Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976) [Original Post]
After watching One-Armed Boxer you know I had to get a little Master of the Flying Guillotine action. The killer sequel with some juicy tournament gathering and the ultimate martial gimmick. Dig it.
There aren't a lot of Nowhere trailers that come up straight away on YouTube and they're all terrible. [They] don't even scratch at a fraction of the style and force of will that elevates otherwise middling material. The Doom Generation looks more recognizable as a film, but because of that it just seems lacking by comparison. The TV spot is less tragic than the stock Teen Movie home video trailer, but it's still funny to think somebody actually tried to trick regular people into seeing Nowhere.
Obvious allusions to reality TV pop music supergroups melt away as Harry Styles dances his way to one of the best songs of the year. An anthem for our age, soaked in bitter nostalgia, and increasingly populated with a grim sense of mourning. Some of this is my own inflection, a song arriving at the best - or worst possible time. Yet for all its tart lyrical ambivalence, there's a triumphant energy -- sweetness and light bursting out of the darkness with bells chiming. A rare instance of enjoying a Top 10 single, this one has a great video to boot, and my only real criticism is that it's so damned short. I guess I'll just have to keep it on repeat. Something I never really expected to want from a One Direction alum.
Before there was the Master of the Flying Guillotine there was the One-Armed Boxer: Yu Tien Lung -- a skilled two-armed martial artist who is dealt a terrible injustice and forced to hone his remaining fist to be an ultimate weapon of unfeeling destruction. Through dedication and intelligence he will bring the league of vile mercenary combatants to justice. This is my jam and was a terrific watch recently.
My original thought was: "1990 forever. Fuck you, 2023." The thing is, they tell me this actually came out as a single in 1991, and I just couldn't allow that kind of accounting error to go unchecked. Lady Miss Kier says she wants a good beat, and my needs aren't far from hers. Maybe throw in some 'chingy' piano you can step to, and a pretty lady wailing. That'll just about do it. Deee-Lite to the rescue with a song that isn't the tour de force of Groove is in the Heart, but is still a swell time.
Christine and The Queens - Tears Can Be So Soft (2023) [Original Post]
Actively looking for new music and not being immediately revolted, so that's nice. Nostalgia continues to push through the eighties into familiar territory of the nineteen nineties and new millennium. There's an obvious debt to Massive Attack and Teardrop here, as well as feeling like a fusion of a catalogue of influences from 1990 to 1992. There's enough here to be satisfied, but it's hard not to be distracted by the prickly creep of nostalgia for a time that was exciting for its experimentation and sense of discovery. A reasonably comfortable fit, but one that's been worn before.
You ever see the SLC Punk! poster? The one with the lime green and bright orange? I sure have -- but it still took me this long to actually check the movie out. It's one of those ones that comes up from time to time. It always seemed potentially interesting, even if I thought it might have weak fundamentals, and play about as convincing to its subject as Hackers was to being cool. When the subject came up again I thought about having never seen SLC Punk and wondered if I might enjoy SLC Punk. So I watched SLC Punk. And it was good. Generally good. A fun movie unto itself, populated with interesting characters, and an amusing reflection on its subject. Weirdly nostalgic as an artifact of 1998 as much as anything else. Matthew Lillard is a treat: lankily filling the screen with character and awkward charm as he impotently hops and down with mohawk flopping, and generally pontificating a philosophy that inevitably runs its course. I like a bit of chaos within strict borders of rigid rule -- lines that must not be crossed -- but these days we could probably all do with a little bit of punk in our lives.
More new release dreampop that I happened to stumble upon. A reminder that there is a lot of interesting music out there - it can just be a little harder to find. Mortal words swim in an ethereal stream of chimes, tone, and string. It's warm and cool all at the same time. Like a chilly, orange lit evening in summer filled with sentiment. I haven't connected with the other Julie Byrne songs I've heard quite as strong, but this one is a keeper. A stand-out lyric: "You were the family that I chose."
