it's media

Eighth Grade’s Late Turn Into Distressing Territory Has Troubling—And Revealing—Results

For its first two thirds, I found Bo Burnham’s buzzy new film Eighth Grade to be just about as open, awkward, and heartfelt as I was hoping it’d be. The story of Kayla Day, just about to graduate from the hell of middle school, deals frankly with social awkwardness, anxiety, budding sexuality, and the pressure…

So I Guess Grimes is Dating Elon Musk Now, What Does That Mean?

Earlier today, on May 7 (a Monday! We still have an entire week to deal with!), we collectively found out via Page Six that musician/producer/songwriter/singer/artist Grimes, aka Claire Boucher, has been dating the billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX. For left-leaning music fans like myself, this was devastating news. The way they…

Favorite Films of 2017

(Spoiler warning for all the films on this list.) 2017 was an abysmal year. How else can I really put it, other than with various other ways to say “bad”? 2017 felt like a sort of reckoning for all the mistakes we made in the also shitty 2016. Of course, weighing on me and many…

With Butterfly Soup, I Can Finally Laugh at My Time in High School

I remember watching high school movies and shows as a kid and wondering whether their cliques and social structures were really so rigid, whether students really fit neatly into categories like “jock” and “prep,” whether prom was really such a rite of passage. Granted, a big part of my disbelief came from the student populations…

If Twin Peaks Was the Best Movie of 2017, What Does That Say About Movies in 2017?

For the past couple months or so, I’ve been frantically trying to watch all the movies from 2017 that I wanted to see, in preparation for the Top 10 movie list I’ll have up before the end of the year. That’s entailed using MoviePass for the rush of late-year theatrical releases (except Star Wars: The…

“it’s media,” but what is it?

Every day, we’re all consuming vast amounts of media, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes we’ll actively watch a movie or TV show, or read a book, or listen to an album or a playlist, or sit down and play a video game—these times are when we’re consciously engaging with something, when we’re aware…

One and the Same: The Splintered Anti-Heroes of Twin Peaks: The Return

I wrote this a couple weeks after the new Twin Peaks limited series ended, but I haven’t been able to set up the site until now. Some of my thoughts on the finale have changed since in minor ways, so take this more as a quick reaction… three months after the fact. For the past…