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Faris Badwan recommended Pilgrimage by Om in Music (curated)

 
Pilgrimage by Om
Pilgrimage by Om
2007 | Alternative
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I'm not a very religious guy but I suppose if I were I might like the Om cover. It's ok. I love the record though, it's really excellent. I've no idea when I first encountered it. I think I might have heard it before I heard Sleep. It's got a very cool atmosphere. I enjoy listening to atmospheres as much as songs when it comes to albums and I think this one is hard to beat for that. You can put it on whenever you want and it's always going to sound great coming out of your stereo. I listen to it a lot, especially when I'm at home. As a sideline when talking about record sleeves I really hate and completely ruined the album for me, it's not the Om sleeve. It's the sleeve of their previous band Sleep. Jerusalem or Dopesmoker - that's one of my favourite albums of all time but it's also one of my least favourite record sleeves. There's a lot of smoking weed involved and I guess that's something that I think is kind of lame in album artwork. There's just something kind of cliched about it. There's one of an astronaut hot-boxing his spacesuit which is very tasteful."

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Wild Wild West (1999)
Wild Wild West (1999)
1999 | Action, Comedy, Western
I hate the late 90s blockbuster, man... I really do. This era's tongue-in-cheek manufactured spectacle coated with pause-for-laughs cringe 'jokes' and standard-to-crappy action makes my skin crawl. This is actually much, much better than 𝘐𝘯π˜₯𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯π˜₯𝘦𝘯𝘀𝘦 π˜‹π˜’π˜Ί but otherwise they're the exact same formula in tiring popcorn slogs though this one dared to actually have a bit of fun sometimes unlike ID so truthfully I have no idea why this one is more reviled - it just seems random to me. Yeah I have no idea why this source material was turned into confusingly sexual, boring one-note tripe but the last twenty minutes is actually kind of exciting and the effects are top-notch. Don't even lie, you think that giant steampunk spider is fucking cool too and the gadgets/costumes/sets/makeup are eye-catching too - I only wish they were all in a better movie. The two perfunctory performances from Smith and Kline are canceled out by the religious scenery-chewing of Ted Levine and this movie's MVP Kenneth Branagh but besides the title song that I'm tired of pretending doesn't slap -because it *does* - that's about where the positives end. Its only personality traits are being dumb, looking cool sometimes, and misogyny.
  
Seduced by the Handyman (Cougars & Cubs #2)
Seduced by the Handyman (Cougars & Cubs #2)
Nancy Fraser | 2021 | Contemporary, Erotica, Romance
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
cute read, but not one for me.
Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted my copy of this book.

This is book 2 in the Cougars & Cubs series, but it is not necessary to have read book one to enjoy this one.

As much as it pains me to say so, I found this a nice​ read. Ya'll know how much I hate using that word, but it's stuck with me for 2 days since I finished the book, and I can't shift it!

I liked that both Cate and Mitch have a say. I liked that Mitch does what he does to keep Cate's job safe, and they can continue their relationship.

I liked the heat level. It's not scorching, by any means, but it a pleasant heat, like sitting in the April sunshine. Not too much, but enough to feel the sun, you know??

I liked that both Cate and Mitch's friends were positive about their relationship.

I liked that there really isn't any great angst, and no break up/make up.

What's here is well written, and it reads well.

I liked​ it!

But something about it doesn't quite work, and I have no idea what.

a GOOD 3 stars

same worded review will appear elsewhere​​
  
Hocus Pocus (1993)
Hocus Pocus (1993)
1993 | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
A full-tilt ball, I tend to be averse to anything ruminating with *this* much untamed theater kid energy - but Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, and of-fucking-course Bette Midler are 110% off the chain. I admit that the odious 90s stereotypes in this are hard to stomach, but I miss when Disney's live action allowed for such sublime scenery-chewing like this trio of perfect performances instead of Will Smith and some dude tepidly talking about jelly for what feels like an hour. I hate to be that guy, but something this lively just couldn't be recreated from the company today; Kenny Ortega's knack for brilliant practical effects and super impressive CGI for the time today is replaced by plastic visuals and flat soundstages where any sense of fun all but evaporates. Make no mistake, this is still not much more than pure fluff at the end of the day - but Lord it's such a blast. One of the few millennial-worship films I can fully understand the hype for, a delightful cross between π˜›π˜©π˜¦ 𝘞π˜ͺ𝘡𝘀𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘒𝘴𝘡𝘸π˜ͺ𝘀𝘬 and "The Three Stooges". It's also consistently funny. "I Put A Spell On You" is a bop, and maybe I'm just getting old but the stuff at the end had me genuinely choked up.
  
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles
1967 | Pop, Psychedelic, Rock

"I guess you could pick any one album of their mid- to late-period, especially Revolver or Rubber Soul. This was very much discovered as a teenager, their story, their music, the feeling of a slight sense of ownership. I don’t like that, in a way, because I hate it when people feel that they kind of own our songs as a band! But anyway, anyone’s who’s grown up with The Beatles feels that sense of, β€œThey’re mine!”. But Sgt. Pepper's… is just mind-bending as to how ambitious it is and also what their energy must have been like and the scene they were occupying. I wish that existed now; unfortunately it just doesn’t. There was a kind of innocence to that time that doesn’t exist now, it was a time when great pop music... you... you still had to try. I think one of my big problems with music today, with a lot of the pop music that’s out there, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of great music, but most of what the general population listen to or are exposed to is really kind of mindless or soulless and music can do so much more for you as a human being."

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Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
1980 | Documentary, Drama, International
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Yes, there was quite a controversy kicked up last year over the restoration. And while it’s not an uninteresting issue, it doesn’t distract from the gratitude we who hold Fassbinder dear feel when we hold this handsome box in our hands. This is the epic he was racing against destiny to complete; poring over the extras, you can’t help but sense that he knew it too. All of Fassbinder’s period pieces are, of course, about the Germany he lived in, the Germany I would begin visiting regularly just a few years after he’d gone, a Germany at ferocious odds with itself, arguing in the streets and in the papers and in classrooms and over dinner over what sort of country it’d make of itself, even in those later stages of starting all over againβ€”not too long, of course, before starting all over yet again in 1989. An intense love-hate relationship with the German character, with German history and culture, and an ongoing recognition of the inextricability of the personal and the political, for better and for worse, permeate all of Fassbinder’s work; here, all that’s practically on parade. And the fireworks at the end are gruesome and gripping."

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Half Baked (1998)
Half Baked (1998)
1998 | Comedy
Ironically, not even that much better while high. I liked this for the majority of the runtime but that third act really tried my patience - falls into the exact line as other late 90s/early 00s buddy comedies in vein of π˜‹π˜Άπ˜₯𝘦, 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 π˜”π˜Ί 𝘊𝘒𝘳? and the like that I just fucking hate, where the film completely gives up and a bunch of tiring 'wacky' stuff happens until it abruptly ends. Pretty typical hit-or-miss stoner comedy of the era but easy to forgive when the thing isn't even 85 minutes in length. It's agreeable enough with some seriously funny shit in it every now and again, mostly only holding its own in the sea of other similar movies due to its trio of three sharp, exuberant lead performances - Jim Breuer's final boss tie-dyed pothead steals the show with extreme prejudice (seriously, has anyone else in a movie ever exuded *more* stoner energy than this guy?). Can be lumped right in with π˜”π˜ͺ𝘴𝘴 π˜”π˜’π˜³π˜€π˜© in the "kind of funny, semi-decent films written by people who are clearly above such work but also maybe that was the point of it to begin with?" pile. But Bob Saget's "I used to suck dick for coke!" bit remains as iconic and effortlessly hysterical as ever.
  
Exile on Main St. by The Rolling Stones
Exile on Main St. by The Rolling Stones
1972 | Rock

"Well I was always a Sticky Fingers and Goat’s Head Soup guy. But I never really understood Exile…. Well it was more that everyone was going on about it and I didn’t understand why. And I just thought there were too many songs on it, and too many unfinished ideas. And you kept seeing all these editions of it. I hate it when you’ve got a band like the Rolling Stones who have millions of brilliant songs and loads of great albums and someone goes: β€œBut THIS is the definitive, mega album.” I just don’t like being told that, so I was always quite resistant. But then last year I just said: β€œEnough is enough, I’m going to stop fighting it.” I read something amazing about that period of their touring and how mental it was, and I thought, β€œFuck it, I’ll listen to it again.” And I listened to it, and haven’t stopped listening to it! I love it now. It’s got loads of brilliant songs on it, but they aren’t like mega hit songs, if you look through the list you don’t see what you would consider to be one of the all-time golden classic Rolling Stones songs. But when you listen to the album it just makes sense."

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Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
2008 | Drama, Romance
A once again astounding Dev Patel sells otherwise sulking, superficial melodrama. Don't you hate when the framing device is more interesting than the actual story? If not for the calamitous 𝘠𝘦𝘴𝘡𝘦𝘳π˜₯𝘒𝘺 then the stuff when they were kids here would be some of the worst moments of Boyle's entire career - overedited to smithereens, fetishistic of plight, and vaguely offensive. Even when this gets good I'm convinced this movie is much more concerned with dragging these characters through the mud and inflicting pain to wring synthetic sympathy rather than fleshing them out beyond one-note characterizations and abrupt turnarounds. Still pressed this brilliant premise didn't get the justice it truly deserved but the last hour of this is executed about as engagingly as it could have been, for what it ended up being (which only makes the transition from the older stuff to the newer stuff more jarring) and randomly gets super entertaining, if not much less simplistic. Score is pretty decent, too. It's alright but not sure why this shook everyone's world back in the day, you guys do know Indian cinema exists too, no? Way better than π˜‰π˜¦π˜’π˜΄π˜΅π˜΄ 𝘰𝘧 𝘡𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘢𝘡𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘞π˜ͺ𝘭π˜₯ but way shittier than π˜“π˜ͺ𝘰𝘯. The "Jai Ho" segment is as cringey as it is memorable.
  
Onward (2020)
Onward (2020)
2020 | Adventure, Animation, Comedy
This could have been the whole game, instead just feels like a fetch quest. Gotta say, (sarcasm incoming) really love the idea here to get two once-charming actors who have since had most of their personality sucked dry by the Marvel beast to lend their hardly descript vocal talents to a hardly descript movie of hardly descript characters. Did we just collectively decide against actual voice acting anymore over dry celebrities practically voicing themselves? Ends with a complete cop-out and its breathtaking animation is clouded by either murk or oversaturation seemingly deliberately. Not to mention the character design is ass-ugly. Can't entirely hate it though, not without some charm and handful of okay moments - but whose idea was it to set up this gold mine premise of magic being systematically pushed out of the world by technology for nothing more than simple convenience... and then do fucking nothing with it while setting it in this bland suburbia of normalcy? Potential brilliance in storytelling through an epic, gorgeous video game-esque Disney film is squandered for another antiseptic, indifferent retread of the most basic themes from the company. Not even funny, either. Had more fun with it than I'm probably letting on but I simultaneously loathe what this represents.