3 & 30: New Rose Hotel, The Best Movies of 2024 (So Far), The Best Potato Chips Ever(?)
3 & 30: New Rose Hotel, The Best Movies of 2024 (So Far), The Best Potato Chips Ever(?)
Plus: Jeff Rosenstock, Iris Dement, and rock radio.
You’re reading the latest installment of 3 & 30. At the end of every month, we’ll each be sharing one record, one film, and one other wild card cultural product beyond those categories we’ve been loving. (That’s the 3.) As for the 30, we both recently turned 30 and each made a list of our 30 favorite movies. We’ll be going through them all, one movie at a time.
Record of the month
Elliott: Jeff Rosenstock — WORRY
Sometimes a record comes and goes and you (pun not intended) worry that you missed the boat. For unexplainable reasons, I had never heard Jeff Rosenstock’s WORRY. Clocking in at only 37 minutes, WORRY still felt daunting for me with its larger than life reputation. I wondered if the moment passed me by, if it would be a “you had to be there” album. But after reading friend of the site Eli Enis’ piece about seeing Rosenstock live (his site Chasing Sundays is a must subscribe btw) and a friendly push from Shawn and Michael Brooks, it felt like the right time to dispose of this silly self-imposed barrier, and just listen to a rock record.
Grab some ice because I'm coming in here with a scorching take — WORRY rocks. It absolutely bangs. I wish it was part of my life in my early 20s. Yet by the time I got to my third listen and heard some of the record's most catchy ("You've got nowhere to go now...)" and anthemic moments "ALL THESE MAGIC MOMENTS I’VE FORGOTTENNNN", it felt like the album had been with me for years. The lyrics are eternal too — "We don't want to live inside a hellhole" — oh buddy...just you wait. I'm clearly only scratching the surface with this juggernaut of an LP. But age 30 proved to be a perfectly fine time to get into WORRY. I’m starting a #WorryAt30 movement.
Let this be a lesson — that record that you've been putting off for years due to its intimidating reputation? To quote Three Days Grace, "it's not too late. It's never too late." Unless you're getting into Three Days Grace in your 30s. I can’t support that.
Shawn: Iris DeMent — My Life
There was some talk online this month about the incuriosity of music writers (didn’t look into it too much, someone’s always yapping). I don’t really think of myself as a music writer, at least not anymore, so marking myself safe from that, but do still find myself victim to a kind of artist-specific incuriosity. There have been extended periods where I’ve found myself content to settle in with just one or two celebrated records from an artist I love, leaving a whole career’s worth of other material on the table.
I’m really trying to put that to rest this year, and Iris DeMent’s my current project on the docket. After loving her debut breakthrough Infamous Angel and last year’s Workin’ On a World, it only made sense to circle back through her other records of original material. So far, none of the new-to-mes are challenging her second album, My Life. Go figure, the same simple grace, formal elegance, and unforgettable, singular voice are all still present here. On “You’ve Done Nothing Wrong,” she embraces the distance from a painful breakup, not with plaintive resignation but warmth and forgiveness; on “No Time To Cry,” she most directly pays tribute to her father’s death, while letting career and life demands suppress her grief. Not so much a knock against the country-folk critical darlings of the moment (but maybe a knock against all the fame-hangover pop records): listening to My Life has made me remember how special and rare it is to hear someone in their early 30s so dialed into an effortless, authentic wisdom.
Film of the month
Elliott: The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, 2024)
My first 5 star film of the decade (aside from the Jon Bois long form documentary about my favorite baseball club). No 2020s film has haunted me, and completely pummeled like Bertrand Bonello’s latest. Bonello joins the ranks of some of my all time favorite guys in David Lynch and Michelangelo Antonioni as directors who were horrified about humanity's advancement (be it the industrial revolution (Antonioni's Red Desert), weapons of mass destruction (Lynch's The Return), now artificial intelligence in The Beast), and created masterworks held together by a deeply troubled center, depicting just how psychologically terrifying this evolution is, in the present moment and even bleaker looking into the future.
The Beast is anchored by Léa Seydoux, the most beautiful woman in the world who also owns the Elliott Duea bestowed title belt of best working actress. She’s well on her way to having an astounding career with the likes of fellow French living legends Isabelle Huppert and Juliette Binoche. Seydoux and co-lead George MacKay have real chemistry across three different timelines as three (sort of?) different characters. None of these storylines would make a dent if it weren’t for Bonello’s total control of tone and images (at times feel like they’re malfunctiong. I thought of like 30 different movies while watching (the Twin Peaks: The Return influence can’t be overstated), but the film is totally its own beast.
The film's conclusion left me nearly sideways in my seat. So many feelings all at once. I departed the theater in that unique post-film state where everything around me felt different. As I walked to the train that would take me home at 10 pm on a Thursday, I took in the buildings and people on the streets. It all appeared simultaneously majestic and empty. I reached the station, but didn't want to go home. I said aloud, "what's the fucking rush?" and then I walked around for 2 more hours on the University of Washington campus and U district. Not everything I felt in that time was pleasant, but as explored in The Beast, I'll always take feeling something over feeling nothing. No matter how lonely that can sometimes be.
Only a matter of time before I write more about it in more detail and hopefully less vaguely. To be continued…
Shawn: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (Radu Jude, 2024)
Look at us, each tackling a masterful new release from distinctly modern filmmakers. Both feel quite special and will surely rank among the year’s best, and I’ll go superlative mode here as well and call Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World my favorite comedy of the decade so far. Not that there’s been a ton of competition for laughs at the cinema lately, but still.
Radu Jude’s outrageous film follows Angela, a production assistant in present-day Bucharest tasked with compiling casting interviews for a workplace safety video — the multinational corporation that hired her production company wants to gauge injured employees for their comfort on camera and severity of their ailments. Angela, much like the corporation she serves, is so far detached from their personal pain, partly because she’s too busy surviving the meat grinder herself — much of the film occurs in long, profile shots of her driving through heavy, unruly traffic at all hours, pulling over on occasion to sleep or film a filtered video as Bobita, her bald, redpilled alter ego with a unibrow who’s gone viral on TikTok as an Andrew Tate parody of sorts. Jude hilariously captures so many modern concepts that feel second nature — hating your job, your job hating you back, video call stiltedness, corporatespeak — and yet are so rarely mined for effective comedy, let alone zooming in on the people most easily discarded by all the capitalistic decay.
Wild Card
Elliott: 99.9 KISW: The Rock radio station
I spent a lot of time listening to my local rock radio station (99.9 KISW) due to my Carplay not working this month. Soundtracking my commutes with my favorite station in middle school served as a reminder of live radio magic. The infinite choices at our fingertips with streaming can rob us of the powerful experience when a song we didn't select hits our eardrums at just the right moment. Would I have thought to have Guitar Hero 2 classic “Possum Kingdom” segue right into Deftones' “My Own Summer (Shove It)”? Unlikely, but man did that hit. There's something beautiful about hearing' Chino's “SHOVE IT! SHOVE IT! SHOVE IT!” with Stephen Carpenter's ungodly huge riff on muffled, shitty quality from the airwaves. The best back to back of the month was an unbelievably inspired pairing — Puddle of Mudd's “Blurry” (perfect song) immediately followed by “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. My steering wheel took a real beating during those 12 minutes. It's not surprising that the Criterion Channel’s 24/7 became a hit with subscribers — sometimes we just need the movie or song put right in front of our face or into our ears. Taking the pressure off of choice to simply enjoy (and ROCK).
Shawn: Walnut Creek’s Buffalo Chicken Dip Chips
Some other contenders for my wild card this month:
George Clanton live at Spirit Hall
Guided By Voices live at Mr. Smalls (Eli also wrote about both of these excellently here and here)
The Traitors Australia season 1
But this block’s about what might be the best potato chips I’ve ever had in my life. It wasn’t the first time I’d had Walnut Creek’s Buffalo Chicken Dip chips, but the first time I’d thought to pay tribute in blog form. We’ve all probably had buffalo chips, or maybe even buffalo ranch chips before, but these actually feel like eating buffalo chicken dip — the creaminess, the fullness, only a fraction of the intestinal troubles. They come in a bag so big you basically have to shove your entire forearm inside to reach the bottom. It feels rude to recommend these to anyone outside my immediate area (the company’s based in Ohio, and I’ve only ever seen them at one store — Labriola’s Italian Market in Aspinwall, for the locals), but if you ever see the massive shiny bag with Amish undertones, don’t pass it up.
30 for 30 #2 — New Rose Hotel
Shawn: Happy April Ferrara to you and yours! Can I just say it’s been a real treat digging through the dude’s career this month, all leading up to what feels like both an outlier and culmination of his ‘90s run. We’ve got a decidedly different approach to eroticism here than Magic Mike XXL last time around. Just to start in brief, I’m curious what makes this one so special to you, towering above the rest of Ferrara’s filmography?
Elliott: The first time I stayed at the New Rose Hotel was a 2 night stay (aka I watched it twice, back to back nights on Tubi.) The movie's one of one. You can make comparisons (Assayas' masterpiece Demonlover is often cited), but there's nothing quite like it. The world in New Rose Hotel is one where everything is transactional and desire is expendable. When people visit a new place or hotel, there's that classic question regarding the reason for their stay — business or pleasure? In New Rose Hotel, business and pleasure are everything — you won't see many scenes where one isn't being discussed or experienced. If a character wants to break outside of that, to shake loose of this inhuman world in order to experience human feelings with their heart (like love), they’re fucked as soon as their heart starts doing the talking.
Yet even with that bleak picture I just painted, New Rose Hotel is an absolute hoot. It's Ferrara's funniest film by a mile, thanks in large part to arguably his greatest performer Christopher Walken. Like in King of New York, Walken doubles down on totally outrageous line deliveries. I always have my remote close when I'm watching the movie, frequently rewinding as if I'm watching a Jason "White Chocolate" Williams YouTube highlight compilation, going "did I really just see/hear that?" as I cackle with glee. Before I just start reciting favorite lines or talking about beautiful Asia Argento is...I want to hear your thoughts Shawn. How was your first stay at the New Rose Hotel?
Shawn: Much like the viewing public and critical establishment (this movie grossed $21,000 domestically and was panned upon release), I was not fully prepared for what Abel threw down here — though I ended up enjoying it a lot more than either camp. Those opening 20 minutes are such an entrancing introduction to this world, in all their woozy deep reds and, like you said, some of the greatest line deliveries in Walken’s career. (“Today, it’s that same fraction of sheer human chutz-pah!”) It’s science fiction rooted deeply its own technological present, but also very much our own present. Beyond the transactional relationships, performances of love, and oppressive interiors that only grew increasingly so by the film’s final stretch, I was pretty taken by the distance we feel from nearly every character outside the principal trio. Dr. Hiroshi, the supergenius scientist at the plot’s center, appears only in the grainiest surveillance and security camera footage — and correct me if I’m wrong, doesn’t speak a single line of dialogue in the whole movie? Instead we get Walken’s little dance and boisterous impression.
Elliott: No dialogue from Dr. Hiroshi, but we do a couple lines from one of the late great musicians of our time, Ryuichi Sakamoto!
New Rose Hotel was made in 1998, but it feels like the first film of the new millennium, anticipating our cyber hellscape through scenes aplenty of screens and digital voyeurism. It's a little tired to call things prescient, but I'm struck with an overpowering feeling of how did they know? What's almost frightening about the movie is how forcefully it draws me in. There's something seductive about the opaque, red video monitor and TV screens, beckoning us to a tantalizing future that's ostensibly, to quote our favorite Dublin boys/this website's namesake, even better than the real thing.
And I love living in New Rose Hotel. I become pleasantly restless with how its images and music burrow their way into my body and psyche. It's a hallucinatory experience too. Take the Cat Power "In This Hole" needle drop, so unbelievably sexy and deliciously disorienting when it happens, creating the rare soulful moment in what was previously an entirely hedonistic existence for these characters. I'll spare any spoilers, but the film's denouement; Willem Dafoe’s (the heart of the film) attempt to relive and re-experience what life was like before everything was taken away, is beyond chilling. Asia Argento belongs in the top tier of femme fatales in film history let that be known. And as we conclude April Ferrara, put Abel in the canon of great American directors too. In one man’s opinion, this is his opus.