“They will not fail!”
The deluded denialism of Lord Summerisle and his people is made terrifyingly clear. In the nobleman’s piercing, clarion voice you can all but hear him clinging, white-knuckled, to the edifice of ideology he himself helped construct and enforce. He cannot admit that he’s wrong, can’t even brook the possibility. He’s telling himself the sacrifice will be accepted and the crops will return as much as he’s telling Howie or the assembled islanders. He’ll commit murder, doom his community to collapse and his people to starvation, before admitting the truth.
I think about those four words, and Christopher Lee’s perfect delivery of them, a lot. I hear an entire mindset, the complete conservative worldview, in those four syllables.
“The Wicker Man” and the Horrors of Denialism
275. Brad, revisited
“What the hell is wrong with you, Brad?” Dr. Elizabeth Clay asks. “Have you lost your mind?” Elizabeth is the second person in the film, out of a total of two, to refer to Brad Wesley by his first name; the other was her uncle Red Webster. They were family once, after all. In Red’s case, he likely called Wesley “Brad” in hopes that maintaining a cordial, familial front would spare him his wrath and conceal his true feelings about their business relationship. Much the same could be said for Elizabeth’s use of his first name here—she is, after all, attempting to dissuade him from his current destructive course of action. But there’s a great bit of business that occurs when she approaches to confront him: She takes off her sunglasses, casually but purposefully, the way you do when your sunny day has been unexpectedly interrupted by something serious and you want to see it all clearly as you hash it out. It’s the gesture of one former lover to the next, a removal of a block to renewed intimacy, of whatever kind.
For his part, Brad doesn’t attempt to inveigle his way back into Elizabeth’s heart, or even her bed. His concern for her is almost, though surely Red would dispute the use of the term, avuncular. He doesn’t like seeing her wind up with “a drifter” like Dalton. “It’s a shame,” he says. No “I want you back,” no “If I can’t have you nobody will,” just…it’s a shame. More in sorrow than in anger. That’s Brad for you: perpetually disappointed that no one but his boys will listen to reason. Disappointed, but not dissuaded: “I’m not gonna lose a second’s sleep about it,” he says to Elizabeth after informing her of his plan to murder Dalton should he continue to cause him trouble. What the hell is wrong with Brad? Other people.
The Complete History of the Joker
The Joker debuted in Batman #1, the Spring 1940 launch of the Dark Knight’s dedicated comic-book series; it also revealed the superhero’s origin for the first time and contained the first appearance of Catwoman. (Batman first appeared in a separate series, Detective Comics, which gave DC Comics its name and in which he still stars to this day.)
But the creation of the Clown Prince is shrouded in controversy, with the three men involved — writer Bill Finger and artists Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson — each offering a different account of how the Joker came to be. The exact order of events varies depending on who you believe, but in essence, the character was a hybrid of influences. Robinson produced a joker playing-card design. Finger provided inspiration in the form of a clown-face logo from Coney Island and, crucially, a picture of actor Conrad Veidt playing the disfigured, permanently grinning title character in the 1928 horror film The Man Who Laughs. Both Robinson and Kane, who for decades received sole credit for the creation of Batman, designed the character on the page, while Robinson and Finger helped develop the concept of the Joker as Batman’s nemesis. The result was a villain unlike any of the gangsters and mad scientists Batman and his recently added sidekick Robin had ever faced before.
I compiled the history of the Joker for Rolling Stone. I love these assignments because, in a culture that treats corporations and brands as creators, they’re a chance to give credit where it’s really due. (Yes, even to Bob Kane.)
“The Terror: Infamy” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Eight: “My Sweet Boy”
I’ve gone easy on The Terror: Infamy. No really, I have. As you fine A.V. Club readers and commenters have pointed out to me, last week’s installment, with its slapdash approach to how its characters handle for-certain knowledge of malevolent spirits, probably deserved worse than the C- I awarded it. As a horror guy, I can be swayed by shows that show a little bit of effort in that regard, and as such the gruesome opening skin-graft sequence was the episode’s saving grace.
This week’s opening sequence? It ends with a jump-scare crash-cut the moment Yuko the yurei opens her eyes—huge shock, I know, considering how we’ve watched this same undead woman skulk around, eyes wide open, everywhere from Oregon to Guadalcanal. Is it possible to telegraph a moment you’ve already delivered to the audience in triplicate? Apparently so, if you’re as misbegotten a series as The Terror: Infamy.
Speaking once again as a horror guy, something about that moment really…well, almost insulted me. Are we supposed to be that stupid, we horror fans? Are we supposed to be scared just because what we’re being shown has assumed the scare-shape of a moment that’s frightened us before in other, better work? The unexpected eye-opening resurrection beat is a bit that’s been done to death (no pun intended); are we supposed to jump out of sheer Pavlovian conditioning?
I no longer really care what we’re supposed to do, not in The Terror: Infamy’s case at any rate. Titled “My Sweet Boy,” the series’ eighth installment is a hodgepodge of moments that make no more artistic or narrative sense than expecting us to be scared when the undead character reveals that, yes, she is in fact still undead. It’s a trite, lazy, condescending mess from start to finish.
I reviewed this week’s episode of The Terror: Infamy for the A.V. Club.
“Succession” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Eight: “Dundee”
As if a giant clamshell washed ashore and birthed it nude and radiant from my mind’s own womb, this week’s episode of Succession felt like it was crafted to illustrate my argument that the show’s blend comedy and drama is fundamentally unworkable by the gods themselves. It’s an hour-length demonstration of how going for the cheap and easy laugh can neuter sociopolitical critique and reduce deft character work to hamfisted about-faces a daytime soap would look down on.
[…]
Anyway, I’m sure Kendall’s stupid rap is the toast of Twitter, right up there with the joke about j-school grads writing clickbait (“Ten Reasons Why You’re Never Getting Paid”) and a brief mention of the Democratic Socialists of America. In terms of middling political shows, Succession is The West Wing for people who’ve tweeted about how much they dislike The West Wing, and it just aired its answer to “The Jackal.” Tweet away.
“The Affair” thoughts, Season Five, Episode Six
In a way, this episode feels like “The Affair” mourning its departed stars. Seeing Joshua Jackson’s open, soulful face as Cole in flashbacks; hearing Ruth Wilson’s ragged, bottomed-out voice as Alison in voice-over; watching Joanie wrestle with her memories of both parents as if those memories were living things she must defeat in order to survive … all of it draws attention to the enormity of the contribution those actors and their characters made to the show, and the void left in their wake. After half a season of the Solloways and their circle of lovers, friends and family, the Lockharts finally get their due, and it’s long overdue.
274. “That son of a bitch was afraid”
“You scared him last night. Brad Wesley, he’s not afraid of anything, right? Well, last night that son of a bitch was afraid. Have you ever seen fear in a man’s eyes, Dalton? Ever smelled fear’s musk? Ever felt the gooseflesh rise to meet your touch? You never forget it once you’ve seen it…smelled it…tasted it. It’s like a song that gets stuck in your head, demanding you return to your hi-fi to play it one more time. You played that song last night, Dalton. A familiar melody of terror, with Brad Wesley’s mortal body as its brass band. Sometimes I think it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard—the sound a man makes when he looks you in the eye and sees nothing—no pity, no contempt, no mercy, no cruelty, just the cold dead fact that you’ve come to hurt him, and nothing he can do will stop the hurting from happening. Brad Wesley, he loves to taste the fear, doesn’t he? Well, last night you took that fear, warm and throbbing and oh so insistent, and you fed it to him. And he drank every drop, didn’t he, he gorged himself on the fear you inflicted until his guts were fit to burst. Have you ever seen a man’s guts, Dalton? Ever dipped your hands in another man’s body and squeezed whatever you found inside? Felt the incredible human machine, miraculous in its evolutionary purpose, begin to break down between your fingers? Well, last night I had a vision of you, Dalton, I had a vision of you, small as a churchmouse, lethal as the cobra, plunging your arms elbow-deep into man after man, pulling out viscous tubes and bladders rendered useless by your relentless probing. I saw you reach deep inside Brad Wesley and open up his works to the world outside. I saw birds, black as soot, fly out in a great gust, like the wind, like a firestorm. As I looked up, I felt their warm white shit rain down on me, covering me like a thin alkaline film. And when I raised my hands to wipe my face clean of their excretion, those hands pulled away hundred dollar bills, Dalton. I wiped and wiped and the money kept falling into my hands, until there was more than I could hold, until the pile of it reached my knees, my thighs, my sex. I was neck deep in cash, Dalton, and still I knew Brad Wesley’s body was somewhere in this deluge, and you were somewhere in Brad Wesley’s body, tasting its fear, rolling it around on your tongue, suckling on its terrible teat. Anyway, I’m looking forward to Wagon Days.”
273. My town
“This is my town,” Brad Wesley tells the Four Old Men. “Don’t you forget it.” And it’s true, as far as the numbers go. Brad Wesley got the mall, the 7-Eleven, the Fotomat—Christ, JC Penney is coming there because of him, you ask anybody, they’ll tell you. What do his opponents have? Red Webster’s Auto Parts? Not anymore. Strodenmire Ford? Not anymore. The Double Deuce? Only because Wesley granted it a reprieve and called off the fight between Wade and Jimmy. Emmett’s horse ranch? It won’t surprise you to learn that it’s next on his hitlist. Granted, there’s Big “T” Auto Sales, the nameless old man’s auto parts store, and an entire network of greasy spoons and dive bars, plus the boat store we can see from the Double Deuce’s parking lot, but as far as we know the Four are the only people who’ve put up any fight against Wesley’s protection racket. It’s a numbers game, and the odds are in Mr. Wesley’s favor. As of this moment, Jasper has been remade in his dark image. For Dalton, this means events will accelerate and escalate at an alarming pace as the transformation struggles to complete.
272. The Drawing of the Four
Boardwalk Empire, Terence Winter’s underrated Prohibition Era gangster drama, featured many real-world figures of underworld renown, though mostly at ages much younger than the ones at which they’d become famous. They’d be mixed in with entirely fictional characters, or heavily fictionalized analogues of actual people. Often you didn’t realize until halfway through a scene that, oh my god, that’s Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone all hanging out together. The resulting frisson was a thrill.
In his lamentable mega-series The Dark Tower, Stephen King officially introduced the concept of ka-tet, a group of people drawn together by the benevolent force that partially orders the universe for a specific purpose. I say “officially” because if you’ve read his work you know that this is a recurring feature everywhere from It to The Stand. Often the characters themselves recognize that something has happened when they’re all finally assembled together—that the final piece of a puzzle they didn’t even know they were solving has slipped into place, that the whole of them is somehow greater than the sum of its parts, that when faced with other people there’s a palpable sense of belonging and un-belonging. Great deeds can be done in ka-tet.
Here you see Emmett, Red Webster, Frank Tilghman, and Pete Strodenmire, together for the first time. Until now Emmett had never been seen off his ranch, and Strodenmire had only been seen one time before in total. They’re watching Brad Wesley walk away, having proclaimed “This is my town—don’t you forget it.” Red is about to bust Strodenmire’s balls by repeating what Strodenmire said to him after his auto parts store was destroyed: “You got insurance, don’t you?” Tilghman is, as always, very peculiar.
Yet something looks right here, doesn’t it? Something about this configuration of four weird old men staring into the middle distance rings true. When ka-tet is formed, how can any JC Penney magnate hope to stand against it?
271. Abuser
“You lost your faith, Strodenmire, that’s what it is,” Brad Wesley tells the walrus-mustachioed man who just wanted Jasper to enjoy Wagon Days, pinching his cheek like a child’s in the process. “It’s made you an abuser!” he concludes, wagging a finger in the man’s face. Thus is the gaslighting of Strodenmire by a man who infantilizes him, touches him without permission, browbeats him in front of his friends, and then destroys his property in an act of classic victim-blaming. Strodenmire’s eyes are remarkable in this scene, huge limpid saucers of anger and terror and, yes, confusion. Have I lost faith? Am I an abuser? In the time it takes Strodenmire to process the words of the man who is victimizing him, Gary Ketcham runs over his car dealership with a monster truck. “I never thought you’d turn on me too,” Wesley says when it’s all over. The message is clear: Look what you made me do.
270. Orson Welles for “Road House”
[inaudible] again please. We know of a little town called Jasper, in Missouri, where Emmett lives. Emmett who. Who is— […] What is the first name of this man Emmett. […] “Emmett” is his first name? What is his surname? […] Surname. Last name. Honestly, this is exhausting, my having to explain this to you. […] He has no last name. It’s just “Emmett,” is it? […] Well then how do you know which name it is? […] Yes it is. Yes it is important. How am I to describe the film amid such uncertainty? […] Then whose job is it, if not mine? I know my job, sir. I know precisely what my job is and isn’t, more than I can say for you. And your friend. […] If you want me to say “Emmett” I will say “Emmett,” I simply wish to be on record as stating it makes no sense. I’ve no wish to be held responsible you see. […] Fine. Fine. Are we ready? […] Exhausting. […] We know of a little town called Jasper, in Missouri—now you’ve done it again. You’ve added an “in” where no “in” need be. […] Jasper, Missouri. That’s— […] That’s—it’s more pleasing to the human ear to say Jasper, Missouri than it is to say Jasper, in Missouri. […] The English language. Do you say New York, in New York? […] We know of a little town called Jasper, Missouri, where Emmett lives. Emmett raises horses…raises horses. No, […] No, something does not— […] The sound of it. Raises horses. Too sibilant. The phrase sounds like the buzzing of bees. […] Well if you won’t change it then at least tell me you hear it. Indulge me if you would, please. […] Thank you. How very kind. […] Emmett raises horses on his little ranch, just across the water from—you know you will confuse people. […] The water, as if you expect them to know which or what water. Emmett raises horses—and I’m only proceeding under duress you understand. Miserable. […] Emmett raises horses on his little ranch, just across the water from this man. His name: Brad my God. […] You want me to launch right into his name right after saying the words His name. But you see if you massage it a bit— […] If you add a goddamned verb and massage it a bit it sounds much cleaner. His name is Brad Wesley. […] But I’m looking at the copy and […] Put down that ridiculous mug and pay attention! You want the emphasis to be on the sentence that follows: He is the most dangerous man in town. But you cannot emphasize that sentence as it’s written right now because you’re emphasizing his name. […] It’s before we are told what distinguishes him that’s the problem. […] Why are we leaping ahead all of a sudden? […] Well that is bullshit, I’m sorry, because I said it in passing. If you want me to read it and do what you’re paying me for then do me the kindness of allowing me to do a read of it. […] His name is Brad Wesley. He is the most dangerous man in town. Are you sure? […] Because […] No no, because it doesn’t match up with the footage at all. He is the most dangerous man in town and you have him eating breakfast. The least dangerous man in town no doubt eats breakfast as well. One should hope. […] So you see it does not distinguish him. […] Yes, I’ll wait. This day is beyond salvage whatever the case. […] [unintelligible] bit prosaic to show him with a gun when you’re saying he’s the most dangerous man in town. Prosaic and redundant. […] The picture and the words together tell the story and you have them speaking in unison as it were. From which school were you matriculated? […] Where did you go to school, to university. […] [prolonged exhalation] […] See, that’s it! Now you’re using your head, for arguably the first time today if you’ll pardon my saying so. If you show him in the car— […] What was that? Who was that, rather. […] My God how many people do you have back there? Must I answer to this new fellow as well? […] Don’t you see, New Fellow, don’t you see how much nicer it is to say he’s dangerous when he’s swanning about in his car than when he’s brandishing the pistol. The most dangerous man in town and he’s singing, what was it again? […] Yes, “Sh-boom.” […] Because everybody eats breakfast, that’s the issue. Not that breakfast isn’t dangerous. Everybody eats breakfast but here he’s weaving to and fro and singing and you’re saying he’s the most dangerous, it’s intriguing. […] No I’m sorry to interrupt but who is this? Who is— […] No, the dancer. The fellow with no shirt. […] Oh horseshit. […] No, I do beg your pardon but it’s preposterous, what you’re saying. The man is a dancer! […] His physique. […] One expects the bruiséd ear and uncertain gait of a prizefighter and this fellow moves like Nureyev. […] Sets him apart from what. From— […] … […] I’m listening. […] Yes, always. […] Well it’s absurd don’t you see. Don’t you see that the very idea of it would get you laughed out of Bellevue! […] Explain to me how one becomes a famous bouncer and I’ll whack the both of you off simultaneously. […] Another famous bouncer! Too much bouncing around here. You’re saying this famous bouncer has an— […] A mentor. How delightful for him that must be. […] If either of you gentlemen had had a mentor we might not be so utterly outmatched by this. Road House: A Roddy Herrington Film. […] What? […] His name is never Rowdy. […] His name is Rowdy? Rowdy Harrington, Herrington excuse me. […] Road House: A Rowdy Herrington Film. No, this isn’t worth it. […] You go again and I won’t be here because no money is worth it and [unintelligble]
269. In Search of the Lost Goon
Some men have a face that says “I can and will kick your ass, and I will be weird doing it.” In the ’80s and ’90s these men often found work as memorable goons in Hollywood action films, playing the heavy’s henchman, a mutant in leather bondage gear, someone who gets dispatched with a one-liner, you know the deal. In the case of Road House, one wore a sporty blue t-shirt and didn’t do much of anything.
The man you’re looking at here is Benny Urquidez, martial artist, stuntman, and fight trainer. He worked closely with Patrick Swayze and Marshall Teague to help choreograph the legitimately phenomenal fight scene between Dalton and Jimmy that will take place later in the film. Even though he’s just kind of in the background here, milling around with all the other goons as Brad Wesley prepares to order the destruction of a Ford dealership, he stands out. You know how I’ve gone on about how to be a good goon, you need to get introduced with a memorable shot or while performing a memorable action? Benny’s nameless goon whips off his sunglasses like a @dril character, revealing a distinctive beady-eyed visage beneath. He’s hard to miss, so hard in fact that the first few times I saw the movie my mind just filled in the blanks and conjured him into fight scenes in which he was not present at all.
Because that’s the thing: He’s not present in any fight scenes. He’s not present in any scenes period, except for this one. In a way he’s the heir to Karpis: He makes an impression and then <poof> he’s gone. Only unlike that dashingly handsome mystery man and possible Cousin in Memphis, his legacy lives on in the titanic struggle between an itinerant bouncer-philosopher and the chief enforcer of a guy who has his own reserved parking space at the mall. It is through Dalton and Jimmy that the Lost Goon may be observed, ripping throats from another plane.
268. Happiness Is a Squashed Ford
Gary grins from ear to ear. Jimmy does a double fist-pump. O’Connor raises an arm aloft in triumph. Tinker yee-haws his hat off his head. Pat McGurn and Morgan? They literally embrace. (Jimmy and Tinker merely clasp hands.) The Goon in Blue (about whom more later) is just happy to be there. And Brad Wesley acts like a game show host. Truly, the destruction of Strodenmire Ford by the coward Gary Ketcham is the high-water mark of villainous delight for the Brad Wesley organization. For once in their miserable lives they managed to get one over on their enemies in a way that did not require any of them to get their asses kicked. They didn’t even need to throw a punch, much less take one. They just had to get behind the wheel of a monster truck—one of them did, anyway—and drive on through to the other side. The rest take a joy in this of the sort you see in bars when the home team wins the Super Bowl. They are thrilled, inordinately thrilled, “the director overdid it” thrilled, to have watched a monster truck run over a car dealership. Did I point out that Morgan and Pat, the two orneriest cusses in the whole gang, hug each other, like one just announced his wife is expecting? This is the rough beast they gave birth to instead, haulin’ ass towards Bethlehem to put a little something down on a new car.
“The Terror: Infamy” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Seven: “My Perfect World”
“Your people made this mess. Now you gotta live with it.” Admit it: When you first sat down to watch The Terror: Infamy, billed as a historical horror story set in World War II–era internment camps for Japanese Americans, you didn’t expect the show’s thesis statement to come from the narcissistic bigot who serves as camp commandant. But there’s really no way around it. Major Bowen’s assessment of the evil presence stalking the camp is entirely accurate. Yuko the yurei is not the product of American jingoism, springing instead from the superstitions and beliefs of the Japanese community she menaces. I don’t think the makers of this show set out to imply that these poor people brought it on themselves, but how can the work they’ve produced be read any other way?
I reviewed the latest misfiring episode of The Terror: Infamy for the A.V. Club.
267. Gary
You’ve heard me complain about Ketcham, Brad Wesley’s most anonymous goon. How he’s handsome in a generic, Ken-doll way. How he’s a shirt-tucked-into-jeans kind of guy. How he doesn’t get a memorable introduction, just kind of sidling along in the background during the Bleeder scene. How no one ever bothers saying his credited name “Ketcham” out loud. How he pales in comparsion to Morgan, O’Connor, Jimmy, Pat McGurn, even Tinker, but how he’s the final guardian of Brad Wesley and the killer of Wade Garrett. How despite wielding the boot-knife and driving the monster truck you could walk right past him without even realizing who he was. How he’s aggressively, almost confrontationally non-descript.
Imagine how I feel now that I realize his name is “Gary.”
“Well, what are you waitin’ for, Gary? Drive through there!” That’s what Brad Wesley yells just before this tool in his giant red baseball cap runs over Strodenmire Ford with his monster truck. He says it with his back turned and with no eyeline-match cut, which is why I’ve watched this movie several dozen times and never noticed it before, but yeah, that’s Ketcham’s first name, Gary. Gary Ketcham. Gary, that most vanilla of names. If beige were a name rather than a color, it would be Gary. Gary is the “pic of myself wearing Oakleys in the driver’s seat of my car as a twitter avatar” of names. Gary. Wade Garrett gets killed by a guy named Gary. You remember Gary, don’t you? Wait, who are we talking about again?
266. Head On Down to Wagon Days
“Dalton, you gotta check this out,” Jack says. “Looks like Wesley wants to put a little something down on a new car.” This is his tipoff to his boss that Brad Wesley plans to take a monster truck and destroy a car dealership with it. Why he chose to deliver this information in a wisecrack is the viewer’s to decide. Spider-Man, I’m thinking—Jack reads Spider-Man comics, hence the resort to jokes during tense moments. Do I get a No-Prize?
But Jack and his banter and his weirdly small boots with his stonewashed denim tucked into them is beside the point. Mostly I want to call attention to the assemblage of humanity present for the impromptu monster truck rally. Jack is there, and so are his Double Deuce coworkers Carrie Ann and Frank Tilghman. Red Webster is there too—guess he didn’t skip town after all—along with Emmett, who has finally taken his place in the Council of Elders I suppose. Brad Wesley has brought along virtually his entire goon crew, though that’s to be expected when you’re planning to destroy a place of business in broad daylight.
And here in their car are Dr. Elizabeth Clay, Dalton, and Cody from the Jeff Healey Band. What was their plan for the afternoon? What did that conversation sound like? “Hey Cody, it’s Dalton. Look, me and the Doc were gonna swing by Wagon Days at Strodenmire Ford after lunch sometime. Wanna come with?” “Sure thing, man, just gotta drain the main vein first.” “Okay, well, as I said we won’t be heading over till like one or two, so you should have plenty of—hello? Hello?”
How ‘Last Blood’ Destroys Rambo’s American Myth
“When you’re pushed,” John Rambo once said, “killing’s as easy as breathing.” In his decades-long career as an action-movie icon, Rambo has been pushed plenty.
In 1982’s First Blood, the traumatized Vietnam vet ran afoul of a small-town sheriff in the Pacific Northwest and proceeded to all but level that town in a quest to simply be left alone. In 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part II, he was extracted from prison and sent back to Vietnam on a hunt for American POWs, slaughtering Soviet and Vietnamese communists in service of one of the great American right-wing myths. In 1988’s Rambo III he journeyed to Afghanistan to rescue his old mentor from Soviet captivity, and in the process helped the country’s mujahideen fighters make the place Russia’s Vietnam. And in 2008’s inimitable Rambo, he rained death upon a Burmese warlord in order to free missionaries who’d been tending to he needs of the country’s oppressed Karen minority.
And now, in Rambo: Last Blood, he kills some guys who killed his niece.
Directed by Adrian Grünberg from a script he co-wrote with star Sylvester Stallone, Last Blood strips the Rambo franchise of any overt political ideology whatsoever. He’s not on a rescue mission, at least not for long. He’s not fighting for his country, or for some nostalgic, patriotic version thereof. He’s spilling blood because he wants to — because he feels he needs to. It’s all red; no white, no blue.
I wrote about Rambo: Last Blood and how it strips the Rambo myth down to straight-up murder for Thrillist. It’s a sequel of sorts to my piece on the 2008 Rambo film on its tenth anniversary. As a body of work, the Rambo movies—one of two film franchises based on Sylvester Stallone’s idea that watching other men destroy his perfect body is inherently interesting—are so strange and fascinating to me.
“The Affair” thoughts, Season Five, Episode Five
It’s rare for “The Affair” to dump a full-fledged heel like Adeline on its audience, and for good reason. The show’s characters have always thrived on nuance, contrast, even contradiction — characteristics that render clear-cut heroes and villains obsolete. That’s what makes Adeline a misfire, even in the hands of an actor as gifted as Leigh. Debuting as she does in Sierra’s first P.O.V. segment, before we’ve had a chance to see much of the world through her daughter’s eyes, she comes across as a grinning, oblivious monster. She’s a one-note character, and that one note nearly drowns out this entire section of the episode.
“Succession” thoughts, Season Two, Episode Seven: “Return”
Doesn’t this get tiresome for people other than me? Like, don’t you want a little more variety in your comedy-drama hybrid than fucking dick jokes an average of once every ten minutes like clockwork? Is that really and truly the only way the venality and machismo of the ultra-rich can be conveyed via humor? Dick dick dick dick dick dick dick dick dick? (“How many dicks is that?” “A lot.”)
I reviewed episode seven of Succession Season 2 for Decider.
Music Time: The Juan MacLean – The Brighter the Light
Variety is the spice of the Juan MacLean. Like label co-founder James Murphy, this core DFA act—comprising frontwoman and LCD Soundsystem alum Nancy Whang and Six Finger Satellite guitarist turned synth wizard John MacLean—has historically taken a magpie approach to dance and electronic sounds. That’s how a Heaven 17 pastiche like The Future Will Come’s 2009 title track can accompany a piano-house banger like “Happy Home,” or how the New Order-esque “Love Stops Here” can share real estate on 2014’s In a Dream with “Charlotte,” a song that sounds more like Beaucoup Fish–era Underworld than anything Underworld have recorded since. Derivative? Pshaw: Whang and MacLean are so proficient and so soulful in their craft that TJM always feels like its own life-affirming entity.
So what to make of The Brighter the Light, an album assembled with sameness in mind?
I reviewed the Juan MacLean’s new singles compilation The Brighter the Light for Pitchfork. (Don’t miss “Feel Like Movin'”!)