October-Decemberish 2020 Roundup

Posted: 27 December 2020

Books

Hazlitt No. 2 - Various (Magazine)

Michael Propokow’s photos on the inside covers are incredible - suburban sprawls turned into hypnotic patterns, zooming out on our lives, the lives and families of others so close and, fundamentally, so similar, zoomed out as to be indistinguishable. The first story, The Trial of Justin B., is utterly bizarre and sets a weird tone for the rest of the journal. The first few stories follow, not really finding their footing, until we get to the interview with Heather O’Neill, which I enjoyed. A Dead Boy was very good. I really enjoyed both stories in the “New Brazilian Fiction” heading: The End by Fernanda Torres and Blood-Drenched Beard by Daniel Galera. Cinema as History and Myth was very interesting, given that I have no idea what the movies or cinematic style discussed are. The interview with Richard Maxwell was very good. I generally really like interviews - there’s something about hearing the thoughts of a stranger that feels warm and brings me closer to humanity. The rest was forgettable. I think it’s really hard to write something funny and I don’t think anything here that was trying to succeeded, but the interviews were good and the thoughts of artists broaden horizons.

Movies

The Orphanage

Pretty standard horror movie? It does an interesting job blurring the line between the real and imaginary and keeps you guessing but doesn’t really have a good grip and lets the tension go pretty regularly for no good reason. The plot is really tight and I think the non-supernatural elements resolve really beautifully and movingly, but that just makes the supernatural stuff feel clunky and unnecessary. This is ALMOST a movie about grief, I feel like there’s just too much stupid ghost stuff for it to really get there. The last two ending scenes could easily fit in a 90’s straight to video movie, music and all, and kind of put a damper on the rest of the movie for me.

Await Further Instructions

The acting in this movie is really bad and I think the big driving idea behind the movie is kind of lame. Damn! Watching too much TV makes you a zombie!!!! Just watch black mirror if you want boring commentary on technology. I like the SAW-esque aspect of following instructions but this movie’s just not great.

Veronica

Cool little horror movie although I wish there was a little more development of Veronica herself - I feel like there’s an attempt to frame the whole thing as a struggle with puberty and pressure from friends and family and responsibility and feeling alienated, but that all kicks in and ramps up after the haunting starts, and there isn’t really any clear connection between the two. Also I think it’s very very funny that this is framed as being based on a real police report, even funnier if it’s actually real. “Based on reports we got from witnesses, the youngest child drew the wrong kind of protective symbol on the wall, dooming everyone.” I think the ending is very good though and that’s hard to come by! Cool movie.

Faults

This movie is not at all what I expected but an interesting watch. It’s not at all clear what the villain’s interest in the protagonist is, so the entire movie stops making sense once you get to the end, but I enjoyed the road there and thought the pacing was really outstanding, and enjoyed not being sure about what was real and what was fake up until the end, which clarified a lot. A fun thriller!

The Ritual

I didn’t get this one. Why’s there a cult. Why does he keep seeing his dead friend everywhere. I think this movie tried to be about something but didn’t really get there. Also everyone in it is stupid and behaves badly.

Thirst

Not really a horror movie, definitely more romance. There are some extremely long sex scenes inexplicably in there too. It’s utterly unclear to me what attracts the main couple to each other, and there are some weird unexplained things like why 4 months pass between Sang-hyun becoming a vampire and leaving the hospital, and why he only learns anything about his condition after that, or why he is able to take off his bandages immediately after leaving. How does he realize he has vampire blood? Is the implication that there are other people with vampire blood out there? I have so many questions. Suspending my disbelief for a moment, I think it’s really cool to see a toxic relationship where both participants are bad influences on each other framed as a vampire story and a descent into depravity until, as is proper for these types of movies, they both die. I’m into it. There’s no reason for them to be so attached to each other besides their own insecurities. Hyun also instantly acquires a very cool jacket after renouncing life as a priest. What’s not to like.

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum

This is the scariest movie I’ve watched so far!!! Flickery cameras and creepy people standing around menacingly and close up zooms of ghost faces really get me. Otherwise I think this movie is fine, the pacing seems a little slow and goes into overdrive towards the end, and I didn’t really feel like the live-stream context of the movie suspended my disbelief more than any other horror movie I’ve watched. I also thought the camera stutter effects when they first approach the asylum were OBNOXIOUS! It was like a buffering youtube video!!! Even if that was the point, it felt terrible to watch and I’m not sure it added anything good. Solid movie about a group of teens getting annihilated by ghosts.

Cure

This isn’t a horror movie, despite being labeled that way in a lot of places. It’s a psychological thriller! I watched two videos about this movie after finishing it, neither of which I think helped me figure anything out that I was missing. I couldn’t get totally onboard with the main hook of the movie, hypnotism, or the fact that there was somehow only one person, Takabe, who was capable of resisting the hypnotism. Mamiya’s entire gimmick of just repeating “Huh? I don’t know. Huh? Who?” to everyone get old very quickly, but I feel like it’s always fun to think about the meta relationship between us as viewers and the director as both presenting a story and engaging us as viewers within it. We are annoyed at Mamiya the same way Takabe is. Mamiya is speaking to us through Takabe - one of the videos I watched mentioned that the director, Kurosawa, is hypnotizing us with the movie. I feel like there’s a lot that can be said about the movie and a lot that can be dug into, and I really like movies like this. There’s a lot of food for thought and a lot of depth to dig into.

I rejected the premise of how easily the hypnotism was executed but found myself briefly wondering whether it was possible for me to be subconsciously turned into a murderer after watching it. There was something I read a while ago about fear of heights being more correct to think about as a fear of losing control of your own body, and throwing yourself off of a height. This movie does something similar: Even if you don’t buy into how easily all the people are hypnotized, it evokes a fear of losing control over yourself (or giving in to some subliminal desire to lose control). It’s a really cool movie!

After Hours

I wish this movie had more jokes!!! It’s a kind of madcap night with everything possible going wrong for our guy Paul, with strangers extending him an unreasonable (to today’s audience) amount of goodwill as he grows increasingly irate at his inability to go home. This movie really captures the odd surrealism of being up and about “after hours” - anything that happens is easy to accept, and when the night is through you lick your wounds and return to work the next morning. The tone was uncomfortable and stressful throughout, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and that’s what it was all about - it just needed more jokes!!!!!!!

Rashomon

An okay watch. I really liked the drawn out fight scene from the final recollection - how sloppy everyone was, how clearly inexperienced, how unfortunate the turn of events. Nobody wanted to be there. On the whole though, there’s a lot of cultural and temporal distance between me and this movie, which I think makes it difficult to appreciate for what it was at the time. To me, this movie is entirely building up to the scene at the end where the monk is hesitant to hand the baby over to the woodcutter. You gaze into the abyss and it gazes back! A little under an hour and a half into the movie and all of your thoughts become tinged with blood. We step into the cave to gaze upon the shadow figures, and have to be reminded where we are. It feels dated and slow but draws out something extremely human in that one scene, and that makes it all worth it.

Network

Great movie, although I felt like the end started to drag a little. And very relevant! This was 1976, pre-social media, and how prescient it was! People have known all along how poisonous media consumption can be, both for the people creating it and the people consuming it. But we plow straight ahead - easy entertainment is, first and foremost, easy. The humor in this movie really landed for me, and I’m a sucker for anything anti-media. Anything I could say about this movie, it says better.

Music

Medoed - The Solid Reason

Good twinkly midwest emo from Russia (sung in english! Really curious to me how many foreign midwest emo acts sing in english). It doesn’t particularly stand out but overall a solid album with some really cool post-rocky bits like on Count On Me, Pt. 2. A much stronger direction and sound than their S/T and if they make another leap like they did from their S/T to this their next release is going to rule.

Medoed - Medoed

I don’t know if it’s the drums or the tone of the guitars (particularly the rhythm guitar) or what but something about this album sounds uninspiring and really drags it down.

Bright Eyes - Letting Off The Happiness

Transcendant

Hot Mulligan - you’ll be fine

This band is like screamo owl city. I will not elaborate further. I stopped listening halfway.

Policy of Three - American Woodworking

It’s really easy to listen to the emo music that came directly out of the hardcore scene. The dynamics don’t kill you, the songs ebb and flow, there are a lot of quiet moments, and the crescendos are powerful and emotional but they don’t try to assault you. I think the really quiet mixing on the vocals really does amazing things for this type of music. This LP is fine, it doesn’t feel special, but it feels good to put on and listen to, and that’s hard to come by.

Coheed and Cambria - Good Apollo […]

This album rules. I was expecting this band to sound very different. Really fantastic prog that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, something like a mix between At The Drive In and MCR. This album is so sick. It never gets too heavy either which really stood out, the guitars never get too loud during the choruses or the big breakdowns and it’s a really interesting change of pace after listening to a bunch of maxxed out emo bands that slam the volume on everything during their choruses. The album is super cohesive and coherent and just sounds great. My favorite tracks were Ten Speed and The Willing Well III.

Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets […]

This is closer to what I expected this band to sound like with the screaming - I’m really glad they ditched it for Good Apollo. This album seems like they were trying to find a clear direction - it’s very emo-y in parts and starts to feel like black metal in others. It goes from the dark, almost metal-ly three track concept The Camper Velourium into an almost radio pop song in A Favor House Atlantic. A weird album.

Coheed and Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade

A less interesting alt-rock-y sound, I’m glad this band went in a prog rock direction. Not very memorable. I can’t stop thinking about how good Good Apollo is.

Glass Beach - The First Glass Beach Album

Super cool and unique album, jazzy emo christmas weezer. Really really interesting to listen to, there isn’t a lot of other music that sounds like this, and it’s well executed and way more energetic than you would guess.

You Blew It! - Keep Doing What You’re Doing

I didn’t think this was very interesting.

Go Radio - Do Overs and Second Chances

This album is solid, if uninspiring, early-mid 2000s emo/alt-rock in the vein of Fall Out Boy or early P!ATD. Any of the songs feel like they could easily slot into an alt rock car radio station. Their two later additions to the EP suck so much though, it’s unbelievable to me that they decided to put out songs Goodnight Moon. What the heck. Maybe it’s the higher production value or something but they almost become kind of nauseating. There was a tweet I read recently about the drum mixing on Taking Back Sunday’s Louder Now, about how the snare and kick sound identical in the mix, and I think that applies to this album too. This album definitely sounds like it belongs to a certain place and time. I would feel embarassed if I were caught listening to this band though lol. Alt rock like this is definitely a guilty pleasure, like Three Days Grace or something.

Snowing - I Could Do Whatever […]

The mixing on this album sucks!!!! It sounds so bad!!!!! The guitar is shrill and everything else is way too quiet. Every song sounds like everything is out of sync and feels totally incohesive. The last few tracks start to come together a bit better and have some cool ideas but there are parts in every one of their songs that I really don’t like that ruin them for me.

niiice. - Internet Friends

This album rocks. I listened to it a few times through and told everyone I know about it after listening. Party punx from Minnesota indeed. The thick, crunchy guitars really do it for me.

Goalkeeper - Bad Times Don’t Last

The first track sounds like it was written after listening to the Blink-182 discography, and the rest is in that vein but less directly inspired. I dunno, I didn’t love it, this seems like well executed pop punk, but I don’t think pop punk is very interesting if you’re not doing anything to stand out.

Violetear - Marigold

Incredible album. I think it’s really rare for music to have gravity - for the form of the music to line up with and enhance the message the artist is trying to share - and I think Violetear really hit it here with Marigold. “Do I not deserve a peaceful existence?,” a line that could easily find a home in any emo track, becomes so much more impactful when it is about being trans and being denied personhood. It is not an experience I can pretend to share or understand, but I could feel the emotions and their expression in the music. Really beautiful.

Ghosts and Vodka - Precious Blood

When you get rid of the singing from noodly emo you’re just right back to being post-rock and you have all the stuff about post-rock that I don’t think is very interesting! There’s not a lot to keep a person hooked or to digest! The tunes are good, the musicians are talented, I just think post-rock isn’t a very interesting genre.

Burial Etiquette - Held Tight in Fragile Embraces

At first I thought all the tracks on this split were by Burial Etiquette and was super disappointed by the latter half but learned that it is, indeed, a split, and just the first two tracks are theirs, and those are the tracks that I think rule. I think this band is so incredible and am looking forward to all their future releases. Maybe my favorite contemporary emo band.

Rainbow - Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow

Hard to decide which Ritchie Blackmore project, before he decided to exclusively create medieval sounding music about knights, was better in its heyday: Rainbow or Deep Purple. This album is good - I have a lot of nostalgia for this hard rock type stuff from listening to a bunch in my childhood, and I feel like it’s really good, neutral music to have on. Dio was an incredible singer and Blackmore has super fun riffs and a guitar tone that should make everyone who’s ever heard Smoke on the Water feel a twang of nostalgia. Man On The Silver Mountain rules and is a great intro into the album: great singing, cool riffs, and songs that go for a little too long and keep jamming to the chorus until they fade out. Great album to listen to if you just want to listen to some good old rock n roll.

Rainbow - Rising

Much worse album than Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, but Dio still absolutely kills the vocals and the riffs are still the Blackmore good stuff you expect. The songs just don’t really take you to any interesting places, except for Stargazer, which is one of the coolest songs ever.

Chat Pile - Remove Your Skin Please

The Jesus Lizard x The National. Really good band!

Stable Boys - Attitudes

The first track on this rules, the rest is fine. I checked this band out after a twitter post by @FranziaMom, and think that emo supergroups like this rule. Snowing, Algernon Cadwallader, and Glocca Morra! Those are all super well established in the emo scene. They don’t come together in a package that I feel like is the best of all worlds, but a totally solid record and band for the short period that it lasted.

Alice Gas - Sorry 4 Being Famous

“Ferrari” really captured my heart. I think the rest of the album is fine, it has it’s highs and lows, but I have been listening to “Ferrari” regularly for the past week. I haven’t listened to much electronic music in the past few years, and this album is getting me back into it, although I feel like it’s really hard to find music that hits the spots you want it to hit. Alice Gas does some really unique stuff that works really well and creates a standout sound. Great happy hardcore album, really cool mumble rap influences, maybe I’ll listen to Bladee and get very into it after this.

Camping in Alaska - Please Be Nice

Good midwestern emo that didn’t really stand out to me. Easy to have on in the background.

Blowout - No Beer, No Dad (Redux)

I was tempted to call this indie rock rather than emo but then a guy started to scream on “King PP” and I can no longer do that in good conscience. But this raises a bigger dilemma for me: what about female vocalists makes it hard for me to think that a band’s genre is emo? What about it makes me think it’s indie rock? Actually, just thinking out loud here, that’s not true: Eldritch Anisette instantly read as emo to me. I’m imagining an average male emo voice singing these songs and they track. Maybe it’s something about the vocal timbre that sounds like something I’m more used to hearing from indie rock bands, with male vocals in emo bands having their own particular sound I’m used to. I looked them up on bandcamp!!! I’m RIGHT!!!! They self-describe as pop-punk/indie. I think the argument can be made for them being emo but I just don’t think they’re quite there!!!!

But all this meta-talk about genre aside, this is pretty good/fun indie rock, but I don’t feel like there’s a lot of variety between songs or any particular spark.