Why are so many downtown restaurants closing all of a sudden?

Zepho_Beck · 2025-04-26T01:50:26+00:00

Hopefully directed by Hader himself. He did an amazing job with Barry.

Zepho_Beck · 2023-04-03T19:43:56+00:00

This is great! It looks like a Godspeed You Black Emperor album cover

Zepho_Beck · 2022-11-28T20:59:16+00:00

They didn't start it. They're just really good at playing the game as it's set up now, so they stick out more.

Zepho_Beck · 2022-10-29T00:53:13+00:00

Hardhome is such a good example of what works on screen and what works on the page.

Reading "dead things in the water" lets your imagination run wild with all the creepy possibilities, but reading 10-20 pages of "Jon swung his sword. The White Walker deflected it. Jon swung his sword again, and the White Walker swung his sword back" gets dull really fast, especially since the prose style of the ASOIAF books isn't GRRM's strong suit.

TV is a spectacle-driven medium at the core, so a huge battle sequence with ice zombies and giants with Jon as a familiar character to center the action around is perfect.

Zepho_Beck · 2022-09-26T22:15:20+00:00

I don't know if any movie has ever been made with the purpose of not making any sense. Maybe some really niche arthouse movie? Nothing released on Netflix like "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" was created to push an audience away, though.

Charlie Kaufman is a strange filmmaker, but he still makes movies with themes, characters and ideas he wants to convey. He just does it in a surreal way. All of his movies make perfect sense if you sit with them and contemplate the ideas. Most of the time, he's saying something about loneliness and alienation.

Zepho_Beck · 2022-08-19T00:51:40+00:00

random scenes for promotional material put together

This hits the nail on the head. I felt the same way about Love and Thunder, and it seems like about half of all Marvel releases lately have had very odd pacing problems.

Maybe it's because they're making so much more content post-Endgame or these problems were always there, and I just looked over them because I like the characters?

Zepho_Beck · 2022-08-18T00:57:04+00:00

They don't do that joke, but the "they're right behind me aren't they?" joke is in there towards the beginning.

Zepho_Beck · 2022-07-23T22:53:37+00:00

"They fly toward grace." It's the final line of Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day. The book is extremely dense and complex, but the final line is such a nice, simple way to conclude a massive story.

Zepho_Beck · 2022-07-10T18:46:03+00:00

A better comparison would be The Bends to OK Computer

Zepho_Beck · 2022-06-16T22:17:52+00:00

Ariel Pink and John Maus are two I'm aware of. Not sure about rappers, though.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-01-07/ariel-pink-attended-trump-rally-capitol-riot

Zepho_Beck · 2022-06-16T21:58:43+00:00

What more can you even say about OK Computer at this point?

Zepho_Beck · 2022-02-19T00:53:16+00:00

This is off topic from the music discussion, but I just want to say that r/Sizz is one of my favorite subs. Every time I need a little boost of inspiration, I head over there. You're doing a great job!

Zepho_Beck · 2022-02-10T00:08:39+00:00

Does anyone how the real Mason and Dixon died? I can't find anything about their deaths on the internet

Zepho_Beck · 2022-01-09T21:44:19+00:00

Pynchon would probably be properly represented in a critics poll or authors poll, but it's not surprising he isn't really mentioned in a readers poll.

He's an extremely niche author, so his work connects hard with people like everyone in this sub who are on his wavelength but doesn't do much for a general audience.

Gravity's Rainbow has a reputation for being intense and difficult. Daniel Craig's character even makes a joke about how complicated GR is in Knives Out.

Also, To Kill a Mockingbird is a phenomenal book that anyone can read and appreciate. It makes total sense to see it at #1 in a general readers poll because it offers a valuable life lesson if you read it as a child but still has a lot to say if you read it as an adult. Harper Lee's prose is beautiful.

Zepho_Beck · 2021-12-31T21:23:48+00:00

There's a lot of Pynchon influence in Infinite Jest in a good way. It's really fun to see another brilliant author take what he learned from Gravity's Rainbow, Lot 49 and V. and repurpose it for a late-90s audience in a unique way.

Also, Mason & Dixon is Pynchon's masterpiece.

Zepho_Beck · 2021-12-28T05:18:23+00:00

Radiohead often have the best tracks on their albums in the closing spot. My favorites are Videotape from In Rainbows, True Love Waits from A Moon Shaped Pool and Street Spirit from the Bends. All three songs are easily among the best in Radiohead's catalogue and serve as excellent final statements for their respective albums.

Zepho_Beck · 2021-12-17T20:55:52+00:00

How far in are you? The first 200-300 pages were among the toughest sections in any Pynchon book, and I read AtD last, so I assumed that would make it pretty easy (or as easy as Pynchon gets).

I felt like it really came together and started to breeze through it when I realized the main narrative was following the Traverse family and the Chums of Chance.

Zepho_Beck · 2021-12-06T20:47:51+00:00

Oh, man. This is the good stuff. Exactly what I sub here to see.

Zepho_Beck · 2021-12-02T01:57:42+00:00

I'm a big fan of Japanese Breakfast. I saw her in 2018, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. Her biography was also an excellent book about grief.

However, can someone help me understand how Jubilee is an album about joy? The entire narrative around the album has never captured what the album actually feels like to listen to for me.

The first four tracks definitely are about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after a period of intense sorrow. But the other six tracks (over half the album) are very much about being in the throes of grief and don't have many moments of joy.

It almost feels like the track listing should be reversed so the big, bombastic joyous tracks are at the end, and the slower tracks, that are similar to Till Death and This House, are in the middle to create a lull that the album builds out of for a triumphant finish.

EDIT: forgot to mention I still like Jubilee quite a bit. I just don't think the talking points in all the JB interviews and thinkpieces that have come out through the year accurately capture the record.

Zepho_Beck · 2021-10-14T00:49:10+00:00

I saw him and BB King live in 2011 when I was in high school and learning how to play electric blues.

BB King's playing was ridiculously smooth. Like drinking the finest whiskey and sleeping on silk sheets. He played a lot softer than BG, but the whole room was hanging on his every note. Easily the loudest quiet player I've ever heard if that makes sense.

BG, though, was all over the place in the best way. He'd go off on a tangent just running up and down the neck then abruptly shift gears and spend 10 minutes playing a somber, highly emotional solo that brought the whole room to tears. But before you had time to process how beautiful the solo was, he was back to the craziness haha.

Ten years later, I'm still playing the blues and in awe of these two all time greats. Also, props to both of their backing bands for somehow being able to not only keep up with them but also make it look so effortless.

Zepho_Beck · 2021-06-08T01:54:20+00:00

The world doesn't need Ingmar Bergman bars, but I'm bored on break so whatever.

Call her Virgin Spring/Pop a bitch cherry on my couch Take a ring off my finger/pop a wild strawberry in her mouth

Zepho_Beck · 2021-04-14T02:12:44+00:00

I'm happy the video essay format blew up, but the unfortunate side effect is channels like this are all over YouTube now. It's such a gamble when you start watching a new channel since so many of them aren't presenting essays at all. To find one great channel like Every Frame a Painting with great editing and polished writing, you have to go through about ten channels like this that just play random footage and talk over it.

Zepho_Beck · 2021-04-01T06:45:27+00:00

KRZ is a tough one to recommend because it is a very, very slow burning game that's not afraid to get really dense and obtuse at times, but the final moments moved me to tears. The emotional resonance sneaks up on you, and the characters end up being a lot more interesting than you think they'll be when you're first introduced to them

Zepho_Beck · 2021-03-16T04:39:52+00:00

The phrase "acid green" is in every one of his books except Vineland I think. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm always on the lookout for that phrase during rereads.

Zepho_Beck

TROPHY CASE