Metallica - 72 Seasons

 

Four for fucking four. Wow. To quote Mr. Brown, "I can't believe I'm looking forward to a new Metallica album." You and me both, brother. You and me both.

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Watch:

Until last night, I'd never watched Anthony DiBlasi's 2014 film Last Shift, but I've suspected for a while that the reasons I avoided this film would turn out to be an unfair dismissal on my part. You can't always judge a flick by its Netflix thumbnail, but that's exactly what I did with Last Shift (and The Taking of Deborah Logan, which I still haven't seen) for the entirety of its stint on the mega streamer. Which I feel like was years. When Last Shift dropped off and started making the rounds on other streamers, people I know started telling me how good it was. I didn't listen. This wasn't a staunch, "Fuck that movie" stance, I just never got around to it, and the few times I almost did,  the image of that stupid thumbnail resurfaced and I went on to something else.

        

Last month, when I read about the imminent release of DiBlasi's update on the film, I became intrigued. How many filmmakers get the chance and perhaps more interestingly use the chance to remake one of their early movies that is as well received by the fans as Last Shift? Also, to have marketing Push behind both iterations? Not many. With this in mind, I finally sat down and watched Last Shift. Halfway through, I paused it and bought a ticket to go see Malum next Monday.

Last Shift is great for what DiBlasi and crew had to work with, which admittedly is a lot more than some independent filmmakers have, but still not a helluva lot. Other than the building - which is no small asset - you can see how DiBlasi's ingenuity kicks in and sustains this one. Well, his ingenuity and a stellar performance by lead Juliana Harkavy. The film begins to feel a skosh tired as the scare tactics continue without manifesting actual physical threats, but when those do come, they're pretty damn good. All in all, a solid three stars and a heart on my Letterbxd, and what's more, watching Last Shift unlocked a thrill at imagining what we might be in store for at Malum. 

Also of note: I had previously thought Ari Aster's Hereditary was the first film to stray from the traditional "devil" nomenclature and move into the Goetia for inspiration concerning its demonic puppet master, specifically Paimon, who my old band Darkness Brings the Cold had at least one song evoking. Obviously not the case after watching Last Shift, and I'll be digging around today looking for any interview with DiBlasi concerning where he drew his inspiration from. I rather like the idea of introducing the entities from Goetia into fiction; not sure anyone will ever do it as well as Alan Moore and JHWIII did in Promethea, but moving outside the tired scope of the Christianity-defined 'devil' can only lead to interesting results.

Then again, maybe not. I remember walking out of 2008's Quarantine, the remake of REC (which I'd not seen at the time) where the filmmakers changed the story from demonic possession as an outbreak to, ah, a terrorist-created super-strain of rabies and telling everyone in earshot, "Damn, I wish Hollywood would just bring Possession movies back." Two or three years later, in the wake of all the Last Exorcism movies, I felt like I'd been Monkey Pawed, as in, be careful what you wish for, you might get it and it might suck.

 

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Playlist:

Danko Jones - We Sweat Blood

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

Bettye Lavette - The Scene of the Crime

T. Rex - The Slider

High on Fire - Surrounded By Thieves

Metallica - 72 Seasons (pre-release singles)

Lamp of Murmur - Saturnian Bloodstorm

Kx5, deadmau5 & Kaskade - Kx5 at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 12/10/22

Bettye LaVette - Let Me Down Easy: Bettye LaVette in Memphis

        

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

A similar Pull to the previous one I did with The Bound Deck; I think the idea that's coming across here is it takes Will and Dedicaton to achieve physical goals, and although I've gotten a bit better after the post-oral surgery manic episode that gripped me for about a week, I've still not re-anchored myself.

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Metallica - Screaming Suicide

 

I'll say this: while I'm not favoring this track nearly as much as I did "Lux Aeterna," I can't help being fascinated by my out-of-the-blue turnaround interest in Metallica of late. Nothing will ever make me care about anything they released after the Eponymous and up to Hard Wired, but I have to say, these guys seem to have found themselves again. Maybe we're both going through some nostalgia trip together and reconnecting at the right time. I don't know. For now, I'm along for the ride again.

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Watch:

I think Twin Peaks has me in the mood for late 80s/early 90s thrillers because last night K and I watched Nicholas Kazon's 1994 Dream Lover. Here's the trailer:

 

Another obvious Peaks connection here is Mädchen Amick as the female lead. This is the kind of specific-to-the-era, early 90s thriller that Spader excelled at, and his chemistry with Amick really propels the movie to its clever and almost hysterically dark final moments. All in all, a solid three-star if you allow for the inflation of aesthetics. 

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Playlist:

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin 

Bonny Doon - Longwave

Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP

LCD Soundsystem - New Body Rhumba (single)

Special Interest - Endure

Fleshwater - Baldplate Driver (single)

Botch - One Twenty Two (single)

Mascara - HLA-11Tf (single)

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Metallica - 72 Seasons (pre-release singles)

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Metallica - Lux Æterna

 

Maybe I'm just in a holiday mood, but I think I actually dig this new Metallica song. This would then be the first new song by the band I've liked since the Black Album, when I was a teenager, riding high on their previous records, and didn't know any better (fan inertia - it's a thing). Believe me, I am dangerously self-aware (most of the time), and I'm so I realize that whenever I discuss this band, I have a sarcastic, cynical tone, and yet, I still talk about them. It's a defense mechanism. Part of me will never be okay with liking anything this band does because of what they have become. And conversely, I suppose, part of me will always want to like - well, no. Pretty sure that's not the case. I think Some Kind of Monster pretty much ruined any good will I had toward them.

But I saw this new track from the forthcoming 72 Seasons album dropped and, unlike anything they've released in years that I've been aware of, I couldn't help but click on it. Maybe it's because I root for Robert Trujillo, and regardless of what I think of the band, want him to succeed. Talk about a rags-to-riches story with a happy ending (when I moved to San Pedro and joined the YMCA there, I saw the enormous check he donated, as it used to be framed on the wall). 

The first thing here that grabbed me - the production is AWESOME. Listen to those drums. Wow. Sure, the main musical ideas are all kind of recycled from previous iterations (did you hear the little bit of Whiplash, in the guitar solo especially). But overall, music alone - heightened as it is by the production - I dig. I'll never be a fan of how Hetfield sings now - probably because of those embarrassing songs that were plastered all over the sonic landscape of the late 90s. Give me fuel? Ugh. Or, that Bee-otch song? Jesus - that did more to sink his vocals than anything. And that, combined with my self-conscious defensive approach will no doubt keep me from ultimately engaging with this on any real level, but overall, this feels like a 'win' for these guys. 

It might also be said, in a more positive vein, that I've been impressed by a couple things about these guys. First, they play so much, they're tight AF. This isn't a band that physically rests on their laurels, and I'll give 'em that. Sets I've seen listed over the last few years include older albums from their "good" period (Kill to Justice) in their entirety. And what was the thing with them playing in Antarctica? Can you imagine hearing The Call of Ktulu in Antarctica? I mean, not that anyone was there for that show, but still. Pretty cool idea. 

So, I'll probably check this album out when it drops, and I'm sure I'll report back here. Until then, if you're so inclined, you can check out the pre-order page for 72 Seasons HERE. 

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Watch:

With some trepidation, K and I binged the remainder of Showtime's American Gigolo series last night. After only three episodes, I'd become irritated with certain elements of the show and was pretty close to jumping off. However, in the end, I'll say that, while there is some pretty dumb writing that ends up being major plot mechanics (there is NO way Julian saw that hand tattoo from that far away), overall I enjoyed this.

 

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say I'd recommend it. Well, maybe. Jon Bernthal is absolutely fantastic, and I have to say that, while initially, I could not stand Rosie O'Donnell's character Detective Sunday, she ended up really winning me over. 

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Read:

I finally have jumped into James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera's Something is Killing the Children and I'll tell ya, the book is worth the hype:

I'd read and reread the first five issues twice earlier in the year, when my buddy Gerald at the Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach gave me a "going away" present and knocked half off a pack of the David Mack covers of those first five issues. Something about it, though, didn't really register. In the interim, I learned about the body bag covers that the prequel series, House of Slaughter, have gotten, and began picking those up at Rick's Comic City purely on a whim. This, plus my Horror Vision cohost Butcher's regular admonishments that I needed to, "get on this, man" finally won out, and I followed his advice (knowing I would not regret it). I ordered trades 2 and 3 on Amazon the other day and read them in a day.

This series is fantastic. I won't go into spoilers plot-wise, however, I'll just say that the fact that the first three trades all take place over the course of basically a day or two, with most of that hinging on one insane night in Archer's Peak, well, it did a lot to bring me into the story. Now, I have to pick up the fourth and fifth trades, because I've already begun buying it monthly as of issue 26.

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Playlist:

The Men that Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing - Now That's What I Call Steampunnk, Vol. 1

Bret Easton Ellis Podcast The Shards (about the first eight hours)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

The emotional aspects of Will and the Willful aspects of emotion - a tad jumbled until you add in the idea that this confusion is probably what has been hampering a decision intimidated by the Ace of Pentacles. Not sure I've dialed this in exactly, but that's probably also part of the confusion, the fact that I have more than one decision that's overdue based on conjoined elements of what I want for the real world and what I want emotionally.