New full-length GREIF is out August 23rd. No pre-order yet, but I'll be watching like the proverbial hawk.
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This past Sunday, K and I met my parents at the local theatre to see Guy Ritchie's newest film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Here's the standard trailer; it doesn't show too much:
Another super solid, big-budget action flick by Mr. Ritchie. This type of flick isn't usually my bag, however, I've maintained since the advent of the Pirates of the Caribbean films that there's room in my life for the occasional big-budget, studio action film if they sate certain personal affectations of mine. I couldn't specifically explain that other than to say, "I know it when I see it." Guy Ritchie almost always fits like a glove. I suspect that has A LOT to do with my love of his seminal film Snatch - one of my all-time favorite flicks, and I'm fine with that bias.
Sunday night, I found myself in bed at 10:30 after getting another round of COVID booster earlier in the day.
I felt awful.
Of course, this means I woke up somewhere around 4:45 AM on Monday. Yay. Not a lot good about waking up that early, especially when feeling like absolute crap. That said, this has happened enough over the last few years that I know not to waste the time. I make coffee, fire up the laptop and plug my headphones into my ears, eager for an aural world to impress itself upon the morning-thin physical one. In this particular case, I followed David Bowie into that special liminal zone he had such a way with in his later years. One track I've always shortchanged on 1997's Outside is "Wishful Beginnings," which despite knowing quite well, often gets overshadowed by the fact that it leads directly into "We Prick You," one of my favorite tracks on the album. Something about "Beginnings" really resonated with me in those grey early hours yesterday, though, and it stayed with me all day, a rather pleasant haunting.
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Despite not having seen any of the Legendary Godzilla or Kong movies, I caught up on Legendary Studios/Apple TV's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters over the last few days, and I have to say, I dig it. Of course, a lot of what I dig is the utilization of Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt, both cast to play the same character at different points in his life. There's one scene transition where the older Russell's face seamlessly dissolves into his son's, and it's pretty damn breathtaking.
Seeing this, I've become curious enough to probably finally give the Legendary Studios' Godzilla and Kong movies a chance. I'd previously avoided these after being warned off 2014's opening film in the franchise by friends. I'd also made a subsequent attempt at viewing Godzilla: King of Monsters that failed. With the former, the hopes I held that Legendary would treat the iconic monster in a more "Cloverfield" manner were banished when friends saw it and basically reported back, "It's just another Godzilla movie." With the latter, I'm pretty sure I watched about half the film and there were considerably more humans than monsters, which seemed impossible based on the title and trailers (there's another reason to dislike trailers).
Playlist:
David Bowie - Black Star
David Bowie - Outside
André 3000 - New Blue Sun
I really don't know what to make of this new André 3000 album. It's an easy candidate for "up its own arse," but at the same time, I think there's something there. Maybe it's because I was sick A.F. yesterday (still am) and needed something soothing, but I put in headphones and drifted into a bizarre inner space courtesy of four tracks with names like:
1) I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a 'Rap' Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time
2) The Slang Word Pussy Rolls Off the Tongue with Far Better Ease Than the Proper Word Vagina. Do You Agree?
3) That Night in Hawaii When I Turned into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn't Control ... Shit Was Wild
4) BuyPoloDisorder's Daughter Wears a 3000® Button Down Embroidered
I guess there's the relief that there won't be another "Hey ya" floating around out in the world like a viral STD for the ear, but I also have to wonder if this is a complete piss take. Actually, it's a lot like another project Mr. 3000 was involved with around the turn of the century, Guy Ritchie's Revolver, which I'm still not sure how I feel about, as it's either the dumbest movie I've ever seen or the smartest.
A lot of new music coming up lately, although some of it is only new to me. Case in point: that recent viewing of Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla was my first since the advent of Shazam (or since I started using it, anyway), and it was through that film I found the 22-20s, whose entire 2004 self-titled record rules. This is currently my favorite track on the album.
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Yellowjackets returns in March!
On March 24 - my birthday, no less! To say K and I are excited would be an understatement of extreme measure.
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I try to severely limit my exposure to social media these days, so I'm late to the game but nonetheless overjoyed to see that Author Laird Barron is home from the hospital and in recovery AND the pre-order is up for the fourth book in his Isaiah Coleridge series.
Wow, what a cover, eh? This is exciting because, with The Wind Began To Howl releasing from Bad Hand Books in late Spring, I have plenty of time to slot in re-reads of the previous three entries in the series. These are PURE PLEASURE for me, and every time a new entry comes up for pre-order, I go back and re-read the previous ones.
Pre-order your copy from Bad Hand Books HERE. Also, if you do it within the first 30 days since the announcement (which I believe was last week), ALL proceeds go directly to the author, who is recovering at home from his recent health scare (Laird is tweeting about it on his account), and thus, still racking up medical expenses.
Pre-ordering the new Laird Barron reminded me I still had not ordered my signed copy of Stephen Graham Jones' sequel to 2021's My Heart is a Chainsaw from Boulder Books.
Don't Fear the Reaper dropped a few weeks ago, the second in a planned trilogy; I can't wait to read this one. Chainsaw rocked my world and I'm looking forward to re-reading that as well.
Playlist:
22-20s - Eponymous
Clouds Taste Satanic - Tales of Demonic Possession
Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent
Karl Casey - XX EP
White Hex - Gold Nights
Myrkur - Folkesange
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
It will require a lot of Will to successfully complete a current project.
A couple years ago, Mr. Brown clued me into the greatness of Dr. John when he sent Gris Gris my way for Halloween. Since, every so often, he'll recommend an album. Two weekends ago he introduced me to 2012's Locked Down, where The Black Keys are his band.
This is the same treatment the Keys have done for other aging icons, but combined with Dr. John, Locked Down struck me immediately. A perfect combination, this, and The Getaway is my favorite song (so far). The coda on this one is fantastic; one of the best guitar solos I've heard in some time.
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Watching this final season of Servant has finally made me dig out my DVD copy of Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla to show K Toby Kebbler's first break-out role (that I was aware of, anyway).
This one does not disappoint. Face-paced and twisty in that way Guy Ritchie's flicks are when he's on, I put this one right under Snatch as my favorite. And Kebbell is awesome- that pencil scene at the Subways gig! Oh man, I feel that every time I watch this.
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I did a full, deep-dive, note-taking re-read of James Tynion IV's Department of Truth this weekend, and I can definitively tell you that no comic has stirred me up like this since first reading Grant Morrison's Invisibles back around the turn of the century.
The ideas in this book are massive; Tynion has found a way to wrap everything from Alt-Right Conspiracy to Big Foot into an insanely compelling package that feels a lot like things we've seen before and loved cut with something brand new. My elevator pitch would be "Grant Morrison writes the X-Files" and there is zero hyperbole in that. Conspiracy Theories are fun, but ultimately I've never been a person who cannot refuse them just on some innate mental survival instinct; yes, I think 911 was probably an inside job, or some facet of our own government pulled the trigger on JFK, but it would do me no good to obsess over it, so I do not. This book is a super-intelligent way of working with a lot of that stuff in a fictional environment.
Also, Martin Simmonds's art is absolutely breathtaking and helps the book feel a lot like the old-school Vertigo titles I love so much.
Playlist:
Dr. John - Locked Down
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Pixies - Doggerel
Metallica - Hardwired
Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel
Clouds Taste Satanic - Tales of Demonic Possession
Ghostland Observatory - Paparazzi Lightning
Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
White Hex - Gold Nights
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Think things through and don't be distracted by splendor.
More bad news earlier today: Dennis Farina died. Today sucks!
I was first introduced to the man in Crime Story, a show I LOVED when it aired back when I was a wee lad in the 80's. I haven't seen it since, but I have such strong memories of certain things from the show, like when two of the characters (Ray Deluca? without looking it up I think that's right or at least close) and someone else hiding out in a nuclear testing area made to look like a subdivision? And Farina, always awesome. Then of course who could forget Mr. Farina in Guy Ritchie's Snatch, one of my all time favorite performances in one of my all time favorite movies.
