The movie to watch
Baby Driver
“The truth is that [Edgar] Wright has a way of obliterating the distinction between ‘on’ and ‘off’ moments; everything in Baby Driver, from the rubber-on-road action scenes to the expositional conversations, is its own kind of set piece, engineered to hit pleasure centers with homing-missile accuracy. Wright’s eclectic, wall-to-wall party mix similarly blurs lines, finding egalitarian kinship between disparate dials on the FM radio, like a deconstructed Girl Talk record. He sets a chaotic escape to the kinetic gallop of The Damned’s ‘Neat Neat Neat,’ rides the hilarious funk come-ons of Beck’s ‘Debra’ to a meet-cute communion, makes the The Commodores’ overplayed ‘Easy’ sound new and vibrant and heartbreaking again. The hits keep coming, ruining themselves for future cinematic use, and Wright knows how to transform them into metronomes for sequences that burn themselves into your brain, syncing his steel-trap editing to the tempo of every show-stopping track.”
Read the rest of our review here.
The podcast to listen to
Cosby Unraveled
“Many people struggled when claims of date rape against the formerly beloved comedian first began to pile up a few years ago—Philadelphians especially. [Bill] Cosby is a native son of the city, one of its most celebrated citizens since Benjamin Franklin. But if the allegations against him are true, he’s also a heinous and unimaginably prolific sexual predator. Cosby Unraveled grapples with this dichotomy by revealing the many others that make up Cosby’s life: He’s a high school dropout who later earned a doctor of education degree. A black stand-up succeeding in the Civil Rights era with a non-racial set, he nevertheless was deeply committed to black causes offstage, yet in later years leveled criticisms that many African Americans regarded as hostile and shaming.”
Read the rest of our review and about the week’s best podcasts here.
The comic to read
Kyle Higgins, Magnus #1
“It’s only been three years since Dynamite Comics’ last update of Gold Key characters like Magnus, Turok, and Doctor Spektor, but the new Magnus series indicates that it’s not a bad idea to give these heroes another revamp. While the pre-established versions of these heroes are teaming up in The Sovereigns, the solo ongoing series are introducing new interpretations, starting with a new female Magnus who takes a very different approach to hunting robots. Written by Kyle Higgins with art by Jorge Fornés and colors by Chris O’Halloran, Magnus #1 uses modern technology trends, specifically artificial intelligence and cloud-based storage, as the foundation for an intense sci-fi thriller. In the year 2020, personal robot butlers have become the norm, and when they’re not working, these robots upload themselves to the cloud, where they are able to build lives separate from their work. Kerri Magnus used to track down robots that have abandoned their duties to stay in the cloud full-time, but she’s given up that occupation to become a robot therapist, venturing into the cloud to help these machines with the emotional issues that inevitably arise from sentience. This new version of Magnus is one that prioritizes empathy, and it’s a wise move from Higgins that differentiates this iteration from what came before while providing a strong emotional foundation for the character.”
Read the rest of our review here.
The show to watch
Preacher
“By now, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have a handle on balancing the humor and horror of Preacher, as they fill the first hour of season two with a car chase, a ‘Come On, Eileen’ sing-along, and evisceration. It’s a hilarious, bombastic start to the season-long road trip. In fact, as the first three episodes unfold, it becomes increasingly clear that the showrunners, along with executive producer Sam Catlin, are treating them as a second chance to make a first impression. This time, they’re more efficient with introductions, showing off Tulip’s coolness under pressure, Jesse’s arrogance, and Cassidy’s literal blood thirst in the first 10 minutes or so.”
Read the rest of our review here.
The album to listen to
Lapalux, Ruinism
“In addition to the ever-present influence of [Lapalux]’s Brainfeeder boss, Flying Lotus, Ruinism feints toward the industrialized soul of recent Andy Stott on ‘Rotted Arp’ and ‘Falling Down’; ‘Petty Passion’ deploys concussive hits that superficially recall Rabit or Arca; and ‘Data Demon’ features wordless, operatic wails from GABI over menacing sci-fi drones and playful woodwinds, coming off like Oneohtrix Point Never doing monstrous things to a John Williams score. But even within the strange new textures that color the album’s front half, [Stuart] Howard doesn’t stray long from his usual candlelit vibe: ‘4EVA,’ featuring Prince Innocence’s Talvi Faustmann, is typically cool and vaporous, while Björk-endorsed Icelandic singer JFDR brings some Kate Bush-esque coos to the slow-motion synth-pads and digital glitches of ‘Falling Down’ and ‘Flickering’—all of these not far removed from the delicately drippy, distorted love songs that are [Lapalux]’s stock in trade.”
Read the rest of our review here.