South Korean writer/director Bong Joon-ho has been thrilling critics and genre fans since 2006, when he unleashed his rambunctious yet heartbreaking creature-feature The Host. He’s awed us again and again with marvelous movies like the mind-bending murder-mystery Mother, the star-stuffed dystopian drama Snowpiercer, and the whimsical yet brutal fantasy-adventure Okja. By now, when you walk into a Joon-ho movie, you should expect something wildly riveting and wickedly clever. And that’s about all you can predict, because Joon-ho’s stories take audiences down paths twisted and devastating, often just when you think everything might just work out. In this vein, his pitch-black comedy Parasite (2019) might his masterpiece. [Read more…]
The Lighthouse
In 2016, production designer turned writer/director Robert Eggers awed critics with his directorial debut, The Witch, a daring horror film set in the 1630s. Now, for his ferociously anticipated follow-up, he and his brother/co-writer Max Eggers have journeyed 200-some years to a rocky and remote island off the New England coast to tell a tale of isolation, envy, intimacy, wrath, and regret with The Lighthouse (2019). [Read more…]
Another Stellar Delivery From Big Thief: “Not”
Featuring the gloriously blistering guitar of Sir Buck Meek, who here earns his entry into the String-Warring Gods (aka The Axe Warriors).
From Two Hands, out today on 4AD Ltd
The Vast of Night
There’s something in the air on a crisp night in 1950s Cayuga, New Mexico. Sure, there’s excitement as basketball season begins with a game so anticipated that nearly the entirety of this rural town has convened upon the high school’s gymnasium. But then there’s something stranger, a crackle on the phone lines, a light in the skies. In The Vast of Night (2019), this mystery will be cracked wide open by an unlikely pair of amateur detectives. The result is an ode to The Twilight Zone series that is fittingly riveting, exhilaratingly daring, and a whiz-bang technical marvel. [Read more…]
D’Angelo, Prince, Fully Absorbed In Brittany Howard’s “Baby”
From the fine new release Jaimie
on ATO
Joyous New Work From Michael Kiwanuka: “You Ain’t The Problem”
From the forthcoming release Kiwanuka
out October 25 on Polydor Records
A Long-Lost Coltrane Soundtrack Recording In New Release: The Lovely “Blue World”
From Blue World (2019)
Originally from the French-Canadian Film Le chat dans le sac (1964)
on Impulse!
After 17 Years, Exceptional New Work From 808 State: “Tokyo Tokyo”
Forthcoming on Transmission Suite
Out October 11 on 808 State
The Long Walk
Reviewed by Brad Sanders
Lao horror director Mattie Do makes films where the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is permeable, but the people who pass through it often pay unimaginable costs for the privilege. In her debut feature Chanthaly, the title character can communicate with her dead mother, but only when she forgoes the heart medication that keeps her alive. Do’s second film, Dearest Sister, features a young woman who begins to see the spirits of people who are about to die, but only after she develops a degenerative eye disease. Engaging with the ghosts turns her into a vessel for winning lottery numbers, but it also sends her into debilitating seizures. The Long Walk (2019), Do’s third collaboration with her screenwriter husband Christopher Larsen, gives its lead spirit medium the most complicated risk-reward analysis of all. Taken as a loose trilogy, the films do nothing less than invent a Lao national horror cinema. [Read more…]
Forthcoming Menace From Kim Gordon: “Sketch Artist”
From No Home Record
out October 11 on Matador
Afro House, aka a Hurricane, From Emmanuel Jal: “Kuar”
The Henrik Schwarz remix
on Innervisions
.
Saint Maud
Folding sexual arousal and religious ecstasy into a single, gasping sensation, Saint Maud (2019), the feature debut of the director Rose Glass, burrows into the mind of a lonely young woman and finds psycho-horror gold.
Maud (a mesmerizing Morfydd Clark) is a live-in palliative care nurse in an unnamed British seaside town. A recent religious convert — we don’t know why, but the film’s unnervingly gory opening more than hints at a profound trauma — Maud believes that God has chosen her to guide the fallen to salvation. This mission leads her to the forbidding hilltop mansion of Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a celebrated dancer and choreographer now stricken by late-stage lymphoma. [Read more…]
The Slits, With A 40-Year-Old Blade, Still Cut
“Typical Girls”
from the album Cut
released 40 years ago today on Island Records
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCk8tEOcwqU
The Nightingale
It’s rare that a press screening comes with a warning. But in the wake of reported walkouts, invites to see Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale (2019) came with a warning. In red font, critics were alerted that the film would contain “sexual violence towards women, violence towards children, and violence motivated by racism.” Since the film’s Venice premiere last fall, some have criticized Kent for the brutality found in her much-anticipated follow-up to her breakthrough debut The Babadook. However, considering her sophomore effort is a revenge-thriller that explores the sins of colonialism, the brutality is essential to its message. To capture the merciless of this domineering mindset, Kent won’t look away from its violence and depravity. And she won’t let us look away either. [Read more…]
A Revisit With Rob Swift: “The Ghetto”
From the Sound Event release
on Tableturns Records
Anime In A Song: Nathan Micay‘s “The Party We Could Have”
from the forthcoming Butterfly Arcane EP
out September 23 on Lucky Me Records
New Work From Anatolian Weapons: “Ofiodaimon”
Featuring Seirios Savvaidis (Tolouse Low Trax vs Anatolian Weapons Remix)
out today on Beats In Space Records
Urban Delirium In “Master Data Tribute (Ode To A City’s Industrial Past)”
by Juan Ramos
from Changing Hands
out today on LA’s ESP Institute
New Afro-Beat, Remix And Regular, From Rex Suru: “Na Control”
Na Control (Alex Phountzi Remix)
Na Control
out today on Bik Records
Midsommar
“I wrote this while going through a break-up,” Ari Aster said at the special advance screening of Midsommar (2019). “I’m better now.”
The filmmaker’s darkly humorous confession played well to the crowd at Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, where press and select members of the public gathered to see Aster’s hotly anticipated follow-up to his wildly praised debut, Hereditary. As the crowd chuckled at Aster’s softly spoken introduction, a mix of excitement and anxiety hung in the air. With his first film, Aster had offered a scorching exploration of family trauma with a unique brand of horror grounded by an impeccable performance from a riveting leading lady. Basically, Hereditary was so outstanding, how could Midsommar possibly compete? [Read more…]