3 & (No) 30: Deer Cinema, DIIV and Dunes, Conner O'Malley and Caffeine

Just the 3s this month, but for good reason.

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. Just kidding on the 30 for this month. In lieu of that, we’ll have a big piece coming soon on a filmmaker who’s made at least a few of our favorite films of all time. Stay tuned for that.

Record of the month

Shawn: Amen Dunes — Death Jokes

I feel like this went under the radar to the extent that it could — then again, I now keep closer tabs on the online zillennial indie rock fan than the GQ-toting, skateboarding dads who’ve retired from posting. Arriving six years after Freedom, Damon McMahon’s most broadly appealing record as Amen Dunes that nonetheless took me several years to consider a masterpiece, Death Jokes flips the script once more. The knotty, literary character work morphs into a more directly apocalyptic, personally tinged approach to songwriting; but the music is something trickier. Gone is the propulsive, hook-happy rock of his last effort, in comes the sample-heavy, pared-down electronic misdirection for his warbly voice to wrap and squiggle around. The gratification is sparser and more rewarding for it; each song (true song, not one of the half dozen interludes) contains a stray minute or two of guerrilla drum machines that scratch the same itch as Freedom. Instead of engaging the old school music journalist arms race — every new record is the “best” or “most” of something — Death Jokes isn’t that, for a career ripe with risks and shifts; it’s just another great Amen Dunes record that I’ll probably be calling a modern classic in 2028.

Elliott: DIIV — Frog In Boiling Water

I'm always compelled by the ways we grow with the bands we love. DIIV's Deceiver came out when I was 25. I recall throwing my body around the living room when I first heard the explosive outro to “Horsehead”. It sounded like how I felt most days. Now I'm 30, and DIIV has matched my innermost experience again with their marshy and soulful follow-up, Frog in Boiling Water. The tracks present a warm numbness as the notes and pacing sound like the sameness of days when they untraceably bleed into one another. But what makes this record special is the hope I find in the lyrics and melodies. There is unmistakable darkness and anger in the songs, but ultimately there is resolve. Life can feel more like trudging these days. This record invites the trudging to be communal. We can trudge together.

When Deceiver came out, I was like a sprinter. With Frog in Boiling Water, I'm going a little slower, but further. Life used to feel like “Blankenship”. Now it feels more like “Brown Paper Bag” ( link above). In my view, Frog in Boiling Water accepts and embraces that change.

Film of the month

Shawn: Bambi and Evil Does Not Exist

This childless thirtysomething’s out here watching Bambi. Yes, some of my movie friends have a little competition that focuses on a particular theme in a given month (our latest was combing through a bunch of animated flicks), and I kicked off May with what might be the greatest animated feature (and likely the greatest Mouse House joint) of all time. My memory not only failed to clock how late Bambi’s mom meets her tragic fate (more than halfway into the movie) and how stunningly rendered every moment up to that point feels (sublime, painterly images — actual shots; cute, charming voice performances that don’t steer too saccharine). Good movie!

Meanwhile, the new slice of deer cinema from Ryusuke Hamaguchi is a daring step forward. An environmental parable, Evil Does Not Exist focuses on woodland handyhunk Takumi and his daughter Hana, who live in a village near Tokyo. Their little community is disrupted by a city “talent agency” looking to drop a glamping site in their boundaries, without regard for wastewater or the abundant deer population. Yes, it’s crawling to a gutpunch, but I didn’t expect how funny this would be, or how much it would recall both Frederick Wiseman town hall scenes and last month’s heater, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World. Societal brokenness and sweaty “we here for you” corporatespeak really do touch every continent on the globe. Hamaguchi remains a master of the tracking shot, the driving sequence, and newfound digital trickery. I liked Drive My Car; I loved Evil Does Not Exist.

Elliott: Hanagatami (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 2017)

Many of us know Nobuhiko Obayashi's House. And if you've seen House, you probably love House. And if you've seen House and don't love House, you'll still never forget the piano that comes to life and eats the girl in House. Despite Obayashi's 1977 psychedelic fever nightmare being one of the most Criterion's most profitable titles (the cat shirt as ubiquitous among cinephiles as the Joy Division tee), basically every other film in a career full of dozens of greats has been super challenging to see unless you sail the high seas of the web. House has 280K logs on Letterboxd. His second most popular title has 12K.

Forty years later, the Japanese master gave us Hanagatami (finally streaming on the Criterion Channel) — the third and final installment of a group of anti-war films. Hanagatami follows a group of teens in the small coastal Japanese town of Karatsu during WW2. The teens are removed from the action, but the war's presence and false promise of glory is never far, as Karatsu citizens sing songs of national victory, children wave Japanese flags, and the city’s joyous, ornate festivals stand in total contrast to the realities of deadly global conflict. The characters at the center match the film’s chaotic but controlled style, brimming with zest and curiosity as they navigate love, identity, and their place in this world full of beauty and horror. Hanagatami is like an opera in its sweeping feeling, the stunningly colorful VFX backdrops are even stagelike. I was watching the film with my pals Bingus and Braeden, but if I was watching alone I would've been yelling at the tv with each new heart-stopping visual and edit, repeating things like "are you kidding me?" and "Obayashi you are god!" That's the kind of shit I du when I'm watching movies alone btw.

Obayashi was diagnosed with stage-four cancer prior to production and given only a few months to live. It's a perfect final film, yet he'd go on to make another perfect final film in Labyrinth of Cinema a couple years later, another total masterwork. I can't think of anybody else who made two perfect final movies.

Wild card

Shawn: Caffeine

I’ve seen caffeine described along the lines of 3D glasses for life, and after a month of getting back into that stuff…yuuuuup. My history with coffee products has been a gastrointestinal tightrope — one time a hefty latte sent me into a near-panic attack, before walking 45 minutes to catch a matinee of Logan Lucky — so for many years, I’ve kept my distance. Then, for a stretch this year, I found myself working a job that required early morning hours (more on that to come, maybe) and the alertness PEDs came back on the menu. Like accidentally setting the weight pin 50 pounds too heavy on a gym machine, I got started with those packets of Celsius powder (200 mg caffeine per), with the thinking you could carefully parcel out a quarter or half packet into a water bottle. I don’t think I need to describe how that went. After moderating to Aldi’s energy drink packets at a cool 60 mg and the occasional Coke, we’re rolling baby. On the good days, it blows my mind that people just live their lives like this all the time, and I didn’t. I’m not relying on the boost every day or anything, just for actually urgent tasks (long movies, driving, job interviews), in order to keep this out of whatever’s the opposite of our 3 and 30 list.

Elliott: Conner O’Malley — Stand Up Solutions

Speaking of caffeine, let’s talk about somebody that appears like he’s invariably functioning on 20 cups of coffee. If there was a yearly title belt for America's funniest man like there is for sexiest man alive, Conner O'Malley would be a perennial contender on my make believe ballot. Watching his Vine compilation is among the hardest I've laughed in my damn life. Whether he's protecting the outlet malls from ISIS, hosting a talk show in the middle of a damn river, or popping in up in a Tim Robinson sketch or even I Saw the TV Glow, I typically find myself sitting sideways with guffaw-induced stomach cramps.

His latest work is a stand up special that features O'Malley playing the character of Richard Eagleton. Eagleton is giving a keynote address about his new startup Stand Up Solutions, an Artificial Intelligence company that's created the first AI stand up comedian "powered by and for 100% accurate comedy." The artificial comedian is named KENN and when KENN demonstrates his comedy act, it's like if Elon Musk gave a 5 minute set (would argue that the AI KENN is much more charismatic). Only other things I'll reveal is that the special opens with a montage set to Hans Zimmer's "Time" from Inception, and O'Malley sports a never addressed Livestrong bracelet for the duration. It's best experienced going in blind as it begins with mayhem and unfurls into, well, more mayhem. You will know within literally one minute if it's for you or not. It could not be more for me.