I LOVE IT | Ode to Long Movies

Not every film can be enjoyed in a single evening. As you get into cinephilia, downloading Letterboxd and looking at their Top 250 (or perhaps those of Sight and Sound or AFI), you may come across those select few movies with runtimes that look like mistakes: Jesus Christ, how many hours even is 317 minutes? Some people end up shutting those movies out, excluding them from any potential watchlist for the obscene commitment they ask of audiences. Others, like me, set them aside as projects on a bucket list… I knew I couldn’t avoid Jacques Rivette my whole life. Earlier this month, I made that bucket list a whole lot shorter, watching a dozen or so of these ultralong “project” movies over break.

XU | Tales of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

It is impossible in these times to sit down quietly and write about a piece of media, pretending nothing is ever political. What does film say about history? Vice versa, what does history say about film? Are movies doomed to be an art medium purely for aesthetic enjoyment, or is there space for political engagement? These are a few of the questions that ran through my head as I watched I Am Cuba (1964), an epic film about pre-revolutionary Cuba told in four vignettes.

Halloween Horrors: The Haunting of Hill House

As Halloween creeps closer, so does the itch to watch a blood chilling horror show/movie. And so, this mini column is dedicated to recommending horror media to add a little bit of fright to your October! The Haunting of Hill House is the first part of a horror anthology directed by Mike Flannigan and based off of the book by Shirley Jackson. It follows five siblings through two different timelines, one in the present when they are adults, one in the past as kids, living in Hill House. The show’s “adult” timeline centers around a tragic event that befalls the Crain family and forces them to reconvene after years of physical and emotional disconnect.

Travelog: ‘Made in U.S.A’

How to react. Going to listen to vaguely defined live music in Dublin only to experience an American accent, complete with a Southern Twang and frat house classics. The artists are Irish, but their vocal patterns are spot on: The accents are part of the performance, it is all imitation.  

The complaints here are twofold. On one hand, there’s that surface level frustration at a failure to experience authentic Irish music, an unfair expectation and frankly silly desire that still manages to worm its way into one’s head every time it remains either unfulfilled or fulfilled only in the most touristy context (that is to say, for Americans and Americans only). Legitimately pernicious though, and perhaps a more valid complaint, is that presentation of American music devoid of any cultural context.

XU | What it Sounds Like When Men in Their Forties Pine

I am super excited for Sufjan Stevens’ new album Javelin, scheduled to come out on Oct. 6. The New York City-based artist has an aesthetic that fits with the lush waterfalls of upstate New York; Stevens did, in fact, relocate to the Catskills for a period of time in the middle of the pandemic. Based on an interview with Vanity Fair, the move did him a lot of good in terms of creating, living and thriving. The first single from Javelin, “So You Are Tired” came out in August, followed by a second, “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” released two weeks ago.

Travelog: Stuck at the Airport

I’m obsessed with these Onion News Network YouTube videos that were released in the late 2000s/early 2010s. All two or three minutes long, they pretty expertly ape cable news personalities while still infusing that biting Onion satire. There are more recent ones, and in fact they still make some video content today, but as internet news has become more prevalent, and that cable imitation less fashionable, the form of the videos has altered, and no longer features that same charm. 

Anyway, there’s one of these videos that strikes me in a “how did the Simpsons predict X ” kind of way (or perhaps just rubs me the wrong way as a satire that isn’t quite so funny as frustrating at the moment). From how many times I’ve seen it, I’ve almost memorized “Prague’s Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport.” My Squid and the Whale-esque pseudo-pretentious streak mixed with a love of in-your-face absurdist sense of humor makes it worthy to me of constant rewatches. I even showed it to my partner, way too early in our relationship, and watched her react stonefacedly as I cackled awkwardly. 

I just rewatched the video again, at an airport for the second day in a row, having had my flight canceled and being unable to reach anyone with my airline or get my flight rebooked or figure out how to get my new hotel stay compensated, and, maybe I’m biased, but the video isn’t *that* funny, at least in the way it originally was.

XU | Long Way Without Friends: A Moment in 90s Rock

As someone born after the year 2000, could I genuinely be nostalgic for the 90s? Or anything that came before? I think about that every time I listen to my dad’s music, downloaded into his thick iPod classic. I can almost recite the lineup: Alan Tam, Jacky Cheung, Dave Wong, Chyi Chin. A rock band named Black Panthers (unrelated to the party, sadly) spearheaded by Faye Wong’s ex-husband, Dou Wei.

CHARI | The Concert Experience and the Value of Anticipation

This summer, I am seeing Beyonce live for the first time. 

Her upcoming Renaissance World Tour is, by far, the biggest concert I have ever been to and definitely the most expensive. RENAISSANCE was my most played album of last year, immediately becoming my favorite Beyonce album and one of my favorite albums of all time. Beyonce is known for her fantastic showmanship, and I knew that she would outdo herself for her latest tour. 

I admit, I did not do any of the work to acquire the Renaissance tickets. In fact, it was my friend who had the verified presale and that sat at the computer, pressing the exact buttons at the right time (I had class). He wanted a good seat.