Kick back just cause

Does anyone want some easy watching, listening, and reading recommendations? This newsletter is for you!

I’m still trying to keep my own advice from the last newsletter: take care of myself and others, not push myself too hard when my body is still pretty weak from chemo (and ignore the impostor’s syndrome, aggravated by the fact that I had very few outwardly visible effects from all the treatment), allow myself to go slow.

So in a minute I’m gonna send you some recommendations. Think about inviting over a friend, or visiting someone who’s also feeling frayed around the edges, maybe someone you’ve never been lazy with before.

First a little bit of Revolutionary Material to spread. Am I just including these to trick myself into feeling productive, to make this newsletter seem worthwhile?

Maybe! But either way, I’d really appreciate any help spreading these. For a long time I’ve been trying to get less radical publications to air more radical ideas (which are honestly the only realistic takes when it comes to things like the climate crisis, the police, prison abolition, elections…), and there’s such an ingrained defense against anything that makes it clear we need to do a lot more house cleaning than just passing a few new laws or electing in a new party (the old party from a few years ago).

One way to subvert that soft censorship is to make those publications feel the pressure of falling readership while platforms spreading radical analysis get more and more attention.

So if you still operate on a rewards-based motivational system like I do, blast one or two of these on your IG, recommend them to an on-the-fence friend, and then watch yourself a damn movie! You deserve it!

Raechel and I gave an introductory talk at the Rhizome House about the history of anarchism and social centers. There’s a video linked from her newsletter

work worth doing.

Here’s a good perspective on a perennially important topic: “Heat waves, the climate crisis, and me”

heat waves, the climate crisis, and me

And It’s Going Down just released a podcast episode in which I talk a bit about the current political and geopolitical situation, and Josh Fernandez speaks about antifascist history:

https://itsgoingdown.org/this-is-america-197/

Finally, Sacramento is holding its second annual Anarchist Bookfair in early September. Spread the word! Plug: https://itsgoingdown.org/announcing-the-second-annual-sacramento-anarchist-bookfair/

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So, time for a brain cleanse! Time to think about nothing important! Here’s a lovely music video, “Tilted” by Christine and the Queens:

Music videos figured pretty heavily in my childhood. There was just a whole lot of art being put into the video versions of some of the great songs of the ‘80s and ‘90s, especially those in the borderland between independent and mainstream. What the hell does MTV broadcast these days? Reality TV, I guess. Anywho, I thought this was a nice throwback, even if it is apologetically minimalist. Sorry if the music ain’t your style!

Now it’s time for movies and shows!

I want to start off with Daisy Jones and the Six. This is a tightly written, passionately acted, well produced show with a crystal clear arc, which means exactly the kind of solid, compelling, beautiful ending that so many shows fumble for and miss completely. It’s low-stakes, but also demonstrates emotional complexity and growth as well as a sensitivity towards class, gender, and unresolved trauma. The writers dance around questions of race, but at the very least they don’t erase it so viewers draw their own connections easily enough. In other words, a mostly easy watch that doesn’t make you dumber, with characters who are engaging enough that I sometimes found myself yelling at them, crying or cheering for them, and most surprisingly a show that models some degree of emotional intelligence and maturity amongst damaged people, which isn’t so common these days. Also, songs for the show are written by Blake Mills, who has produced and toured for Band of Horses, Weezer, Perfume Genius, Lucinda Williams, Jenny Lewis, Norah Jones, and other musicians I dig.

The direction and cinematography in Ripley are gorgeous, the acting spot on, and the story so exactly what it needed to be that this limited series didn’t feel like any kind of remake. If you’re up for a little violence in the service of an acute character study, and don’t need any heroes in your narrative, this is a good choice.

In Monkeyman, Dev Patel sets his sights high, but in the end he—like most artists—doesn’t know how to write a revolutionary story, so his picture falls back into the mundane architecture of genre fiction: in this case the revenge flick. Nonetheless, he writes, directs, and stars in a gory, bloody romp that is entertaining, skillfully made, and significant in how it highlights brutal inequality and growing authoritarian nationalism in Modi’s India. Universal tries to market it claiming that it depicts a hypothetical dystopian future, but, umm, no, everything in the film has already been going on for years, and they even made him change some colors and symbology to avoid references to the current ruling party. That didn’t help, as appeasement never does: the Indian government has shadow banned the film. Cheers to Jordan Peele for backing Patel’s work and saving it from the memory hole.

Ironclaw is, I believe it’s fair to say, a less important movie about a family dynasty of professional wrestlers, but the story is moving, the acting is superb, and it doesn’t hurt to have another well made movie about how much damage bad fathers can do, and how masculinity functions in such circumstances to sabotage healing by directing violence inwards, outwards, and downwards.

Dream Scenario is a creative, intriguing movie. Nicolas Cage’s inability to turn down parts is something of a meme, so it’s nice to see him nailing a role in a well made film that isn’t jarred by serious acting.

Finally, for a movie that’s fun, violent, edgy, chic, and a tiiiiny bit subversive: Driveaway Dolls.

Aaaand since I can’t avoid talkin a little shit, here are two series and a movie that might have been good, but gratuitously ruined themselves with really poor writing decisions, or an unrealized vision.

Challengers, a tennis movie (never thought I’d watch one, but here we are) is the one that couldn’t realize what might have been a really compelling, bizarre, erotic tension. The beginning is promising, and there’s a moment at the end that reveals that in fact the movie was onto something brilliant. Just that the entire middle of the movie was mediocre crap.

The two series, Bodkin and Beef, were really really good, and needlessly just went and fucked themselves in the final episode, or the final five minutes, respectively.

Bodkin is a critical, feisty mystery set in a small Irish town, that promises both tragedy and emotional growth. The key is: don’t watch the last episode. Please, for the love of the gods, just don’t watch it. Stop it after the penultimate, and imagine your own ending. Anything you come up with, even if you’re filling out a mountain of bureaucratic paperwork with a bad headache, will be far better than the inexplicably stupid finale the writers (or, possibly, someone higher up the food chain, came up with).

As for Beef, what a brilliant tale of escalating revenge! Why did they run away from the conclusion, right after they were seconds away from delivering it? All they needed was to cut to black. If you watch it, you’ll probably be able to feel that exact moment in the final episode. If you do, turn the TV off, as quick as you can. To all the Netflix producers that religiously read my newsletter and are huge fanboys of mine and send me postcards and whatnot:

Fuck your happy endings! Movie watchers who can’t stomach a well deserved tragedy can watch fucking Transformers and Captain America and that Wonder Woman piece of shit! Give us the reconciled death your poor writers were so clearly aiming us towards the entire time, you dumb producers!

Okay. Until next time, take good care of one another. End transmission.