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2025 log

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December

I think people throw around the word "Kafka-esque" pretty liberally so it may have lost some of its meaning, but this novel is very much Kafka-esque in the truest way possible. Yes, this is partly because of the absurdity of everything happening; but it's also because of the ways that Tse navigates personhood and paranoia under the ridiculousness that often is governmental and beaureaucratic control (hope I spelled that right); the endless search for some route of "escape" which is often left only halfway pursued; epiphanies and awakenings quickly quashed under the heel of power, the rigid structure of industrialized society, and the closed-in quarters of the city. The most direct comparison to be made is between this and Kafka's The Castle, though of course, this works within its own political framework, drawing from Hong Kong's history of colonization and control from various world powers. Unfortunately, it shares another similarity with The Castle - though consistently interesting and compelling, the narrative does become a bit wearying to follow. By the time we get to the final two chapters, which are quite poignant and reframe the entire novel preceding them, a bit of their potency is lost because the book had turned my brain a bit mushy by that point. Still, I came away feeling positively about the experience as a whole.

Can you believe this is my one and only exposure to the world of Dune? LMAO. I haven't read the books, nor seen the newer movies, though I plan on doing both. Even without any prior knowledge, I can 100% see and understand how this adaptation botched things a little bit. The pacing of the final third is absolutely wack. And yet... I am just so enamored by this. Like it is so great and so bad at the same time. I truly believe if the powers that be (production studios) had let Lynch do his thing, he could have made a perfect film series or even TV mini-series, rather than shoving it all into one film. Even with some of the absurd choices he made (milking cat...?) I wanted to just yell out, "let him cook! LET HIM COOK!" Kinda obsessed with this...

[4.5] I've been looking for something just like this for so long! Lo-fi ambience with that combination of haunting, nostalgia, comfort, calm, and sadness... Chef's kiss!

Favorite tracks: "long walk home (you exist in my frozen memories forever)," "digital blizzard," "static snow"

I have endless appreciation for Kendrick's approach here, which captures the visceral fear of knowing you're in an unsafe situation and desperately looking for a way out, without needlessly replaying the fear and pain of the real-life victims who inspired the story. It's clear she wanted to tell a story of the victims and survivors, not of the killer, and I do feel it's the most respectful approach one could take to this story. However, as an overall film, it just felt a bit bland to me. I'm not so sure I got anything new out of this that already knowing about the true story didn't already provide. Outside of the moments of tension, the characters and story felt distant and flimsy. I'm not sure this is something I'll really remember, but it was fine.

I have so many complicated thoughts and feelings about this novel. It clearly indicts its protagonist, William Stoner, for the ways in which his hesitance, indecision, and ultimately his willingness to take a back seat in his own life and allow things to happen without his interference, cause suffering for him but especially for the women in his life (his wife, his daughter, his affair partner, you could even argue his mother as well). At the same time, it treats Stoner with gentleness. The narration, though third person, is clearly trapped in Stoner's perceptions, limited by his own apparent inability to understand others, most of all his wife, Edith. From the periphery of his story, she haunted me, a woman I've seen many other readers call "crazy" but whom I felt I saw and understood clearly, a woman trapped socially and financially and by her repressive upbringing in a marriage she clearly never wanted nor enjoyed, traumatized by marital rape, lashing out as a way of claiming the little freedoms and power she could find. I can't be sure how Williams intended it, but being a woman and reading how Stoner repeatedly deludes himself into believing his wife is consenting to his advances at the beginning of their marriage when she obviously isn't painted my view of him quite negatively for the rest of the novel, and that only made it all the more compelling. Here is the portrait of a man so terrified of taking responsibility for his desires that he behaves selfishly and often allows others to suffer the most for it. While reading I thought often of Sartre's charge that "we are left alone, without excuse." In the absence of a divine plan for our existence, we must take responsibility for building our own moral code and taking action to follow it. Nobody else is going to guide us in the right direction. Stoner knows he is alone but behaves as if he has an excuse, often thinking "there was nothing he could have done" when there very much was, a behavior he unfortunately passes down to his daughter to devastating effect. (That part really hurt my heart). This tension was fascinating to me and propelled me quickly through the text, aided by Williams' very purposeful writing style, despite the fact that there is nothing that would normally intrigue me about a plotline like this one if I were to simply look at the synopsis. I'm so glad I believed everyone who said "I know this book seems boring but you should read it anyway." They were right!

"There was always near his consciousness the blood knowledge of his inheritance, given him by forefathers whose lives were obscure and hard and stoical and whose common ethic was to present to an oppressive world faces that were expressionless and hard and bleak." pg. 219.

For full immersion, imagine you've just heard a loud, tired sigh emitted from your computer screen lol.

OK, so, I've always had a very mixed experience with Ashnikko. Sometimes she makes music that I have on repeat and can't get enough of (many of the songs from Weedkiller), other times she makes music that I truly despise and feel irritated by (basically everything on Demidevil except "Cry.") When it comes to this album, I was a bit excited at first because I felt the good stuff on Weedkiller was so strong and the other bits weren't bad, just boring, so the next album had a chance of being all good stuff as she improved, right? But then I saw the title and cover and had an immediate negative reaction, which may have been unfair because I think this reaction largely comes from flashbacks to Melanie Martinez if I'm being honest lol. Alas, hoping to at least salvage a "World Eater" or "You Make Me Sick!" style track from this release, I forced myself past the visceral disgust triggered by that goddamn album cover (once again, a personal issue) and gave this a listen. And I'm sad to say, my main feeling while listening through was... annoyance. I guess it's possible I wasn't in the right mood? I don't really have a problem with the over-the-top vulgarity of the songs, I'm pretty much used to that from Ashnikko and when done well it can be part of her appeal. And most of the stuff in here was pretty danceable, I'll give it that. But I was listening while doing chores so I actually heard the lyrics and... ugh. So much about this just felt forced? I think highly explicit, sexual pop music works best when there's a kind of swagger to it, or else it's truly funny in some way. (Rarely is music like this actually going to be sexy). And I've felt as if Ashnikko had that swagger in the past, I mean, I don't entirely like the song but she totally captures that vibe in "Slumber Party" from back in the day. But most of these songs feel kinda childish and like they're trying way too hard and it just doesn't hit how I think it's intended. These mostly aren't all that funny either, if only because there's something so chronically online about a lot of the lyrics that the humor feels pretty recycled ("I want you in me like microplastics" feels like something I've seen on Twitter, and I'm not even on Twitter!) At the very least most of the album was, as I said, very danceable, and perhaps in a different context I could have enjoyed it a lot more. But the last two songs which close the album are really quite atrocious in my opinion, so it left a much more negative impression on me by the end, unfortunately.

Favorite tracks: "I Want My Boyfriends to Kiss"

Heck yeah, kicking off the month with two five-star albums. This one goes hard and never lets up. When I say punk isn't dead, it just looks a lil' different, this is what I mean. Ho99o9 genre blends and brings industrial and hip hop into the mix but it is still undeniably punk in all of its anger, fun, catharsis, and prescience. Look, my taste has expanded but I never really stopped being the kid who truly fell in love with music when she learned how loud, fast, and pissed off it could be, so this is right up my alley!

Favorite tracks: "Escape," "Upside Down," "Tapeworm"

AHHHHHHHHHH this is phenomenal!!!!!!!!!!! I'm honestly kind of speechless. I get the sense that Backxwash dug really deeply into some very vulnerable feelings to bring this album to life, and the result is stunning. Even if you don't listen to the whole thing, I beg you to listen to the song "History of Violence." The shift from the personal pain and depression at the beginning, to the anger at systemic violence and greed and injustice at the end, is such an expertly crafted journey and it made me cry. Like I said, PHENOMENAL.

Favorite tracks: "History of Violence," "Dissociation," "9th Heaven"

November

[3.5] After that song Courtney LaPlante did with Poppy and Amy Lee, I thought I'd check out her band Spiritbox. LaPlante totally rocks on this album! Her screaming and singing both just swept me away (ha! get it?) In some ways, though, I feel like she sort of carried the album? I do really enjoy a lot of the songs on here, but when listening through the album as a whole, it can sometimes feel a bit generic, or like there's not much interesting going on outside of whatever LaPlante is doing.

Favorite tracks: "Soft Spine," "Fata Morgana," "Ride the Wave"

OK, so, full disclosure, this isn't normally the kind of thing I listen to so I don't really know how to review it? As far as dance pop music goes, I found it very danceable, on a few more listens I'm sure it would be quite catchy, but, I don't know, nothing stuck out to me or really excited me. It was just nice to have on in the background. I'm at least glad Rebecca Black was able to reclaim her image and make cool, competent pop music instead of forever being remembered as "Friday" girl... I'm sure that was awful to go through as a teenage girl.

Favorite track: "Do You Even Think About Me?"

As the follow-up to Kiss of Death this was initially... a little bit disappointing to me. Every project of theirs is pretty different and they experiment with a lot of different approaches and sounds, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that this didn't sound exactly like my favorite IC3PEAK songs of their 2020-2024 era. Once I adjusted to what they were actually delivering, instead of being stuck on what I was hoping to hear, I realized that even in their take on "indie pop" (if you can even call it that?) is still so undeniably them. And I'm not even sure how to describe what I mean by that, if you give some of their stuff a listen I think you'll immediately understand what I mean. And while I couldn't understand half of this album because it's primarily in Russian, by the time I got to "I Hope You're Okay," the grief that undergirds the whole release hit me like a fucking truck. Given the context of the album, and the sentiment I ended up understanding by the end of it, I understand why they went in the direction they did. This is an album originating from exile, from the feeling that there is no home for you, that you are a "man without a country," so to speak. It's not my favorite work from the band but it's something I can feel they needed to make, and I quite appreciate it.

Favorite tracks: "I Hope You're Okay," "You're Gone but I'm Alive," "Frog in Love"

In the past I tend to like maybe a couple of songs from each twigs project - 2 songs from Magdalene,, 3 or 4 from Caprisongs - but even as the other tracks on those releases didn't do much for me I could still see the vision and always respected twigs as an artist. This album is, I think, THE FKA twigs album for me! Her voice is absolutely angelic, the music just sounds so sleek and otherworldly and sensual, it definitely takes inspiration from some late 90s/early 2000s electronic music but brings it into the future and makes it completely new again. There's also just something kind of healing about a lot of these songs to me? I feel like I'm floating above my problems while listening to it, everything is still visible but I'm not mired in it, it just feels like another space to exist in. So, yeah, the highs are realllyyy high but there are also some lows here and there... "Childlike Things" was a total mistep (and felt completely out of place), like, c'mon, why are we putting North West singing in fuck-ass Japanese in here? It's just grating and feels so vapid compared to the rest of the album.

Favorite tracks: "Striptease," "Eusexua," "Sticky"

[4.5] I've been a pretty big fan of Zheani since her Satanic Prostitute EP back in 2019, and I can't believe this is her first real album (everything else she's released have been mixtapes and EPs). I'm over the moon because this is literally everything I wanted out of a Zheani album. It's raw and angry and at some points leans heavily into more industrial sounds and even more straight-up punk than I've ever heard from her before. It's so cathartic and also kinda "visionary" in that you can definitely feel some sort of story being told through sheer affect even as the lyrics are often hard, if not impossible, to distinguish while listening. I'm aware that all of Zheani's work, and this album in particular, can come across as... idk, kinda abrasive to a lot of people? Probably because of the combination of screaming & autotune. I guess I understand that, but it scratches a particular itch for me. The only fault I have with this album is that I feel like the mixing was lacking, the way the vocals were layered over the instrumentation sometimes made it feel like Zheani was being swallowed up by all of the other sounds, when what I really wanted was for her to stand out. Didn't stop me from loving every song on here, just something that, if fixed, could bring this to God tier status for me.

Favorite tracks: "Sex Never Dies," "Drunken God," "Heroine Iconoclast."

For the first 3/4 of this, I was in love. In clearly delineated sections, Olds wrought her observations on suffering, experiences of abuse and grief, her doubts about herself and her relationships, all with a clear and honest vision. The viscerality and bodily nature of each one left a huge impact on me, and unlike most poetry collections, I never felt as if any poem was "lesser" than the others - there were no "skips," if you will. But then, the final section of the collection, which centers on her children. I kid you not, nearly every poem about her son makes explicit mention of his penis, and every poem about her daughter mentions either her ovaries/eggs/period and/or her breasts. To an extent, I get it - I do think watching your children go through puberty, watching their bodies change in strange and even grotesque ways, that's certainly rife with opportunity for poetry. But something about the way these poems were written, and how they were all collected together, gave the impression that each child's totality was made up only of their genitalia or reproductive capabilities, and moreso than being offended by the subject matter, I was upset by the way these children were being boiled down to these body parts. I don't know if I can fully accuse these poems' speakers of gender essentialism but... it feels close to that. It's probably something I would not have paid much mind to if it were only one or two poems, but the entire final section of the collection was this stuff, and it left a sour taste in my mouth. Which is sad, because without that, this would literally be the perfect collection to me and would probably be one of my all-time favorites.

The point at which I finally cracked and admitted I hated the "Children" poems was upon reaching these lines in a poem I quite disliked called "Bestiary," about her 7-year-old son:

"Flushed, panting,
hot for physics, he thinks about lynxes,
eagles, pythons, mosquitos, girls,
casting a glittering eye of use
over creation, wanting to know
exactly how the world was made to receive him."

I don't know, I just find it... creepy? In a way that I'm not sure is entirely self-aware or intentional, though I could be wrong. Maybe my thoughts are a bit poisoned by the fact that this exact son has grown up to be a man accused of multiple sexual assaults... this is just really unfortunate foreshadowing I guess.

Still, I dearly love those other sections. You can read two of my favorites, "Burn Center" and "The Guild", on The Poetry Foundation.

This book has single-handedly rescued me from my reading slump!!! This was such a unique combination of things. A spy novel filled with political intrigue and subterfuge, as well as a series of vignettes thoughtfully reflecting on humanity and our not-so-distant relatives (Neanderthals, my loves) and darkness and stars and agriculture, and a Rachel Cusk-esque literary exercise in interpersonal observations. The narrator feels immediate and real, while also feeling like a shadow of a person lurking in the corners of other people's lives. And she's so at odds with the idealism of the people she must ingratiate herself with, it's such an interesting dynamic. While it's thoughtful and gave my brain a lot to chew on, it was also fast-paced and a little bit suspenseful at points, and I think this combination is what made it perfect for getting me back into reading. Hooray! I'd like to thank my bestie (an anthropologist who loves Neanderthals more than anyone I know) for recommending this to me.

"Cave frequencies, he said, are not three to thirty megahertz. Cave bandwidth crosses moments, eras, epochs, eons. You have to learn to get inside the monophony, to tease it apart. Eventually, you encounter an extraordinary polyphony. You begin to sort, to filter. You hear whispers, laughter, murmurs, please. There's a feeling that everyone is here."

"Bruno found in the crimps to his peripheral sight something meaningful. I did not find the crimps to my own sight meaningful. I ignored them as the doctor advised. If the crimp was there, it lasted maybe thirty minutes, and I waited for it to subside. I never could later recall the moment when it did subside. I only noticed that it was gone."

"It was twilight, and the tall grasses in the meadow that wrapped around the backside of the water were in shadow. As I neared the grassy field and the bench where I'd sat with Rene, I was mesmerized by these tiny white clumps hugging each blade of the tall grass. They looked like little lice on thick strands of green hair. I thought of what Bruno had said about his own lice: problems leave when they are ready to go.

This wild grass, bending in all directions as wind swept through, was covered with them. Upon close inspection, the tiny white blobs were small snails attached to the grass blades. They had overtaken the meadow like invading aliens."

[3.5] After so many spins of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, this is actually my first time going back to listen to a Fugees CD all the way through... Hill truly steals the show every time. Her singing is beautiful and her rapping has such a smooth and satisfying flow to it. Honestly there's not a single song I dislike on here, but it's a bit of a pet peeve for me when there's a lot of filler trailing the end of each track in an album, like snippets of conversations and things like that, I feel like they go on for so long in this album and it ruins the flow of the listening experience for me, I must admit. I've noticed this was kind of a trend for albums from the 90s, and this is something Miseducation does too, (it's my only complaint about that album). I'm sure there must have been a reason behind it from a creative perspective but I'd much prefer the album without that included.

Favorite track: "Ready or Not," "Fu-Gee-La," "Family Business"

Crazy how this is just a small taste of what's to come. I tend to listen to Post, Homogenic, and Vespertine when I'm in the mood for Bjรถrk but it's also nice to occasionally return to this, it's a bit less polished, but you can already see her greatness ^-^

Favorite Tracks: "Human Behaviour," "Venus as a Boy," "The Anchor Song."

My dad loves this band and other than Miles Davis, it was really my first introduction to jazz outside of smooth jazz background noise. I've really tried to convince myself I enjoy them for years now, because I can see what they're doing from a creative perspective and I think it's really cool and interesting. (I have a very limited background in music/jazz, I did learn how to play a little bit of jazz guitar at one point, but I was never very good at it - still, I learned enough to understand what The Bad Plus is doing and why it's impressive). I still think I would have a lot of fun at a live performance of this band, but listening to the recordings in headphones or even from a speaker system is a very taxing experience. Like, it gets so chaotic and dissonant and cluttered that it's legitimately exhausting to listen to. The cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is somehow both cool and quite unpleasant to me. I'm not really sure why I can't get on board with it because I'm no stranger to enjoying noisy chaos...

Favorite track: "Keep the Bugs off Your Glass and the Bears off Your Ass"

(This is firmly a 3.5 star album for me, to be clear - I just can't figure out how to do half stars without making them look wonky lol). It's so interesting to return to St. Vincent's early work, seeing how different the music she makes now is from how she started. This album is very of it's time, if that makes sense? There was a lot of indie pop in this vein back in the 2000s, I'm thinking Regina Spektor, Fleet Foxes, and it's a bit of a deeper cut but perhaps even The Pierces? (Anyone else remember them? Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge was low-key a banger... I think, I haven't listened to it since I was like 10). Parts of this album really stand apart from the sonic milieu of the time while others slot right in nicely. I enjoy the emphasis on storytelling and the way some tracks call back to each other to make it worthwhile to listen to the whole album together in one go. "Paris is Burning" was the first St. Vincent song I ever heard and it's still probably my favorite.

Favorite tracks: "Paris is Burning," "The Apocalypse Song," "Landmines"

(Note that this is a combination of my Letterboxd review, messages I've sent to friends, and further thoughts I've had on my own.)

This is a decent enough dark fantasy film but not a very good adaptation (or even interpretation) of the source material. Would love to try to judge this on its own merits but let's be real, I can't do that. The book is one of my favorites and this kinda took away most of the things that made the book meaningful to me, that's a bit hard to ignore! I was waiting for an emotional punch which never came...

I wish I could say I'm surprised but honestly I was somewhat expecting this. I've had the same exact issue with every Guillermo Del Toro movie I've seen. He makes "Gothic" films in that there's big spooky towers, Byronic gentlemen, and women running around in ornate gowns and long flowing hair, but they're not really all that Gothic in the actual narrative or its execution. It's a bit more melodrama, a bit more action movie, always quite a bit more didactic than one would expect from a Gothic tale. Where's my nuance? I want my nuance! And Mia Goth's character could have been so much more, but instead it felt very much like a "pretty woman=symbol of purity and goodness for the men to angst over" kind of thing. If you wanted to go full on romance between her and the creature, go for it! I wouldn't have minded. But you've got to let her be more of a person. And this may be an unpopular opinion, and could partially be because the changes to Victor's character are what frustrated me the most out of all of the changes (let's strip him of everything interesting and complex and just make him an evil villain I guess?), but I feel like Oscar Isaac was doing too much lol like he was just at full drama the entire time.

Perhaps my core issue is that I hate the trope of the "perfect victim." As if a character who has survived abuse, neglect, oppression, or cruelty is only worth our sympathy if we can deem them faultless in all actions they take in the aftermath. I think the mistake Del Toro, (and many others who have sought to adapt Frankenstein), has made is that he set out to "make the Creature sympathetic," but... the Creature has always been sympathetic. It's perhaps a minor spoiler for the movie, but something that sticks out is that the Creature only ever kills or hurts others in self-defense in the movie. But I never needed that from the Creature to resonate with him. I was capable of both condemning and understanding the more cold-blooded murders he committed in the original text - and the nice thing about fiction, in my opinion, is that we're entirely allowed to enjoy and love murderous characters! When it comes to fiction, I find it so much more interesting to encounter characters who make decisions I disagree with, for reasons I can understand. As written by Shelley, both Victor Frankenstein and his Monster are flawed and complicated - they both do fucked up things, but it's hard to hate either one because each of us carries a little bit of each man within us. We are all terrified of our own responsibilities and resentful of feeling abandoned by a thoughtless universe. We are all father and son to something, maker and made. And I suppose this is what I mean when I say Del Toro makes films with a Gothic aesthetic which aren't actually Gothic, because the Gothic is all about dwelling in those precise complexities. But I think so much of my frustration - so much of what I've just rambled about - has, perhaps, less to do with this movie and more to do with a general shift in the kinds of stories being told and how they're being told, how it feels like there's no space or capacity for the Gothic these days, and I keep getting tricked into watching or reading things only to be disappointed by this dissonance...

(Also, can we talk about how this film ends with a quote from Byron instead of a quote from Shelley??? Excuse me????????)

This is a lot of complaining for something I ultimately thought was still decent. I think Jacob Elordi's Creature was the best part of the film. The Creature's design and the way Elordi embodies him is just perfect - he fully inhabits the role. The portions of the narrative that focus just on him are certainly the best, and the ending shot of him is quite satisfying in a somber way. I think this movie will prob be a huge hit for people who don't have pre-existing bias based on reading the story. I know my partner really loved it, so I enjoyed sharing the joy with him of how much he was into it.

Ichiko Aoba is my go-to artist if I need some music to make me feel at peace, or even a little bit of escapism. This album, like so much of her previous work, is a practice in world-building via sound. Obviously harmony is a part of most music in one way or another, but this album is particularly harmonious, if that makes sense. I've gotta be in the right mood for it, though.

Favorite tracks: "Flag," "Coloratura," "Luciferine"

This is available for free on Vimeo. Fellow Americans, do watch this and study up - this is the truth of our history and honestly our present as well.

  • "Animating Ephemera through Oral History: Interpreting Visual Traces of California Gay College Student Organizing from the 1970s" by David A. Reichard in The Oral History Review vol. 39, issue 1 | article
  • "Keepers of Ghosts: Old Signs, New Media and the Age of Archival Flux" by Lisa Cianci & Stephen Schutt in Archives & Manuscripts vol. 42, issue 1 | article
  • "Early Soviet Visual Antireligious Propaganda: The Display of Print Images in the Past, Present and Digital Future" by Kevin M. Kain in Slavic & East European Information Resources vol. 19, issue 3-4 | article
  • "Odds, Ends, and Archival Exclusion: Ephemeral Archives and Counter-History in the English Country House" by Lucy Brownson in Archives and Records vol. 44, issue 3 | article
  • "Theoretical Approaches to the Collection and Appraisal of Graffiti Ephemera: A Toronto, Ontario, Case Study" by Al Cunningham Rogers in Archivaria vol. 97 | article
  • "Documenting Illegal Art: Collaborative Software, Online Environments and New York City's 1970s and 1980s Graffiti Art Movement" by Rachel Masilamani in Art Documentation vol. 27, issue 2 | article
  • "Not Fade Away: Understanding the Definition, Preservation, and Conservation Issues of Visual Ephemera" by John H. Slate in Collection Management vol. 25, issue 4 | article
  • "The Appraisal of Ephemera" by Diane Deblois & Robert Dalton Harris in Popular Culture in Libraries vol. 4, issue 2 | article
  • "Subject Control of Ephemera: MARC Format Options" by Jane Greenberg in Popular Culture in Libraries vol. 4, issue 1 | article
  • "Posters as Library Resource: The International Poster Collection at Colorado State University" by Christine Nelson & Joel S. Rutstein in Collection Management vol. 20 | article
  • "Printed Ephemera - The Raw Materials of History" by Florence M. Jumonville in LLA Bulletin vol. 53 | article
  • "Archival Activism: Emerging Forms, Local Applications" by Vladan Vuklis & Anne J. Gilliland | essay
  • Sensitive Monsters by Marty Gordon | art book

October

How had I not seen this before? This is exactly my kind of horror. A slow, creeping, inescapable dread that sneaks up in you in small moments; combined with the silliness of convoluted backstories or characters suddenly having powers that were never mentioned before (such things are quite endearing to me). I don't think we'd have most of today's analog horror without this film. I've really got to watch more 90s J-horror, I always love it when I do.

I got into Banshee through her more trap metal, scream-heavy music, so seeing this would be more in the realm of synthpop made me nervous I wouldn't like it as much, but this is AWESOME!!! Super textured synth production, danceable tunes that still incorporate Banshee's scream-y-ness very smoothly, altogether the whole thing is pretty entrancing. This is what I've had on repeat this month!

Favorite tracks: "Cry me a river.," "You are what you fear in me.," "80 miles out and 6 feet deep"

Bruh, everyone was lying to me when they said this movie was good or were acting like Burton is "so back." This still encapsulates everything I've been disliking about Burton's work from the past 2 decades. Cringy teenage characters, trying to convince us characters are unfairly outcast misfits when really they're just rude to everyone and thus reasonably have a hard time getting along with people, and also, I just don't think his visions are nearly as appealing when brought to life with CGI instead of practical effects, and that is especially glaring here, with the original Beetlejuice being such a direct point of comparison. What REALLY pisses me off though? They did my girl Lydia Deetz so fucking dirty!!! The Lydia of my childhood would never sell-out like this!! She completely lost all of her edge, her creativity, her backbone. Her personality is unrecognizable, only her visual aesthetic is the same... and you know, I would prefer it to be the other way around. Her retaining her original spirit and switching up her style would make so much more sense than her keeping the same exact haircut for like 30 years but then marketing her psychic ability to make slop ghost hunting TV. I guess it just feels like a betrayal. Having grown up with the original movie and relating to Lydia like so many other kids/teens, it's upsetting to think she grows up to be like this. It feels like being told I'll lose my spark, too, and I hate that. But I guess this movie gets one (1!) bonus point for a character having a poster of Morphine's The Night on his wall - under-appreciated album from an under-appreciated band, very exciting for me, personally, to see them represented... even if it was by the first-act villain.

This movie is still amazing. I aspire to one day be able to create work that balances disturbing and funny so artfully. I literally don't know how Harron and the scriptwriters and actors did it...

I know she'll be mad if I don't say it, so shout out to Olivia for introducing me to The Last Dinner Party, and for telling Sarah to tell me to listen to "Rifle" lol. I really like what this band has going on. Not all of their songs are for me, but I respect the craft that they put into everything they make. I enjoy them most when they're leaning into their baroque theatricality, and a lot of this album lends itself to that. Everyone's vocals are beautiful, and I also find their range pretty impressive, as they can go from highly dramatic and intense to humorous and playful very quickly in the same album without it feeling jarring or out-of-place - it all just fits together.

Favorite tracks: "Rifle," "Count the Ways," "Second Best"

This was wayyyy over-hyped but not bad. It's a decent and fun popcorn horror movie with a sense of humor and plenty of shocking spooks and surprises, no problem with that.

My mom, who was a teen/young woman at the time, did not get to go to Lilith Fair, but the music that came from it played a monumental role in her life, so of course I had to watch this with her. I grew up on the LF compilation CDs and the music of all of the women who played there. Sheryl Crow was my first favorite artist when I was reallllyyy little, like so little I couldn't pronounce her name correctly, I called her Shelly Crow. And I remember being genuinely disappointed if my mom put on CDs of male artists, I only wanted to listen to women lmao. So I was always tangentially aware of this portion of music history, but never knew the ins and outs of how it came to be and the toxicity of the cultural context that drove Sarah McLachlan to start it in the first place. I had no clue it was ever a thing that radio stations wouldn't play more than one female artist in a row, for instance. I guess, nowadays, it feels as if music is pretty much dominated by women, so it's hard to imagine that anyone ever didn't want to listen to them. This documentary did a great job of capturing the magic of these festivals. While there may be some nostalgizing going on (there certainly is), these events truly do seem utopian, and I'm so sad I wasn't alive to attend any of them. This is really a vehicle for showing off an impressive plethora of archival footage, and I'm not mad at it - the art speaks for itself. In a weird way, I could see this becoming a comfort watch for me. I can just turn it on and imagine a world that looks like Lilith Fair and feel happy for a little while.

Y'all, I know I'm supposed to like them (who says so? Not sure, yet I feel the unspoken pressure) but I'm so tired of reading books that are just like... fragmented pieces of a character's life scattered over ~100 pages. I always get tricked into reading them by beautiful covers or tantalizing blurbs or rave reviews, and I rarely get anything out of them. But also they're not bad, so I can't really hate on them that much. I'm just over it.

I don't want to give away a lot because this is really entertaining to see for the first time while knowing nothing about it and I don't want to take that experience away from anyone. If you think there's nothing worthwhile that could be added to the zom-com genre, you're mistaken. Trust me, this is a good one.

Can't believe it took me so long to get around to this classic. Unsurprisingly, I loved it, I found it really fun. Dorian Gray is such an entertaining asshole to follow around. Imagine if he had access to Reddit...

September

I hate to say it because I was excited to see Sophie Thatcher in this, but I think this is just a bad movie to be honest. Too predictable to be thrilling, too sanitized to be horrific, too obvious to be thought-provoking, and too poorly structured to be dumb fun. When I say poorly structured, I mean things like this: the first kill initially happens off-screen. We skip right to the killer walking into the house drenched in blood, then sitting down, and explaining, beat by beat, exactly what happened, at which point we get flashbacks. I truly do not understand this decision on the filmmaker's part. In what world would any audience rather listen to a character describe what happened, instead of just watching what happens as it happens? This kind of thing happened over and over again, and the tension just leaks out every single time. The film also doesn't bring anything new or interesting to its concept which has been done quite a few times before. I think it's cool to give a new life to familiar stories, but there truly isn't anything new here. I'm glad I watched it with friends, because that made it fun enough to at least watch to the end.

I was so distracted by other stuff this month, I ended up only reading one book. It was a good one though! A neat assortment of Teffi's short stories. They share a quiet, dark-humored Gothic sensibility with the stories of Shirley Jackson, and were a great way to get started with fall reading. While this particular selection ended up feeling a bit repetitive by the end, many of the individual stories were really wonderful, especially the more whimsical ones that play off of Russian folklore and superstitions. I could see myself revisiting some of these every once in a while.

This is actually the first time I've ever watched this! I thought it was quite enjoyable. Very cozy, has a warm sense of humor, the costumes and sets are beautifully realized, it feels nice to watch. I was honestly more invested in Elizabeth's relationship with her sisters than with Darcy, but I don't think that's a bad thing, it just makes the characters feel more well-realized. Can definitely see why this is a comfort watch for so many.

I somehow went a long time never learning anything about this movie or case, but I watched it because both my mom and my sister in law DEMANDED me to watch it so they could talk to me about it. My SIL claimed the twist would make me "shit my pants." Well, it did not make me shit my pants, but it was quite surprising. This is a really strange and interesting case, but in the end, I don't think there was enough to stretch out for an entire documentary film. After the reveal, I kept thinking the movie was about to end, and it just... kept going. Way too much time spent letting talking heads speculate wildly, as glaring details are never circled back to. (For instance, why weren't any sexual harassment charges brought up in court? Iykyk). Anyway, this is a standard true crime doc, not particularly well-made, but serviceable enough to convey what happened for those curious about it, I guess.

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, they can never make me hate you...

I've finished the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy and now I don't know what to do with myself!!! This movie, along with Nowhere and The Doom Generation, are just integral parts of myself at this point. I cannot stop thinking about them. I think I've already said everything I need to say about them in various parts of the internet (and this site) at this point, so I'll leave it at that. They're so fun but then also always have those scenes, and those endings, that make me feel sick just to remember. Lord almighty, somebody let James Duval live happily ever after with a gay lover for once!!!

All these years later and I actually watched this lmao. My boyfriend has been showing his mom all of the Marvel movies so when we went to have dinner with her, I ended up watching this with them with the Spanish dub. I didn't hate it but also it was so fast-paced that there was no time to fully realize what was happening, and the way all of the disparate superhero groups are brought together causes for a lot of forced chemistry and dynamics that did not ever get enough room to breathe. But maybe I would have felt differently if I'd actually watched the other movies. It's not really my thing, but I can definitely see why it was such a big deal to fans when it came out. Rocket Raccoon is my favorite character, because he is a talking raccoon.

August

Technically a re-listen, but I've really been feeling this album lately (perhaps because I am really begging for autumn to begin here in the PNW right now...) and it had actually been quite a long time since I last listened to it from beginning to end. I'm not the first person to say this, but this album is perfect. No skips, will forever be a classic. Favorite tracks: "Disorder," "New Dawn Fades," "Shadowplay," and "Interzone."

NEW DEFTONES ALBUM, RAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I actually did not let myself listen to any of the singles released before the full album came out because I wanted to experience it all in one go, and boy, I'm glad I did that. Getting to hear "my mind is a mountain" for the very first time as the opening to the rest of this album was just awesome. As always, they're the masters of alternative metal that is somehow simultaneously crushing and dreamy, bodily and transportive. Guh, I just love them. This album seems to be returning a bit to their White Pony/Saturday Night Wrist days, and while on first listen I don't think it quite recaptures the lightning-in-a-bottle that was those albums, it was still phenomenal, and I get the feeling that this album will only hit harder and harder with consecutive listens and spending more time with some of the individual songs. Favorite tracks: "my mind is a mountain," "infinite source," "milk of the madonna," and "cut hands."

I truly believe this is one of the best alien movies out there. The creature's design is just so good!!! And the use of sound to evoke dread, the utilization of landscape and sky as the alien's hunting grounds, the lovable characters who lighten up the terror with just the right amount of humor, and the tightly wound thematic doubling (even tripling?) that happens around the concepts of spectacle, human hubris, and predation... I think my only complaint is that I still don't fully understand all of the characters' motivations to put themselves in the dangerous situation that they're in. I'm usually not one to nitpick at characters' decision-making in horror movies (there would be no story if they didn't let themselves fall into danger!), but in this case it feels like Peele was really trying to bend over backwards to create understandable reasons for each character to remain involved when they have multiple opportunities to simply leave the situation, and I just never fully bought it. That doesn't get in the way of the rest of my enjoyment, though, it's just something I noticed more on this watch.

Can't believe the last time I watched this was with my friends in February 2020... we had no idea what was coming... Anyway, yeah, this still holds up. The tension isn't as strong when you already know what's going to happen, as is to be expected, but otherwise I think it's safe to say that everything I liked about this the first time still holds true.

Hilma af Klint has been one of my favorite artists for many years at this point, and I'm happy to say that this is a great, comprehensive biography which does justice to her life and legacy, but most of all, her vision. I hadn't realized the extent of af Klint's radical ideas, and it was fascinating to learn about the way she perceived things. Voss also very clearly loves af Klint's art on a deep level - she's not just writing about af Klint as a historical figure, and she's also not taking everything at face value (as I've occasionally seen in other artist biographies I've attempted to read). You may or may not already know about this artist and her work, but if you're interested in early abstraction, Swedish art history, spiritualism in art, or feminist art history, this may be of interest to you. It's pretty straightforward in writing style and approach, but fortunately I find Hilma af Klint to be interesting enough that I remained engaged nonetheless.

This is one of those movies that's just so fun, heartfelt, ambitious, and relentlessly creative that I feel like it's kind of impossible to have a bad time with it. It's a bit rough around the edges in terms of the script and some of the performances, but the fast pace, the distinctly queer sense of humor, and the punk-rock anarchy of it all easily carried me through. I think this would make for a fascinating double feature alongside I Saw the TV Glow, as both movies, in their own way, explore the unique and complicated relationships between trans adolescence, dissociation, escapism, fiction, fandom, and nostalgia... has anyone written that paper yet?? If not, somebody get on that!

If you're a fan of early 2000s hip hop, nerdcore, and/or sounds in the lineage of Beastie Boys, and you haven't given JVB a chance yet, please give them a listen! Join the Hooligang!!! They bring those aforementioned sounds into the modern era with updated sensibilities that fuse to form something new and unique. I love them so much. I personally prefer their previous two albums (Punk Tactics and No Hands), but still really enjoyed this newest one. If Punk Tactics was something of a love letter to punk sensibilities, HYPERYOUTH is an album-length ode (perhaps even danceable eulogy?) to 2000s club, dance, and pop music. Both lyrically and sonically, JVB kind of actually weave an understated story here, one about fearing what happens when you grow up - when you leave the dance floor, so to speak. Drenched in 2000s and even 2010s nostalgia (the entire album is punctuated with samples of dialogue from the Adventure Time character BMO, lyrical references to countless pop classics, and, oh yeah, there's a full on Rebecca Black feature in here) as well as nostalgia for a time when everyone just wanted to let loose and dance, a time which may have only been a fantasy all along, the album's fun tiptoes around pockets of deep sadness, culminating in, of course, "Have to Cry," and then lightening up again for the last couple of tracks. There's a handful of songs in here that fail to differentiate themselves in any interesting way, but there's not really any skips, and I enjoyed this album from beginning to end. Some of my favorite tracks are "Bust Down," "See U Dance," "Live Right," and "Have to Cry."

OK, I know this is a bit of an outlier for me, I promise I'm not about to sit here and try to convince you that South Park is good or anything. I liked it in middle school because, let's be real, it's pretty much made for edgy pre-teens (which I unfortunately was, and this show wasn't even the worst thing I was watching lmao). I stopped keeping up with the show around 2016 because I just wasn't in the mood to laugh about Donald Trump being president, in fact, I felt like part of how he was able to sneak into office was because nobody took the threat of his campaign seriously and was too busy making fun of his orange skin and fake hair to really mobilize against him... well, that's a topic for another time. Point is, I hadn't been keeping up with the franchise and while my sister-in-law and I were looking for something to watch, I saw that there was a whole bunch of new-ish SP movies which I was surprised to see, and so we decided to put them on. Are these the pinnacle of comedic writing and storytelling? No. But did they make me laugh quite a lot? Yes. I'm a simple guy. Randy's OnlyFans arc is fucking hilarious to me. What can I say?

I was so excited to read this early novella from an author I greatly adore. (Her novel Malina had a huge impact on me and continues to inspire me). She apparently wrote this when she was 18 years old! While this work clearly pre-dates her more ambitious experimentation with language that characterizes Malina and her poetry, it's still a solid, concise piece of historical fiction. Here and there, it contains descriptive language that foreshadows the kind of writing Bachmann would go on to develop. It's one of those works that is considerably more interesting in context - a novel about the follies of war and blind patriotism written by a teenager who refused to join the Nazi youth despite pressure from her peers. I'm glad I got the chance to read it. (Thank you S. for procuring it for me!)

HtDA is the post-industrial side project of Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails. This EP starts and ends with two bangers ("The Space in Between" and "A Drowning"), but everything between those two tracks kind of just feels like background noise. It's pleasant enough to have on while you're doing something else, but that's about it.

OK, I've learned my lesson about reading too deeply into things on Rate Your Music. I feel like I'm going crazy! I thought this album was pretty good for the most part, a quirky psychedelic pop project that is mostly enjoyable with a couple of really hard skips in it... but lo and behold, every opinion I have about this album seems to be a hot take. For instance, my favorite tracks ("Dear God" and "Dying") seem to be considered the worst on the album, while the tracks I couldn't stand ("Grass" and "Ballet for a Rainy Day") seem to be pretty widely loved... I'm not even sure I should be talking about this album because I'm not even confident I listened to the same thing as everyone else at this point lmao

I appreciate Kang's artistry of forming a novel out of suggestions, approaching a greater whole through a dispersed series of vignettes. This is one of those books that I respect but which has not left a lasting impression on me. It's so sparse that at times it felt like I hadn't even read anything.

July

I need to stop over-hyping myself on books. I thought this would be a new favorite, and even though it was great, I felt disappointed because it wasn't everything I wanted/expected it to be, and that sucks, because that's entirely my own fault for going in with such specific expectations. This is good!! I should have appreciated it more!! "_"

This is one of the worst (high-budget) things I've ever seen. Paced and edited for iPad babies to the point that it's incomprehensible; so irony-pilled that I'm convinced nobody involved actually likes Minecraft or gaming all that much... this is all the more strange to me because Minecraft is actually a game which involves a lot of patience and focus and really is not a fast-paced action game so I'm doubtful if the scriptwriters and director have ever even played the game. I didn't think this was going to be good but wondered if it could possibly be an inoffensive, decently enjoyable blockbuster like Detective Pikachu or Sonic the Hedgehog, but this is just... awful. If this is the future of children's media, I don't think our species deserves to keep procreating.

Another local indie comic! I always make sure to visit Cam's booth at local zine fests because I adore his artwork and like to support his new stuff. This is a very elegant Gothic fantasy about forming your own identity and paving your own path. It's lovely :)

Yay for local, indie published comics! One of my favorite genres, for real. This is a really cool combination of 3d clay models and 2d digital art, the whole thing has a very lived in (and vaguely spooky) feel. It's kind of a modern, dark comedy take on Frankenstein which was executed really well.

A pleasant read, I might continue the series when I need a palate cleanser.

It was fine. It didn't make me feel the same way it seems to do for everyone else, and without the emotional aspect, it falls a little bit flat. I think it was a little bit too melodramatic for me, perhaps. Also, the more I think about it, for as much as this movie is about the importance and impact of art, it draws from an extremely limited well of literature and the characters' interactions with that literature almost feel like an afterthought. I was never convinced that any of them were truly affected by the poetry they read (save for the main character when he's performing Shakespeare). And it's not an inherent flaw, but I found it a bit odd that a movie set in the 1950s about poetry and rebellion did not so much as allude to the Beat Poets, and is strangely avoidant of the politics of poetry even though that would have been top-of-mind at the time (this takes place four years after the Howl obscenity trial!) Because this is some fancy private boys' school filled with mostly rich, elitist white boys, whose version of "rebellion" is publishing prank pieces in the school newspaper, hanging out outside of school, and standing on their desks a couple of times, it just rang a bit hollow to me. I wasn't convinced that, after graduating, these boys wouldn't just continue to conform and feed into the status quo, just like their parents, the only difference being their appreciation for Byron.

I love how much Oscar Wilde visibly hated wealth/rich people. He was really out there writing children's fairy tales where the moral was essentially "excessive wealth can never be ethical" oh and also "the aristocracy is a sham."

June

Full review here.

Sounds like a fey creature singing into the ruins of a world that ended a century ago... or perhaps a voice just barely reaching you through a radio that you long gave up on reaching anyone with... a singular and haunting project that reaches for the outward limits of lo-fi sound. Love this.

Favorite tracks: "Roadkill," "Dark Angel," "Awaiting You"

A great pop rock album with dreamy, atmospheric electronic sensibilities. I will say that this feels a bit less experimental and a bit more directionless compared to previous Yeule albums, and while Serotonin II and Softscars just felt like banger after banger, there's only a couple of songs on this album that stuck out to me, though altogether it flows into a nice, cohesive whole.

Favorite tracks: "1967," "Evangelic Girl is a Gun"

The fog... the warm lighting of bedrooms at night... the gentle tip-tapping of a leaking ceiling... loves indulged and loves lost... phenomenal.

Having a bit of an Argento phase this year but unfortunately I don't like this nearly as much as Suspiria and Phenomena. It's decent enough but I'm stunned that so many people consider it Argento's best.

The cenobites will have my (hellbound) heart forever :)

Full review here.

Dark comedy, political satire, and fantasy. Very much in the vein of The Master and Margarita by way of Vonnegut and maybe even American Gods. The 2nd person narration style took a bit for me to get used to, but that stylistic choice makes complete sense once you reach the end. I loved the characters, the sense of humor, and the sharp, humanistic vision.

I'm enjoying this series more and more with each volume. Well, perhaps "enjoy" isn't the right word... more like it's getting more and more devastating. Asano captures adolescence with such painful clarity.

May

This was fine, but really felt like... nothing. There's nothing really wrong with any of the stories, they're all decent, but there's also nothing particularly special, interesting, or memorable about how Fu executes her concepts. There's plenty of cool premises in here, but I often couldn't help but think, "I'd love to read a version of this story that does more with this concept." When the writing veers toward surrealism or horror, it always stops short, as if afraid of going all-in. So, yeah, definition of a 3-star book: there's nothing bad about it but I'm probably going to forget I ever read it.

Movie night rewatch :) Can't go wrong with this classic, it's a crowd pleaser. I miss when Tim Burton made things that didn't suck.

As a huge fan of the Outline trilogy and Second Place, this earlier Cusk work was so disappointing me. The narrative voice is insufferable in a way that didn't feel like it had much of a point. The whole thing was just meandering and completely lacking in any sort of energy or compelling force. I also felt really icky with the way the disabled character was described and used in this story at various points, and couldn't tell how much of this was intentional to show the narrator's judgemental attitude, and how much was just the way Cusk wanted to describe this character. I think I can kind of see what Cusk was trying to get at with perhaps an element of unreliable narration and a dark take on a comedy of manners, but it absolutely did not work for me.

My boyfriend does such a spot-on "so... no bitches?" face so now every time I watch this movie I think of him.

My friends and I actually had a prolonged debate about whether this could be read as some sort of queer allegory and, if so, if it was ultimately pro-queer or homophobic lmao. Anyway I do, in fact, think this movie is very gay (complimentary).

April

Manages to be snappy and short while still feeling like a whole world with hundreds of ideas unfolding inside of it. I can't say for certain without reading the original Spanish but this is an amazing translation. I'll be thinking about the word "verse" as a verb for a while.

Each story is such an acute observation on social performance & conformity. The whole book just radiates social anxiety. Whenever a character does something like completely give up their home in order to avoid an awkward social interaction, it is both extremely uncomfortable and funny, because it forces the reader to remember the times they've done ridiculous things just to avoid awkwardness. In my review of Revenge by Yoko Ogawa I called her style "mundane gothic" - I honestly didn't realize there was such a precedent for that subgenre in Jackson's work, since I'd only been exposed to her more overtly horror works like "The Lottery" and Hill House. Everything in here is brilliant even if it's not loudly, conventionally spooky. Favorite stories: "The Daemon Lover," "My Life With R.H. Macy," "Charles," "Flower Garden," "Pillar of Salt," "The Tooth," and, of course, "The Lottery."

The colors, the lighting, the music, the bugs and the occult rituals and the rain, gahhhhh I love this. Classic Argento - poor acting, weird script, but everything somehow works because it's just so stylish and interesting and suspenseful you can't help but enjoy it.

An extremely well-written memoir. So immersive that at points it reads as literary fiction. The beginning and end are a bit weak compared to the middle portion, and I'm not sure it's something that will stick with me for very long, but I think this speaks to grief in ways that are singular and authentic, which I appreciate in a sea of mediocre self-help memoirs filled with platitudes about healing. Zauner doesn't hold any punches and tackles the subject with a keen eye for description, as well as a stunning capacity for self-reflection and perspective. And yes, the food descriptions through out the second half of the book are mouthwatering - I think I now appreciate cooking in a new way and I'd like to try some of the recipes mentioned in here!

Angelou's voice in this collection is warm, playful, and honest. The poems tend to dwell on themes of balancing the need for connection/love with the need for solitude/peace; observations on relationships and cycles both personal & generational; navigating unresolved histories and uncertain futures. I have so many favorite poems in this, but if you have to seek out and read just one, I recommend "Come, and Be My Baby."

Pretty fun, I don't think I expected anything more from a Dungeons & Dragons movie. Ragtag team of characters with distinct enough personalities and motivations, plenty of comedic moments where things don't go as planned, etc. It pretty much felt like some people played a campaign of D&D, wrote down everything that happened, and then turned it into a movie.

I think I was expecting something that this could not have possibly lived up to (because it simply doesn't set out to be the kind of book I was expecting), but that doesn't mean it's bad! Really effective, well-written meditation on grief, love, and loss with some sci-fi elements and a deep sea mystery to tie it all together.

I wish I liked this more, because I do think this is a great movie, technically I truly do believe it's flawless and precise in its intentions and execution. It's certainly an interesting watch, but I do not think I was in the right headspace to really connect with it, I had a hard time staying engaged, definitely a me problem in this case.

Still so stunning. Either this or Nausicaa has got to be my favorite Ghibli movie, I think.

Really good, I wish I'd seen this as a kid cuz this is exactly the kind of thing I liked when I was little. I would have been obsessed. (But can I be a commie for a second and ask that we just for once have characters in a kid's movie do the Right thing without them being rewarded by becoming rich in the end?)

March

The narrator's voice is so compelling, very distinct and sardonic. I was really hooked by the reflections on bodily autonomy and desire in relation to disability, and the raunchy sense of humor. But it didn't really feel like a full book, or even a full story. It felt like skimming the surface of something capable of going far, far deeper.

I'm not as obsessed with this as I am Punk Tactics, as it's got slightly less grit, but I'm still a big fan of it.

Favorite tracks: "Bussit," "No Hands," "Doughboy"

Very, very soothing. I like to listen to this when navigating places I find overstimulating. It helps to keep me from having a full-on shutdown :)

Conveys a rich and vivid sense of a community, their various quirks and flaws and passions coming together to form a colorful tapestry of complex people working through pain and celebrating their various forms of beauty. There are some surrealist bits here and there, but even the more grounded aspects are imbued with magic. You really get the sense that the travestis have formed a world all their own. Their pain and anger is felt, as is their joy and strength - this is simply a novel bursting with the fullness of life. I really adored it and couldn't put it down, even at the times it made me cry.

I knew exactly what all of the twists would be after the first couple chapters, and at first I was okay with that and was just happy to enjoy a nice, atmospheric mystery, propelled by the curiosity of how the truth would come to light. But the longer the book went, the more it became a slog to get through because it takes the characters so. long. to figure out what is happening, even when the answers are staring them right in the face. This also sometimes slipped into the cheesy writing style that I've been running into everywhere and which I've been getting more annoyed by/sensitive to the more I read - it wasn't enough to completely irritate me but it did take me out of the story sometimes.

I can't tell if my increased impatience/annoyance with books is a result of 1. Some kind of reading slump or me simply not enjoying reading as much anymore, 2. Me knowing my taste better now and quickly identifying when a book just isn't for me, or 3. Merely a trend in the books my mom gravitates toward and which we therefore read for mother-daughter book club. IDK. Maybe I'm just born to be a hater.

An interesting companion to the show (which I still prefer). In this take on the story, we're given a far more direct representation of the purgatory/limbo that Utena and Anthy must escape from. (With the purgatory being heteronormativity, of course!) It's beautiful, but it's hard to compare to the experience of the show which allows you to spend more time to become attached to the characters and understand their pain.

I have redeemed myself with this movie night choice!!! Watched this for the first time in a high school film class and have often thought about it since then, it still holds up for me all these years later. Lola is just the coolest.

Just as it says in the title, it's sweet! As far as heartfelt dramas go, this is the good stuff. It's so serene I nearly fell asleep, not out of boredom, but out of comfort. It's still not really the sort of thing I seek out to watch and I don't think I'll remember it much after a few weeks, but it's well-made and does exactly what it sets out to do.

This is so fun, a revival of the Beastie Boys sound with modern production sensibilities. Great album to put on if you need an immediate mood bost.

Favorite tracks: "Hooligang," "Delinquent (Teen Titan)," "Street Pizza"

It's Gregg Araki's world and all of us 90s-obsessed, sex-crazed, mentally disturbed bisexuals are just living in it!

The Doom Generation has plagued my thoughts ever since I saw it last year and this further cements Araki's vision as being particularly enrapturing and intriguing to me. This movie is just fucking awesome via so many different intersecting vectors that I struggle to organize my thoughts even though I have a lot to say.

For one, I love how Araki just says "fuck you" to respectability politics. Queer love (and kinky love) shouldn't require the veneer of clean, vanilla romance in order to be seen for what it is: legitimate, valuable, beautiful, worthy. It doesn't need to box itself into digestible labels or bow down to conventional understandings of intimacy. It doesn't need to be fucking marketable, commercialization-friendly. (It's noteworthy that the one romance that first masquerades as a "wholesome" heterosexual coupling turns out to be a brutal, traumatic nightmare). In Araki's apocalyptic world love is all there is to keep anyone sane, but even that is under threat by a kind of meta hetero-authoritarianism - characters are punished as if in a morality tale, and it exposes how horrifying and cruel the suppression of (queer, non-normative) love is. This movie is all sex, drugs, and rock-'n'-roll but doomsday Christianity haunts it from all sides; a cultish televangelist preaching from every household's TV screen, references to the rapture ("like the Siouxsie and the Banshees album?"), a girl asking her boyfriend if he believes in God before she ties him up and spanks him (there's a Nietzsche book visible beneath him in this scene, by the way), and the whole thing clearly takes inspiration from the concept of Sodom and Gomorrah. Watching this today, as Americans suffer under the crushing weight of a Christo-fascist regime bent on erasing queer existence, the pain of Dark's unhappy ending is especially cutting. The very existence of Araki's films just goes to show that we've survived this bullshit before and we can survive it again, and we can and should still make art that's loud, in-your-face, nasty, freaky, weird, un-respectable, pornographic, sleezy, whatever-the-fuck-we-want. The people who will be disgusted by you will be disgusted no matter what you do. So you might as well have some fun.

Quite a complicated piece of literature. Extremely skillful, it replicates the experience of trauma through its non-linear organization, tangential connections, inscrutable descriptions, and vague, refracted nature. Then it also skillfully replicates the sensation of love, not as a healing elixir, but as a stabilizing force. Beyond the painful events of Noenka's life, we also get her desire, passion, and sensuality. This both in terms of sexuality as well as all of the sights, smells, textures, and temperatures that are lushly described in here. The story oozes into its own negative spaces through its vividness. In this way, it's quite brilliant, but it's also hard to follow along, resulting in a kind of detachment from the reading experience. At times I felt this was intentional and effective, at other times it seemed like I should be pulled close and just couldn't get there. Still a worthwhile experience, though.

A great coming-of-age film (Waititi is really good at those).

Somehow, this was my first time watching a Cronenberg movie. I was so excited, but in the end, I thought this was just okay. I guess the plot is interesting in a very Freudian/psychoanalytic kind of way, and the ending is awesome, but most of the time I was bored by what was happening on screen (I'm so sorry please do not revoke my freaky horror fan card :( ). It was mostly a bunch of drama and arguing up until the horrors of the end.

So sweet. The relationship between the two main characters and the understanding the guy has for her... ahhh!!! The delirious fantasy of the whole thing is so fun, though perhaps makes too much light of what it means to be delusional? I'm not sure, I don't really have any experience with that kind of thing.

THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOD AND NOBODY CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE. I can't believe the way people talk about this book as if it's evil, I feel like I read a completely different novel. Yes, disturbing things happen, and the characters are all pretty reprehensible by the end. But I never once felt like Moshfegh took pleasure in this. It was more a cutthroat exploration of the corruptive nature of possessing power over another person, the follies of wealth and power, the tragedies of inequity. Also, I can't stop thinking about how Yorgos Lanthimos would absolutely rock an adaptation of this! MAKE IT HAPPEN, PEOPLE!

I think I like this even better than the first one!

I'm just astounded at what the human voice is capable of.

The vision for this is breathtaking. A kind of sci-fi, post-apocalyptic Gothic epic, with sweeping buttresses and ruins that, for all of their artifice, feel like living, breathing entities. The character and monster designs are so cool, too. Then there's the choral music, which cinches it all together, especially toward the end. I just wish the experience of the movie as a whole matched up to its aesthetic ambitions. The characters felt distant and barely realized, and while I know this is called "Vampire Hunter D," D was the least interesting part. I would have much rather spent more time focused on Meier Link and Charlotte, whose relationship forms the emotional core of the film. They provide intrigue, and they're the ones I want to root for, yet we get so little time with them. We don't get to know how they met, we don't really get to see what fuels their mutual devotion, and there's not enough time to bask in the decadence of their romance. Thus, I was not as affected by the climax of the story as I wanted to be. Also, I must note that the voice acting was awful. Not just poorly performed, but also poorly recorded and mixed. I wonder if I would have felt more connected to these characters if they didn't sound so awkward and garbled?

I did not expect to be as entertained by this as I was (I was biased and went in thinking it was an "old person movie" lol). Political intrigue, scandal, secrets, interpersonal drama, gossip, hushed meetings, ethical dilemmas, crises of faith... I was enraptured. The technical aspects are perfect - compelling performances, a stirring score, and countless shots that convey such intense emotion purely through their composition and lighting. Some moments that stand out to me in particular are the delicately staged meeting in the blue-seated auditorium, the meeting in the stairwell, the cardinals walking through the courtyard with their white umbrellas, and the final shot of the three nuns walking away. The tense, closed-room nature of the whole thing kept me on the edge of my seat as if I were watching an action movie. There were also some suprising bits of humor (Cardinal Tedecas deviously hitting his vape lives in my mind rent-free). This is awesome!

I consider this to be part of a genre of movies I can only describe as "zillennial cringe-core." For this vibe to work, I think both the script and actors need to be really, genuinely funny. It's something I think Bodies Bodies Bodies pulled off, but this one didn't land as well for me. Which means we're mostly stuck with insufferable cliches of Gen Z characters and we don't even get to laugh at them. I mean, overall, this feels like a total Bodies Bodies Bodies rip-off, just not as funny. And the acting ranged from mediocre to actively cringeworthy. This also had a weird attempt at a "good for her" ending that rang hollow and didn't really feel deserved - perhaps because everyone felt so pathetic, from beginning to end. I can't completely hate every part of this movie, though, because it's at least consistently engaging, has a fun premise and clever twist, and utilizes some neat editing tricks to clarify the story when needed. Good enough popcorn movie, fun with friends, I won't ever watch it again.

February

A pretty descent array of psych-y indie pop tunes. In its most distinctive and exciting moments, it feels like The Love Witch, like the coolest Wiccan you know, with hints of 70s sensibilities here and there. Other portions are enjoyable enough but not particularly memorable or outstanding.
Favorite tracks: "Caldera, Caldera!," "There Must Be More Than This"

Interesting relic of Gothic literature's early history, but not all that enjoyable purely as a reading experience. I think I'd love to see this as a stageplay, especially given its clear Shakespearean influences. (Does this mean Hamlet is proto-Gothic? Actually, yeah!) Apparently Jan Svankmajer made a short film adaptation of this, which I will definitely try to watch at some point (love Svankmajer's work!) but I couldn't find any other film adaptation of it. It would make a great movie, though. Robert Eggers, get on this!!!

I had uh... mixed reactions upon showing this one to my friends. I stand by my love for this movie, but maybe this one's just for me lol. Lesson learned!

If Chelsea Wolfe has no fans, I am dead.
Favorite tracks: "16 Psyche," "Twin Fawn," "Static Hum," "Vex"

A very fun and cool experimental hip hop album. Some of the experiments paid off better than others. When the songs go harder and weirder, it's stellar; when they're more softened or conventional, they're forgettable and not as engaging (OK, this is truly just becoming a me problem, I seem to say this about most albums and music lol). Also, the features on this album really made some tracks and broke others. Anyway, this sounds like an album that's building toward a development in sound that will pay off greatly in a future project.


Favorite tracks: "(Sacrifice)BonAppetit," "WHOUWITHHO+", "Black'!Antique."

A huge win for perverts and freaks everywhere! Ok, in all seriousness, I have to say - this did not need to be 4 hours long... I would have even been fine with 3, but 4 is just pushing it! Nonetheless, this is so Cool and has all of the striking imagery, brilliant composition, oddball humor, surprisingly heartfelt qualities, and themes of agency and self-determination that I've come to expect from Sono. It's also got a great quasi-thriller plotline as the characters are manipulated by the cult member who lurks around during the first portion of the narrative and forcefully dominates the second. Sakura Ando plays one hell of a sinister antagonist. Also, here, we get a lot of time to dwell on Sono's perennial concerns about individual freedom vs. conformity and social control. Interestingly, we get the chance to see the trauma and helplessness which the socializing force (Ando's character) comes from. We see two abused girls on different paths, one replicating her abusers' cruelty and authoritarianism, the other seeking joy, freedom, and love - and ultimately getting it. The survival of the latter depends on the death of the former - perhaps they're really the same girl. I also think this film's particular, complicated queerness is quite fascinating and I found myself drawing some parallels to Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation (the threat of castration as punishment for queerness, the triangulation of desire, etc.) This is something I'll definitely be thinking about further...

I didn't realize NIN had an acoustic album, but upon discovering this, I'm really glad they do. I think I saw someone in a review somewhere say this was the darkest NIN has ever gotten, and... yeah, that's pretty much spot-on in my estimation. Their songs like "Something I Can Never Have" and "The Fragile" have always been bleak both lyrically and sonically, but I suppose the layered and textured industrial sounds allowed for an element of fun, or at least release. But in this album, with everything stripped down and vulnerable, these same songs become vessels of total and absolute melancholy, struggle, loneliness. I also think it's neat that although the industrial genre is typically defined by its electronic components, NIN somehow still retained an industrial sound even in their acoustic form. Has NIN seriously never done an MTV Unplugged performance? Gah, that would be amazing!

Left me speechless. A truly bleak, foreboding, vengeful, rage-filled album. Near-operatic vocals and intimidating walls of sound combine in harsh, cathartic crescendoes. Sounds like the stone walls of a fortress, rattling chains of Dickensian ghosts, a trial by blood and fire, a field strewn with dead soldiers, a plague of locusts, the four horsemen of the apocalypse themselves... I can't choose a favorite track because this album is three long songs and all of them together are absolute perfection.

"Not really what I want from a Carmilla adaptation, but at least interesting in some ways. It's a lot more of an interpersonal drama than a vampiric, Gothic horror, unfortunately. But when it does lean into the latter, it's great! Two moments in particular stick out to me: the firework scene with Carmilla sitting on the bench with rapid cuts between her and the fireworks; and the dream sequence near the end. I wish the whole film had been in the vein of these moments, which feel so alive and ominous. Instead, it's a mostly-lethargic take on the Gothic genre. At least it didn't shy away from the lesbianism inherent to the original text, and gosh, Carmilla herself is quite stunning!

What unique thing could I possibly have to say about Kendrick, especially since I'm a more casual hip hop enjoyer in the grand scheme of things? Hate to say it, but some of the more popular tracks (*ahem* "Luther") are skips for me (I generally don't enjoy the moments when rap/hip hop albums slow down into more sing-y tunes, but I know that's purely personal preference). Otherwise love this, have had my favorite tracks on endless repeat.

Favorite tracks: "Squabble Up," "Wacced Out Murals," "TV Off," "Peekaboo"

An interesting concept with uneven delivery. Shorter works are totally capable of feeling rich with emotion, world, and atmosphere, but this felt rushed. It either needed to be a short story or a novel of epic proportions. Instead it feels neither succint and cutting, nor weighty and realized. Some stuff happens - sometimes funny or interesting or gross - and then it ends. Dengue Girl is built up to be a sympathetic underdog, but we don't really get to spend much time with her, and she feels vague and flat, causing her ultimate apotheosis to ring hollow. It's a shame because Nieva built a stellar dystopia and I loved the dark, biting humor he writes with here. I see the vision, I love the vision, but the execution just didn't do it for me. I'm excited to read anything else Nieva writes, though - he shows a lot of promise.

I can't believe I never came across this back when I first got into punk music as a pre-teen. It's a really fun combo of 80s CA punk and Gothic rock - a combo that really makes perfect sense if you think about it, but which I oddly haven't come across very often.
Favorite tracks: "Flowers By the Door," "Red Shadows," "Blackmagic"

By themselves and as the score to the film, these songs slap. As an album-listening experience, this isn't as great - lot's of different versions of the same song over and over again, I'm not sure this is meant to be listened through in one go. My bad.

FUCK YEAH!!! I love this so much!!! One of those cases where the technical flaws (awful acting, awkward dialogue, goofy editing) are not just "forgivable," but actually make the whole thing all the more endearing for its silly human-ness. Atmospheric and unafraid of visual drama, the film took me to another world, out in the fohn-haunted Swiss countryside. Jenny's insect powers are not just cool, but also feel oddly spiritual, even biblical - a girl calling swarms of flies down upon her foes, I mean, that's just awesome. The music is great (Goblin!!!), the dreamlike quality is great, Jennifer Connelly is beautiful and petulant, the land is alive with wind and insects and secrets, the kills are strange and horrible... and a chimp plays a major role, which rocks (as long as they were nice to the chimp on set, that is....) I could very much do without the ableism embedded in the twist, with the horror being derived from a villain's deformity, and his cruelty seeming to somehow derive directly from it (literally it could have just been some guy, I don't see how this was necessary?) But other than that, this movie delights me to no end!!!!

This was a decent enough domestic drama/psychological horror. It read very much like a debut, but that's okay. This really delivered on the unreliable narration, which is all you can really ask for with a book like this.

Beautiful!!! I feel so lucky to have seen this on the big screen, fully enveloped in the salt-encrusted coastlines and cavernous rooms that engulf the movie's leads. It's quiet in a way that you don't notice until the rare, striking moments of music. It's desire and sensual pleasure and also sisterhood. Visually, everything is spare yet sharp. I particularly adored the abortion subplot, how the film respects those quiet yet potent acts of resistance that have been a part of women's lives throughout all of history. And the Orpheus/Eurydice motif is the icing on the cake!

I'm guessing the primary reasons people still remember this/return to it are a combination of nostalgia, the ahead-of-its-time casting which allows many more people to see themselves in this fairy tale world, and the sheer commitment to its campy fantastical setting. I'm sure it helps that Brandy is possibly one of the most beautiful people ever, literally the perfect choice to play an iconic princess. Hey, I enjoyed all of these things too! But seeing it for the first time as an adult (never saw this as a kid), it didn't really leave an impression on me. In all honesty I was a bit bored by it, it plays the Disney Cinderella story quite straight, ultimately I just thought it was fine. File this one under "I wouldn't mind playing this for some kids if I were babysitting them, but I, personally, do not feel the need to seek it out for myself."

This is such a vivid transcription of mental illness that it's actually kind of upsetting to me. This is one of those books that I resonate with in really dark and unpleasant ways, and can't bring myself to say much about it.

Something that I found interesting to ponder about with regards to this novel was its blatant misogyny. Obviously, it's not fun to read from a misogynistic perspective, but is "not having fun" such a bad thing when it comes to certain kinds of art? Something about depression that isn't so conducive to generic pity or romanticization is the way it can "flatten" other people in the depressed person's perspective, turn them into NPCs, figures who mean nothing, who are, if anything, nuisances or inconveniences or, at best, unhelpful side characters. It feels as if none of them are able to understand or reach you - you, who feels as if you are uniquely suffering (you are not). (I only know this because I have been there, sometimes feel myself slipping back there, God forbid could end up there again someday). For this book's narrator, who (I think) is implied to have been sexually abused by an adult woman when he was a child, his relationship with women is further complicated beyond this initial flattening effect. The women in his life offer him some of his only temporary relief/comfort, as well as enabling some of his worst behaviors. The swing between over-valuing and de-valuing, the pushing and pulling - I have to wonder, is the misogyny a flaw of the novel, or is it an essential component of the story it's trying to tell? The psychological portrait that it's painting might not be entirely honest if it were to omit this aspect. All of that is to say, I think this discomfort is valuable. I don't want to imply that depressed or mentally ill people are assholes, or have a higher tendency toward misogyny or other forms of prejudice/bias - like I said, I'm drawing from my own experience in writing this, and even in my worst depression I don't believe I cultivated any such biases, so there's that. I also don't want to come across as implying mental illness is an excuse for those things. But I do think that when it comes to character studies/psychological fiction as a genre, a holistic portrait such as this is always going to be far more interesting and worthwhile than an innocent victim or totally evil villain. I think I'm just sensitive to these kinds of critiques lately because I'm so fucking tired of hearing people moralize about fiction.

Combines both inspiration/writerly wisdom and truly practical advice and exercises. I've never felt so affirmed in the worth of my writing before. As for the stories, I liked the ones by Chekhov the most - I admire his simple, concise style and ability to imply so much with so few words.


"Every soul is vast and wants to express itself fully. If it's denied an adequate instrument (and we're all denied that, at birth [...]), out comes... poetry, ie. truth forced out through a restricted opening.
That's all poetry is, really: something odd, coming out. Normal speech, overflowed. A failed attempt to do justice to the world. The poet proves that language is inadequate by throwing herself at the fence of language and being bound by it. Poetry is the resultant bulging of the fence."


"It may be possible that [...] that's what we're really looking for - in a sentence, in a story, in a book: joy (overflow, ecstasy, intensity). An acknowledgement, in the prose, that all of this is too big to be spoken of, but also that death begins the moment we give up on trying to speak of it."


"I like what I like, and you like what you like, and art is the place where liking what we like, over and over, is not only allowed but is the essential skill. How emphatically can you like what you like? How long are you willing to work on something, to ensure that every bit of it gets infused with some trace of your radical preference? The choosing, the choosing, that's all we've got."

I usually enjoy anything Jenny Slate is a part of, but this was so bad. Just another strangely empty and soulless modern rom-com that doesn't seem interested in either the warmth of love or crafting a distinct sense of humor, instead preferring to present a revolving door of humiliations for its characters. I didn't feel any chemistry between the leads, and so little care seems to have been given to this project that even the movie's timeline (which should be simple enough) doesn't make any sense! Tell me why there is a middle school theater rehearsal happening concurrently with a middle-of-the-night clubbing after party?

January

Dollanganger captures what it feels like to love someone who wants to die. This album is personal to me in that way. (Fortunately, the person I'm thinking of is doing much better now ^-^). The doll-like vocals, Gothic lyricism, and ethereal composition altogether form the perfect delivery for these themes. This album is certainly something special - I ought to listen to Dollanganger's more recent ones.
Favorite tracks: "Coma Baby," "Barren," "Ball Jointed Doll (Harry)"

Why don't people talk about this album more often??? It's such a distinctive and soulful take on shoegaze. The Veldt blends passion into an often dispassionate genre and it's a beautiful thing to behold.
Favorite tracks: "Soul in a Jar," "Revolutionary Sister," "Daisy Chain"

I knew I would love this as much as I do. A firmly absurdist and painfully existential novel, along the same lines as The Wall and The Memory Police (AKA my favorite books of all time). To me, I find this oddly life-affirming - the way the narrator constantly finds her efforts pointless, yet persists in them anyway. Her restlessnes and oscillations between depression and energy are extremely familiar to me, despite the outlandishness of her situation. The pacing and worldbuilding and narrative voice were all careful, spare, restrained: perfect. It broke my heart but also reassured me that there is something worthwhile about all of our silly human pursuits, even writing in journals nobody will ever see.

Yamasaki's voice always floors me, even after years of having "Help Me" on repeat. This album is a great balance of soft, reflective melancholy and groovy fun. It has a simple style that allows Yamasaki's vocal delivery to be center stage, which I think is wise. These songs feel like living in a literary novel, sipping black coffee in a diner while clad in a scarf and sweater, watching the rain through the window, waiting for a break so you can get to the bus stop... I love it.
Favorite tracks: "Help Me," "Himawari," "Tsunawatari"

Solid album, but I don't have much to say about it. Feels like pretty standard indie rock from this time period, which is neither good nor bad. Some individual tracks really stand out from the mostly sleepy pack, though: namely, "King of Nails" (I'm obsessed with this song) and "Piano Fire."

I think I like this even better than Some Heavy Ocean, as Rundle leans even more into a desolate, Southern Gothic sound on here, and she brings out the power of her vocals even more. I still want more variety within her albums, but this is great.
Favorite tracks: "Marked for Death," "Protection," "Heaven," "Real Big Sky"

Idk, this isn't really my kind of movie. My partner is very nostalgic for it, but unfortunately without the same attachment to it, I found it kinda boring.

A great piece of character writing. I saw myself in both cousins (and not in a cute way, I feel as if I can relate to each of their worst, most destructive traits), and felt very attached to their relationship. Watching this also made me so nostalgic for my study abroad trip. The way a group of strangers brought together in this way can become close and vulnerable so quickly felt spot-on to my experience; as well as the way a trip can feel so significant yet ultimately change nothing about your life once you get home. This film just so clearly loves people, in all of their awkwardness. My only complaint is that the supporting performances sometimes felt a bit strained.

If it weren't for the fact that I had to read this as part of a book club with my mom, I would have dropped this after a chapter. I have so many complaints about this. I hated the prose style, which felt like it was trying way too hard to be whimsical and quoteable, to the point that it consistently took me out of the story and had me rolling my eyes. It was far too drawn-out - a time span of three months is drawn out over 500+ pages, and we're forced to linger over every miniscule event from 3 different perspectives (it's exhausting!) What's more, though I usually enjoy historical/alternate history fantasy, that aspect was very poorly implemented in this. ie. Harrow gender-bends many well-known authors and folklorists (ie. Sisters Grimm, Charlotte Perrault) while retaining others as their original genders (Homer, Lord Byron), with no real rhyme or reason, which simply felt corny to me. The only identifiable difference between the history in this book and that of real life are that 1. witchcraft is real, and 2. the persecution of witches never ended. So why do so many characters have unusually progressive perspectives for their time? And I don't mean simply being feminist or anti-racist or whatever, because those are definitely things people were talking about at the time, but the way the characters talk about these things, the language they use for it, feels really odd and divorced from the setting Harrow was trying to create. I also am not sure whether Harrow genuinely didn't do her research on Salem or if she just changed this to make things more dramatic, but in this book, the characters refer to the Salem witches being burned (in reality they were hanged, starved or got sick in jail while awaiting their sentences, or, in the case of Giles Corey, crushed by rocks). I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and think this is maybe the 3rd way in which this timeline differs from ours, but this particular detail is such a common misconception about Salem that I have to wonder if she truly didn't think to double-check. If the rest of the book felt in any way intentional or masterful, I probably wouldn't be bothered by this, but given that it truly gives "we're the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn" vibes, I have a hard time looking past it.

Got to show this movie to my friends! Enjoy it even more on a second watch. I am deeply in love with pretty much every main character in this movie.

I can't believe it took me so long to finally listen to the whole thing!! What a great album. A haunted quality but also an exercise in raw power from Wolfe. Shadows and crescendoes and altered states... "Gothic industrial" should perhaps be coined just to describe this album.
Favorite tracks: "Unseen World," "The Liminal," "Dusk," "The House of Self-Undoing"

The more I listen to this album, the more I adore it. Ominous, melancholy, atmospheric drone tracks, each telling its own story. The soundscapes feel as if they've been lived in, abandoned, and discovered again. The ideal soundtrack for my current writing project.
Favorite tracks: "Punish," "Onanist," "Vacillator"

As is often my experience with early, classic horror films, the overall pacing of this was lacking for me, but it was so visually striking and there's a handful of scenes that were downright delectable (the pool scene!) Any time the main character was stalking and terrorizing the people who slighted her, the movie was perfection. Unfortunately, the story was a bit clumsy, rushing to begin and rushing to end. The central relationship was not believable/developed enough to me to make the film as cathartic as it could have been. (It feels as if the characters get married only a week after meeting...?) Still, I found this pretty fun!

One of the things that has always enamored me the most about Dracula and its many permutations is the way it explores the failure of logic, reason, science, etc. to meaningfully confront the realities of death, suffering, time, and so on. I love how Eggers adapts this particular aspect of the archetypal vampire story. How do we commune with the darkness? How do we keep it close enough to watch over it without letting it consume us? When an individual or an entire culture refuses to grapple with it, where does that leave us? What dangers do we invite into our souls and homes and cities while we're busy focusing only on the things that can be explained and quantified? This is the very concept of "horror" distilled and delivered in the form of a very ambitious, mysterious, and grotesquely beautiful package. I can't wait to watch this again.

Poetry-as-dark-comedy. None of these took on the classic fairy tales in a way that blew my mind a la Angela Carter, but tjeu were still all enjoyable, strange, skillful, and often even funny. Not to mention, Vonnegut's foreword to the edition I read is downright delightful, as are Barbara Swan's illustrations. Standout poems include "The Little Peasant," "Godfather Death," "The Maiden Without Hands," and "Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)."

I think this is one of those movies that is formally perfect, but which struggled to maintain my attention at times. It's more or less a perfect, close adaptation of the book (I adore the book btw), but it may be that the story simply works better on the page. Still, the setting and lighting bring the claustrophobic eeriness to life wonderfully, and I'm happy I got to see that. I also think that the added elements of folk horror are a neat touch. More than anything, I'm so impressed and enthralled by the many ways Teshigahara found to compose and film shots of sand.

Lovely, fun, and wacky fantasy. I love Howl and Sophie's book personas more than their movie ones. They're sassy, petty, grumpy, and selfish in very human ways. I loved reading their dialogue, and enjoyed the fact that Sophie gets to learn magic, too. The pacing is a bit off for me, though. Every crucial plot beat/reveal was shoved into the last ~50 pages - you don't even know the stakes until then, and then it's all resolved right away anyway! I wish it all would have been spread more evenly through the book.

The first quarter of this album is phenomenal, it's fun, clever, punchy boom bap-type stuff... but I found the rest a bit boring and generic. I'm so excited to see what Doechii does in the future, I hope it falls more in line with the first 5 tracks of this + her single "Nosebleeds."
Favorite tracks: "Denial is a River," "Boiled Peanuts," "Catfish"

Watched for Matthew Lillard's character, and stuck it out for him, too. The first 15 minutes or so actually had me quite hopeful because it started out pretty funny, and even hinted at a sense of class consciousness and a cute friendship between Wayans' and Lillard's characters, but these qualities quickly faded away. The friendship was sidelined as an uninspired romance took priority, and the humor became too... well, Wayans-esque (think the worst bits from the Scary Movie franchise), and the ending kisses the ass of so-called "good" capitalists which pissed me right the fuck off. With some changes, this could have been so good :(

I watched this while recovering from an intense cold, so maybe I was just too out-of-it, but this wasn't really as funny as I'd hoped it would be. I do think it's clever satire, jaded but not miserable, with memorable characters. The teacher is so utterly loathsome, it's a pleasure to watch him pretty much ruin his own life. Still, I had anticipated the focus to be more on Tracy (Reese Witherspoon's character), given how iconic she is, but really she often felt more like a side character.