2025-12-17 02:00:00
If you love tortured puns and have a dim memory of beginning French, have I got the Christmas post for you!
First up is “Ah Ouais” by Papa Wemba, a musician from the Congo who had an interesting career and helped popularize world music to wider audiences. Hearing this track makes me reminiscent for the optimism of the early 2000s, when it felt like we were building towards a global community.
Today we’re pairing it with “Le Festin” by Camille and Michael Giacchino, from the soundtrack to Ratatouille. I guess my prejudices are showing, because I just assumed that even with my very rudimentary understanding of the French language, it’d be trivial to find tons and tons of French pop songs about eating. I always thought that that was a big part of what being French was all about.
But I had no luck at all. The best I could find was “The Feast,” which as a Disney song composed by an American to sound French, seemed like a cop-out. But then I listened to it again, and I remembered that the reason it’s so familiar is because it’s just a really nice and evocative tune. And it works here because it’s à propos de manger. And in a larger sense, isn’t agreeing to things and enjoying eating things the true reason for the season?
2025-12-16 02:00:00
Note: I wrote all of these posts at the beginning of the month and scheduled them to play out later, and I hope it’s obvious that I intended them to be silly without being disrespectful.
But I did want to acknowledge the horrific terrorist attack in Sydney and pay respect to the people murdered while celebrating their holiday. Condolences seem insufficient, anger seems inappropriate for a holiday about light and perseverance, so I can only give a sincere wish for a Happy Hanukkah to everybody who celebrates it.
This month I’m using the power of corny puns and tenuous connections to turn everything into a Christmas song. But I don’t want anyone to think I forgot about dreidel. That’s why I’ve assembled four songs that aren’t at all about Hanukkah, two of which are actually pretty good. If my math and vague cultural awareness are correct, that should get you about halfway through the holiday.
Starting off, you can listen to the one-two-punch of “Forgot About Dre” by Dr. Dre featuring Eminem, followed by “Miserlou” by Dick Dale and His Del-Tones. Or, I guess you could just listen to Dr. Dreidel, who already made this joke years ago.
I’m hoping this won’t get me low-key hated on by most of these fellas with no cheese and seafood eaten at the same time.
Then, depending on how much of a masochist you are, you can enjoy “Looks Like We Made It” by Barry Manilow. Then imagine yourself on the other side of Clay Aiken’s heartfelt and somehow-even-whiter-than-Harry-Nilsson cover of “Without You,” and think of what your life would be like once you’re out of Clay.
(Come on, guys, give me a break here. Turns out that every single song I could find that even mentions “clay” is extremely Christian, which seems to go entirely against the spirit of this challenge).
Happy Holidays!
2025-12-14 14:39:11
Dust Bunny was written, directed, and produced by Bryan Fuller. Normally I wouldn’t lead with that, because I’m not a big proponent of auteur theory (except when the Coen Brothers are involved). But this is undeniably, unmistakably, the product of his voice and his vision.
Which means that whether you like it or not probably depends on how much tolerance you had for Pushing Daisies. That’s a series that’s always frustrated the heck out of me, since I wanted so much to like it, but it felt like it was constantly trying to throw me off with all of its affectations.
There’s a lot to like in Dust Bunny; it’s weird, often beautiful, always interesting, and it feels like it always chooses the original over the derivative.
Or at least, it doesn’t feel derivative as soon as it’s gotten past the setup. The premise is kind of like Léon: The Professional crossed with Maurice Sendak, and set in an antique store run by the richest, gayest couple you’ve ever met.
Aurora is a young girl who witnesses her unnamed neighbor killing a group of gang members/assassins, which she interprets as his killing a dragon. Based on this, she hires him to kill the monster that lives under her bed.
A lot of the movie is genuinely charming. But just as much of the movie also desperately wants to be charming, and to constantly remind you that it’s combining imagery from a children’s story with a much darker and edgier movie, and did you notice how it’s doing that? There’s such a sense of forced quirkiness throughout that you’re always kept at arm’s length from genuinely connecting with it.
It would be absurd to say that it doesn’t feel “real,” since it’s all deliberately intended to feel like a surreal fantasy environment. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that it doesn’t feel true.
Just one example: an assassin who’s camouflaged himself to perfectly blend in with the pattern on some wallpaper. Obviously done for the sake of the visual of its reveal, but I spent the entirety of the subsequent scene distracted by how much it made no sense whatsoever, even by the terms of this surreal fantasy world.
And yet, it’s often engaging, and a lot of it still works as intended. There’s a moment when Aurora is using a key to unlock the door to her apartment, and the camera does a distractingly unnecessary swoop into the mechanism of the door lock, showing the key moving the tumblers. It had me thinking, “Come on, man, just calm the hell down and let me enjoy this movie without constantly hitting me with this nonsense.”
But not long after, we see the same close-up shot of the mechanism, as some kind of lock pick is inserted and moves the tumblers. Letting us know instantly and wordlessly that an intruder was violating Aurora’s safe space. That had me thinking, “Okay, fine.”
Watching Dust Bunny did feel a bit like riding a bucking bronco through a Wes Anderson movie: every time the twee affectations were about to throw me off, something would come in to pull me back on.
There’s a ton of imagery that’s constantly drawing attention to itself, even though it exists strictly for its own sake: Mads Mikkelsen is framed by a light so that it looks like he has a halo. The pattern on Sigourney Weaver’s dress matches the restaurant she’s in. The assassins are wearing basketball socks and checked blazers, for some reason. It never stopped being distracting, but it did always reinforce the idea that this is all taking place in a fantasy world.
Ultimately, I’m very glad that Dust Bunny exists, because I want there to be room for weird, imaginative projects like this to get made. Movies with enough budget to afford big names and plenty of VFX, but not so big that all the weirdness gets drained out of them and the rough edges get sanded away.
2025-12-13 13:27:50
The big surprise of Zootopia was that it presented itself as little more than a fairly generic cartoon about funny talking animals, but delivered a pretty insightful message about intersectionality. And it did it with more nuance and maturity than a lot of material targeted at adults. It touched on ideas of culture being distinct from race, coexistence not requiring assimilation, and how well-meaning prejudices are still prejudices.
Zootopia 2 checks off all the boxes of a studio-mandated sequel. It’s got all the familiar story beats, it’s full of gags that are so broad that anyone can get them, it’s got new locations that are ripe for potential theme park expansions or cruise ship attractions, its detective story is straightforward, and you’re never more than four minutes away from being reminded what the current objective is. Plus, just about every character in the first movie appears here in at least a cameo. Including the unsettlingly hot tiger go-go dancers.
But at the same time it’s delivering on its Required Content, it’s constantly adding in clever touches to assert that yes, it actually does have a reason to exist. That the filmmakers have aspirations beyond making a successor to a marketable movie that surprised everyone by how popular it was in China.
For instance: there’s a scene where main characters Hopps and Wilde go to a group therapy session for dysfunctional partnerships. We go around the room seeing the various unlikely pairings, and then we see an elephant who suddenly freaks out when he sees his mouse partner sitting next to him.
It’s fine as a gag, perfectly well executed. But the part that charmed me was the mouse’s reaction. He just gives a gesture that silently says, “What the hell, man? What’s wrong with you?!” It was almost as if the movie took its commitment to diversity so seriously that it tried to cater to every sense of humor.
The message in Zootopia 2 is about a PG-rated funny-animal version of ethnic cleansing, committed by the rich and powerful to further their own interests. It’s present throughout, but it’s not quite as pointed as the message in the first movie, so it feels slightly de-fanged as a result.1
I can’t really fault it for that, though, since it’s really not an issue with any complexity or nuance. It’s something that even children should understand, which is why it’s so upsetting that so many grown-ass adults keep choosing to vote for political campaigns built on brazenly and shamelessly stoking anti-immigrant sentiment.
I suppose the only way it could’ve been more direct is if a rabbit had looked directly into the camera and said, “And that’s why Stephen Miller, JD Vance, and Donald Trump are worthless, cowardly sacks of shit.” Although since a bunch of dimwitted dipshits are going to be flooding the internet with their pre-written whining about how it’s “too woke” regardless, it seems like maybe Disney should’ve just gone ahead and included that. What do they have to lose?
Zootopia 2 does add a layer of depth to its message about immigrants, with its character arc about Judy Hopps always feeling driven to prove herself to other people. It adds commentary about model minorities, something that is both painfully relevant2 and is often lost, with well-meaning attempts to show compassion for immigrants that still inevitably think of them as other. I appreciated seeing the movie explicitly assert that no one needs to prove that they deserve respect.
Honestly, my favorite thing about Zootopia 2 is when it goes into an extended movie reference that I hadn’t seen coming, and it executes on it perfectly.3
But my other favorite thing is that it satisfies every constraint of an animated movie designed to appeal to as wide and as global an audience as possible, and then goes on to be more clever than it needs to, and deliver a message that is more mature and relevant than it needs to.
Who knows, maybe some of the people who flat-out refuse to fix their hearts might finally have some sense driven into them if it’s delivered by a cute rabbit, fox, and snake.
2025-12-10 02:00:00
The winter holidays are for enjoying time with your family, friends, and neighbors, much like the people do in the video to “Turn Down For What” by DJ Snake and Lil Jon. Ultimately, isn’t spending time with the people you love what Christmas is all about? Not that you need the holidays as an excuse to enjoy that video, since it’s quite possibly the greatest music video of all time.
Every year, there’s a recurring complaint that Christians will spend the entire month of December making every single thing about Christmas. Normally I treat that as a reminder to be as respectful and inclusive as I can. This year, I’m also taking it as a challenge: can I make everything about Christmas? Even a song about dongs?
I always liked “Tusk” by Fleetwood Mac, and I always thought it wasn’t about anything at all. Recently I discovered see it’s being a bit cheeky, innit? and that actually made me enjoy it less than when I thought it was just nonsense. Still, it’s one of the few popular songs from a band that was named after its drummer that actually highlights the drums.
Every time I see the video, filmed at USC with the Trojans marching band, I’m beguiled all over again by the shots of Stevie Nicks grinning while effortlessly twirling a baton. It really makes you appreciate why so many people (male bandmates in particular) have been so obsessed with her. Even if you ignore her talents as a songwriter and singer, she’s just inherently captivating.
2025-12-05 02:02:00
I went to see Eternity not expecting to have more of a reaction than “well, that was pleasant enough,” but I was surprised by how much I loved it. It’s genuinely funny, sweet, and charming as all hell. I cried, multiple times.
But possibly more than any other movie I’ve seen this year, I can see this one being divisive. This is very much a movie where you get out of it what you bring to it. I can completely understand someone watching it and finding it just okay, or even downright disliking it.
Its entire premise is absurdly contrived, even beyond the point where it acknowledges how contrived it is. (At one point, Elizabeth Olsen’s Joan tells her husbands to stop arguing because “it’s not a competition,” and everyone in the room says, “Yes, it is. That’s 100% what this is.”) It’s content to be shallow about the implications of this version of the afterlife, preferring to let it remain little more than the premise of a romantic comedy. Not all of the jokes land, and the endlessly recurring gag of seeing ads for potential eternities often feels like they could’ve spent more time brainstorming funnier ideas.1
It’s distracting how so much of the movie relies on the idea that Callum Turner’s Luke is drop-dead gorgeous, so immediately and universally hot that it’s all anyone can comment on, when I just didn’t see it. That’s not an insult to Mr Turner, either; I’ve seen publicity photos where you can imagine a casting agent choosing him as Impossibly Hot Guy on sight. But somehow this movie has five unusually attractive people as its leads and yet still manages to make everyone look like they’re in a PBS documentary.
And of course, for as much as it presents itself as a story centered on Olsen’s character, she is almost entirely reduced to the prize to be won by one of two men. For the bulk of the movie, her only agency — deciding for herself how she wants to spend eternity — is limited to choosing a husband.
Even acknowledging all of that, I loved it. I should admit that I’m a sucker for stories, especially romantic comedies, dealing with the afterlife: A Matter of Life and Death is an all-time favorite, Defending Your Life is one of the only Albert Brooks movies I actually enjoy, and of course I loved The Good Place.2 And Elizabeth Olsen is on the short list of actors it’s impossible for me not to like.
The main reason that Eternity worked so well for me is the rapport between the characters. The movie might not do a good job of making its characters look glamorous, but it more than makes up for it by having them play off of each other perfectly.
Miles Teller’s Larry is the underdog of the story, Joan’s husband for 65 years who’s always resented living in the shadow of her first husband Luke, who died in the war.3 He and Joan have such a casual familiarity with each other that I thought was instantly believable; you just immediately accept that these actors in their 30s have known each other for almost 70 years.
Meanwhile, the relationship between Joan and Luke plays out like more old-fashioned romantic stories: passionate young lovers separated by tragedy, eternally longing to be reunited. They’re more stiff and formal, reading not so much as a married couple as two people still in the awkward stages of being completely smitten with each other. I don’t think that’s a mistake or a lack of chemistry, though. It’s essential to making this work within the confines of a romantic comedy love triangle: the lovers fated to be together, vs the safe and familiar Guy She’s With Right Now.
In fact, there’s a lot more chemistry between Luke and Larry, and some of the most appealing scenes of the movie are ones where they’re fighting or bonding. This was crucial for making all the characters likeable, instead of the usual rom-com cliche of having one of the sides of the love triangle making a last-minute heel turn, paving the way for true love to win with no complications. It drives home that Joan really is faced with an impossible choice. There are no bad guys here, beyond whoever came up with this ridiculously awful scenario for the afterlife.4
Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early play Larry and Joan’s “afterlife counselors,” slotting into the familiar romantic comedy roles of Sassy Best Friends To The Romantic Leads. But the situation is so contrived that it allows them to be completely aware of how contrived the situation is. The movie doesn’t work without them, and it also doesn’t make them the sole comic relief. Everybody in the cast gets the chance to be funny.
I’m not particularly bothered by the fact that Joan’s character isn’t really developed much beyond A Perfect Woman for two men to fight over, because the men’s characters aren’t that developed, either. Unless you consider “eats pretzels” or “dyes his hair” to be character development, they’re not much more than The Perfect Idealized Love vs The Stable Familiar Love.
For that matter, I’m not that bothered about its refusal to wrestle with any of the higher questions of a movie about the afterlife, what it means to be human, what is our purpose on earth, and so on. Eternity is actually pretty unconcerned about the afterlife. It’s little more than a setting and a premise that allows it to play with all of the standard elements of romantic comedies, flip them over, or turn them inside out. It starts with the “and they lived happily ever after” ending, then asks you to reconsider all of the familiar key story beats of a rom-com with that in mind.
(Vague spoilers for Eternity follow. I’m not interested in outright saying what happens, but if you don’t want to have even a hint that might make you guess how the movie ends, then stop reading here).
One of my favorite sequences in Eternity happens when Luke and Larry are bonding over drinks. Luke tells Larry that he looks like a guy who’s always got a lot on his mind, and Larry insists that he really isn’t. Earlier, he’d admitted that he had no idea why Joan fell in love with him. Now, he admits that he’s been dead for over a week, and he never once thought about the meaning of life.
Later in the conversation, as the two men are reminiscing about their happiest moments with Joan, Larry comes to a sudden realization that makes him understand what Joan really wants, instead of just thinking about what he wants. That prompts him to enact Eternity‘s version of one of the oldest and most familiar scenes in a romantic comedy.
I like it because it’s a familiar scene used in a different way. For one, it’s not the climax of the story; it goes off in a few more directions after that. But more significantly, it’s a case of Larry answering both of his own questions.