News You Can Bruise for 2025 June

Thu Jun 05 2025 07:05 May Film Roundup: I've been putting off writing this for several days now, so short reviews written first thing in the morning will have to do.

• Sinners (2025): This movie has one of the best individual movie scenes I've ever seen. If you've seen it you know which scene. It's a transcendent standout in what is otherwise a pretty good monster movie. A little crowded, maybe. I liked the first half (talky setup) more than the second half (monsters) but I think that's how I feel about horror movies in general.

  Fun monsters, though. The vampires in Sinners are very zombie-ish, and seem to have some kind of hive mind, which makes them pleasingly Borg-like and also feeds into their creepy Manson Family thing.

• The Great Waldo Pepper (1975): Here's a fun trick: watch this movie and then watch The Right Stuff (1983). They're very similar movies, but film nerds still remember The Right Stuff and nobody's ever heard of this flick, even though it's a big Robert Redford action spectacular. That's because Star Wars happened in 1977 and changed moviemaking, and now nobody makes this kind of movie anymore, they only make Right Stuff-type movies. Waldo Pepper is full of amazing, ill-advised live aerial stunts that don't feel as exciting as they must have pre-Star Wars.

  Bonus: I can't think of another movie that makes you look at the title of the movie for as much screentime as this one does, because it's painted on the side of Waldo's biplane. This film is famous for coining the unforgettable catchphrase, "There's Waldo!"

• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016): Speaking of Star Wars, you dig that Andor season 2? Good stuff. We did a Rogue One rewatch and it really highlights how much better Andor was than even good Star Wars movies. Rogue One feels like a rough draft now. Great art direction as always.

Fri Jun 20 2025 13:41 The Coffeeshop AU: My metafictional Great Gatsby fanfic "The Coffeeshop AU" is published in Solsitita issue #3, the appropriately named "Coffeeshop!AU" issue:

"He's in love with Daisy," said Jordan, with as much certainty as if she'd added the tags and written the content note herself. "Maybe Tom," she hedged, "but Tom's an asshole. Daisy's nice enough." This belief of Jordan's — that Daisy was any less obnoxious than Tom — was the first of many alarms I missed as I dropped like a flipped coin on the unalterable trajectory of my relationship with her.

Available for cheap as an EPUB or PDF!