I find that a terrible movie that broadcasts its amateur maker’s steep learning curve is usually more interesting than a terrible movie made by a professional for whom it was just another day at the office. And the more ambitious the amateur’s vision, the more compelling their failure. In the case of Almost Invisible, apparently the first and last writing/producing/directing effort of a 50-something MD (currently serving a 13-year federal prison sentence for running a pill mill!), the lion’s share of the effort was expended in the editing room, where 95 minutes of inept cinematography and unintelligible dialogue were sliced and diced in a dizzying frenzy. If not for the ho-hum premise (horny college kids partying in a haunted house), the nonstop soundtrack of generic post-grunge tunes, and the comical number of low-angle shots foregrounding fit bikini butts, its surrealist seizure might have seemed almost artful. The muddled horror trash we got instead isn’t exactly preferable, but I do enjoy the mystery of why its maker went to as much trouble as he did. People are so weird! May it ever be so.

• Tagged: August 2026, film diary, David Allingham, PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA
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• A1000
  Googoosh Dolls, 2026
• Hardcore Zorn
  Zorn, 2019
• Zorn
  Zorn, 2023
• Endless Funeral
  Zorn, 2024
• Return to Castle Death
  Zorn, 2026
• Wazoo
  Nonzoo, 2017
• An Undying Love for a Burning World
  Neurosis, 2026

Added to the film diary:

• Who Is Killing the Cheerleaders?
  Jeff Hare, 2020
• Killer Cheer Mom
  Randy Carter, 2021
• The 400 Blows
  François Truffaut, 1959, ★★★½

• Tagged: August 2026
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Look, I’m not a conspiracy-minded guy, but a carefully coordinated effort by the international punk intelligentsia to keep me in the dark is the only explanation I see for why it took 37 years for this incredible album to find its way to me. NoMeansNo has been on my radar since the early ’90s, when they appeared on Alternative Tentacles’ Virus 100 compilation, and their committed a cappella cover of Dead Kennedys’ “Forward to Death” gave me more than enough incentive to investigate further. But for some reason, I just never did. Fast-forward to July of 2026, when Converge’s Jacob Bannon gushing over NoMeansNo’s 1989 magnum opus, Wrong, was compelling enough for me to add the album to my Bandcamp wishlist. This morning, I finally gave it a spin. And then I spent the rest of the morning spinning it again and again.

This record’s punk-forward rawness and immediacy is offset by an inventiveness and musicianship more commonly associated with prog or jazz, all without ever feeling showy or self-indulgent. It’s also fun, articulate, impeccably produced, and just bursting with life. It effortlessly synthesizes so many musical things I love, and it does it better than almost any other record I can think of. I’m completely floored; I can’t believe this treasure has been hiding in plain sight all this time. For something that calls itself Wrong, it couldn’t be more right.

By all accounts, this is the fan-favorite NoMeansNo album, but if anything else in their sizable oeuvre is half this good, I’ll be a happy camper. I won’t wait another 37 years to find out.

• Tagged: August 2026, music library, music, review, NoMeansNo, Dead Kennedys, Converge
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This thing is so overloaded with ridiculous ’80s signifiers, and its picture is so pristine, I initially thought it was a nostalgic throwback made sometime in the last 10 years (à la the dreadful Kung Fury). But the hair, the clothes, the cars, and the music are simply too perfect, and that pristine picture comes courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome, patron saints of pulling out all the stops on film restorations no one else would have deemed remotely worthy. And as usual, I’m glad they did! Alien Private Eye is only just barely aware of how stupid it is, which makes it a pretty fun ride.

• Tagged: August 2026, film diary, Vik Rubenfeld, PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA
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I’m not really into Christopher Nolan or epic movies, but my knowledge of Greek mythology is shamefully cursory, so I hoped seeing Nolan’s Odyssey would give me the nudge I needed to finally do some proper reading. I enjoyed the film more than I expected to; it’s very effective in many ways (Polyphemus! Circe!) and clunky in others (loud plot forecasting and a clumsy big finish), but I don’t think I looked at my watch once in the entire three hours, which is more than I can say for Oppenheimer. Time to finally read this Homer guy I keep hearing about.

• Tagged: August 2026, film diary, Christopher Nolan, PFS Film Center, Philadelphia, PA
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• Dutchman
  Anthony Harvey, 1966, ★★★½
• Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
  Matt Johnson, 2025, ★★★½

• Tagged: August 2026
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• Tagged: July 2026, listening diary, music, The Cars, Bedhead, Motörhead, Carla dal Forno, Converge, Crown Flash, Devon Rexi, John T. Gast, Trio Mandili, Fake Dust, Gentilesky, Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra, Schatterau, Arab Strap, Fugazi, Gorilla Biscuits, Motörhead, Sepultura, Shudder to Think
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• Air Force One
  Wolfgang Petersen, 1997, ★★★

• Tagged: July 2026
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Filho is really good at setting a scene and immersing you in a time and place, and just as I was with the titular town in Bacurau, I was fascinated by The Secret Agent’s recreation of Recife during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the late 1970s. There are so many details and characters, and I didn’t mind that many of them are superfluous to the plot. I also didn’t mind that the plot really takes its time—80 minutes in, we still only have an inkling of what’s going on. That first half’s self-assured assembly put a spell on me, but it was broken in the back half, when a variety of frivolous tangents are given priority, the central conflict’s murderous animosity is only vaguely justified, and its most consequential moment is shunted off to an afterthought of an epilogue.

• Tagged: July 2026, film diary, film and television, review, Kleber Mendonça Filho
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what emotional malfunction makes me so relish being brutalized in this way

• Tagged: July 2026, film diary, film and television, review, Oliver Laxe
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