お楽しみはこれからだ！

I've been very busy planning the logistics of moving cross country, but not doing a whole lot of packing yet. I really need to get on this now that I'll be moving in a month (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠)... but I've been trying to find some things to make juggling work with all of this more bearable. So this is a list of miscellaneous little goodies that might bring others some reprieve too.

Phantom of the Paradise is a groovy little rock almost-opera I've seen before but watched again with friends last night. It's basically a fusion of Faust, Phantom of the Opera, and The Picture of Dorian Grey (which I still haven't read...) set in the 70s rock n roll entertainment industry hellscape. The aesthetic of this film is WILD. Like I find myself so taken by all of the creative camera choices and the editing in this movie is so cool. Not to mention the set pieces and costuming. Like, dig this:



Not to mention seeing this in action. My favorite scene in this is the performance toward the end like. Goddamn I wish I could go to this live show. It's like this pre-glam rock sorta prog rock 70s goodness as "the sound of the future" and it just ticks off everything on my taste checklist:

Watch on Vimeo

The music is so awesome too. I learned that Paul Williams sang and composed all of the tracks himself, which I didn't know on first watch. Definitely give this a watch if you like 70s rock & enjoy themes from the pieces that are the inspiration for this story. It's very tongue in cheek at times, though not really a comedy. You can tell the director and Williams really had it with the way the entertainment industry treats its artists. Seeing Williams play the antagonistic Swan must have been an interesting experience for him considering his career as a song writer. And it's cool to have the Phantom in this have a much more justified reason for why he's fucking with the production. The sick co-dependency between Phantom aka Winslow and Swan (tiny, evil music producer) is so good. Their dynamic hits all the right notes for me, so if you're into these sort of fucked up, contract binding, forced to be together ships, you'll eat this movie up.

Jessica Harper is also incredible in this. Her voice is so full and rich and really compliments the last, sober number she does in this film while Winslow watches on. I could probably do a formal write-up for this movie sometime, but I just wanted to put this on a rec list for now so more people can enjoy it.

Special shout-out to the queen, Beef, that gives me everything. Truly the perfect specimen of a man.


We love a faggy himbo
Definitely give this movie a watch!

I've also been watching a lot of reviews lately (when not watching ASMR or videos about Neopets or Flight Rising--I tend to go all in with games for a little bit then die off, so we'll see how long my pet game interest lasts). Anyway, I stumbled across this really funny review about the 2005 movie, Robots. This guy is so sassy and funny with his commentary about this movie and he raises a lot of questions about the ethics and reality of the world in the movie that I hadn't thought about before as a tiny brained child. It makes me want to watch this movie again because I forgot how nice the animation is. And somehow I forgot that the economy of this society depends on cannibalism and grave robbing?????

I've been listening to Random Access Memories in anticipation for the vinyl I ordered since it's a rarity for Daft Punk to ever repress their albums, and this one in particular seems special since it's the 10 year re-release with a bunch of bonus demos on it. I've really been drawn to the song Touch again. Paul Williams does the vocals for it and helped co-write this song (there's a pattern here with this post lol) and it's such a cool, atmospheric song that explore the memory of sensation from the perspective of something almost human. It feels like a robot on its deathbed remembering all of its experiences that made it feel "almost real". I have a lot of emotional attachment to that concept for some reason because I'm consistently drawn to media about almost humans experiencing these feelings and emotions that make them feel human but then this realization of being other sinks in and separates the idea.

Expect a much, much longer post at some point reviewing each track of this album. I've never written a review of music before, so I'm excited about it.

I've also been rewatching Hannibal again. Definitely enjoying it and the attention to detail put into the sets and wardrobe. Realized that the color red and blue are huge signals for the characters with who they're aligned with throughout an episode. It's probably been talked about before but I just really appreciate it.

I'm also nearing my complete watch of Home Movies, which I'd watched before but just random episodes on Adult Swim. It's been really cathartic for me wrapping up my job lol. McGuirk and Lynch are such yaoi bait, wtf. Each episode somehow gets more and more...interesting lol... with Lynch going full catboy and McGuirk's feminization arc. I really don't think they were thinking about people thinking about these characters in this way when the show was made, but I will appreciate it for what it is. Especially McGuirk's boobs????

Well, that's all for now. This is already getting long and I need to work on packing more...at least I'm getting lunch with a friend later. See ya!

And please let me know if you've seen Phantom of the Paradise!!! It's so so so good and I want to hear more people's thoughts about this movie. I really do feel like I need to sit down and do an actual post about it sometime.