Rant: Monthly Dee-Lights (4/24)

Just a note of some of the funnest content I consumed last month (in no particular order):

– The YT channel “Asian Pop Footage!” created a playlist of fan-recorded vids of Atarashii Gakko performing at this year’s Coachella festival (including the “live debut of three new songs”)… and frankly I prefer them to a lot of the official broadcasts of fest sets I’ve seen in the past, because these vids don’t keep cutting away to shots of the crowd tossing a beach-ball around or whatever! I just want to see the artists, not the audience, dammit!

– Japanese duo Glim Spanky released a (slightly psychedelic) video for their rockin’ new single “Fighter”, which is also the end theme to… uh… some sort of Major League Baseball show, according to Google translate…?

– Meg Tilly posted her first “Cozy Tea Time” vid in over a year, and it was just as endearingly haphazard as ever. Sadly it doesn’t sound like she’s going to be resuming her previous “regular” schedule anytime soon, but it was nice to “catch up” with her again after all this time.

– Joel Kim Booster chatted to Esquire about various aspects of his public persona, including his writing/performing, fitness regime, and personal style.

– I discovered Right Place, Wrong Tim, a great British comedy-horror short from 2018 co-starring Asa Butterfield, Ella Purnell, and Adam Buxton, which begins as a fairly corny, clock-obsessed sitcom parody, before taking a very dark and bloody turn! [Note: It’s best to go in “blind”, and not read any plot descriptions first… the synopsis on IMDb spoils the whole thing. Tch!]

– Perennial faves include Ryan George’s Pitch Meetings (link), Star Wars Explained (link), Bailey Meyers’s gaming streams (link), Honest Trailers (link), and Honest Game Trailers (link).

Rant: Monthly Dee-Lights (3/24)

Just a note of some of the funnest content I consumed last month (in no particular order):

– Kate Berlant gave Elle a (semi-serious) insight into “her most sacred morning rituals”, such as drinking coffee from her own merch, spending quality time with her imaginary daughters, and posing coquettishly on her balcony.

– Joel Kim Booster entered The Criterion Collection Closet, and made some heart-felt recommendations, as well as dropping his hot take on ‘Mothra’ (from the old-timey “Godzilla” movies).

– Chumbawamba’s former lead-guitarist Boff Whalley wrote an “Opinion” piece for The Guardian about the mis-use of “Tubthumping” by right-wing politicians, asserting that they’re often forced to “use the work of artists who despise them” because “bigots don’t have any good songs of their own.” Preach.

– Warner Bros dropped a teaser for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the belated sequel to Beetlejuice (1988), co-starring Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega! Squeee? For some reason they’ve scheduled the release for early September instead of late October (aka Halloween), but it could be worse… Wikipedia claims the original was released in March of ‘88! WTF!?

– Band-Maid shared a couple more live vids from their 10th Anniversary Tour show at the Yokohama Arena, back in 2023: First was “Hate?” (link) (which began with duelling guitars, and was therefore my fave), followed by “Endless Story” (link) (which seemed to be from the (tearful) close of the show). I believe they were both taken from a full-length DVD/BR, which was released in March…

– A random YT “recommendation” alerted me to the existence of a delightfully morbid American “synthwave” band called Night Club, who’d just dropped the [strobing] vid for their latest single “Barbwire Kiss”, to herald the release of their fourth studio album Masochist (on March 15th). They’ve also posted some fun behind-the-scenes dance clips on their Insta, if you’re curious. Digging deeper, I found a very interesting Rock Lines interview from June 2018, where the duo discussed their origins, influences, and creative process (while sat outside on a noisy street!). I also discovered that their lead singer, Emily Kavanaugh, previously provided the vocals for a love song by Rusty Egan called “Evermore” (2017), which was accompanied by a black-and-white promo with a much more casual “hanging out” vibe.

– Esther Povitsky performed a short-but-sweetly-evil stand-up set on The Tonight Show, partly to flaunt her pregnant belly, and partly to promote her new movie Drugstore June!

– Alison Brie braved the “Thirst Trap” challenge for Elle, in which she was dared to reveal some juicy behind-the-scenes gossip or down random mystery cocktails as a forfeit!

– Perennial faves include Ryan George’s Pitch Meetings (link), Star Wars Explained (link), Bailey Meyers’s gaming streams (link), Honest Trailers (link), and Honest Game Trailers (link).

Rant: Monthly Dee-Lights (2/24)

Just a note of some of the funnest content I consumed last month (in no particular order):

– Band-Maid shared a couple of live vids from their 10th Anniversary Tour show at the Yokohama Arena, back in 2023. First came “Unleash!!!!!” (link), then “Don’t You Tell Me” (link) (which is my fave thanks to the duelling guitar solos during the instrumental break). I believe they were both taken from a full-length DVD/BR that’s due to be released later this month…

– Star Wars Explained have started a new series in which Alex Damon answers the most common questions he’s been asked about each of the live-action movies, starting with 1977’s A New Hope (aka “Episode IV”). I don’t want to give any spoilers away, but it seems like the 2017 book From a Certain Point of View does a lot of heavy-lifting, plot-hole-wise!

– I tried to find some new rom-coms to watch for Valentine’s, but ended up spending the evening enjoying Taylor Tomlinson’s latest (third) Netflix stand-up special Have It All instead. Besides being incredibly dynamic and hilarious (and, yes, gorgeous), her material “speaks” to me more than any other comedian I can think of… her bit about taking a new partner home to meet her parents hit especially hard, and I love how hard-core the punchline is!

– And speaking of “broken” women (their word, not mine!), Paloma Faith released her sixth studio album, The Glorification of Sadness, which was apparently inspired by the recent breakup of a ten-year-long relationship. Lyrically the songs range from bitter to affirmative, with plenty catchy tunes and soaring vocals to go with them… it kinda makes me wish there was a female-led James Bond movie in the works, just so “God in a Dress” could play over the opening credits!

– Continuing (but flipping) the loose theme, St. Vincent unleashed the incendiary video for her new single “Broken Man”, taken from her forthcoming (seventh) album All Born Screaming, which is due for release on April 26th.

– I re-watched Atarashii Gakko’s stellar performance of “Otonablue” for The First Take, from April of last year. Sometimes that channel’s vids can be a little stark and static, but standing stock still isn’t AG’s style, so there’s plenty movement and mucking about to enjoy.

– Sarah Cooper revived her YT channel, starting with a Meghan Markle spoof, followed by a belated “introduction”.

– Pedro shared a taster of their live performance at The Nippon Budokan back in November last year, comprising four full tracks (“Senshin”, “Sutte, Haite”, “Mahou”, and “Yukino Machi”).

– Perennial faves include Ryan George’s Pitch Meetings (link), Star Wars Explained (link), Bailey Meyers’s gaming streams (link), Honest Trailers (link), and Honest Game Trailers (link).

Rant: Monthly Dee-Lights (1/24)

Just a note of some of the funnest content I consumed last month (in no particular order):

– Sleater-Kinney (aka Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein) appeared on The SoCal Sound show, chatting to Julie Slater about their creative process, and the tragic circumstances surrounding the writing of their latest (eleventh) album Little Rope.* They then joined their touring bandmates (Angie Boylan, Katie Harkin, and Toko Yasuda) to play three new tracks live in the studio: “Hell” (link), “Say It Like You Mean It” (link), and “Hunt You Down” (link). Brownstein and Tucker also popped into Amoeba records to film an ep of “What’s In My Bag?”, and discuss their (surprisingly contentious) record picks.

– Netflix released a new trailer for their live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender (which premieres later this month), along with a bonus “breakdown” in which the four main cast members (Gordon Cormier, Kiawentiio, Dallas Liu, and Ian Ousley) trade behind-the-scenes titbits.

– Seth Meyers confronted Tina Fey with the uncomfortable truth that the original Mean Girls movie premiered 20 years ago, prompting her to reminisce about the 2007 writers’ strike and problematic old SNL sketches. Fey also revealed Amy Poehler’s antipathy towards Halloween, while hoping that the Late Night audience would approve of her (increasingly off-putting) decoration choices.

– To prepare for the third Taskmaster “Champion of Champions” special, the contestants (including Sophie Duker, Sarah Kendall, and Morgana Robinson) were summoned to “the lab” to answer a series of questions about the show. The special itself was also a lot of fun, even if none of my faves actually won.

– Atarashii Gakko unleashed a colourful video for their new single “Toryanse”, which is apparently based on a traditional Japanese children’s tune that’s often played at traffic lights when it’s safe to cross!

– On a nostalgia kick, I watched a vintage Chumbawamba gig that was filmed in Cologne back in 1997 for German TV, which some kind soul had uploaded to the internet for posterity (from a VHS copy, by the look/sound of it). Apparently it was a couple months after the (UK) release of their chart-topping single “Tubthumping”, which I still enjoy hearing after all these years (Lou Watts‘s line “Don’t cry for me, next-door neighbour” always makes me smile). Besides the beautiful (occasionally acapella) harmonies, catchy choruses, and thought-provoking lyrics, I was also impressed by their “showmanship”, with band-members frequently changing costumes, swapping instruments, and sharing the spotlight as “lead-singers”. It was a real co-operative at work! It’s also amazing how much difference a well-played trumpet can make, so snaps to Jude Abbott for that.

– Meanwhile, the voice/face of “Tubthumping”, Dunstan Bruce, subjected himself to a memory-jogging quiz for the NME, in order to help promote I Get Knocked Down, a documentary about the band’s rise and fall (and his own subsequent career), which is now available to rent/buy on various streaming platforms!

– Gabriela Farfan, curator of gems and minerals for the Smithsonian, supplied informative and entertaining answers to “the internet’s burning questions about gemstones”, via Wired’s “Tech Support” series.

– Perennial faves include Ryan George’s Pitch Meetings (link), Star Wars Explained (link), Bailey Meyers’s gaming streams (link), Honest Trailers (link), and Honest Game Trailers (link).

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* The album was completed in the aftermath of a deadly car accident involving Brownstein’s mother and stepfather.

Rant: Monthly Dee-Lights (12/23)

Just a note of some of the funnest content I consumed last month (in no particular order):

– Atarashii Gakko made their American (late night) TV debut, performing “Tokyo Calling” on Jimmy Kimmel Live… and for some inexplicable reason seeing them “breaking out” like that made me a little misty-eyed with parasocial pride. They are marching!!! The group also very generously shared a vid of their “dance practice” for the song, which is truly joyous to behold. Meanwhile, NHK World-Japan produced an English-language (subbed) profile of the group, who they dub “cultural ambassadors”, touching on their origins and international impact, as evidenced by some envy-inducing interviews with American fans.

– Sandra Bernhard talked to The Broadway Show about her annual holiday spectacular at Joe’s Pub, and why she loves New York (and its theatrical tradition) so much. She also has some inspiring advice for aspiring performers/artists!

– While exploring Emma Stone’s “back catalogue” of SNL skits, I was blindsided by a spoof commercial for a toy wishing well, which was pitched as part of “Fisher-Price’s new ‘Sensitive Boy’ line”. It was such a strange, specific, poetic nugget of comedy that I was curious to know who wrote it… and found that Vulture had actually published a retrospective interview with its creators, Julio Torres and Jeremy Beiler, where they discussed the sketch’s origins and the (very warm) response it has received.

– Emilia Clarke shared some inspiring “life lessons” with Bazaar UK, and once again gave an impassioned endorsement of thicker eyebrows, which I heartily agree with!

– I’m now the proud owner of a brand-new (G3) Monster High Frankie Stein doll, after snapping one up in a pre-Christmas sale (I think Amazon had mis-priced it, but I waited a couple days before ordering, and they didn’t correct the “offer”, so I say it’s fair game). I also scrounged a half-price “Craft Coffin” (“a fun and creative toy that allows kids to decorate their own coffin”!?) from the bargain bin at my local Asda (one of the hinges on the lid is broken, but everything else was fine), and that turned out to be Frankie-themed as well, so that was a stroke of luck!

– Or maybe I “manifested” them? I’m still slightly on-the-fence about “The Law of Attraction”, but I think “mindset coach” Mary Kate (no last name?) does a great job of explaining how it should work, addressing some of the potential pitfalls that a lot of books on the subject blithely ignore. She makes me want to believe!

– Bowen Yang revealed his “most prized possessions” to InStyle, name-checking Awkwafina and John Waters along the way.

– Jenny Nicholson was the special guest on a (sweary) theme-park-themed vodcast called For Your Amusement, hosted by Ryan Bergara & Byron Marin, where she hyped the “E.T. Adventure” ride (at Universal Studios Florida) as a world class attraction. It was a very entertaining discussion, which kept me gripped throughout (despite having zero interest in E.T. in any form), thanks to everyone’s enthusiasm for the topic, and the archive clips they’d unearthed.

– Perennial faves include Ryan George’s Pitch Meetings (link), Star Wars Explained (link), Bailey Meyers’s gaming streams (link), Honest Trailers (link), and Honest Game Trailers (link).

Rant: “Chainsaw Man” S1 (2022)

Chainsaw Man is an insane anime series centred around ‘Denji’ (Kikunosuke Toya), a young down-and-out who fuses with a friendly chainsaw-faced-demon-dog, and gains the ability to make lethal whirring blades sprout from his head and arms! Over the course of the twisty-turny first season he’s recruited by an official “Public Safety” squad of demon hunters, makes some fun new friends/enemies along the way, and spills a gazillion gallons of blood.

Overall, I found the show very funny and engaging, with incredible animation… in fact, the opening and (ever-changing) closing credits are mini-masterpieces in their own right. Even though the hero’s power is absurdly over-the-top, he’s portrayed as endearingly downtrodden and relatable (in the sense that all he wants from life is to eat tasty food, and touch (consenting) boobs). Conveniently enough, he’s partnered with ‘Power’ (Fairouz Ai), a busty “fiend” who has devil-horns and can craft weapons out of blood like a gory “Green Lantern”… and she’s absolutely hilarious, in an aggressive, selfish, and bombastic sorta way. Fun fact: According to a Mary Sue article, she was partly inspired by ‘Cartman’ from South Park… in terms of her personality, not her looks! I’m also very fond of ‘Himeno’ (Mariya Ise), a more experienced (and cynical) member of the squad, who has sacrificed her right eye in return for the power to summon a giant invisible hand to do her bidding!

Personally, I found my interest dipping a little in the second half of the season, when they started focussing too heavily on her partner, ‘Aki’ (Shogo Sakata), who’s a more typical “hero”-type (i.e., brooding guy with a sword, out to avenge the tragic death of his sister), but there were still enough wacky scenes with Denji and Power to keep me watching. The finale left a lot of plot-threads dangling, so it will be interesting to see how many of them are addressed in the sequel movie (Reze Arc) that was just announced… thankfully we have the original Manga volumes (by Tatsuki Fujimoto) to enjoy until then!

P.S. Apparently this story has also been adapted into a live-action stage musical, titled Chainsaw Man The Stage, which was performed in Tokyo and Kyoto over the past couple months. The clips I’ve seen are very impressive, mixing dance, songs, and animation, with puppets to portray the larger demons.

R.I.P. Ian Gibson (1946 – 2023)

I was saddened to read that legendary British comic book artist Ian Gibson has passed on, at the age of 77. I can’t really recall when I first discovered his art, but I was a big fan of his work on The Ballad of Halo Jones (1984-1986) (which he co-created with Alan Moore) when I read it in the “Best of 2000 AD Monthly” collections, as well as the Judge Dredd newspaper strips he produced back in the day. It blew my mind when he started collaborating on a Mister Miracle comic series with Justice League International co-writer J. M. DeMatteis in 1989, and I was a little heartbroken to later discover that it wasn’t an especially amicable working relationship (which presumably explains why he only illustrated 5x issues?). He also worked on a Steed and Mrs Peel (aka “The Avengers”) mini-series back in 1990, written by Grant Morrison, meaning that he’s drawn some of my all-time fave action-heroines (including Judge Anderson and Big Barda) over the course of his career… and he drew them so beautifully! Gah!

Rant: Monthly Dee-Lights (11/23)

Just a note of some of the funnest content I consumed last month (in no particular order):

– I “discovered” the British hard-rock band Skarlett Riot (who’ve actually been around since 2010 and already released three albums), when they played a gig in a (fairly) nearby town. I was too miserly/lazy/scared-of-bed-bugs to go in person, but it did inspire me to dive deeper into their back catalogue… just in time to enjoy their latest single/video “Hold Tight”, buy some merch in the “Black Friday” sales, and then start saving up my pennies for their next long-player, which is due to drop at some point in the new year.

– Some kind soul posted a very funny Snickers commercial from 2015 that splices Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi into The Brady Bunch!

– Paloma Faith released a “visualiser”* for her new single “Bad Woman”, taken from her forthcoming album The Glorification of Sadness, due for release 16th February 2024.

– I finally finished listening to the first series of My Dad Wrote A Porno (2015), the very-NSFW podcast in which Jamie Morton, James Cooper, and Alice Levine read (and attempt to wrap their heads around) Belinda Blinked, an amateur erotic novel written by Morton’s father (while sloshed on wine, according to the “Q&A” ep). I’ve been eking the chapters out because sometimes their astonished/disgusted interruptions makes me laugh so hard I worry I’m about to pee a little… and one time I tried listening to several episodes in a row, but my sides were literally aching for the rest of the night. It’s dangerous stuff!

– Madame Tussauds honoured Awkwafina with two separate wax-work figures, with one set to appear in their New York branch, and t’other in Orlando. Of course, she’s already been immortalised in toy form (for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)), but these are super-detailed, life-size duplicates, so it’s fun to see her inspecting them for accuracy. Incidentally, the official website describes her as a “beloved superstar”, which is certainly how I think of her, but I wasn’t sure everyone else did!

– The American Horror Story franchise has been on a bit of a downturn over the last couple of years, but I thought a recent episode of Stories was probably the best thing they’ve produced in a long while: Ep #3.3 (titled “Tapeworm”, which is a big spoiler, so I wished they’d called it something else) stars Laura Kariuki as ‘Vivian Lee Finch’, an aspiring model who moves to New York to make a name for herself, but is quickly dismissed as overweight, driving her to take drastic measures to shed the “extra” pounds.

– Perennial faves include Ryan George’s Pitch Meetings (link), Star Wars Explained (link), Bailey Meyers’s gaming streams (link), Honest Trailers (link), and Honest Game Trailers (link).

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* I wasn’t sure what the difference between a “visualiser” and a promo vid was, so I googled the question and found an article explaining all about it. Phew!

Happy Hanukkah

I’ve seen a lot of reports of Hanukkah events being cancelled in the wake of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, so I thought I’d host my own “hanukkiah” on this blog (using gifs borrowed from Tenor). I’m not Jewish myself, but some of my friends and many of my idols are, so I wanted to show some solidarity with the diaspora… and while I’m at it, I’ll also put in a plug for Sandra Bernhard‘s song “Miracle of Lights”, which encourages listeners to foster peace and empathy.

Rant: “Search Party” S1-5 (2016-2022) [SPOILERS!]

Over the past couple months I’ve been bingeing Search Party on the BBC iPlayer, which is currently hosting the entire series for free! I’d tried getting into this show a couple times before, and kept being put off by the unpleasant characters and mean-spirited tone, but this time around I was driven by a deeper appreciation for John Early (thanks to my crush on his creative-partner Kate Berlant, who also shares several scenes with him here), and the lure of all the funny/talented guest-stars who appear throughout. That said, the entire main cast (Alia Shawkat, John Reynolds, Meredith Hagner, and Early) are incredible, and their performances are always pitch-perfect, as the scenes veer from comic to tragic and back again. Shawkat is especially compelling in the lead role of ‘Dory Sief’, a narcissistic slacker who takes it upon herself to track down a (distant) college acquaintance who has mysteriously disappeared, and if I could retroactively give her all the Emmys for the years she was starring in this show, I would. Also, I love how the oblivious object of her obsession, ‘Chantal’, was expanded and incorporated as a supporting character, and think Clare McNulty was absolutely hilarious in the role (eps #1.1-2/5/9-10, #2.1-5/7/10, #3.2-4/7-10, #4.2/8/10, #5.3/7-10). The fact that she didn’t even have a Wikipedia page until earlier this year is mind-boggling to me… though she does have a Cameo account where fans can order personalised videos of her in-character, so I’m glad she’s popular enough for that to be an option!

On the downside, I did feel that the show kinda “jumped the shark” in S3 with Dory’s arrest… I mean, I really enjoyed Shalita Grant as Dory & Drew’s rookie defence attorney ‘Cassidy Diamond’ (eps #3.2-7/9), and I also loved Cole Escola as Dory’s cross-dressing stalker/kidnapper ‘Chip Wreck’ (eps #3.8/10, #4.1-7/9), but the transition from noir-tinged-social-satire to cartoon-y-zombie-horror in the final season was not a smooth, or satisfying one, imho. I’ve seen peeps staunchly defend the finale online, so clearly there are some fans who enjoyed it all the way to the end, but if DVDs of this series actually existed, I’d only be interested in buying and rewatching the first three, at most.

Anyhoo, the aforementioned guests-stars included: Christine Taylor as Dory’s wealthy socialite employer ‘Gail’ (eps #1.1/3/5/8-9, #2.3, #3.1-2/9, #4.10, #5.10), Parker Posey as art-store supervisor ‘Brick’ (eps #1.5-6/10), Berlant as book-editor ‘Nia’ (eps #1.10, #2.3-4/6/8, #4.8), Sunita Mani as put-upon cult-member ‘Pia’ (eps #1. 6-7), Patti Harrison as Dory’s campaign co-worker ‘Renee’ (2.7-8/10), Chelsea Peretti as Elliot’s attorney ‘Patsy Monahan’ (ep #3.3), and Chloe Fineman as his right-wing co-worker ‘Charlie Reeny’ (eps #3.4/6/9, #4.2-4).

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P.S. There’s a great ep of the Build Series featuring Shawkat from around the time of the first season’s release, talking about her career up to that point (link)… and a later ep where she and Reynolds discuss the second season (link). Also, while looking for pics of Grant, I found a great interview with The L.A. Times about how she approached playing Cassidy, and some of her previous (far less pleasant) experiences in the industry.