great, particularly Gillian Anderson captures that campy nature of a lynch performance that is both mysterious and off putting. Eva Victor stole the show with her one liners. Honestly, Hannah Einbinder bothered me a little bit. She was mostly good, but I just wasn’t really vibing with her for whatever reason.

This review I’ve been putting off for a bit, as it’s been hard for me to write for a number of reasons.

Primarily, I have strong devotion and connection with this jazz duo, Domi and JD Beck. I began following their career before they had ever released any official music. I believe my first exposure to these guys was through their appearance for a live performance of “Them Changes” by Thundercat and featuring Ariana Grande for the Adult Swim Festival’s online show in 2020:

**The original performance aired live Adult Swims youtube channel and was subsequently deleted.

If you’ve had the pleasure of seeing Thundercat perform live, you’d be aware of his tendency to double each of his tracks in length by adding an improv to the middle of each song. This iteration of Them Changes is no different in seeing an impressive break performed by Domi, JD, and Thundercat. I remember being in awe at the technical abilities of these two musicians who looked like they were barely 18 (actually at the time of this recording JD beck was around 17).

Following this I explored their catalogue, only to find they hadn’t yet released any music officially, but their youtube channel was filled with live covers, demos, arrangements and more. I quickly became obsessed.

In their most popular video— linked above — they perform a medley of songs off the album collaborative hip-hop album Madvillainy by MF DOOM and Madlib. One of my most replayed youtube videos, I actually had the pleasure of hearing the pair perform this live much later.

In 2022 the pair released their debut album, NOT TiGHT, under the label Apeshit — run by powerhouse musician Anderson Paak1. The album saw a slew of impressive features, from Paak himself on two tracks to Thundercat, Mac Demarco, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, and jazz legend Herbie Hancock.

I was lucky enough to catch their tour for this album2, where they unexpectedly played with madvillainy tribute live, feeling very rewarding for me as a longtime fan. But more rewarding for me was being able to tell them face to face how cool it was to go from seeing them on perform on youtube to a mass audience, as I was to do so at the merch table following their performance.

So, as I have followed this duo since before they officially put out music, I have followed near everything they’ve done from writing credits to niche youtube performances, and one of the very few musicians I’ve been priviliged enough to meet face to face, these guys have a special place in my heart.

I’ve been waiting 4 years for new music, and I wish I could say this newest album is has fulfilled my wishes for what I wanted from a new Domi and JD Beck project. This isn’t to say it’s a bad album necessarily, it’s just difficult to quantify, and frankly despite some undeniably incredible technique it’s not something I’ve found myself terribly fond of listening to.

It’s a bit overwhelming, Domi and JD bring a elevated high energy to their music. I like to think of it as hyper-jazz, named for hyper-pop being a high energy, multilayered, and extremely maximalist take on modern pop music. While it’s possible my ears just aren’t accostemd to this much noise, the sound on this latest album just has too much going on to really appreciate it all. The prior album saw more base level instrumentation, often excluded to Domi’s keyboard playing and JD on the drums, with some exceptions like features from Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinckel and Thundercat on the bass. This new album features full orchestration, which is something in theory I absolutely love. And while in some areas this full orchestration is incredibly cool, it more often than not can feel a bit muddled in all the sound.

What doesn’t help with that is the vocals. Domi and JD perform these dense sporadic vocals on nearly every track that end up just adding another layer where it already feels pretty bloated and overwhelming. And while the lyrics aren’t necessarily bad, they are difficult to really get across any real message as trying to focus on what is being said through all the noise is quite the chore.

That said, what’s interesting is how what I just said doesn’t exactly ring true upon listening to the rereleased instrumental album. While a handful of tracks actually sound much better and clearer without vocals, others do end up having incomplete feeling without them. I think this can be partly due to the mix, the vocal melody is played on a woodwind instrument but is mixed near the back, probably in accent to the vocals and it just wasn’t remixed to make that more prominent for the instrumental version. Even then, I did recall there are elements of their vocals that really contribute a lot and help bring a really cool atmosphere to the music. What I wish they had done instead of a fully vocal album and fully instrumental is just remove the vocals on some of the songs that didn’t really need them. I feel this would make the song to song listening experience a bit more palatable while still including some of the creativity brought with the vocals.

This is driving force that doesn’t make this album a hit out of the park for me, but it should still be said the creativity behind these guys is endlessly impressive. What they are able to pull off on a technical level along with their invention and ideas in song writing is so admirable and even if this album wasn’t a homer that doesn’t mean I won’t be patiently awaiting what they’ll do next.

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For the past year I have decided to cut off two types of new releases:

1. Movies featuring Ryan Gosling

2. superhero movies

I won’t get into my current gripes with Ryan Gosling (and sorry to all the Project Hail Mary lovers) but last year I was so disappointed with superhero films I deduced that exerting the time and effort to see these movies in the theater was just not worth it for me.

The motivation behind my cutting ties with super hero films is largely due to Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps from last year. I was actually quite excited for both these films, but seeing them upon release I was pretty unimpressed with both. Neither were bad, but I found both to be painfully mediocre and boring to sit through. If you, like many, enjoy these films, more power to you. There are definitely redeemable qualities, but I have just found that these movies are not for me, and not something I really like spending time on.

But I think Spider-man movies can be an exception. Because I like Spider-man. To me, spider-man sits in a different space from other super-hero films, there’s something more compelling and special about this guy. While not really planning to see this, I decided to break my code against seeing superhero movies just a lil bit.

What I found in seeing this film, is there are still a handful of frustrating and grating qualities that I have a hard time ignoring, but the redeemable qualities seem to be growing in these movies. As much as I was unimpressed with the films from last year, they were better additions to the super genre we’ve seen in a while. And I think with this spider-man the quality is continuing to increase.

One of the major highlights is the visuals, I have struggled recently with marvel movies having this extremely dull color palette, I guess to make their movies feel more gritty and grounded. But it just often looks boring and like shit. The Fantastic Four movie from last year actually brought in some nice color, but this spider-man movie is debatably one of the best looking marvel movies.

It meets this nice spot between not being to dull but also not being overtly exaggerated in it’s use of color. It’s not flashy but colors on buildings and people really pop and the wide shots of New York end up looking so good they belong in another movie. When it comes to the visual effects and CGI there are some pretty impressive and enjoyable VFX shots that don’t focus on looking too realistic but getting across the feeling and vibe they should. Although some of the CGI on the hulk and other animate objects still looks a bit wonky.

I found this to be pretty consistently entertaining, which says a lot considering these movies have been incredibly boring to me recently. There was just enough humor and just enough interesting plot points to not drudge on. Although where I still personally struggle with these movies is their lack of originality. I feel like I’ve seen these plot points and ideas reused time and time again and I easily tire of watching the same movie in different fonts over and over. And what I can’t seem to understand is how people are still surprised and moved by this. Some minor twists would illicit crowd gasps while I saw it coming the second they started setting it up. I kind of feel like general audiences would and could see these coming too but would just rather not. It’s more fun and easier to not think too much about what you’re seeing so everything is a bit more surprising. Which is fair, but I can’t imagine means anything good for the future integrity of art.

As much as I truly want to be a fan of these movies, genuinely whenever I see a new superhero trailer I think maybe this is the one, and I always feel tricked and disappointed. I harbor a lot of hatred for these movies, because I think they are scams. They are over-produced, inflated budgets, low effort, meandering movies, that I feel like people are continuing to see more out of obligation than genuine excitement. Superhero fans are more hostages than they are fans now. But that said this movie was aight.

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Where I have come to struggle with Christopher Nolan films is the balance of incredibly impressive filmmaking with some really dry and, frankly, elements that are not well done. It’s incredibly easy to get swept up by the technical achievments of his films and his ability to create this incredible sense of scale, but this does not always overshadow his struggles with the script.

The Odyssey is a film home to many fantastic scenes and sequences, but as a whole, it leaves a lot to be desired. What is incredibly disarming about this and other Nolan films is how inconsistent his dedication to the world can be. In this case, the dialogue and writing can be very well done and feel very at home with the movie. But sometimes characters slip into a contemporary and kind of simplistic way of speaking that just really breaks the immersion. I don’t exactly expect or require Nolan to put forth Eggers1 level dialogue, but it just felt inconsistent with the setting at times that really took me out of it.

Another struggle I had was the nonlinear format. This is a staple of Nolan films, and I often think it can really serve the film well, particularly in Oppenheimer the balance of time jumping and plot lines is incredibly effective. But I feel it did very little service to the plot in this film. The battles and pivotal journey home are some of the most compelling scenes in the film, but are too often broken up with far less interesting scenes in which characters just kind of explain the whole vibe of what we just saw or are about to see. The stuff on Ithaca and Odysseus remembering with Calypso is interesting in it’s own right, but whenever we cut back to it from the meat and bones of the story I’m just a little let down.

Also, there are too many good actors in this movie. This feels dumb to complain about because this film is really chalk full of great performances, but it gets to a point where it just feels like I’m being teased. I needed more Lupita N’yongo, more Zendaya, more Benny Safdie, more Elliot Page, more Mia Goth. Though I was happy to see the screen time Himesh Patel and Corey Hawkins get especially being smaller names compared the rest of the A-list cast.

The stand-out performer for me was easily John Lequizamo, he is a guy I hadn’t even thought of in years and really showed how much range and ability he is capable of. While you are watching him, just remember, this is the guy who voices sid the sloth in the Ice Age films. His role in this film is so out of left field and he completely steals every scene he is present for.

While I’ve already seen so much praise for the technical aspects of this film, I wasn’t too impressed with them, especially compared to Nolan’s earlier work. I love that the Cyclops was done with a puppet, but he still didn’t really compel me. Some of the other creatures and visuals were cool but nothing really to write home about. Though, my favorite effects and one of my favorite sequences of the film is the part with Circe. Nolan unexpectedly goes full body horror and does not hold back with gruesomeness, and the practical effects are completely stunning.

I personally felt pretty distant and not emotionally invested for majority of the films run-time, until the last 40 minutes or so when Odysseus finally makes his return home. The pacing during this portion is much more palatable, and there are some pretty demanding emotional beats and excellent reveals and payoffs in this portion of the film. Despite this the final fight and most of the films fights are often shot like an early 2000s action movie like Jason Bourne where it’s laborous to fully follow what exactly is going on.

I am not going to hop on Nolan love train and act like just because this film is home to some incredible filmmaking it is not free of flaws. This just truly isn’t Nolan’s best work, it’s a quite a bit sloppy and unfocused at parts. But even then, there is a lot of really admirable and impressive qualities of this film that are hard to deny.

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Charli XCX completely shattered expectations with her no frills hardcore pop album brat, which has become a cultural staple and is arguably one of the most influential albums in recent years. For this reason, Charli has a lot more eyes on her work, and a lot of expectations to put out something on a similar caliber.

Music, Fashion, Film establishes itself as a substantial follow up, but difficult to really put on the same level as brat. While the album features familiar motifs common across Charli’s discography, it also expands her sound bringing in more hardcore and indie rock influence. Though refreshing to hear her sound updated, these elements are pretty heavy handed, one song literally called Rock Music. And to be completely straight forward her lack of effort in lyricism really shows in some places on this album.

While brat doesn’t feature the most stunning or poetic lyrics, they are deeply meaningful and raw in where they come from. She doesn’t require great prose in order to get across what she wants to, and the imperfect lyrics lends itself to her charm and coming across completely genuine. I feel this project isn’t as close to her heart, so when song lyrics like “Wow — I’m really banging my head” come up, it ends up feeling clunky and a bit lazy.

The album as a whole is an interesting project, overall it serves as a pretty solid follow up to brat, but just clearly won’t have the same cultural impact. Although, there are some interesting swings on this album that I’m not fully on board with but enjoy listening to. The album brings together club music and rock in a pretty inventive way, and it’s often very complimentary.

The track Magical Metal Montana actually initially came across to me like a song by The Strokes or but with Charli’s modulated voice and a synth riff giving it a familiar house flavor. It’s impressive how well this song leans into the rock elements while remaining true to Charli’s sound.

Card Declined is another highlight, with it’s heavy guitar and switching up it’s sound it brings a lot to the table and I find it a real head banger. Another track, i’m afraid, feels very reminiscent to her companion album to the movie “Wuthering Heights” which released earlier this year, and the process of making that album was said to be a major inspiration on the creation of this one. The darker and heavier tone on this track is a cool direction she’s taking, but isn’t exactly my cup of tea when it comes to charli’s sound.

I’d have to say I’m decently impressed with this album, and while I wasn’t exactly expecting her to come out swinging right away I did find this album to be rather refreshing and continual evidence of her musical strengths. It’s difficult to follow up an album with reach and reception brat received. But I feel Charli did a solid job here, even if doesn’t exactly amount to what she did on brat.

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It was nearly a full year ago Steve Lacy released the single Nice Shoes teasing his latest album. Despite a decently strong reception I wasn’t all the way on board with this song. The production I found to be very messy and vocals were a bit grating, but most importantly Lacy is known best for his fantastic guitar playing, which was not very present in this song.

But I still held out hope for this album, Lacy had yet to release a song I didn’t like and while not super on board with Nice Shoes I felt it could indicate an interesting shift in his sound. This single isn’t exactly what I was used to with Lacy but I could come to see the inventiveness and branching out that is incredibly important to progression as a musician.

After almost a full year anticipating this album, it’s here now, and I have mixed feelings. I feel in a lot of ways Lacy is taking a new direction and sound. His electric guitar playing is much less prominent, which is disappointing, but the album prioritizes his vocals much more, which I think really works to his advantage. His vocal strengths and melodies really shine on this album, quite possibly his best singing in his career.

Lacy is often categorized as R&B or Pop, but I feel this album is more emblematic of alt-rock. There are heavy rock elements in all of Lacy’s work, but it’s especially prevalent to me in this album, while still maintaining some soul and R&B qualities. But particularly the song doom borderline sounds like it could’ve come out the early 2000s indie rock scene, here we have one of the more leading guitar performances but with sound leaning more metal than Lacy’s common utilized spacy washed out guitar.

There is trickling of guitar throughout this album, but more commonly acoustic than electric. This is a nice switch up for Lacy, and oddly enough contributes and pairs very nicely to the more electronic synth elements of this album. The soundscape on this album is extremely appealing to me, a lot of the sounds also feel very reminiscient of early 2000s music, in someways specifically Japanese indie rock projects like Cibo Matto and Cornelius. The soft analogue sounding synths with beeps and pulses is not something commonly heard in modern pop, but Lacy finds a great home for these sounds in this album.

The album features 3 brief vocal performances by SZA, Erykah Badu, and Cecile Believe. The song with SZA was one of the leading singles before the album, and while I quite enjoyed it I did wish there was more I could’ve gotten out of from a collaboration between too absolute powerhouses of modern R&B. The song with Erykah Badu is great, but I found Badu’s contribution more novelty than really adding all that much to the song. but the song lovesexdrugbomb featuring Cecile Believe is one of the hottest tracks on the album, and despite taking a while for Believe to come in, she runs away with this track with her deep and sultry vocals.

I’m extremely interested to see what my future relationship with this album will look like, as a lot of recent music I listen to I become quickly enamored with and then kind of let go by the wayside. But my experience with the singles leading up to these songs and the short relationship I’ve had with this album over the past days is a different feeling. I wasn’t blown away by this album, but this morning I woke up with it stuck in my head. Lacy’s song writing is incredibly subtle but extremely provoking melodically, maybe not giving you the instant gratification other modern pop music does but leaving you with something much deeper and meaningful.

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Following a tumultuous road that came with her prior film Don’t Worry Darling, actor turned director (and still actor) Olivia Wilde returns triumphantly with her third film, The Invite. Based on a Spanish film and play, The People Upstairs, the plot regards a miserable couple who invite their upstairs neighbors down for a dinner party, where things start to get a bit out of hand.

The film definitely has a play like quality; all in real time, in one location, and conversational overlapping dialogue. But Wilde doesn’t let these restraints stop her from showing off her massive directorial strengths. The direction at times feels sloppy and abrupt, often opting to frame shots and progress them in a very jarring way. An early scene featuring Wilde’s character arguing with her husband (played by Seth Rogen) frantically cuts from close ups on characters faces between wider shots, then back close, constantly shifting the audience between near and far and near and far, and it almost feels senseless. But this style contributes really well to material, the direction always elevates what’s happening on screen, even when done in a pretty unconventional and somewhat amateurish feeling way. For this reason, I am especially impressed with the direction, as it feels like it shouldn’t work but never does anything to take away from the film, an extremely impressive quality to have as a director.

But the real star of the film is the performers, starring Wilde, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz. This star studded cast perfectly encapsulates their respective characters and all four have this perfect chemistry and balance that makes every single scene in this an absolute joy. This is a comedy, but the jokes aren’t all that in your face. The humor lies in the delivery, facial expressions, and contexts. It is incredibly well written, but it’s the mastery in how well these performers are able to sell the dry humor in a way that has the audience busting a gut for nearly the entire runtime.

It feels almost magical the way a film secluded to four adults in one apartment talking can make me laugh as hard as comedies relying on gags and visual stunts, like a Zucker or Adam McKay movie might. Something entirely due to the performances make a really innocuous film (compared lets say to Airplane! or Step-Brothers) genuinely at times one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen. And while everyone is fantastic, I have to give Seth Rogen the MVP. I feel he is effectively the main character, despite basically sharing the screen time in full with the 3 other performers. But what sets him up differently is the scene that begins the film follows him alone, and so he immediately becomes the one you latch on to. While everyone has their moments in this, it is hard to keep your eyes off Rogen, you get to a point where you are just waiting to hear what hilarious thing he’ll say next. This is genuinely one of his best roles ever, and really proves his worth as a serious actor.

While I’m glazing this film a ton, that doesn’t mean I’m completely enamored with it. While very hilarious, some jokes feel a bit played out and almost warrant an eye-roll. For example, one scene Norton’s character mild mannerly walks in with a tray of tea and right as he enters Wilde yells at him to leave, and he immediately turns to leave. It’s difficult to convey this without seeing the scene, but it just felt like a joke I’ve seen before, and while it did get a little chuckle out of me it kind of brought down the hilarity factor for me. The humor is generally pretty consistent throughout the film, but there are some lulls that are still good scenes, but feel a bit difficult to sit through after coming to love the chaotic humor that you come to crave.

The ending I struggle with a bit. The obvious twin to this film is A24’s earlier entry this year, The Drama. That is my favorite movie of the year, but this might be a real comptetitor. Both these films have very similar vibes and deal with some similar themes in relationships and have parallel senses of humor. But where both these films struggle for me is in the ending. Without giving too much away, I felt the filmmakers wrote themselves into a corner with these plots. As it wouldn’t feel satisfying in either movies seeing the main couple revitalize their relationship, or concretely end it. So for that reason, the endings to both these films are left pretty open ended. But this leaves a lack of closure, the endings are cute but doesn’t really help give much purpose to what the audience has just experienced.

I feel the visual style of this movie is actually pretty consistently impressive, but it also has this sheen of art-house slop. It doesn’t necessarily look truly artistic as much as it’s hopping on the artsy apartment looking trend. But in it’s own way, that kind of contributes to the film. This film is pretentious, but calls attention to it’s own pretentiousness in a way that feels like a valid commentary. It uses art and it’s visual style to properly explore the psychology behind characters and how their desires to impress others and fulfill themselves lead to acting out in pretentious and over the top ways. Hence the bragging about art and rugs, etc.

This film has it’s weaknesses, but the strengths are so impressive they supremely outweigh the grievances I have. After the mess that was Don’t Worry Darling, this is the last movie I would’ve expected Olivia Wilde to make. This is a very well made film, consistently witty and extremely well balanced, and I think it has the makings of a modern classic.

Fellow business men, entrepreneurs, and wealthy elite

Thank you once again for joining me for the second quarterly review of music and film in our gods good year 2026

I would like to begin this meeting by addressing some activity I have not yet shared with you as of yet:

Filling in the Gaps

There were a few albums I listened to this quarter that I didn’t feel really warranted their own reviews. Here they are as follows:

Planet Frog by Action Bronson, Bulldawg by Kenny Mason, Papercut by Imani Imani, Yatta! by Yin Yin, E.T.D.S. by IDK.

The only notable things I have to say about these albums are (1) Planet Frog had some really fun and impressive beats but I found action bronsons rapping repetitive and annoying, though there were some good features. (2) Bulldawg was completely unmemorable for me except of the Paris, Texas song and the Dominic Fike song (which really just sounded like one of dom fikes songs). (3) Papercut might have had some good piano, but I dunno I don’t remember this album like at all but I remember I did listen to it. (4) Yatta! only barely didn’t make the cut for a review, the funky dutch group Yin Yin has come up in my listening a few times before, and I find their psychedelic rock instrumentals extremely fun to listen to. Just not substantive enough to write a full review for. (5) I remember liking E.T.D.S ok but I don’t remember anything else about it.

When it comes to films, I actually believe I reviewed every new release I saw this year, except one.

I just saw the latest Jackass movie, after watching the previous films multiple times and seeing the last one in theaters as well, and I was decently disappointed. What I found most frustrating was the expectation for a bunch of new stunts was not really met as the film is a compilation of their favorite stunts along with unseen prior filmed stunts and a lil bit of new stuff too. I was really into the last Jackass and the new cast, so it was disappointing I didn’t get to see a lot of new ideas with these guys. Plus, it felt a little redundant seeing a bunch of clips from movies I’d already seen, even a clip from just the last movie. Though in defense, that clip from the last movie featured some extended content and as the final movie it did feel like they were just sending it off with all their favorite moments. But, the new bits were pretty uninspired and relied way too much on poop and butt stuff (which has always been my least favorite part of these movies), so I was really only left with some of my least favorite stunts and stunts I had already seen a bunch. I get it though, these guys are old and have to stop at some point, and they just made this to send it off. So I’m not mad, and despite all this, I still laughed my ass off in the theater.

As It Stands,

As my relationship with art progresses through this year I have some revised opinions and perspectives I’d like to share. Along with my current favorites of the year.

First off, my favorite songs from the Olivia Rodrigo album were maggots for brains and expectations, I wore both these songs out, but am even still listening to these tracks often. But I have recently found myself listening to the song purple a lot, and I think that has taken the spot of favorite. I mentioned in my review how expectaions sounds like an 80s synth track and maggots for brains sounds like a british new wave punk band, but I don’t think purple sounds like anything else. It just sounds awesome. mfb and expectations, were quick and flashly with what they offered, but purple continues to grow on me more and more and I can see that being a song I take with me for a while. But frankly, I can see that for all the songs I love on this album, and can even see myself rediscovering other songs off the album I might regard as a favorite. Except stupid song that song is stupid.

Three of my favorite movies I have watched this quarter are three horror films: Backrooms, Obsession, and Hokum. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about two of these so I won’t add too much more to the conversation. But the more I think about these movies the more I think about how much I enjoyed them. Although, it’s hard not to as the conversation has been steadfast in regard to Backrooms and Obsession so part of that might attributed to still hearing everyone talk about them and how good they are. I will say, with a little time, Backrooms I like more now Obsession I like a little less. I was a bit bored with Backrooms at times, and there were some choices in that movie I did not think worked. But I’ve found myself remembering the things I liked about it, and I really like what I like about it. Obsessions hype is just getting a bit annoying to me, I’m glad I saw it when I did, because if I went to see it now it would be the most overhyped movie ever. I feel like I saw it right when it really started getting traction which was the sweet spot for not being the subject of every conversation about movies but still an exciting new movie that is getting a lot of people in the theater. But all that said about Backrooms and Obsession, neither scared me as much as Hokum. I honestly don’t like Hokum as much, in a lot of ways it’s more dismissible than those films, but that is the first movie I saw in a while that built tension so well, I was watching through my fingers. I feel like the setting and ideas are more generic, but it feels more classy and is still a really fun time.

I quite like all three of those films, but as it stands, none of them are my favorite this year…

My Favorite Film of 2026 (as it stands)

The Drama really blew my socks off, and I think it’s yet to meet it’s match. Even seeing it as long ago as the beginning of quarter two (early april) I still think about this movie. I love the commentary, performances, and writing so much. I think the ending is a little abrupt and feels a bit too optimistic for it’s content, but that is probably the worst I have to say about this. Though, I do think there is good potential a later release will surpass this, as some hefty boys are coming out soon. But I have hard time believing anything will be as good as the DJ character in this.

My Favorite Album of 2026 (as it stands)

I have a much harder time picking between albums, in large part because I becoming pretty instantly enamored with albums when I first hear them. If you had asked me right after I wrote my latest album review for Terrestrials by Pond, I probably would’ve said that was my favorite album of the year. Between that, and the o-rod album, and Icon by Brent Faiyaz, and Flutter Away by Operelly (technically an ep but whatever), and the new boards of canada, and just a bunch of other albums man. But I feel safest putting At Source by Caterina Barbieri and Bendik Giske. This minimalist jazz album is not a record I have been wearing out like some of the prior mentioned albums, but nothing has given me the feeling I get when I hear this album. And it has really stuck with me ever since first hearing it. Only 4 extended tracks, it begins with an anxious discomforting sound before easing into a eery tranquil repetition, that I find to be incredibly moving and beautiful. Honestly, I think this has a hard time getting beat. There is going to be like a bunch of albums tied for second, but this will be a big hurdle to jump if anything else wants first.

Retrospective

Now I am not exclusively listening to new releases and watching new movies. So I’d like to share some films I’ve watched and music i’ve listened to during quarter two that I would like to share some thoughts on.

What I’ve Been Watching:

The Trial (1962)

Orson Welles adaptation of Franz Kafkas The Trial has soared to it’s spot among one of my favorites. The film features some really stunning and inventive imagery, but also does an excellent job at capturing the absurd humor and nightmare quality of Kafkas prose. One of the best decisions in this movie is the casting of Anthony Perkins. Be it this being fresh off Psycho and that being his best known role, or there being something genuinely unnerving and off putting about his general demeanor, you cannot help but feel he is guilty of something. In fact, I realized at a point while watching this, he has done absolutely nothing out of the question or criminal from what we’ve seen, and yet you can’t help but feel like he is guilty of something.

Mirrored Mind (2005)

As you’ll come to see, I tend to enjoy watching films knowing as little about them as possible. I heard about Mirrored Mind somewhere, and put it on my list without looking into it much. But I remember getting the impression it was a japanese ghost or horror movie akin to kiyoshi kurosawa or takeshi miike film around that time. Upon watching, I was sorely mistaken. This film portrays an actress who has become depressed and existential, and decides to take her own life. While technically a spoiler, I feel fine divulging that as I feel knowing this is not the same as experiencing how it happens in the film. Slow, methodical, and haunting, this film is deeply unsettling in how puts you in the mind of someone so far gone from reality. While frightening and disheartening, it is also incredibly transcendental and calming. This film conveys something about existence and mentality I have never seen a film do before. And despite the grim subject, it leaves you optimistic and with a refreshed outlook.

Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999)

I LOVE GHOST DOG. Having seen one other film by Jim Jarmusch and feeling it was just an attempt at a Wim Wenders movie, I feel happy to say Ghost Dog really worked for me. Based off Stranger Than Paradise, the other Jarmusch I’ve seen, this was completely out of left field. But also weirdly fitting for him. As this film follows a samurai obsessed hitman for a mafia who ends up becoming the target of said mafia, the film is not especially flashy or “action packed”. It feels a bit reminiscent of a Scorsese film, but with more patience and space for things to play out and to really live in the shoes of the characters. The film is made by Ghost Dogs relationships with the girl in the park and the ice cream man, every other violent scene and especially that ending hinges on those brief scenes conveying Ghost Dogs humanity, despite his profession.

Angels Egg (1985)

I hear so much talk about the animation in Akira changing the game, but this came 3 years before that. Some of the most dense and visually stunning animation I have ever seen is in this film. What I think has let this sink more into obscurity in comparison to Akira, is how slow and bizarre it is. Plot wise, I feel like this could be a Tarkovsky film. It is incredibly unliteral and gives no context or background for any of the strange events put to screen. Some viewers would likely be bothered about not knowing what’s going on, but I love taking that as an opportunity to theorize and piece together my own interpretation. And the best thing about this movie, is that even if you don’t get it, it’s still an absolute joy to look at.

Come and See (1985)

Only two films have ever filled me with so much discomfort I’ve been physically ill; A Clockwork Orange, and Come and See. This film’s depiction of war is one of the most horrifying things ever put to screen. A while ago I read an essay about how it’s nearly impossible to make a war film that’s not in some way war propaganda, and I remember this film being mentioned as one of the few anti-war war films. Because nothing makes war seem as horrifying and needless as this film. In my opinion, a good film makes you feel something. And that something doesn’t always have to be a good feeling. I think this film is exceptional, in that it made me feel very strongly, and even if those feelings were incredibly uncomfortable, it left me with something important and worth it. The scene with the barn burning is one the best made scenes in film history and one of the hardest scenes to watch ever.

What I’ve Been Listening To:

Men I Trust

I have been on a pretty major Men I Trust kick recently. I have loved this band for a while, last year I actually went through and listened to their entire discography. But I’ve recently been rediscovering song after song by them that I keep bopping to. The live album Forever Live Sessions I recently bought on vinyl as it compiles a lot of my favorite songs of their off various albums and captures and great energy not as present in the recordings.

Indigo De Souza

( I just barely learned while writing this Indigo De Souza is her name and not the name of the band) Indigo De Souza has been scratching my itch for indie girl rock music recently. I actually first listened to her forever ago, when I heard the song Take Off Ur Pants from her debut album I Love My Mom. But within the past couple months, I’ve listened to this album in it’s entirety multiple times, along with the follow up album Any Shape You Take. I have yet to listen to her two most recent albums, but likely will if I feel like I need more Indigo in my life.

Liim

Never heard of Liim until this music video by him came up in feed the other day, and I thought it has hilarious and very catchy. I’ve since listened to his only album, Liim Lasalle Loves You and some other tracks from his EP’s and singles. I found that while his music is very rough around the edges and features pretty cheap and seemingly homemade production, there are some prevalent songwriting strengths and with more music under his belt I can see him paving a way out for himself in becoming a relevant rap artist. He is also releasing a new single tomorrow.

In addition to those, I am always listening to jazz albums I haven’t heard before, here’s a quick list of my favorite jazz albums I listened to this quarter:

Motions and Emotions by Oscar Peterson
From All Sides by Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete
Mwandishi by Herbie Hancock
Something Special by Jim Hall
Candy Girl by Mal Waldron

Up Next…

Here are some upcoming projects I am quite excited for

Oh Yeah? - Steve Lacy (Releases July 17)

Steve Lacy’s long awaited follow up to his album Gemini Rights which featured the smash hit Bad Habit is finally on the radar with a release date and two singles released as of now. I am a big ol Steve Lacy fan, another artist I believe I’ve listened to their entire catalogue of released music. But as excited as I am for this album, I’m a little weary. Last year Steve released a single called Nice Shoes teasing this album, and I felt pretty underwhelmed. One of favorite aspects of Steve’s music is his guitar playing, and this single features little to no guitar. I don’t think this single was received entirely well, as it was more than 8 months before he dropped the next single, The Feeling. While still no guitar, this song is a major step up. I wasn’t sure upon first listening, but this song has really grown on me a lot, and it’s one I keep revisiting. It’s an incredibly different sound for Steve, and shows he can do more than play guitar really well.

Lost Weekend - Phoebe Bridgers (Releases Aug. 14)

After 6 years without an album, Phoebe has marked her return by releasing a surprise single and music video for the song Lost Boys along with announcing the date for her upcoming album. Phoebe was one of my favorite artists upon the release of her seminal album Punisher, but I haven’t been listening to her as much recently. Upon hearing Lost Boys I was right back in Punisher days, and after thinking maybe I had outgrown Phoebe, I am sorely mistaken.

Who Asked? - Domi & JD Beck (Releases July 31)

There is so much I could say about Domi & JD Beck, but I’ll suffice it to say that they are some of my favorite working artists right now. The young pair of keyboardist and drummer are at the forefront of keeping jazz alive with their hyperactive jazz tracks and incredibly complex and sophisticated drumming and keyboard playing. I am particularly excited for this album, as their album from four years ago is still something I frequently listen to, and I felt even when it came out it wasn’t going to be their best work. It felt like they had a lot riding on their shoulders, and an overabundance of features and helping hands on that album made it feel a little less contained and their own. But this upcoming album appears to be a very refreshed approach where we can see more growth from these guys.

In addition to these albums, I am also excited for Music, Fashion, and Film by Charli XCX, and probably other albums too.

Werwulf (Releases Christmas)

The trailer for the latest Robert Eggers project has just released, and gotta say, looks like a Robert Eggers movie. Eggers has already made himself one of the most exciting and high integrity filmmakers as of late. The man does not know how to make a bad film, at least so far. What makes me excited for Werwulf is it feels a bit like a return to form for him. All his movies are pretty closely related and comparable, but this has a more folklore looking quality like The VVitch and the visual style seems to be more experimental and interesting, like the visuals in The Lighthouse. As those are my two favorite Eggers movies these qualities make me very excited for this. And even if it’s not on that level it’ll still probably be as good as The Northman and Nosferatu, which is still pretty dang good man.

Digger (releases Oct 2)

This Tom Cruise retrospective trailer was just released for the upcoming film Digger. I started watching it, already highly anticipating this movie, kind of annoyed, like just give us an actual trailer instead of a bunch of clips I’ve seen before. But the marketing started working, as I was reminded how good of an actor Tom Cruise is. The trailer treats you at the end to a far off look at Cruise’s character and how he sounds, and I think based off that this has a potential to be one of his best roles in years. But in fact, he wasn’t even the reason I’m excited for this. For me, Digger isn’t the next Tom Cruise movie, it’s the next Alejandro González Iñárritu film. Iñárritu is the filmmaker behind The Revenant and Birdman, and he has quickly become one of my all time favorite filmmakers. Even his last film Bardo which was met with a pretty poor reception I found incredibly well made and entertaining. I cannot wait to see what Iñárritu has to offer next, especially with Tom Cruise.

Hope (releases Sept. 9)

Hope is a Korean science fiction film from director Na Hong-Jin. Known for the film The Wailing, this will be his feature film follow up to that incredibly well received horror film. Hope appears to be a film following an alien invasion, which is already good news to me. I’m interested in the approach taken though, while looking quite action packed and exciting, it also appears to be very isolated and mysterious. It looks like an interesting take on a science fiction action movie. I’ve heard a few negative reactions about the cgi looking bad and one reviewer I like saying it doesn’t work all that well, but I haven’t let that hinder my excitement for what appears to be a blast. As well as an interest in seeing what is now Koreas most expensive movie ever made.

In addition to those, there are a handful of movies I can’t wait for. The Odyssey, The End of Oak Street, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Godzilla Minus 0, Paper Tiger, Fjord, and Primetime are all movies I anticipate seeing in the theaters. Plus probably more.

And with that, the 2026 Second Quarter Review of Film and Music has concluded. Thank you for your time today, feel free to share any thoughts or opinions you might have regarding the films and music shared today. And take a brochure on your way out.

Which is horribly frightening, considering how prevalent that is today.

I’ve also vaguely heard how prophetic this book is with it’s perception of the future. While not a perfect one to one with modern day society, as I feel no one could’ve predicted to power of smartphones and social media, this book brings to light some sentiments I find eerily similar with contemporary societies convictions.

The book begins with description of how humans no longer reproduce intimately, it’s all done in a lab with machines. The idea of a mother or parents is both laughable and disgusting. This way, technicians can ensure purer genes and condition children to prefer their class and against what is considered unacceptable in this society. These children are bred to fulfill certain roles, and are divided into subgroups such as Alphas, Betas, Epsilons, and so forth. This removes any flexibility for your role in society; Alphas are made to be leaders and Epsilons are low intellect laborers.

This eliminates the class struggle, as roles in society are specifically predetermined. But obviously, does not leave much room for pursuing passions or desires, if you’re an Epsilon you’re a grunt worker, that’s that.

One of my favorite elements of this book is the inclusion of Ford. They use the word Ford often in place of an expletive like God (oh my ford!), as in this society Henry Ford is essentially seen as the god among man for integrating the assembly line. This is one of the unexpected aspects of humor I found in this book. Although, what makes this and other aspects of the plot funny is it’s seriousness. I don’t think Aldous Huxley included this bit about Ford necessarily to make readers laugh, rather it fits the narrative behind this society. One that is so odd and frightening to think about it’s hard not to laugh. It’s easier to laugh at the absurdity than take the idea of worshiping a capitalist driven business magnate seriously.

Another disconcerting humorous element intertwined with the worship of Henry Ford are the orgy-porgy’s. Your Sunday service in this society consists of chanting ritualistic hymns idolizing Henry Ford while under the regularly used happiness inducing drug soma, with the service concluding in an orgy. Being raised Mormon, this part of the book eerily reminded me of the church’s sacrament service and worshiping, minus the group sex of course. But the attitude behind the participants of this commune felt reminiscent of those I’d hear at my church service, people trying to affirm each others and their own beliefs about being part of something wrong, plus this idea of people being brainwashed by those wanting to control them into thinking this is the best possible thing for them.

“Solidarity Hymns” from the Solidarity Service

Another specific element I found eerily similar to modern day is the lack of individualism. The idea of a hivemind society isn’t itself prophetic or unheard of in science-fiction, but the approach to it in this book is a bit too familiar. In one scene, Bernard, an undesirable and disillusioned with society alpha, takes the attractive and sought after Lenina out. Following the date, Bernard wants to look at the moon just the two of them. While by today’s standards we’d find this romantic, Lenina is frightened and overwhelmed as dates are almost always social activities, and rarely is one met with silence and contemplation in a world full of distraction.

This represents to me the modern desire to be constantly gratified. The desire for Lenina to abruptly turn on the radio I liken to our desire to pull out our phones in quiet moments. We feel this need to remain constantly connected, and avoid distraction. We begin to lose our own sense of self when we don’t spend time alone with our own thoughts.

Something that builds on this later in the book, and really strikes a chord with me, is an exchange near the end between the savage character and the controller (governor, mayor maybe, leader of this particular sect of society I guess). The savage is a man who was raised in a preserved Native American tribe, found by Bernard and Lenina and reintegrated into society. After an outburst brought on by the strict rulings behind this culture, John (the savage) and his associates are brought to speak with the controller.

I think this rejection of inconveniences is something deeply profound I find in the world today. Things like streaming services have been ruining our appreciation of music and films, constant accessibility means constant attention and endless sea of content, leaving it all vague and meaningless. I’ve found in buying physical music, which is much more inconvenient than streaming, I appreciate more what I’m listening too and get fuller experience out of the music.

We are constantly being sold on convenience in today’s age, most tech companies and now AI companies are selling their products on how much easier your life will be by just letting their technology do it all for you. Inconveniences are part of how we learn, and how we progress. By removing inconvenience, we eliminate the need to do anything. As John puts it, there is no poetry, freedom, or goodness, without real danger and sin.

While thoroughly enjoying this book, I did feel it was a bit dated in some ways. Not to sound like an sjw, but it’s portrayal of women and the native tribe were a bit disconcerting. I feel Lenina’s role feels pretty helpless, and quite literally exists to be sex appeal for the men. What I didn’t really get (I probably just missed the explanation while reading) was in a world where all conception happens in a lab and there’s a bunch of gene altering and conditioning, why are people still even having sex? It’s clear they don’t practice monogamy or maintain romantic relationships, and I get why the orgies happen (as they contribute to the interconnectedness of the society) but individual sex seems redundant to me in this world. And in this context, women’s main role is being sought after by men. Maybe this is a commentary, but I just felt the author wasn’t really concerned with giving more thought the women characters.

While Lenina plays an important role, her motivations and character really don’t compare to Bernard or John the savage. She mostly serves as either a direct personage of how odd this society is (her reactions to Bernard’s more human and what modern society views normal are meant to show the audience how far off this future is from modern day) or sex appeal to the main characters. And aside from her gossipy roommate and a chapter or two with John’s mother (who is a pretty interesting character but still doesn’t necessarily have a lot of depth), the role of women in this just feels really outdated and kinda yucky to read.

The native tribe is met with a bit harshness. The author doesn’t make any huge racist swings and it’s possible the savagery is meant to reflect the closed mindedness of this society, but just in the time and context this was written it’s clearly just a bit insensitive. But where I really take issue is the complete lack of characterization of this tribe. If my memory serves me right, I don’t think a person of indigenous race ever has a line of dialogue. Their most prominent scene is a pretty aggressively racist tribal dance. The only people our characters interact with here are the white people! Feels like the author wanted to use indigenous people as a plot point but had no interest in providing them with a fair or interesting representation. Which I think could’ve added more to this story. Maybe include something about peace or oneness with nature, something positive and more interesting to better serve this portrayal.

That aside, and some mind numbing lingo that got a bit irritating to read at times, I was often quite invested in this story and found it to be really poignant and thought provoking. One last observation I found to be really compelling about how this is written is how neutral the perspective on this society is.

It’s obvious this book is meant to negatively portray these advances in technology, but it only does so effectively as the author doesn’t cast any judgment. The “bad guys” in this book are generally thoughtful, kind, and amiable. And the descriptions don’t lend themself to any notions about how you should be feeling, they are just laying out precisely what is happening. The author intelligently allows the audience to use their own beliefs and perceptions of society to draw their on conclusions. By conveying this story as a reality, rather than a cautionary tale or moral story, one can truly see the dark nature that comes with hastily advancing technology.

I was a bit late to the game getting into Tame Impala. Don’t get me wrong, I had definitely listened to his very popular songs and even sought out some lesser known tracks that I heard and struck a chord with me. But I had never really committed myself to a fully engage with the music in a full album listen or really deep dive into the artist. Just didn’t really ever occur to me.

That is until late last year when the album Deadbeat released. Despite mixed review critically, this album still saw pretty major success, and it was the project that finally hooked me on Tame Impala.

A factor that definitely helped my love of Tame Impala grow was the NPR Tiny Desk performance following the albums release:

Tiny Desk requests artists perform essentially completely live, hence without backing tracks or autotune. Kevin Parker clearly took this to heart and went beyond performing using completely acoustic guitars, along with all these other guys. Not only was I immensely impressed with Parker’s musicianship, but everyone else playing here really plays in strides. One of my favorite live performances ever.

Little did I know, this video would be my first exposure to the band, Pond.

Tame Impala famously (and memeably) writes and performs all the music on his albums by himself (for the most part), but that doesn’t really translate well in live performances. Early in his career, he enlisted Dominic Simper (seen playing guitar to Parker’s right on Tiny Desk) to play bass and Jay Watson (playing guitar on Parker’s immediate front left) on drums.

Before seeing major success the trio would play songs live, that were recorded at home by Parker. But they spun off and started their own project known as Pond.

Over the years, Pond has seen a fluctuation in band members. Kevin Parker himself was only played with the band up to 2011, but continued to work with them as a producer on their following albums.

The band also features basically the rest of the crew in the Tiny Desk performance, along with a rotating crew of musicians who were established members at points and continuing to pop up to perform on certain songs. Additionally, former and current members of this band continue to play live on tour with Tame Impala.

Terrestrials is the 11th studio album from Pond, but this would be my first exposure to their music. And it’s entirely lucky I came across them, as a song just happened to pop on youtube and I thought I’d give it a chance. I listened to the whole album before even making the connection to Tame Impala (I was only able to do so after seeing in their artist description they are a Psychedelic rock band form Perth, Australia and thinking what are the chance Pond and Tame Impala are psych rockers from perth without being connected somehow).

As my first exposure to Pond, I am pretty immediately in love. From what I’ve read about them, Pond will pretty consistently reinvent and change up their sound from album to album. Which tracks as I found this album to sound more inspired by english punk and new wave.

It could weirdly pair well with o-rods album for this reason, but in my opinion leans even more into the punk elements while still maintaining it’s ground in lofi psychedelia. And particularly the vocals feel very reflective of those early punk bands.

I found this album to make some really creative choices in song structure and the way they build tracks. The drums will often come in very bass loaded and heavy when you don’t expect it, and the use deep synth bass is really brain tickling. My two favorite tracks of this album are easily Skyworks and Two Hands, very invigorating and motion inducing tunes. But the entire album is pretty consistently enjoyable, though I think one valid grievance might be the change in tone from song to song might be a bit jarring, but I personally didn’t mind it too much.

And if you are curious if there is any Tame Impala inclusion on this album, the track The Fatal Shore does credit Parker as a producer. Which tracks as this album does feature some elements that sound a bit reminiscent off Deadbeat, though it definitely leans much more new wave than the edm house vibe.

I am incredibly excited I came across this band, as in someways I’m more excited about their music than I am Tame Impala. Which says a lot as I have become a hard and fast fan of Parker to the point I am going to be traveling out of the country to see him on tour. But this extra piece of context in his career with more inclusion of the fellow artists I have come to love through that Tiny Desk has really culminated in a very special feeling I have for this band, even though I just met them.

4.2/5

youtube | apple music | spotify

Both these films i haven’t watched relatively recently, and when I first watched them respectively i quite enjoyed them but didn’t exactly hold them with super high regard or status.

but randomly, a shot will pop in my head. a characters face. a likely misremembered line of dialogue.

these movies have begun to fill my brain so much it’s time to let them spill out.

La Chimera

La Chimera was released in 2023, and it’s likely most notable in the cultural landscape for aiding in film stardom for the cutest boy Josh O'Connor.

O’Connor flew onto my radar along with the film Challengers, in which I found his performance to run circles around all the other fantastic acting. He greatly excels at bringing this sexy bratiness to this role, but pairing with this charm a pathetic and egotistical undertone that brings a lot of depth to the character.

Following I loved him the film The Mastermind, a so called “art-heist” movie made by my goat, Kelly Reichart. He plays a similarly egoism and pathetic quality to a suburban dad discounting his family and home to make way for an ill thought out art heist.

Arguably, the movie La Chimera may be even more on the brain after seeing O’Connor in Disclosure Day, (his performance in this being pretty sub-par, but I think that’s due to him being a drama boy more than science-fiction action movie star, which is ok). But I’m surprised I’m not thinking about Challengers, my exposure to Josh and what I regarded as my favorite film of 2024.

I saw La Chimera maybe half a year ago. And I loved it. But moved on relatively quickly. But recently, I can’t get the image of this stern irritated Josh O’Connor, with his defined eyebrows, sly white suit, smoking a cigarette, out of my head.

But not only him, I’ve been replaying scenes in my head. The old unkept and tattered home occupied by Isabella Rossellini and visited by her gossiping daughters. The falling apart shack O’Connors character once lived. The group of miscreants following a dousing rod out into the forest, the outdoor dance in the night followed by a beach grave robbing excursion. And the dreamlike train sequences filled with diverse and interesting characters who steal the show with just a few minutes of screen time.

Speaking of diverse characters, this film has some of the best faces. One of my favorite performers in the film is Vincenzo Nemolato, one of the grave robbing cronies aligned with O’Connors character. He has this impeccably italian moustache and incredibly expressive face are very enjoyable to watch.

There is a slew of fantastic looking european people in this movie, it contributes to this incredibly lived and homey feeling.

The film was directed by Alice Rohrwacher, an italian filmmaker putting out independent cinema for the past 15 years, La Chimera likely marking her biggest success.

I first decided to watch La Chimera after stumbling upon a short film of hers, Four Roads. This film features super 8 footage paired with a narration by Rohrwacher, as she walks the roads from her home to visit her neighbors amidst isolation during the global pandemic.

This short film struck a major chord with me, as I was deeply moved simply by the everyday people going about their lives, trying to continue as normally as possible while being unable to interact with people in ways they could before.

I found in this film Rohrwacher’s love of people, and desire to understand and explore the people close to her, physically close as the subjects are just down the road. This is one of the best qualities of a film maker, as you can be technically proficient or bring innovative creativity to the table, but if the people aren’t interesting the movies not.

I’m still not entirely sure what brought La Chimera back to the forefront of my conscious recently, but I think part of it has to do with this ingrained imagery in my psyche and the lived in quality of the characters. This film is so potent, it almost feels like a memory more than something I watched on a screen.

Love Lies Bleeding

I saw the movie Love Lies Bleeding upon it’s release in 2024. I fell in love with it pretty instantly, despite friends who had seen bashing on it for being overly campy and dumb. I even rewatched this past year with a friend, loving every second, but once again her take on it was not a very high one.

Since it’s release this is a film I haven’t heard about much since. It received decent reviews, and I’m sure it has it’s cult following, but on streaming it’s current home is free on the Roku Channel. I don’t know about you, but a movie being on the Roku Channel doesn’t exactly suggest to me it’s in very high demand.

But honestly this reception is kind of fitting for this film, and this is part of the reason I love it even more. This movie feels so out of it’s own time. The film is set in 1989, and it frankly feels like it was made in 1989 too. This isn’t the type of movie to make major strides in the box office, it feels more like a VHS you’d find on the bottom shelf of the thriller section in a video store.

It expertly leans into this feeling and vibe, it’s nonsensical and unconcerned with the audience suspending their disbelief. It takes it’s relatively grounded plot to fantastical extremes, jumping the shark multiple times. But it has so much charm, at least in my opinion. It feels like a love letter to that bottom shelf straight to video thriller, giving off a lack of concern with what we have come to expect in cinema today to meet it’s strengths.

One major reason I have been thinking of this movie was the random memory of a particular song used in this film.

The film makes use of some fantastic needle drops, despite most of the music being pretty unpopular. It features niche 80’s synth pop and disco to expertly set the tone of the 1980s, and the out there choices in music really contribute to the other worldly feeling.

But one song in particular really struck a chord with me. Energy Flow (Ki No Nagare) written by early Japanese ambient artist Shiho Yabuki makes it’s way into the scene during an intimate love scene between the two leads.

Not only by itself is the piece incredibly tranquil and it’s soft synth notes illicit incredible peace, but in the context of the film it offers an essential note for the characters.

This amplifies the explicit sex scene to a deep portrayal of peace and love, it shows how these two characters leading difficult high stress lives in a brief moment can find sanctuary with one another.

Much of the film working hinges on the lead characters relationship working, and within conflicts both brought on by antagonists and disagreements with each other it’s important we understand how meaningful their relationship with each other is.

Love it or hate it, this film plays out in ways you will never expect. It’s thrilling, hilarious, terrifying, sexy, and cool as hell. I really don’t understand why this movie doesn’t see more love, but like I said I understand why it doesn’t

Some films I see and could barely recall the events after a week. But in the 6 months since seeing La Chimera and the year since Love Lies Bleeding I feel I could confidently recollect their plots, character beats, visuals, and basically like everything about them.

These are films I can’t recommend enough. Watch these films soon, as I definitely will be.

One of my most formative movie watching experiences was seeing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I have a vivid memory of staying home sick from school laying in my parents bed watching this, and this movie moving me in a way I didn’t know movies could.

Upon recently rewatching this, I would uphold it as my favorite Spielberg film. The mystery, the scale, and optimistic outlook banded with a gripping story balancing grander government intervention with grounded everyday people is gripping and a stunning spectacle even for the eyes of a sick eight year old boy who doesn’t fully understand what was going on.

Disclosure Day features similarities to this film, but is much less impressive. Based on a story by Spielberg, Disclosure Day follows a cybersecurity specialist and broadcast reporter who find themselves rapped up in a plot to uncover the truth about a decades spanning cover up regarding the cover up of extra terrestrial presence on earth. The pair spend the film evading the shady government sect Wardex and discovering abilities and truths about themselves that have been culminating over the years in bringing disclosure to the world.

The film really struggles with bringing it’s ideas to the forefront. Much of the plot feels too familiar, the shady government group chasing down the scrappy whistle blower has been done multiple times, by spielberg himself. Even with a few added elements, it still ends up feeling played out and uninteresting. Spielberg is reinventing ideas he established in his earlier films, but the charm and innovation is not nearly as present in this as it is his earlier films. You can anticipate easily how beats play out, and there are a handful of cliches that do no service to the plot.

But where the film really struggles is in the basic plot, there is way too much overlooked here to flush out the story to it’s full extent. Concepts, characters, lore are all left very vague in this, leaving it feeling unfinished. There are these magic devices that are never really established as what they’re abilities are, where they come from, how our characters got them and found out how to use their powers. They are quite literally plot devices (as the character refer to them as nothing other than “the device”) that add a more disjointed nature to the plot than contribute to the story.

One character unlocks special abilities that also feel like basically magic that are used borderline omnipotently. While a bit interesting to watch how the abilities play out they end up feeling overused and under-explained for the plot. Much character backgrounds are vague and have little depth. There is basically no established background for the girlfriend character for one of our leads, making their relationship have little stakes or interest. And the leader of the whistleblowers has this knowledge and foresight that is chalked up to just chilling with aliens I guess, I would’ve liked to understand more how and why the aliens choose him and the others and what went into setting everything up for this plot.

This plot is full of wholes, and characters will often say or act certain ways that do nothing but serve the script, and it just overall feels like a jumbled underdeveloped mess. But my biggest question is why the hell were they at a wrestling match at the beginning???

When it comes to the performances, I would say there are only two standouts for me. Josh O’connor is cute as always, but his performance is flat and just doesn’t really work. He has established himself as one of my favorite working actors, but it’s clear to me this type of character and movie just isn’t really something in his wheelhouse. On the other hand, Emily Blunt was a joy to watch in this film. I usually don’t really enjoy her, I feel like she usually does way too much and is pretty campy. But this campy way too much quality really thrives in the Spielberg setting, the two of them feels like a match made in heaven. And even for her overacting, some moments and deliveries from her I found to be the most moving out of anyone in the film.

Colman Domingo and Colin Firth are so whatever. Colin is basic Spielberg bad guy, and Colman is just gettin a paycheck I think. Despite his small roll, I loved Wyatt Russel. I actually think he might’ve given the best performance in this. He was effortlessly funny without feeling too in your face, plus he played the character of a boyfriend trying to be supportive but with a foot out the door in a really nuanced and effective way. He was quite impressive.

Visually, this isn’t too bad to look at. Compared to some other recent Spielberg movies this looks great, but that’s holding it up against awful looking movies like Ready Player One. But, this doesn’t hold a candle to The Fabelmans in the cinematography department. And despite some impressive camera direction and visual effects, I felt the camera movement to be too flashy and uninspired to really work well with the content. And even then, the more impressive stuff was all up in the trailers so it didn’t really hit all that hard in the theater.

I did get some enjoyment out of this, but almost more in a so bad it’s good way. I found myself laughing a bit, but more often that not at the movie not with it. And there were drags I was pretty checked out and bored. The best scene is the final one, I actually felt it was really well done and actually had me getting bit emotional, but that also ended up going too long. And the beat it ends on is such a lazy cop out.

When I first heard Spielberg was returning to form with another alien movie a few years back, I was really quite excited we might get another Close Encounters. But if it wasn’t clear already, the Spielberg we have today doesn’t have the same charm, skill, or diligence as the guy we all fell in love with in his early career.

2.3/5

This isn’t going to be the easiest review for me to write. Not for any reason to grand, but I feel like I don’t have much to say about it on my first listen. Regardless, this may be my favorite album of the year thus far.

My listening experience with Olivia Rodrigo isn’t too extensive. I was decently familiar with her music, but if I’m being completely vulnerable and honest, the only time I actively listened to her music was a mash up on youtube of her song traitor with the track Burn from Hamilton. don’t judge me!

As o-rod (olivia rodrigo) has remained incredibly relevant since her debut album Sour in 2021, I’ve been feeling more and more I should give her a real chance upon seeing more and more how much a of a mark she’s made in the music industry.

I one night happened to see she released a music video leading up to this album, for the song the cure.

this music videos pretty cool. Kind of gave me some tim burton vibes. But I wasn’t really paying that much attention to it because I was too busy rocking out. I truly had no idea this is the type of music o-rod makes, again my main exposure to her being traitor and drivers license I was under the assumption her trade was sad girl songs.

While sad girl songs are a prominent component of her music, it was made evident to me she is a rocker, man.

Listening to this latest album, the high energy tracks are euphoric. Some of the most invigorating pop music I’ve heard in a while. The most I’ve wanted to get up and dance listening to an album this year.

Not every track is so danceable, there is a bulk of sad girl songs. Which honestly I’m not as into, but they’re still pretty good (begged is an absolute highlight among the sad girl songs). But damn those high energy tracks are like heroin in my veins, man. I don’t know how she did it, because speaking technically I don’t think there’s anything super notable or out there, but some how these songs are like a cheat code iliciting extreme feelings.

There are two tracks on her that remind me heavily of her buddy Chappel Roan, drop dead and expectations both have those 80s synth vibes and the spoken word portions feeling very reflective of what Roan does. But in addition, the 80s synth sound on expectations sounds straight out of a Devo song. Which is awesome, as Devo and o-rod aren’t exactly the most comparable artists.

The comparisons don’t end there, near the beginning of the album tracks like maggots for brains and u + me = <3 have this crazy faded and washed out guitar reminiscent of The Cure or Depeche Mode or similar 80s english rock (wrote this line before even realizing there’s a song on this album featuring The Cure’s Robert Smith, so there ya go). All these derivative elements are all recontextualized in a way that feels very in tune with o-rods style, while it has me thinking of other music I think these musical choices work super well for her.

To me, o-rod has clearly earned her place among the incredible pop girlies of modern music like Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, and maybe it’s just recency bias since I’ve gotten into her more recently, but it’s possible I like her music a bit more than those too. I feel like she actually takes the aggressive rock atmosphere of Taylors music and the soft spoken anguish of Billie and corners both their markets, but her own expressive way.

I think the worst I have to say about this is it feels a little kitschy to me. Like I’m a 22 year old stoner dude, this album is clearly meant more for angsty teenage girls, but despite some kinda silly lyricism and overly angsty sound I really appreciate and vibe with her musicianship here. And what might be a bit of an eyeroll now I think will age to be really nostalgic and a nice reflection back into 2026.

I listened to Sour for the first time, before hearing this, and I honestly like this more. I feel she’s really honed her sound more here, and I feel a lot more invested in the music on this album. I love it a lot and see myself relistening quite a bit.

also I guess I lied I did have a lot to say.

4.2/5

One of the more underrated voices in rap, Vince Staples continually impresses with impressive flow and lyricism along with incredibly inventive beats and songwriting. My favorite album of his, Big Fish Theory, is an early example of the infusion of trap music and hip hop, and one unmatched by any other artist.

Across his 7 albums, Staples doesn’t shy away from exploring new sounds and ideas to best convey his messages musically.

With Cry Baby, Staples continues to flex his wide array of musical capabilities, holstering in on elements of punk rock to back his biting commentary on american politics.

It isn’t too surprising this the direction Staples took with this album, as many rappers have recently taken to experimenting with punk elements in their tracks (take recent examples like A$AP Rocky’s latest album along with up and coming rap duo Paris, Texas). So it feels on point Staples would try something in this punk rock fashion, especially considering his musical style leans rougher and hard core that compliments nicely with punk.

Along with a mostly punk sound, there are a few tracks on here that feel reminiscient of classic R&B music. The songs White Flag and 7 in the Morning use jazzier elements and structure apart from the rock structure more prevalent throughout the album. The sound isn’t too jarring though, as Staples acts as a through line with his bars and the basic soundscape remains pretty consistent. These chiller tracks have a chiller vibe, while still boiling your blood with Staples rapping his social commentary.

Staples teased this album dropping a single and music video for the song White Flag, which feature Staples painting over the american flag, hanging it up, and opening fire on it with a machine gun.

This immediately sold me on the album, due to not only the catchy song but the messaging Staples brings with his lyrics and visuals here.

I’ve really honestly been waiting for a musician, particularly a rapper, to put out music critiquing the current social oppression being faced under the american government. This is something rap is built on, foundational rappers use their music for anti establishment and social justice messaging. But I feel this is less common now, rap is often mroe contained to the individual, rather than using the medium to discuss a broader social issue.

But generally, I just feel music is such an important way to convey things, especially regarding societal change. And I’ve found it surprising we haven’t had more of a call to action from an artist.

All that said, I was a little disappointed with Staples commentary here. Not say I disagreed or don’t think it’s still important, I guess in the regard to desiring music regarding the fuller situation in our country, I was hoping Staples might be a bit more direct or expansive with his commentary.

To further explain, Staples mainly focuses on the mistreatment of black people. Which is still very important to be discussing, and obviously important to him as it’s a major theme across his music and he is black (which is obvious). But this doesn’t really set itself apart from the sea of rap music made about the mistreatment of black people.

Like I said earlier, rap is built on this commentary, a lot of relating to the oppression of black people. But I was hoping to hear more about how the government doesn’t seem to see race as much as it sees ways to take power. Obviously black people have faced an inordinant amount of oppression in this country, and still do. But currently, people of races are being put in camps, gunned down, and being discriminated against based on economic status and beliefs.

I’m not trying to put down what Staples is getting across in this album, I think what he’s saying is still incredibly poignant and relevant, and he even mentions maga and makes some valid commentary on our current political climate.

I was just hoping for an album covering the fuller scope of this, which is really my bad for having this hope for an album and setting up a musician who can make whatever they want to the expectation they should make this album. But because I set this album up that way in my head, I was still just a bit let down listening to it. Really at no fault of Staples, but my own expectations.

All that said, the album is pretty great. While not quite as technical and memorable as some of my favorite Staples albums, there is nary a low point on this album and he continues to bring excellent song writing and lyricism to the table.

3.8/5

Probably the most intriguing thing to me about this movie was the fact it was directed by a 19 year old. I was never super into the Backrooms stuff, but I’ve definitely been pretty aware of it since it’s become notable in the internet zeitgeist. I even have some vague memories checking out some of the original series, though honestly my most memorable exposure to backrooms was through a shitty roblox game.

While interested in seeing this premise executed on the big screen, what sold me most about seeing this was this pretty unheard of choice of putting an incredibly young director at the helm. It felt like it had the capability of being a trainwreck or something really interesting, I wanted to see what a big budget studio films in the hands of an incredibly young director would look like.

I’ve heard some rumors about a more experienced director ghost directing this, which I do think is total bullshit. Feels exactly like an internet rumor that people just thought up because the idea of someone so young and inexperienced directing this feels pretty outlandish. And I do think A24 put some thought into this idea of a super young dude being behind, as i said that was a major driving force in me seeing this in the theater.

But I feel like that would be way more of a hassle to do than just actually hiring a well known director. And honestly, just in the filmmaking it feels pretty clearly Kane Parsons vision, both in it’s treatment of the source material and amateurish directorial choices.

Really quick, just want to bring up Reservoir Dogs. Quentin Tarantino had zero directorial experience before this film, but it feels very established and professional right off the bat. This is largely due to Tarantino being given the great resources to execute his vision. Even if he’s inexperienced at the helm, being surrounded by a sea of professionals aided his vision to make the film something special.

I would think the same could be said for Kane, it’s obvious A24 put a lot into this movie and gave the him the resources needed to execute this vision properly. The idea someone ghost directed this is overly cynical and a lazy take. And even thought he was only 19 making this, dude had like 6 years experience making movies. He knew what he was doing.

That said, this didn’t work all too well for me. I would say what helps it lean more on the good side than bad is the actual backrooms stuff. The visuals and style of the backrooms is super well done, and really well executed. Part of me wants to call this one of the best movies visually of this year. Not only in the design of the backrooms, but the use of cinematography (great use of wide lenses!), the color pallete, and some really fantastic artistic visuals really make this an absolute joy to look at.

But it’s evident the majority of thought effort went towards this, not a lot left anywhere else. The plot of this movie is miserable. It’s ham handed, predictable, and frankly pretty boring. The moments in which characters are exploring the backrooms are awesome, but basically every dialogue scene really just takes you out of this movie.

Part of the boring factor can also be attributed to some really poor performances. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the stand out, he’s actually pretty good, but isn’t giving anything to write home about. Renate Reinsve is unfortunately quite unfocused and dead pan in this. She is cementing herself as one of my favorite working actors with her work is Joachim Trier, but it’s so obvious her heart was not in it for this. The two young side characters were really bad, their performances were miserable. and mark duplass was whatever. It’s clear Kane doesn’t quite know how to direct actors in this setting, and it really ends up putting a damper on the quality.

Like I said earlier, i’m not super well versed in backrooms content. But in anticipation for this film I did watch a few of Kane’s videos from the original series. And not surprisingly, it feels this premise was made more for 15 minute youtube videos than a narrative feature film.

the absolute best part of this movie is a found footage sequence with three of the characters exploring the backrooms for research. That part really hones in on what makes the backrooms scary and interesting. What makes the original videos interesting is both the exploration of this space, and the unknowing of what’s lurking in it.

This movie struggles with these concepts as it clearly doesn’t want to be a movie solely exploring the backrooms. To reach a wider audience there’s more character arcs and backstory and plot driving the film, but like I said it’s pretty underwritten. Plus, the mystique behind the backrooms is taken away a bit with this. What’s truly frightening about the web series is never really seeing what’s attacking and chasing people. And while they play with that a bit they really send it off with a pretty dumb looking creature that ends up being shown too frequently as what’s coming after characters rather than some ominous being.

This style of horror is incredibly appealing to me. I love liminal horror, as one of my all time favorite movies I consider to be the daddy of liminal horror and likely a major inspiration on this (The Shining). Plus I’ve recently gotten into japanese horror from the 90s and early 2000s that really plays with liminal horror. Movies by Takashi Miike and Kiyoshi Kurosawa and the Silent Hill games have cemented my love for everything liminal. I’m excited to see it hone it’s own genre with recent movies like Skinamarink, Exit 8, and now this.

But this makes me a little weary for the direction of liminal horror. If it continues to become this accessible and watered down a lot of the really creative and thought provoking elements might end up being lost in future entries in this genre. Though a more optimistic perspective sees a lot more people being interested and exposed to liminal horror, and more people finding love for liminal horror means more avenues for creatives to continue making liminal content.

While I actually find the mythology of the backrooms very interesting, I just feel they played it a bit to safe with this. Skinamarink really works for me because it goes all in. It doesn’t try to concern itself with plot or accessibility, it is consistently liminal horror from start to finish and i find that to make far more frightening and well made. To me, Skinamarink is the true backrooms adaptation.

I’m really excited to see where Kane goes as a director, as it is clear to me his vision is really strong here. I just think he has a better movie in him once he gets more experience making studio films and puts out a more original idea without established lore and as much hinging on it.

3.1/5

listened to this right after the Boards of Canada album, which was very interesting as they are definitely ear’s daddy.

ear is an up and coming duo from new york, consisting of members Yaelle Avtan and Jonah Paz. They released their debut album just last year, and have already followed it up with this years Rumspringa. This record was released under A24 music, which is a subsidiary label of the popular film studio. It’s notable to me they are signed with A24, because they are the first artist who’s signed with A24 I heard of before A24 signed them.

ear has a similar ambient and retro synth vibe, but takes it to a more approachable place in infusing elements of dream pop and leaning more cozy than unsettling.

I think ear could definitely attribute a lot of their sound to pioneering synth guys like BoC, but they put their own twist on this sound for what i find to a be very clearly a gen z audience.

one of my current favorite indie artists Operelly refered to her music as “Tip-toe” music or maybe even “Tip-toe” pop. I feel this would be a very apt descriptor for ear’s music and this latest album as well.

Both rely on electronic elements and synthesizers, but there is also a heavy emphasis on acoustic guitar. The sound creates a nostalgic feeling, almost like an audio home video tape including ambient noise of everyday life and excerpts of conversations. Along with all this, the vocals are incredibly soft and gentle, almost asmr like.

I feel this has a strong appeal to a gen z audience, due to gen z’s kind of nostalgic obseession with late 90s early 2000s’ which this brings some sounds in from, but also has this bedroom pop quality that is very current and popular right now.

There is a lot of creative production choices and a really interesting soundscape, but frankly, this loses it’s touch after a bit. the songs end up sounding pretty repetitive and the vocals in particular lose their charm after a while.

Overall though, I enjoyed this. I think this a great example of taking a lot of creative liberties and experimenting with music while still being approachable enough to reach a wide audience. And i feel the balance of those two things is pretty important to continued innovation in music making.

3.7/5

scottish duo Boards of Canada has put out their 5th studio album, after a 13 year hiatus. Made up of brothers Marcus and Michael, the pair excel at creating atmospheric and eery techno music, building a cacophony of genres and sounds.

Boards of Canada has been one of my favorite groups for a while. A few years back I listened through most their discography, and would still regard their debut album Music Has the Right to Children to be one of my favorite albums of all time. Nonetheless, this album was high on my anticipation list.

Boards of Canada has an incredibly unique and recognizable sound. They rely heavily on synthesizers and sounds from the 70s, early days in electronic music, and also use spoken word samples from the same era to add some texture to their songs. Their sound can be described as ambient and haunting. There is an incredibly uncanny and eery quality to their music.

I actually first discovered them through the song Gyroscope, which I first heard in the horror movie Sinister. This song, along with much of their music, has this unsettling atmosphere. one fitting the mood of the horror film quite well.

But in addition to eeriness, there are both beautiful ambient moments and invigorating danceable qualities to their music. Coming to rise in the mid 90s, the band also implements much use of Hiphop style beats underscoring their more ambient atmospheric instrumentals.

This latest work, Inferno, sees all these familiar elements of Boards of Canada’s music, but continues to build on their sound. This album features a bit more live instrumentation than their previous works. While their albums are mostly made up of synthezied drums and chords, there appears to inclusion of some bass and guitar on this album.

In fact, the second song on the album and leading single, Prophecy at 1420 MHz, features a live guitar and nearly sounds like it could be off a shoegaze album. But with this sound, it still pretty expertly integrates their electronic elements as well.

I would regard Boards of Canada pioneers. Much what we have come to hear in ambient music and vapor wave can be traced back to their work. I would put them in a similar category to guys like Aphex Twin, although in some ways I prefer their work.

I’m not sure this album is reinventing the wheel the way their earlier music did, but it is still incredibly refreshing and impressive. It exemplifies their song making and production abilities, and shows they still got it.

I don’t have much else to say about it, but this is by far one of my favorite records of the year. I find their music scratches an itch for me, and just being able to have more new Boards of Canada to listen to is a huge win for me.

4.3/5