Rob Weychert Art & Design https://v7.robweychert.com/ en-us Fri, 08 May 2026 10:50:17 -0400 Thu, 07 May 2026 23:59:00 -0400 The Trial Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/05/the-trial/ https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/05/the-trial/ Thu, 07 May 2026 23:59:00 -0400 Orson Welles, 1962, ★★★★

The Trial film poster

A surrealist nightmare of expressionist lighting and skewed compositions made from colossal pre- and postwar European architecture, oppressive even when it’s beautiful, its sharp angles stuffed to the gills with detritus, evoking a civilization abandoned in a panic. Even the scenes with hundreds of extras feel lonely. It talks too much but my god does it look incredible.

]]> The absorbingly impenetrable typography of Analogical Force and Geometric Love Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/05/typography-analogical-force-geometric-love/ https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/05/typography-analogical-force-geometric-love/ Mon, 04 May 2026 12:32:00 -0400 Analogical Force, an electronic music label based in Madrid, found its way onto my radar earlier this year when I picked up Oh Mr. James’s fun I’m Not Here EP. Most of the label’s output honestly doesn’t do much for me, but its design is another story, which for the last several years has largely been handled by the UK-based Geometric Love, a.k.a. Steve Hyland. I especially enjoy Hyland’s fearless lettering, which is almost entirely unburdened by legibility. Juxtaposed as it is with collages of pixelated noise, nature photography, and painterly textures, the work feels like a maximalist update of the digital-native aesthetic that emerged on record sleeves and rave flyers of the 1990s.

Sound Synthesis: Radical Meditation
Promising/Youngster: Navaras
BufoBufo: Ranidae
MOY: Ghostware
Oh Mr James: I’m Not Here
p1nkf1re: Red
Ruby My Dear: Smooth Working
Recue: Paramnesia
quadratschulz: Halo Welt
Promising/Youngster: Bernesga
Fluctuosa: Wetware
MOY: Dark Frontier
Son Zept: New Ireland Chrome
Lowfish: Thaw
]]> Entries logged without comment for the week ending 5/2 Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/05/ tag:v7.robweychert.com,2025:digest20260503 Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 -0400 Added to the music library:

]]> 🔗 XOXO Explore Rob Weychert https://xoxofest.com/ https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/xoxo-explore/ Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:45:00 -0400 In its founders’ own words, XOXO was “an experimental festival celebrating independent artists and creators working on the internet,” and its final edition, which included Cabel Sasser’s charming tale of going all the way down the rabbit hole of a painting that caught his attention in a McDonald’s in Washington, took place in 2024. I attended XOXO in 2014 and 2018 and was impressed on both occasions with the extraordinary care that went into the event, and I’m likewise impressed by this effort to preserve its 12 years’ worth of carefully curated content. I love a good archive, and this is that. See also co-founder Andy Baio’s post about the archive for some behind-the-scenes details.

🔗 Go to this link

]]> Ring 2 Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/ring-2/ https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/ring-2/ Wed, 29 Apr 2026 23:59:00 -0400 Hideo Nakata, 1999, ★

Ring 2 film poster

Whatever the Exorcist II apologists may tell you, its legendarily scatterbrained attempt to rationalize the irrational is not something to aspire to, even more so if you’re unwilling to match its level of sheer lunacy. Supernatural mythology, especially in Eastern traditions, is a lizard-brain beast with little use for reason, but like that ill-advised Exorcist sequel, Ringu 2 attaches electrodes to its spooks, making a fairly simple story of ghostly revenge into a drawn-out thesis on telepathically connecting to victims of some kind of quasi-possession to draw out their excess of fear energy and neutralize it with water. Or something? If you’re wondering how we got from “watching this haunted videotape will kill you!” to… whatever this is, join the club. The production designer gives the film a lot more fancy machinery than the screenwriter gives it internal logic, and worst of all, it’s as dull as it is convoluted.

I’ve now watched six of these movies from both sides of the Pacific, and they’re ultimately just another example of the film industry’s insatiable appetite for smearing a cash cow with layer after layer of bullshit. Whether or not the industry deserves more scorn than the audiences who keep showing up for it, I’m as convinced as ever that art and commerce are mortal enemies.

]]> The Spiral Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/the-spiral/ https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/the-spiral/ Tue, 28 Apr 2026 23:59:00 -0400 George Iida, 1998, ★

The Spiral film poster

In this Ringu sequel, which was released at the same time as the first film, almost every noteworthy survivor of the previous installment is killed off pretty much right away, and we soon start to learn that the series’s cursed-videotape shtick is a lot more complicated than everyone thought. The nature of that complication is revealed, as Hemingway would say, gradually, then suddenly, and I won’t spoil the cuckoo left turn it takes in the final act, but I will tell you that it is profoundly stupid. Such a turn is hardly disqualifying on its face; many a lowly genre film has crafted a delightfully gonzo spectacle from utter nonsense. But not this one. Any remotely interesting visual potential its ridiculous denouement may have had is completely ignored in favor of a multipage supervillain monologue.

The Spiral was a critical and commercial disappointment, and it was retconned a year later by Ringu 2, but apparently The Spiral’s side of the story amassed enough supporters to eventually continue in several Sadako 3D films years later. That’s an audience I don’t expect to join. For better or worse, I’ll see my compulsive streak through with Ringu 2 and the prequel Ringu 0, but I think that’ll be the end of the Ringu road for me.

]]> Ring Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/ring/ https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/ring/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 23:59:00 -0400 Hideo Nakata, 1998, ★★

Ring film poster

Our protagonist finds a cursed videotape that kills the viewer a week after they watch it, so she starts using her skills as a journalist to get to the bottom of it, and then almost immediately hands the whole project over to her ex-husband so she can rest her little brain, because she is, after all, just a girl. Oh, and her ex is able to unravel the mystery in fairly short order due to the fact that he… has psychic powers. Almost all the exposition in this film is him telling her what he’s discovered, either by doing the kind of research that is her literal job, or by conveniently experiencing some hokey vision of a significant past event.

I know the Japanese are a little behind on the feminism thing, and their horror is generally a more vibes-forward affair, but I’ve just never been able to get on board with Ringu. It brings me no pleasure to be the guy who thinks the middling American remake is better, but there it is.

]]> Rings Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/rings/ https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/rings/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 23:59:00 -0400 F. Javier Gutiérrez, 2017, ★

Rings film poster

Matilda Lutz was the lead in this movie the same year she was the lead in Revenge, and I kind of wish I could do to this movie what she did to the dudes in that movie.

]]> Entries logged without comment for the week ending 4/25 Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/ tag:v7.robweychert.com,2025:digest20260426 Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0400 Added to the film diary:

]]> The Ring Two Rob Weychert https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/the-ring-two/ https://v7.robweychert.com/blog/2026/04/the-ring-two/ Sat, 25 Apr 2026 23:59:00 -0400 Hideo Nakata, 2005, ★

The Ring Two film poster

I was pretty unkind to The Ring when it came out in 2002, going as far as to make regrettable use of the R-word, and upon rewatching it a couple dozen years later, I was pleased to find myself both more amenable to its silly urban-legend premise and less intent on having a strong opinion about its unremarkable execution. The movie is nothing special, but it’s a perfectly inoffensive way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon, and as I learned later in the day, it shines more brightly when placed next to its abysmal sequel, The Ring Two.

I’m ashamed to say I was persuaded to watch The Ring Two’s “unrated” version, whose extra 20 minutes of footage is not only superfluous, but would have had no effect at all on the PG-13 rating the movie was always engineered to receive. These scenes also apparently haven’t been touched since the DVD release, so their fuzzy SD transfers make them easy to spot, but the theatrical cut’s crisp 4K resolution doesn’t make it any more palatable. Everything about it feels like a first draft, from its Exorcist-lite script to its chintzy CGI, which may not be uncommon for a cash-grab studio sequel, but the level of apathy on display is nonetheless disappointing, especially from a project that somehow convinced Sissy Spacek (!) to spend a day on set.

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