Not sure why everyone's talking about The Rapture. They were pretty good, but definitely not the best album of 2003. Pitchfork was crazy for that one.

I'M GUIDED BY THE BEAUTY OF OUR CHEETOS

On Leonard Cohen's birthday, please enjoy this undated photo of the man himself buying cheetos at a 7-Eleven

Do you ever just contemplate the fact that a single year gave us Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon and The Zone of Interest

As a Drive-Away Dolls defender, I was hoping to like Honey Don't, but it's a frustrating slog that's never as subversive or exhilarating as the vintage genre pictures it pays homage to. Here's my review:

"Trent Reznor has spent his summer on stages around Europe and North America shouting the words 'fist fuck' to big cheers. Yes, he still says he wants to fuck you like an animal, this 60-year-old father of five."

Happy 35th birthday to Goodfellas. Here's a story I did for @hellgatenyc.com about the world's first-ever Goodfellas walking tour.

It’s tough having a cool t shirt collection because sometimes you have to check yourself and not accidentally wear the shirt that says “1-800-KILLURSLF” on it to your therapy appointment

In the mid-'90s, you had to name your album something like "Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot" or "Whitechocolatespaceegg" or "Labcabincalifornia." That was just the rule.

my first piece for @truthdig.com, about the political grey areas in recent films from Alex Garland, Ari Aster, Celine Song and more

Obscuring my dog's face with smiley emojis so the CIA can't surveil him or create deepfake videos using his likeness.

Jimmy Kimmel Was Practicing Politics the Right Way

I love A24 and I love this piece

Good morning. Over at @vulture.com, I have written a series of articles about A24's nascent music imprint and the studio's mysterious plans for pivoting into the music industry. Here's the first piece:

Seeing the new Baumbach film two days before my 35th birthday that also happens to be Yom Kippur. This is going to spark a midlife crisis, right

I know this is not a unique observation but public health was basically created to deal with the Spanish flu, and then a century later COVID hit and killed twice as many people and our response was to destroy public health

People really thought newspaper reporters look like this

Some CDs I rescued from my dad's storage unit

Incredible exchange from Nicolas Cage's 1996 interview with Movieline Magazine

AI hucksters have such boring ideas, at least P. T. Barnum was out there sewing half a monkey to a fish

Happy 40th birthday to the greatest American film of the 1980s

conspiracy theories used to be fun, they used to be about Jeff Mangum going back in time, rescuing Anne Frank, and marrying her in the present. They used to be about the Avril Lavigne Replacement. They used to be about how Wilco predicted 9/11

Everyday I feel so grateful that I grew up with the early 2000s version of the internet instead of the early 2020s version of the internet

Good morning. Earlier this year, A24 quietly began expanding into the music industry and signed their first artist, British singer Mark William Lewis. For @vulture.com, I wrote a reported feature about A24's nascent label and the studio's mysterious plans for pivoting into music:

An entire 300-page book about societal collapse condensed into one sentence

i went to a Catholic school. we were in Choir class. she continued class but had the classroom tv on, on mute. we all gasped as the first tower collapsed, a kid screamed "the tower collapsed!" "no it didn't" said the teacher derisively. then she turned the tv off because it was too distracting

My friend and I weren't sure if we were supposed to go to our 10AM class or not, so we went, and when we asked the professor (an aged English prof teaching his final, farewell tour semester before retiring) if he would cancel class, he said that he wouldn't because, "well, these things happen."

Strange piece of the American millennial experience is the recurring psychological connection to the teacher who told you that 9/11 happened

One year ago today

One Battle After Another is astounding. Sean Penn barking like a chihuahua to "The Rite of Spring" during the underwater shootout—wow. The extended Napoleonic Wars flashback was incredible. And I REALLY didn't expect that Mr. Bean cameo. OK I haven't seen it yet but

Me [a blogger who saw an advance screening of La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc in 1928, immediately after the social media embargo lifts]: Wow! Dreyer really hit a home run with this. He masterfully orchestrates every scene — movie of the year! The visuals are next level and Falconetti’s finest work to da

My doctor makes the same joke every time he takes blood. He says "Don't worry, I won't take it all" and I say "What?" and he says "I'll leave you some." Gets me every time.

Every investigative reporter in the country currently trying to figure out what sort of wacky presents Jeffrey Epstein received for his 40th and/or 60th birthdays.

Fascinating article about Cormac McCarthy's personal library and his secretly harbored opinions on menswear www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...

i am 63 years old. these are all artists i grew up listening to. every day i feel more and more like everything from my youth is disappearing. products. words. countries. people. it's like staring at a photo that's faded and trying to remember what was there

Losing Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, Ozzy Osbourne, Marianne Faithfull, Rick Derringer, David Johansen, Roberta Flack, and Rick Davies in the same year feels pretty heavy

Saw Sorcerer (1977) for the first time yesterday and I haven't stopped thinking about it.

As Rabbi Hillel wrote in 64 B.C., "All leftist Jews have an obligation to explain to their parents why Bari Weiss is bad."

Part of what's interesting about old movies is their technical limitations and missing pieces can tell you things about the historical circumstances of their production. This "reconstruction" just transforms an intriguing (if incomplete) artifact into pointless slop.

Any other lyrics— don’t even try chronic town murmur or reckoning btw— just form vowels and syllables, and mean it

Saw Nine Inch Nails last night and @zachschonfeld.bsky.social and I texted throughout the night. An incredible set (starting with a piano version of "Right Where It Belongs"), but when Josh Freese did the drum solo on "Perfect Drug," all I could text him was....DAMN. Just jaw-dropping.

Nine Inch Nails show was wild. Trent played "Closer" under a giant cube of light in the center of the arena. "Reptile" sounded like Satan burping in hell. Josh Freese pounded the drums during "March of the Pigs" like he was trying to exorcise Dave Grohl's ghost from his body.

Getting escorted out of the Nine Inch Nails concert for singing "Closer" in the style of Weird Al's "The Alternative Polka"

Pregaming for the NIN show and was surprised to realize they didn't play "Hurt" in their Woodstock '94 set. I guess that song wasn't legendary until it got the Johnny Cash treatment.

they call him stephen brill because he was brilliant

It’s “Team by team reporters, baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped, Look at that low playing, fine, then

Yeah, I'm a fan of A24. A24-year-old movie called Little Nicky.

Happy 9/01/25! I am listening to some Yes

20 years since Late Registration came out. What a magnificent album. It really is a shame that Kanye West perished in a hot air balloon accident two months after its release and never was heard from again.