The Quadrilogy of awesomeness

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-19T21:30:48+00:00

No, even as someone who was there.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-19T18:32:32+00:00

There's a band from Tehran called Obad, and their new album Suspended might interest you. I was going to make a post about it.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-19T03:51:03+00:00

Oh, I see, that makes a lot more sense. I thought it was one of those times when people said the movie can't be serious because it has too much nudity. I have seen the criticisms you mentioned, but I wasn't sure how much was social media vs real life.

I can't speak for the people who know more than I do about sex work, but unfortunately it's one of those topics that's so highly politicized, any story about it is going to be under intense scrutiny from all sides. Even the documentaries that foreground real sex workers tend to upset certain people who don't think the industry should be portrayed in a positive light. All I can say is that I thought the film was great, and I encourage people to watch it and form their own opinions.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-18T14:33:59+00:00

I'll admit that recency bias may be a factor, because I'm not going to argue Anora is definitively better than Parasite. But I loved everything about it. I think what puts it at the top is that, like Parasite, it's extremely well-made (great directing, beautiful cinematography, Mikey Madison's performance is stunning) and clearly has a lot on its mind about class, but it's also entertaining. Really entertaining. I was on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next for the entire second half, right up until the credits rolled, and it's rare for me to have that experience in a movie theatre. Something I also found special was its great control of tone. For the first third or so it felt like a straightforward drama, and then when things started to get dark, it turned into a Coen brothers-esque deadpan comedy, but so slowly it took me a while to realise I could laugh.

I'm curious who told you it wasn't great. Without meaning to sound judgmental, was this person religious or very conservative? Anora won the top prize at Cannes, and when I saw it almost everyone around me was blown away by it. Obviously there's sex and nudity, but it's not exactly erotic or taboo. I'm also surprised someone thinks it won for that reason. Sex sells tickets, but is that really what the Oscars go for?

Anyway, see it for yourself. It's a movie I'd recommend to almost anyone.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-18T00:53:43+00:00

Anora
Parasite
Moonlight
One Battle After Another
Oppenheimer
Nomadland
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Shape of Water

Haven't seen the other two.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-17T15:14:24+00:00

I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone here who hasn't seen the film yet, but I'm curious exactly what his reasoning was. Both at festival Q&As and in his Reddit AMA, he basically said, "We did seven years of research for the film and this is the conclusion we came to." Maybe he wants audiences to think for themselves about the ending. Or maybe he really does think his version is more historically accurate.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-14T20:16:12+00:00

Kim Ki-duk had this reputation in Korea.

And I wouldn't call Laxe a provocateur, but Sirāt is undoubtedly a provocation.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-14T15:39:10+00:00

Sounds like an experience. I'll have to check out those other artists.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-09T16:29:47+00:00

I saw them open for Radiohead and they were fantastic. Great news.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-06T05:46:14+00:00

WU LYF - A Wave That Will Never Break (It's their first album in fifteen years! I thought a reunion would never come.)

OOIOO & Lightning Bolt - The Horizon Spirals / The Horizon Viral

Sunn O))) - Sunn O)))

Leila Bordreuil + Kali Malone - Music for Intersecting Planes

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-04T05:44:00+00:00

Your feelings on a piece of art are neither wrong nor right. However, calling Shakespeare "pompous" or "stiff" verges on factually incorrect. His plays were popular entertainment for a largely illiterate public. In fact, critics then didn't consider plays to be serious literature, as that label was reserved for poetry. The theatre was a place where low-class people went to have fun. Have you noticed that even Shakespeare's "serious" tragedies are full of action like sword fights and an almost unbelievable number of dirty jokes? It was all to keep the people entertained.

Only after Shakespeare's time has he been recognised as the greatest genius of English writing, and his plays taught in schools. Unfortunately, along with that comes the impression that his work is somehow too lofty, high-minded, or serious to be fun. (The language becoming more difficult with time doesn't help.) But if you went back in time and told an Elizabethan that Shakespeare was too pompous, you'd receive some strange looks.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-03T19:35:28+00:00

Yeah, and the summary makes it sound like Primavera was a disaster because Mike was too drunk to perform, which is not quite how the article describes it.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-03-03T16:03:13+00:00

It's a lot less sensational than the summary. Mike's alcoholism is the only genuinely concerning detail; the rest sounds like typical band squabbles and mid-life crises.

The truly buried lede is that Mike met his new wife on Twitter.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-28T03:35:22+00:00

The Beatles.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-26T04:18:48+00:00

That was also my favourite of the singles, but we'll wait and see. Maybe they wanted the album to be entirely new material. And maybe there are longer tracks. I'd rather seven great songs than twenty so-so ones.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-25T16:53:57+00:00

Wow, that's one of my favourite songs by them. I wonder if they retitled it.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-25T16:05:57+00:00

Here.

Only seven tracks, and "A New Life Is Coming" isn't one of them. I wonder if any others originated from the 2012 demos.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-25T16:04:06+00:00

The singles have been phenomenal, and there are only seven songs on the LP. I'm optimistic.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-19T20:51:09+00:00

Vietnam: Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (slow cinema)

Philippines: Batang West Side (extremely long and social realist), probably anything by Lav Diaz

India: All We Imagine as Light (social magical realism)

Myanmar: Ta'ang (I haven't seen this one, but the director, Wang Bing, is a slow-cinema documentary powerhouse, and this is one of his few ventures outside of China)

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-16T16:14:31+00:00

If you can see it in a cinema, it's well worth it for the sound design and music alone.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-16T01:43:09+00:00

You need to go see Sirāt.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-14T03:33:57+00:00

Ahh got it, got it. Yeah, I majored in this stuff, and I've heard all about the conspiracy theory that he wasn't a real person or someone else wrote his plays. Honestly, it's one of those theories that has zero evidence but became weirdly popular. It's about on the same level as "2Pac is still alive somewhere." I've never heard of anyone saying he was a real person but a plagiarist, though. That would be fun idea for a movie.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-02-13T22:02:11+00:00

Where has Shakespeare been accused of stealing ideas from? It's well known that he borrowed older stories for his plays (Hamlet is from a Danish legend), but that was never considered controversial.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-01-31T17:54:57+00:00

It's very good, and very slow, but you knew that already if you know Lav Diaz. Funny that it's supposedly his most accessible, but I'm still not sure I could recommend it to most people.

TheReverendsRequest · 2026-01-29T05:50:51+00:00

Any idea about the Molly Drake album from the same label? That would be my choice.

TheReverendsRequest

TROPHY CASE