I added this to my list of books to read a while back, believing that it was a decent read about the modern economy. Kyla Scanlon made a name for herself by making financial education content on social media. She coined the term vibecession to capture the state of the economy that looks good in terms of conventional economic statistics but feels bad to ordinary people. I’d expected to know a lot about the basics of economics but this book still surprised me by how basic and watered-down it is. Worse, Scanlan places herself firmly as part of the Gen Z and so writes primarily for them. As such it espouses Gen Z values and ideals that I feel aren’t necessarily a part of economics proper.
We’d previously watched a film by Romanian director Radu Jade that was shocking and felt unique but I didn’t like it too much. This one about a female production assistant who also moonlights as a manosphere influencer at first looks to be similar shock cinema. I’m not sure if it’s because I have a better grasp of EU affairs or because I just understood more of the references, but I soon realized what a brilliantly sarcastic film this is. It says so much about the current state of life in Romania and its complicated relationship with the EU, and as such I’d strongly recommend this.
This was another show that I was always going to watch, at least for one season, because of much I’d played the games. It is astonishingly pretty much the best video game adaptation I’d ever seen. It is absolutely crammed full of reference to the games, down to the smallest details, works hard to expand the lore, has enough of a budget to look fantastic and doesn’t hold back on the violence and gore. It’s an amazing ride for fans of the game but it falls short of a truly great series. The characters are well, written for video games, with little real dramatic depth, and the execution of the story is perhaps a little too faithful to the games. I enjoyed this one but I’m going to wait and see what the reviews say about the next season.
So there are two major superhero films being released in July but I’m probably not going to watch both in the cinemas so Superman it is. I’ve watched every one of James Gunn’s superhero work so far and loved them because he understands the characters he is using. It’s very much the case again with a take on Superman that emphasizes not his superhuman abilities but his compassion and heroism. It also updates the story to incorporate modern issues and concerns as all good adaptations must. It does feel somewhat cramped with some characters not getting much of a chance to show off and the denouement at the end feels too neat. But it’s an excellent start for the DCU.
I’d been looking forward to this odd little game, a World War II-era tank combat simulator that uses ASCII graphics. It looks ancient but it’s actually a relatively recent release. Similarly, learning the interface and the ruleset also seems daunting but there’s not actually that much to it. It was a blast to figure how it all works and to experience commanding different types of units. Unfortunately while there are many campaigns to play, they all feel repetitive and similar after a while as the core gameplay loop is really quite simple.
This was a total surprise to me when it popped up on Netflix. The preview looked intriguing but it didn’t seem like our thing. Then I read about its great reviews and its songs became legitimate hits so I knew I had to watch it. And you know what? It really is great. The premise of fighting demons through kpop is totally outlandish of course but is totally self-consistent. Its take on girl power is original, the choreography looks cool and the music is catchy. The art isn’t quite on par with the best in the industry but I’d say that this is overall better than anything put out by any of the other major US animation studios in years.
Aki Kaurismäki is said to be Finland’s best known director but this is the first I’ve seen of his work, proving once again how incomprehensibly vast the world of cinema is. This one is a deceptively basic and straightforward romantic comedy with its minimalistic setup and sparse dialogue. But with its portrayal of the quietly desperate lives of the working class of Finland and the absurdly wrong time period it is set in, it effortlessly draws us into its world. I’m not certain that Finland is as poor a society as this film makes it out to be but I can’t deny the expressive power of this film.
