When I first heard… “Stakes is High”… I was…

It’s 30 years since they released this album. It is my favorite De La. While I don’t remember where I was hearing “Stakes is High” for the first time, I know that I listened to it all that summer. It was the summer before turning 25 — my popular time. It was the time when I had my green Jetta and a ten disc CD changer in the trunk. It was also the time when I was a drunk, fun loving person.

I think the most vivid memory for me from listening to the album at the time is when Lacy invited me to meet up with her friends in Little Italy for a late, late dinner. We had just closed Ruby Tuesday. She said let’s go. While not really into her except for her being female, I went. Driving into Baltimore and it was “Itsowezee” bumping on the radio after midnight. Who the fuck were her friends but just other servers just like us…

The Sheep Detectives

The Sheep Detectives is worth a watch, because who doesn’t love talking animals? It felt like that classic film, Babe 2: Pig in the City.

I went to watch because I read that it was Knives Out with sheep. Yup.

Charming.

3 of 5 stars.

The Devil Wears Prada 2

The Devil Wears Prada 2 doesn’t have any of the charm as its predecessor. It wanted to say something about the present, because it dealt with media, both the dying mainstream magazine and the social media. Yet, it didn’t make any sense.

The main character was still Anne Hathaway except now she was no longer the young naive assistant. She was a writer laid off from a small print magazine who was hired to help conduct PR for Meryl Streep’s editor. Emily Blunt was the head of a fashion house. But why was she here? Beyond the need to see her, she wasn’t really needed.

The movie was a trifling thing. Why did I want to go watch it?

2 of 5 stars.

Hokum

When I went to purchase tickets to Hokum online, there was no one watching on a Friday afternoon. I wondered if I should watch a scary movie alone in the darkened theater. I figured that I would be alright and went on to purchase the ticket. Obviously. When I arrived, there was one other viewer in the theater. She was an older lady who would have a seat in the row in front of me. Did you know this movie was about a witch? I did and speculated that maybe I might be watching alone with one in the theater. I have an active imagination.

Anyhow, I barely saw any of it as I was quite frightened for much of the run time. I was filled with dread. It has been a while since I felt like this in the theater. I miss it.

4 of 5 stars.

Link of the Day [5.19.26]

I don’t know, but I find it easy to watch Nogizaka46 concerts from here in the US. What are people complaining about with J-Pop music. In fact, this morning I saw the first day of Nogizaka46’s 14th Year Birthday Live, and I’ll be watching the next two as well.

I guess it is almost impossible to get tickets to a show in Japan? That’s true. I’ve long wanted to go, but never have the courage to go. Plus it is impossible to get them because of the weird lottery rules and hoops to jump through. Is it worth it to lock down how to retrieve tickets? Make it difficult to get them? Or how about make them expensive with ticket scalpers and such?

Either way I am not getting to see Nogizaka46 live and in person in my lifetime.

https://unseen-japan.com/japanese-music-foreign-fans-barriers/?utm_content=buffer29c8b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=x&utm_campaign=buffer

Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary is a fine movie. It reminds me of early 2000s films. I wish we got more like this — something that all audiences can enjoy. Though it sounds nice, there is a danger to that thinking. What we’ll end up getting is something we’ll forget about days after watching.

I post this review several weeks after having seen it in the theaters. I can’t remember much. It was enjoyable at the time, but now it is just a blur. I wish we’d get a BluRay of this. I doubt we’ll get one. Physical media was great. The world burns…

3 of 5 stars.

Hoppers

Hoppers is straight up madness. Here’s the plot: the main character uses an invention to “hop” into a beaver robot to save her favorite pond. She gets to meet the animals who act like animals, then the animal council shows up and takes the madness up a notch.

I’m writing this review vaguely remembering what anything was. All I can do though is to implore you to give it a watch, and you’ll see and experience the madness, too.

3 of 5 stars.

GOAT

I thought GOAT would be the G.O.A.T., but sadly, I was wrong. It made plenty of money its first weeks out in theaters which made me hopeful for a good animated movie like we had when Pixar ruled the silver screen.

Nope. Not the case.

The story was shallow. The motivation of the characters, the portrayal of them, and their story resolutions were all very shallow. There was barely any substance to it. Many platitudes to make your eyes roll. It was a boring. It tread very familiar territory.

So I wonder why it was pulling in the numbers? Are we thirsty for entertainment? Is this all that we get?

*meh*

3 of 5 stars.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

I went into Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die thinking that it would be a fun romp like Everything Everywhere All at Once, but sadly, I was disappointed. I wanted it to leave me feeling good after the characters had battled whatever was causing the dystopia. It left me hopeless. Very dark. Is this the sign of the times? That there is only endless suffering and now matter what we do we can not get out from under it?

The movie is a classic time loop. The character caught in the loop must find the perfect combination to break out, and once they have escaped the world is as good as they had it before. Yet, not really in this movie. It ended and yet, it had to continue. It left you in one of the worst timelines. Now you end up thinking about the other loops and how dark and desperate those are. Nothing is good and you are left in a worst timeline.

Dark. Like I said.

It couldn’t have been best for us because the current world situation is also the worst timeline, and there’s no time loop to jump back into to find the right set of circumstances to make the best timeline occur. We are all in this loop together forever…

3 of 5 stars.