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bigbrothermonopoly · 4 years

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EPISODE 2:

HOH: KRISTINE

EVICTED: NICKY (WALKED)

JESS:

Kristine being in power scares me shitless. I know I haven't exactly been the MOST social person in this game and I've been very UTR the last couple of days/ non existent but I always felt like I was good with Kristine. I don't know? I thought we talked a good bit at least in comparison to others.... but then after she won I called her the HBIC and homegirl told me she loved my ass kissing. That HOHITIS is real with this one ladies. I offered up my services as a potential person to work with moving forward and she ignored my offer. She literally swerved me. Straight up IGNORED me and focused on what I said about not being social. So there is a good chance I'm going up and if I don't go up it isn't because Kristine doesn't want it.. it'll probably be because others don't want it. At least I hope? I'm trying NOT to go into crisis mode on the second HOH but... old habits die hard? I think that's the quote? I think if I had to write a "trust list" for this game.. honestly.. I'm feeling really good about Kori. I THINK we could go far together and we'd balance out each other well. Obviously he's a good player and I'm going to need that on my side moving forward. Eve is obviously my #1 right now but it'd be naive on me not to believe that others aren't saying the same about her. I really like Andrew but we don't talk game? But I guess I can improve on that? Those are the 3 people I'm vibing with right now.

KORI:

Ok so at this point I'm not entirely sure if I made a DR entry earlier or not, I planned on making a video but at this point it'd just get too long. Rehder going unanimously is STILL a meme to me but here we are. Kristine winning HoH was honestly alright for me because I feel like she and I have a reasonably good relationship. Though I'm not sure it could ever be something long term because she's likely working with people I have no desire to work with. (Dem, Chris, Brien, those guys.) Emma and I had a serious talk about long term what we wanna do about Eve since we seem pretty in agreement that the current dynamic is Jess and Mackenzie are Eve's Top 2 Bitches, and we're like probably the Bottom 2 Bitches. Personally I think the best time for Eve to go is like F7ish but obviously we need more time for things to progress to see where we sit. I think longterm the Mandela Monocles are a better alliance for me since I think I could sit next to Austin OR Silence and win. I just can't sit next to Gwen who I really think just has a better personality than me. With Kristine nominating Madison it... isn't really ideal for me, but Madison is also pretty isolated at this point. While we have that Mitten Connection, if she is lacking any connection with others in this game I can't go dragging my feet for her... That being said, I think eliminating Nicky this round, would not be like... the WORST thing ever. It'd just be a question of convincing Gwen that it's a good idea. Though the harder thing would be convincing others that keeping Madison is a good idea. While I like her, I'm not sure it's in my best interest to leave tracks trying to keep her in the game. Obviously it's gonna depend on how Veto goes, if noms stay the same I might push a little for a Nicky boot and see what happens, but if it's not gonna happen I'll just cut my losses. (Though with Nicky doing his thing he seems likely to dig his own grave.)

AUSTIN:

I am feeling very comfortable this week. I’m in the power trap alliance with Chris, Kristine, Dem, and Emma. I’m also in the Mandela Monocles alliance with Gwen, Silence, and Kori. Kristine is currently HoH so I don’t think she will put me on the block. I have suspicions that Emma is working with Eve because when we were playing the HoH competition, Emma refused to take Eve out. I’m just glad that one of my alliances is in power.

KRISTINE:

Love the alliance. So happy I won HOH and got to be in power. The veto comp didn’t go as well as planned tbh. I’m sooo upset that I didn’t do as well as I wanted I was up at 200 something and then lost it all over a very stupid roll. But it’s fine whether I win this or not I know I’ll get my way. Nicky is going home, let’s just hope he doesn’t win HOH. Don’t ever argue with the HOH when you’re the one on the block LOL!!!

NICKY:

CAN I LIVE? Can i fucking live? there are 16 other people in this and yet i got nommed for a stupid reason yet again.

WILLIAM:

I'm so glad I escaped this week without being nominated!!! I feel so much better this week than last week! At the end of last week I thought for sure I was gonna leave pre-jury but now I feel like I've made so many real connections and I feel like I am in a great spot with many people

ANDREW:

episode 2 This could be super naive of me to say and a little cocky and i know it 100% IS but i feel like almost everyone in this game loves me besides nicky, i think im just playing a really good social game im scared of eve for some reason i feel like she is the only person possibly playing a better game than me. just get those competitive af vibes from her, i will not go after her unless she comes for me doe. shes super cute tho love her vibes, and I think me and Jess formed and alliance just now As of now Austin Jess and Chris are my top 3 in that order Update: I love Eve, we had an emotional heart to heart about STUFF, ill never forget it and i appreciate her for it so much, even if we don't end up being on the same side in this game together, the bitch is dope. I fucking love these noms dude, my 2 least favorite people sittingpretty on the block and i had nothing to do with it. HORNY cuz they wont even be coming for me. I hope nicky fucking bombs veto. "i cant talk to all 16 of u at once" ya....nobody fuckin asked you too but kristines point is sometimes a simple HELLO can save u from being nominated But regardless im proud of her and her tatse. * has one mixed drink and suddenly wants to fight nicky for no reason * oops i apologized to him and i didn’t even read anything from last night after what i said bc embarrassment. idc if he accept my apology, just wanted to throw it out there so i don’t look like a total douche

CHRIS:

Well week Number two and I’m in two separate alliances, have House majority, close with a few women, beyond the game have final choose with multiple people, should not be on the block for a long time, while slowly running this game behind the scenes with Myself. This backseat life is the best life

GWEN:

Hiiii. So looks like Nicky is going home tonight. He kind of dug his own grave. He was such a party pooper during our house game on Friday. Sooo. Yeah. I’m closest with Kori and Chris - getting closer to Chris for sure. What is it with me and Chris’s in ORGs? I need to get back to work. That is all for now :)

MACKENZIE:

i really gotta uhhhhh try harder bc i feel on the lowest end of the Entire Totem Pole. i feel like if i won smthn that would change but i’m a flop so

DEM:

I actually would have kept Nicky if he had the numbers. I wish he didn't quit. I think he messed up by throwing names around, because some people actually wanted to keep him...

EMMA:

if u cant handle the heat nicky why did u sign up.. quitting is worst then getting evicted.

TAWNI:

Ok since I was out of it last round time for my cast assessment now. Since this was due prior to Nicky quitting I’ll include him Nicky - I forgot he existed week one. Actually sad he quit and was gonna leave cause he was entertaining arguing with Kristine Gwen - I love Gwen. She allows me to not be the official grandma of the game. She is very sociable which is scary. But I think I can trust her. Austin - automatically meh about him cause of his name. Pretty forgettable honestly. Mackenzie - nice gal. Nothing negative to say. Haven’t talked much. Jess - the person I’m most terrified of. When I realized she is THE boojess like fuck me. I’m scared. I feel like as long as I don’t get on her bad side I’m good. William - seems like a good kid. Kristine - I’m v intimidated by her. She won hoh and veto and seems like a very smart player. She makes me nervous. Silence - who???? Brien- ok this kid. I’m doing what I can to get him to trust me. I know he is a loyal person. But am I the person he is loyal to? Or is it someone else? How do I make sure I am that person? Dem - nothing really to say MADISON - I love her sooooooooo much. She’s like the light of my life honestly and if I find out something different I’m gonna cry. Like I feel like a betrayal from her will hurt the most in this game. Andrew - okay first off......damn. I’m aware of his sexual orientation but boy sent me a photo so I could see his tattoos and DAMN!!! I need me a straight one of him. But he is a fun character I like him. Chris - I think I freaked him out when I sent him a long message about how I’m scared of cops. But I didn’t go up week one so that happened. I’m hoping I can work my way into his good graces later. Emma - seems like a sweet gal. I enjoy her. Kori - nothing to say sorry

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cookinguptales · 7 years

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update: lmao I am so fucking doped up right now. sorry to the world that I got behind on shimamatsu translations, but have you ever tried to translate while on muscle relaxants? it’s a bad scene. god, I’m in a lot of pain rn.

gonna talk about some of the movies from the film festival below the cut. doped up af but I’ve seen like 14 movies so far, hella. tomorrow I probably have to skip bc I just took two cyclos and that is gonna fuck me the hell up.

movies I’d recommend:

thelma a norwegian film which is basically a coming-of-age story for a fundie christian girl who goes to college and realizes she’s a lesbian. oh, and that she has insane supernatural powers. (it’s kind of carrie-ish but with canon f/f, but imo a lot better than carrie.) the love story is really interesting, if incredibly dark. like if you’re in the mood for dark, kind of mindfuck-y f/f, this is your film. despite the very long upcoming list of potential triggers, it’s not as scary or brutal as it sounds. lmao. highly recommended, probably the film I’ve enjoyed most so far. (tw: violence, nudity, drug use, death, [spoilers] child abuse, possible mind control, child death)

custody a french film based on a short film that I saw a few years ago, and it’s fantastic and gut-wrenching. the short film was about a woman running away from her abusive husband with her children; this feature-length film is about what happens when a stupid judge ignores what both the wife and children have to say and gives him joint custody. (spoilers: it doesn’t end well.) interestingly, it has all the same cast as the original short film, though the kids are markedly older. idk if it’s meant to be a straight sequel or if one just inspired the other. really well done, tho, I was fuckin white-knuckling it in the theater. people were like. yelling. the climax of that film is INTENSE. probably the best quality film we’ve seen so far, though I think the plot could’ve been tightened up a little. (tw: very explicit depictions of physical and emotional abuse, very terrifying moments. [spoilers] but no child death.)

I, Tonya tonya harding biopic. I’m not really a big one for biopics, but this was a good one. it tried to explain how harding’s life led her to where she got, but didn’t necessarily paint her as some innocent victim. it was sympathetic where it needed to be, empathetic where it needed to be, but rarely let her get away with bullshit. lot of good performances here, but Margot Robbie (even though she looked way too old for the part) did a great job. (tw: explicit child/spousal abuse)

the villainess Korean lady-gets-revenge-on-shitty-men bloody action flick. not really my genre, admittedly, but I feel like anyone who likes this kind of movie would really enjoy this one. very Kill Bill-esque. it’s the story of this girl who basically gets passed around between illicit assassination organizations, in-fighting, revenge on all those who wronged her, etc. it is Very Bloody and many people die. the action scenes are HQ if you are into that kind of thing. I was mostly invested in the huge amounts of f/f potential. like at one point she joins an assassin organization where all the operatives are female and that whole part of the movie!! was very gay!! the actual canon relationships are het, but there is a strong potential for dark f/f murderwives here. (tw: haha oh boy if it’s a problem it’s probably here. implied CSA, child abuse, creepy relationships, violence, gore, nudity, child death, everyone else death, non-con facial surgery...like it’s bloody af okay...)

love means zero this is a documentary about nick bollettieri, who’s this super famous tennis coach. (apparently.) I knew next to nothing about the world of professional tennis going into this documentary, but I still enjoyed it bc wtf this guy is a piece of work. it’s basically all about how he fucked over a ton of people (especially kids) when he was trying to make tennis champions. and how he succeeded! by fucking over a ton of people! the interviews with him are honestly kind of wild bc he’s just such a crazy narcissist. this was especially weird for me to watch bc I grew up in the sarasota/bradenton area and never even knew all this shit was going on there. it was weird seeing my hometown on the screen like that, but also interesting. (tw: child abuse, just generally being a fuckboi)

MOVIES THAT WERE OKAY but like I had Issues

brimstone and glory I feel like I really recommend going out to see this one if you can see it on the big screen. it’s a documentary about a fireworks festival in Mexico and honestly the cinematography is stunning. it’s just so, so, so cool. but the actual documentary part is kind of boring sometimes, and you gotta have a strong stomach bc it also shows some of the injuries people get at this insane festival. like I don’t think showing that is a bad thing; I think it’s the only responsible way to make a documentary about this festival. like it’s amazing, it’s so cool, but also these people are like. going blind, losing hands, dying. and taking their kids!! like if you cannot handle watching kids in dangerous situations, don’t go!! dad was freaking out, lmao. (tw: graphic depiction of real-life injuries)

radiance a Japanese film about a woman who writes audio description for blind movie-goers. the same director made An (Sweet Bean Paste) a couple years ago, which was notable for its depiction of what Japan does to its citizens who have Hansen’s Disease. (leprosy.) it was weird to me when that movie came out that none of the reviewers really talked about that aspect of the movie; they were all like “UGH IT WAS SO POINTLESS AND CLOYING” and I’m like “did you miss the point of the movie?? which was critiquing the social ostracization of these people in Japanese society??? did that completely go over your heads????” anyway, I appreciated the depiction of PWD in Japan bc having lived there while disabled, I know that shit isn’t easy. that’s why I went to go see radiance. it was...okay? I think the most interesting part was when they let the blind characters talk. the movie was otherwise pretty pretentious and self-indulgent. lmao. like... it’s a rent, don’t buy situation.

marlina the murderer in four acts this movie was not bad! it’s an indonesian film about a woman whose home is invaded and she kills all the invaders. it’s definitely a film that critiques misogyny in indonesian culture, but I feel like it undercut its own message by showing such incredibly graphic rapes. like honestly, I don’t really ever recommend movies that have very graphic rape scenes, but I guess she does end up killing her rapists during the rape scenes. I just. I feel like it could have been done in a way that won’t get people all sexually excited while watching a violent rape. : / y’know? other than that, though, I really liked the female characters in the movie and sympathized with marlina’s journey trying to get society to help her and realizing she had to just go it alone with her female friends. bc like. she’s attacked by men, but she’s also revictimized by shitty ordinary men all the time she’s trying to get to town, report the attack, etc. and so are the other female cahracters. so they just. have to be vigilantes. (tw: GRAPHIC rape, violence, mild gore, spousal abuse)

newton Indian film about a guy going out to the jungle to get votes in the main election. but like. none of the people out there even know who the candidates are, there’s a lot of anti-government violene, the villagers are caught between anarchists and the police, it’s just a mess. and I do think the movie was good at showing the futility of it all and showing how the people who really end up getting fucked over are the poor people in rural areas, but at the same time like. pacing was uneven, tone was ???, and I found the protagonist irritating. and there was what appeared to be some pasted on het which made no sense. (like honestly I cannot figure out why she ever wanted to talk to his dumb ass again.)

blade of the immortal it’s takashi miike making blade of the immortal. I mean. I feel like if you are familiar with those names, you already know if you want to see it or not. if you aren’t, idk how much you’d like it anyway. after already having watched miike’s ace attorney adaptation, I sense a pattern. the guy just looks at a HUGE corpus (like a VG with 5 cases, or a manga with 40 volumes) and is like “welll....then I guess we better make things fast.” so you have Big Bads being introduced in the same breath that they get killed, 30-second backstories, just a frenetic pace and a huge amount of information, and it’s confusing and overwhelming if you don’t already know it. and honestly, I haven’t read BotI so I can’t say how faithful this was. but if you already love the characters and just want miike’s trademark bloody action flick style, then I mean. fair enough. this here’s a bloodbath. I had a hard time getting emotionally invested as a fresh viewer, tho. highlight of the evening: an old man walking out grumbling about how he only likes classy martial arts movies, and apparently this did not qualify. having seen a lot of classics of the martial arts genre, still unsure what a “classy” martial arts film looks like. (tw: offscreen rape, death, blood, gore, just an unreasonable amount of killing honestly like it was funny by the end, attempted CSA)

gemini this is a “neo-noir” thriller. so essentially a murder mystery. unfortunately, the title of the movie basically gives away the entire story lmao. so while the build-up wasn’t bad, the entire last 15-20 minutes of the movie are a total letdown. it was nice to see canon f/f, I guess, but I feel like the movie never went in hard enough on that. like were they trying to make a point about how hard it is for celebrities to have same-sex relationships? I’m not sure!! I can think of a lot of things that would make this plot more interesting, but they just didn’t do them. acting was fine, I guess. John Cho was in it, even if his character was pointless. Zoe Kravitz is always fun. (tw: I mean it’s a murder mystery. so...murder.)

DID NOT ENJOY

scaffolding (israeli film, boring af)

the workshop (french film, kind of boring, makes questionable points about neo-nazis)

#haha I'm dying squirtle #if anyone wants a full review on any of these I'd be happy to #these are just some hot takes #i tonya #thelma #custody #the villainess #love means zero #brimstone and glory #radiance #marlina the murderer in four acts #newton #blade of the immortal #gemini #scaffolding #the workshop

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theworstbob · 7 years

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the thing journal, 5.14.2017-5.27.2017

the pop culture things i took in over the last week, and also the week before that this week because last week i couldn’t make a post. last week: american ultra, take this waltz, freddie gibbs, direct hit!, the wild reeds, jackie kashian, rory scovel, sam outlaw. this week: mary j. blige, diet cig, smino, shalewa sharpe, bad suns, room, groundhog day (the musical), brooklyn nine-nine s3, in transit, interstellar

1) American Ultra, dir. Nima Nourizadeh: This film wanted to be like five things all at once. It wanted to be a stoner comedy, it wanted to be a send-up of action thrillers, it wanted to be just a straight-up action thriller, it wanted to be an epic romance, it wanted to be an indictment of the surveillance state. I don't think it was any of those things. It was a largely enjoyable hodgepodge of ideas. There were moments it took seriously that could have been served with some comedy, there were moments it seemed like it was making fun of the stupid idiot characters when it needed to be there with them, like, I'm not gonna call it a failure because I never felt like it was wasting my time or like it was aggressively awful, but I couldn't get a handle on what I was supposed to be getting out of this film. It tried to be so many things and ended up feeling like nothing. If it had stuck with one idea -- if it were JUST a movie about this stoner idiot who suddenly sees everyday objects as instruments of death, and it was just about him and his idiot girlfriend running from the CIA and there wasn't this whole other plotline involving drama at the CIA, if it could have just been THAT, they might've had something, but they had this, which was fine, but it wasn't something.

2) Take This Waltz, dir. Sarah Polley: I discussed this on the Fall Out Boy blog, but that scene on the ride at the theme park is such a cool scene. I can see how an older Bob or a younger Bob might think this movie's kinda bullshit, it is very much a Pretty White People with Problems movie, but it's also a movie about being in your late 20s and only just realizing, oh shit, I HAVE to be an adult now, the things I do today might be the things I do forever, I need to figure out what I really want while it's still permissible for me to figure things out, and it really speaks to me. Sarah Polley's a rather dope director! Let's see if sh -- oh okay cool one more movie, wellllllllllp.

3) You Only Live 2wice, by Freddie Gibbs: Y'know what if this gets billed as an album, I'm gonna treat it like an album, length be damned. Eight songs is enough to be considered a thing IT WORKED FOR KENDRICK AND CARLY RAE DAMNIT. The opening track has maybe my favorite lyric ever: "No sleep, bags under my eyes are designer." I am going to remember that lyric for the rest of my life. It seems like a fine enough intro to Freddie Gibbs, who is a thing I am given to understand I would enjoy, and I'm excited to get into his meatier offerings.

4) Wasted Mind, by Direct Hit!: ...So remember how my computer got partially zapped last week and I lost Internet access and thus the motivation to do Internet-related things such as write my assigned blogs? Yeah so I completely forgot about this. I vaguely recall it being fine. I sort of recall it dealing with alcoholism, or lyrics relating to alcoholism, and wanting to structure this capsule around how this songwriter is recounting his pain and struggle through the thing he is best at doing, and my reaction to it is "You get a B!" but, like, I listened to this on a bus ride home ten days ago, and I wasn't too into it as I was listening to it. Only so much room, ya know? If I remembered every (pop/)punk album I ever listened to, I wouldn't remember all the tennis fun facts. And those are much more valuable. Tennis fun facts could conceivably be answers to bar trivia questions. No one was asking for this capsule.

5) The World We Built, by The Wild Reeds: The harmonies on this album are fucking nuts. This is an album I've listened to three times in the last couple weeks, and I liked it more with each listen, found new things to dig with each spin, some music thing I'm not smart enough to relay, some lyrical twist I was too preoccupied to notice. I'm sitting down with all these capsules on a Saturday night, trying to hammer a bunch of these out so I can get this sweet hot content to y'all as promised, but I kinda wanna shove this deep inside my wormholes again Sunday morning just so I have it fresh in my mind what makes this album so awesome. If you're reading these words, then of course I said "nah" and wrote my Saturday night post, which is "dope af country girl group plays songs that are hella good," and while I think the statement itself has merit, it could use a few more points of support.

6) I'm Not the Hero of This Story, by Jackie Kashian: Definitely my favorite unit of comedy released in 2017 so far. Like, the beginning, "I'm not a political comedian, but uh, I guess I have to be now?" is among the best opening bits I've ever heard. And the political comedy doesn’t feel forced, feels of a whole with the material prepared before we all went to hell. Like, the joke about being told by a minority friend trying to assuage her post-election fears, “Jesus, have you never been disappointed before?” is as much about her Midwestern emotional unavailability as the jokes about visiting her father in the hospital. (I might be over-analyzing this. Everything is either over-analyzed or under-analyzed here. ONE DAY I’LL ACHIEVE BALANCE.) It’s a strong album.

7) Dilation, by Rory Scovel: I think this was fine! As far as something I listened to because I recognized the name from Competitive Erotic Fan-Fiction goes, it was greatly enjoyable. I'm not sure how much value can be derived from a deep critical look at a six-year-old album by a dude who may or may not still be active, but if you need 40 minutes of comedy, and you've exhausted all the known brands and don't wanna revisit something you've already heard, this will provide adequate amusement.

8) Tenderheart, by Sam Outlaw: Definitely more Tender than Outlaw. I sort of shied away from Sam Outlaw for a little while because he has a stupid fucking name, but I always knew him as a dude I'd like if I gave him a chance, so I gave him a chance. My instinct was right. It's not a bad album? It's just, I dunno, soft. And that's OK. I can see it was intended to be soft, and it is not its fault I prefer to be hit with a sledgehammer than with a pillow. It did its thing, and it's a mostly good thing, and it's a thing better than 99% of the country music offerings. It just didn't do my thing.

9) Strength of a Woman, by Mary J. Blige: I think in YAS I mentioned that I appreciated Shakira's latest thing because it was specifically Shakira on the track; it was a Latin pop music veteran making a Latin pop song, and the floor on that sort of thing is insanely high. I got a similar sort of vibe from this album. I knew going in that this wouldn't get anything lower than a B+ from me, because the name attached to this album is such a strong name that it would have to take an extremely weird departure for me not to be into this, like a Metal Machine Music-level noise experiment for me to go "enh, I don't know." This kinda sounds backhanded, I think sometimes I use high floor when I mean low ceiling, but trust I loved every second I spent with this album, like this album is legit great, I listened to it twice over the Internetless weekend, I guess I just took 100 words or whatever to tell you that this thing you can tell is great from the artist turned out to be great.

10) Swear I'm Good at This, by Diet Cig: I thought this was nice? It's a nice indie/punk album about being young in 2017. I think, when I mention the floor of a Mary J. Blige album, I'm discussing the floor as it relates to the general population; there isn't a soul alive who'd come away from a Mary J. Blige album and not give it a B+. (Well, OK, there are, it's called Strength of a Woman for a reason.) For me, the floor for this sort of album is a B+, and it rests comfortably on that floor, sprawled out under a sunbeam like an adorable kitty cat. I love this! I can understand for a lot of people this would be nothing. It's slight, a little wispy punk thing, not the statement of purpose provided by The Bombpops or Bad Cop/Bad Cop, but by gum, if Amazon is going to tell me I'll like something because I enjoyed Paramore, by gum, I'm going to enjoy it.

11) blkswn, by Smino: This dude can do some crazy things with his voice. I usually check my phone to see what the song title is when I listen to an album (I like to know where I am), but I had to turn the screen on multiple times during each of this dude's songs just to make sure there weren't any features. I don't know about his range, I'm not here to discuss the technical aspect of singing, but he has this wide array of voices he can channel, so you never know quite what you're gonna get from song to song apart from a surprise. This is a talented kid. I'm excited to see him harness that.

12) Stay Eating Cookies, Shalewa Sharpe: So, I was raised on Comedy Central Presents specials, right? So many of the big names in comedy, I became first acquainted with via their half hours on Comedy Central. Does this mean there was a time when I thought Mitch Hedberg and Dane Cook were equally funny? Of course. But it also means I forged a deep enough love for the medium that I could eventually suss out who was Good and who was Bad. And this is what I love about 2 Dope Queens: it's positioned to be Comedy Central for a generation that has little use for cable, to fill for dorky kids the same role Comedy Central filled for me, except better, because they're going to be a tad more diverse. There's so many cool comics I might not have heard about without 2 Dope Queens; I think I listened to the Michelle Buteau album after I started the thing journal and loved it, and I haven't been able to get Kevin Yee's "I Fucked Your Dad" out of my head since I heard it. But this. Holy shit. Shalewa Sharpe is the best comic so far I've come to by way of 2 Dope Queens. I'm legitimately angry this woman's outlook has only been in my life for six days. Like, she has one line, one throwaway line, that elicited a noise from me I legit have never made in fifteen+ years of being aware I enjoyed comedy. This is the best unit of stand-up I've taken in this year, and y'all need to get up on it.

13) Disappear Here, Bad Suns: It makes me happy to know there's always going to be dudes making music like this. This sounds like someone gave Jimmy Eat World a more adventurous rhythm section. So like, my usual mode of consumption when I listen to music on the bus is, I'll queue up an album, and when that album finishes, I'll look for something else. I try not to have anything queued up, because I don't want to spend time with the thing I'm currently listening to wondering what I'll listen to next. (I think this was something they discussed on my beloved, departed Nothing to Write Home About, how from the second you purchase/add an album online, your preferred streaming service is already telling you to move on and buy the next thing, and I try to catch myself in those moments where I'm a distracted listener. Everything deserves my attention, and for the most part, everything gets it, even if half these capsules are more about how I take in pop culture than about the actual item of pop culture.) I put this album on repeat, because I wanted to spend another 50 minutes with these songs. It's not the same reaction I had to The World We Built, where I wanted to catch all the things I missed. I knew what in this album worked for me, it was emo-tinged post/punk about depression that absolutely grooved, I just wanted to be with this album longer.

14) Room, dir. Lenny Abrahamson: I was a little uncomfortable with this movie, because while I think they coaxed a great performance out of the kid, I don't know how aware the kid was of what he was doing? Like, when a horse wins the Kentucky Derby, the horse has no fucking clue it won the Kentucky Derby, it's just a fucking horse standing there, and it makes me uncomfortable to watch an event where the principal players aren't aware of what they're doing. The kid is more aware of his surroundings than the average horse, I'm sure, but is he going to watch this movie in 11 years and be proud of what he did? I dunno, I think every film should be animated, I'm going to mention this again when we get to Interstellar, THIS MOVIE WAS GOOD NONETHELESS. As someone who didn't have the greatest childhood, this movie was dealing with parenthood in a way I thought was powerful: it was asking, "How does a parent justify to their child the decisions they made when raising them?" It's a question the mom is asking herself all throughout the movie, and she's so lost in looking for the answer that when other people ask her questions along those lines she hits her low point, but it also asks, "How do kids accept the decisions their parents made?" The kid is obviously five years old and isn't totally aware of his surroundings, but he does have some vague cognizance that his situation prior to the events of the film was pretty fucked up; the film never jumps forward in time to when the kid is an angtsy goth looking for pot outside the mall, so we don't see how he deals with the full realization of his parentage and his upbringing, but he has some clue, and the film shows that kid accepting his situation as best he can while learning earlier than most of us that his mom is a flawed person. I loved a ton about this film, though, real talk, if I had known my computer could stream movies in 1080p without ever buffering, I might have picked a more technically impressive feature. "Wow, first time watching a film in HD, let's see this indie drama about familial relationships! You can see every detail in the shed!" (Also, that scene where the best cop in the world figures out how to extricate Ma from the shed with like seven words from the kid was so well done.)

15) Groundhog Day, from Tim Minchin et a;: This didn't land for me. It's more than the fact they wrote out Ned Ryerson, though OBVIOUSLY that didn't help. I think Groundhog Day is just... Like, that's a hard film to write, and in film, you get the luxury of being able to cast a Bill Murray as an irascible gentleman. You can't be irascible on Broadway. It's hard to be sarcastic when you're projecting. I think they did an admirable job of trying to adapt the film, which truly does not lend itself to a musical, into a musical, but they shouldn't have been asked to do that very stupid job. Of all the films. There's barely music in it.

16) Brooklyn Nine-Nine s3, cr. Michael Schur & Dan Goor: For 3/4 or so of this season, I was having a chill time, if not a great one. I thought it had set their sights on "enjoyable cop hang-out sitcom," and I can get behind that, if not necessarily be stoked on a potential s4. And then they added the Jason Mantzoukas character, and the show found a gear I would never have guessed it had. The mob storyline is EXACTLY WHAT THIS SHOW SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME, a Hot Fuzz-esque parody of cop movies/shows told with love for both the genre and the characters. It let the characters be good cops, like in the final two episodes where they have to foil the mafia and the FBI, but it allowed just enough room for them to be adorable dum-dums, like in "Cheddar," easily my favorite episode in the series to date. ("Cheddar" had so much, not the least of which was Boyle finding his home as an actual Mr. Magoo for 20 hot minutes.) Plus, at one point, Andre Braugher says "I can't even," and he manages to find the exact syllables in that phrase on which to put these subtle but undeniably incorrect inflections. Like, even when the show was settling for B-s, it was worth sticking with just for Andre Braugher (and Terry Crews and Stephanie Beatriz). The end to s3 was so strong, I'm psyched to see how they take s4.

17) In Transit, by Kristen Anderson-Lopez et al: So here's what's cool about In Transit, right? So like, I was never into Hamilton, but I do love the concept about a hip-hop musical about a Founding Father, because what better way to recount a nation's origin than through a genre of music which originated from the nation? The a capella musical takes a similar tack: it's a musical about a mass of people in New York, being sung by a mass of people. Like, none of the stories are really new: someone has anxiety about the future, other people have anxiety about relationships, this dude needs to come out of the closet but hasn't, it's all been done, but the a capella arrangements seem to indicate that the writers know these are things everyone goes through, so they have everyone sing them. It's not just the lead who's frustrated by the arc of her professional and creative careers, it's everyone in the office lamenting that they work in an office and not where they want to work, and the fact there's a chorus of people having these problems helps make this musical something more than "we're in New York and don't know what we're doing," which isn't my preferred thing to listen to. I don't know if that was the intent, it might not be given that I implied the stories being told were generic and unambitious (like I've said what I wanted about Hamilton, but that's a musical with chutzpah far beyond just the hip-hop influence)? But it feels bigger than it does.

18) Interstellar, dir. Christopher Nolan: I was always gonna watch this film, but no doubt the impetus behind adding this to the end of the week was, OK, NOW let's christen the new computer. Let's get this Christopher Nolan sci-fi epic, and let's see the true power of HD. (HD, surprisingly, looks a lot like regular TV but slightly fancier. I do wanna watch Kubo and the Three Strings again tho.) First of all, this did not need to be three hours long. I did not need to devote three hours of my life to this film. At the same time, though, I'm not sure what you cut from the film; it's over-long, but it never felt bloated, it at least felt like every scene had purpose. And while I'm never THAT into films where actors are acting at things that aren't there, I think there was enough of a human element established that I never felt unmoored from the film's world(s); there was always Matthew McConaughey's relationship with his daughter keeping this film grounded, even in the scenes where the characters recited science at each other. (I do wish the film hadn't asked me to believe Matthew McConaughey and Jessica Chastain were the same age. The age gap is narrower than I would have expected from Hollywood, but eight years is STILL A FUCKING LONG TIME.) And, man, it is rough times watching a movie about the earth beind destroyed and science being devalued in 2017. It's kind of amazing that this dystopian society being imagined in 2014 is, like, today's society, we are ten years away from only eating corn and failing to find new planets because we stopped being curious and started hyper-farming.

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