Everything Becomes Memory

 "CLINK CLINK"

So goes the ice bumping into my lips

As I guzzle down the last of this Sprite.

A soft yet slightly bumpy texture

Greets my fingers as I fiddle

With the tablecloth at this booth

In the distance, I hear

An obscure Michael Bublé song

Playing on the restaurant's speakers.

I've been eagerly awaiting

This lunchtime rendezvous with my best friend

For what seemed like ages.

Now it's here.

The noises, the music, the smells

They're all so vibrant right now.

But eventually they'll become memories.

Everything does.

You wait for it to arrive.

And then it becomes another thing to remember.

Nary a single texture, taste, or any other sensation,

No matter how pleasant or repulsive it may be

Lasts eternal.

That awkward date

Where I sat across

From a woman spewing transphobia

Was finite.

That time I was lost in Dallas,

Temporary.

Laughing with friends,

never lasts forever.

It's all fleeting,

Fodder for the psyche

To eventually obsess over.

Yet it doesn't feel like that 

In the moment.

Life's highs and lows 

Are eternal as they're happening.

Everything becomes memories

But it's so hard to remember

During the turmoil of existence.

As I type this out,

Clacking latop keys

Echo in the living room.

Snoring pugs curled in my lap

Also emit tremendous noise.

I pause writing

And look down at these snuggled critters.

My fingers greet smooth, soothing pug fur

And I know I'll never forget this.

These noises, sensations, and bonds

Will eventually become memories.

Worth cherishing.

Nothing lasts.

Yet with memories, everything is permanent....

The Decline of Media Journalism Over Two Decades Is Apparent Re-Reading 2007 Entertainment Weekly Issues

 

His Girl Friday's depiction of dedicated journalism wouldn't fly in today's Silicon Valley-dominated hellscape

I was wandering through the magazine section of my local Half Price Books yesterday when an exciting sight captured my eyeballs. There, almost entirely hidden from the views of casual observers, was an Entertainment Weekly issue from February 2007. Specifically, it was issue #922 from February 23, 2007, which provided final predictions over who would win in what categories at the 79th Academy Awards. This issue's so obscure that I can't find images of its cover on Google Images nor in Entertainment Weekly's Archive.org collection of 2007 covers. An incredibly ominous Justin Timberlake cover made the cut in the latter group, but not this Oscars-themed issue.

Full disclosure: Entertainment Weekly magazines are a key reason why I'm a pop culture journalist. These magazines amplified my love for cinema and all artistic media. Starting in 2008, I collected them religiously, meaning I now own 14 years' worth of these things. They're each a snapshot of a moment in pop culture history and encapsulate so many memories of me discovering new directors, indie movies, musicians, or TV shows.  It's always a treat to stumble onto a pre-2008 issue and add it to my collection, especially this one that's so endearingly an early 2007 time capsule. 31 pages into this issue, there's a brief profile of The Wire actor Idris Elba and his then-imminent first major film roles in 28 Weeks Later and American Gangster. "I have all these films, but there's no sense of who I am as an artist yet. So, I'm gonna go out and there and sell my soul," Elba remarks in the closing lines of this Missy Schwartz-penned piece.

There's also a new installment of The EW Pop Culture Personality Test with none other than Carrie Fisher, who delivers so many wonderful answers to questions like "who areyou most often mistaken for?" and "which talk-show host smells the best?" Fisher tragically passed away in 2016, yet her witty barbs in this issue made her as alive as ever. Then there were the intriguing looks at who the writers thought would totally win the 78th Academy Awards (oh, we were so confident Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls had the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in the bag) and that week's edition of The Must List. The latter is a fixture dedicated to "ten things we love this week" that lets readers know about awesome artistic endeavors, ranging from Christopher Eccleston's work on Heroes to the DMZ: Volume 2 graphic novel to the outstanding German movie The Lives of Others.

It was enthralling to read this issue even beyond an undeniable dopamine rush of nostalgia. However, there was also something tragic about this experience. I can't imagine this issue existing in the modern world of entertainment journalism. The few corporations that own everything now have no room for this kind of material. 

Now, I'm not going to let my nostalgia for Entertainment Weekly cloud the very real realities of this publication. This was not Cahiers du Cinema or a public good like a local library devoid of any capitalistic intrusions. Entertainment Weekly issues, first and foremost, were meant to showcase advertisements. Flip through this February 2007 issue and you get ads for M&M's (complete with M&M versions of Joan Rivers and her sister), cars, and Verizon flip-phones that have "state of the art" music capabilities. The big news stories in this issue, meanwhile, are tied to the Academy Award broadcast as well as new Jericho episodes. They're meant to highlight new TV programs and get more eyeballs on the commercials contained within those shows.

Still, those vintage Entertainment Weekly issues packed a lot into one magazine. Over the years (starting with July 2008's Issue #1001), the publication would keep condensing how much material was covered in an average Entertainment Weekly issue. Certain sections were dropped, text got bigger, word count for pieces got smaller. This 2007 Oscars issue, though, was vintage Entertainment Weekly in its in-depth nature. Within the pages of this text, there's not only an Oscars rundown and other central stories, but also a look at new theatrical movies, home video releases, books, music, and a Stephen King essay on the then-recently deceased Anna Nicole Smith. 

There's so much art and pop culture covered in here, rather than just what was hot on ABC that week. Everything from Flushed Away to The Lives of Others to Sidney Poitier's memoir gets a chance to shine in the spotlight. No wonder these issues tantalized my brain as a youngster. They really let one explore the full range of the pop culture landscape. The lengthier nature of the reviews, celebrity breakdowns, and personal essays, meanwhile, lets you marinate in certain thoughts or artistic endeavors. This Entertainment Weekly issue is all about inviting readers to know more about the world around them rather than jostling them off to a new webpage or section.

There's also something delightful about the concrete nature of vintage Entertainment Weekly issues (or any print publication). For one thing, so much online writing is the very definition of temporary. There are various sections of my beloved The Dissolve that are no longer accessible. Clicking on various Buzzfeed pages published in the mid-2010s will bring you to dead links or error pages. I had over 600 Collider pieces wiped from the web when that site fired me in early 2024.  Forever and ever, though, the words that these Entertainment Weekly writers expressed are stuck on paper. You can remove them from the internet, but physical proof still exists.

That concrete nature also means every Entertainment Weekly subscriber got the same issue of this publication. The only variation was if they had fun fluctuating covers (like the four covers for a Simpsons Movie issue), but even there, everything inside was the same. Social media and streaming platform algorithms are all about keeping people divorced from each other. As texts like the Laura Bates book Men Who Hate Women, we now exist in a Silicon Valley hellscape where you're fed more and more of what you already experienced. No need to venture out into new genres or strains of cinema. Meanwhile, even something as simple as the charts of the 20 biggest movies at the box office could expose people to smaller features like Pan's Labyrinth. 

Late 2000s/early 2010s Entertainment Weekly subscribers may have gotten frustrated at opening their mailboxes and seeing yet another Twilight-themed cover. However, I now crave the idea of receiving and responding to art that isn't just made for my sensibilities, rather than just social media feeds regurgitating the same trash every day.  Plus, not just modeling the issues to what individual people already know is how I first got exposed to Stephen King. This horror legend did recurring Entertainment Weekly essays, which were the first pieces of King writing I ever consumed. 

Long before I dove into Christine, Under the Dome, and It, there were those Entertainment Weekly essays where King waxed poetic on frozen Junior Mints (he was totally right, by the way, they're scrumptious). I'm eternally grateful this publication put King on my radar, which wouldn't have been possible if this outlet was only concerned with showing me what I'd already seen.

Meanwhile, the lengthy deep dives into various pop culture properties in this earlier Entertainment Weekly piece are such a refreshing balm in a modern entertainment journalism landscape. EW pieces like a 2008 breakdown of Mike Myers' career were rife with historical context, specific commentary, and bravura in not treating celebrities with kid gloves. Not everything at this publication was hard-hitting journalism, God knows. However, the emphasis on higher word counts and denser essays opened up the door for recurring bursts of interesting journalism. 

Wouldn't we all love to have some of that again now that so many publications are owned by one corporation (like Penske Media) and deliver pieces about celebrities/pop culture news that are nothing but fluff? I grew up on Entertainment Weekly pieces unafraid to say "there's something wrong with the blockbuster movie landscape", snarky A.V. Club news reports, and Jim Hill Media breakdowns about Pixar that were dubious about the studio. The idea of publishing pieces about entertainment that expressed uncertainty or even hostility to the "powers-that-be" was normal to me. Now, major media outlets salivate to bolster the image of Sora AI or write pieces hostile to politically active women of color. 

We have fewer options than ever for entertainment editorials, and what does exist are often short pieces designed to stroke the egos of CEOs. Again, I'm not trying to paint a hagiographic portrait of Entertainment Weekly that paints this outlet's writers as being crusaders of the truth on par with the journalists seen in Collective. Instead, we should all realize that media journalism has declined so sharply in the last two decades that the once decidedly mainstream Entertainment Weekly feels revolutionary. Customary journalism for the masses in 2007 is a drop of water in a harrowing desert in 2025.

To be sure, quality pop culture journalism still exists today. The problem isn't that nobody can write today, but rather that unchecked corporate consolidation has left the mainstream, easily accessible entertainment outlets husks of their former selves. Just look at how Entertainment Weekly shifted to a monthly release in 2019 before shuttering its print version in 2022. It was the end of an era...but it doesn't have to be the end of quality journalism.

I still believe there's a voracious hunger for the kind of writing contained within the pages of this Entertainment Weekly issue. Entertainment writing that exposes readers to new artists and emphasizes the distinctly human in our art. There are tons of people providing that kind of material today, so I know I'm not alone in this urge. For those looking to support modern quality entertainment writing, here are some great places to check out:

Willow Catelyn Maclay's Patreon
Rendy Reviews
Angelica Jade Bastién's work on Vulture (and anywhere else she writes) 
Anything from Siddhant Adlakha 
Sam Adams on Slate
Kristen Lopez's The Film Maven
Marya E. Gates on Substack
Michelle Kisner on Substack
Carlos Aguilar

It's important to look back on what we've lost in entertainment journalism over the last 20 years, including how Entertainment Weekly kept adversely consolidating the size of its issues and stories in the years since that fateful 78th Academy Awards issue. But I refuse to lose out hope for the future. Especially when there are both great pop culture writers working today and the joy of those vintage Entertainment Weekly pieces still endures today. 18 years after its publication, I can hold in my hands the hard work, research, and passion that went into this 2007 magazine. The advertisements are amusingly out of date, but good writing endures. Never let corporate consolidation and incessant clickbait tell you otherwise.

With that, allow me to ensure Stephen King, from his Issue #922 essay A Modern Fairy Tale, has the final word here: "Story time's over, kids. You've all been good. So go ahead. Eat your dessert."

Do Not Succumb To Your Dreams

Do Not Succumb To Your Dreams

Do not succumb to your dreams

Do not get lost in fantasy

That's what my brain tells me every day

"Be productive! Do that task!"

"You're seconds away from losing your apartment!"

"Focus on how you're a failure!"

"Linger on how you're dysphoric!"

"Harp on these failures before anyone else notices them!"

So it is in my brain. Over and over and over and over again

Usually, I listen to it

Better to be productive and earn money

What's the use in dreaming about the impossible?

It's not practical

But sometimes, when I'm trying to go to sleep,

Or had an especially trying day,

I close my eyes and succumb to those dreams

Specifically, one fantasy I keep returning to

It's an Autumn afternoon, clouds dotting a blue sky

The temperature is 63 degrees, you can taste the crispness in the air

I'm standing next to a walking trail in one of my pink princess dresses

Rivers of colorful makeup patterns dot my face

Green and blue hues adorn the top and bottom of my lips

As I hum a John Denver tune, I see her

The woman I'm seeing...romantically

She strolls up in a flannel top 

Tight shorts covered in red and white stripes

And one or two strands of her short hair slightly fluttering in the wind

A wry smile comes over her face as she approaches me

"Guess who gave me a hard time at work today?" she asks

"It was David again, right?" I respond

She emits a mighty groan

The kind a beast would emit when caught in a trap

It's also her way of saying "yes"

"He's always riding my dick and saying the worst shit," she recounts

As we begin walking down the trail

Finally, with me, she can vent about all the workplace shit she endures

As we saunter from one woodland tableau to the next

Eventually, she sighs

"I hate that place," she murmurs with her head tilted down

She didn't want a solution

I gave her instead a hand squeeze

She looked up and smiled

"But I'm off for the weekend," she remarked, a grin returning to her face

"Yes!" I exclaim, "We can finally go see 100 gecs like you wanted"

With that, we began chanting the chorus of  the 100 gecs tune "Hollywood Baby"

Much to the befuddlement of any passing walkers

We also eventually chatted about all her favorite subjects

Machines, gears, engines, things I never thought twice about before

But I was enraptured when she info dump'd about them

Periodically, I'd propose a question about this interest

Probing her to keep talking about these matters that brought her joy

She was alive once again

Being heard rejuvenates the soul like nothing else

Eventually, we emerged from the foliage

And came upon a pier leading out to a beach

"Beaches are kind of gross," she glibly observed.

Me, always being the optimist to her practical demeanor,

nodded before noting "at least the water's different from all the Texas concrete!"

Suddenly, my eyes spied a funnel cake booth

I licked my chops and pointed at the stand

Her eyes widen in excitement

And we proceeded to chow down on the floury confection

She once again chuckled (as she always does when we're snacking)

Over how the "princess" she was dating scarfed down food

Like Mr. Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox

I proceed to further chow down on the funnel cake

With extra noisy sound effects, much to her amusement

I love her laugh

It's so full of verve and boisterousness

Her laugh exudes the unabashed confidence

I've pursued my whole life

We continue ambling down the pier

With the setting sun emitting orange streaks

Across the sky and, via reflections, the ocean below

As we stared at this glorious sight

She suddenly wrapped her arm around me

And began scratching my head

Not a word was exchanged in that moment

Having each other was enough

Do not succumb to your dreams

That's what my brain always says

But I'm steadily learning to say back

"Fuck off" to that tendency

What's wrong with submerging 

Into a warm romantic fantasy

Like an inviting body of water?

Why not succumb to your dreams

When they're this intoxicating?

Why Does Kathryn Bigelow's New Movie, A House of Dynamite, Fizzle Out?

“That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes
An aeroplane, and Lenny Bruce is not afraid
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs”

Nobody knows where it came from. That’s the reality pervading all three sections of director Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite. A nuclear missile is headed for the United States of America (specifically Chicago) and nobody knows who launched it. Each Dynamite segment follows a different U.S. government sector reacting to the news that the unthinkable is happening. First, audiences follow Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) in the White House Situation Room as she and her team try tracking the ICBM and Amerca's plans to eliminate it.

Next, United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) denizens like General Anthony Brody (Tracy Letts) and s Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso) are shown taking radically different tactics to this nuclear launch. Brody wants to fire on all foreign nuclear arsenals and ask questions later. Baerington, meanwhile, wants to negotiate and exude vulnerability with overseas leaders. Finally, there's a storyline centered on an unnamed President of the United States (Idris Elba). His day begins with shooting hoops with young kids before becoming a nightmare as he gradually realizes what's about to happen to ten million Americans.

These are the lives Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim follow throughout A House of Dynamite. Right away, a key flaw emerges: there’s no variety in the existences chronicled here. It isn't just that 95% of the fictional individuals work in government jobs. They're also all buttoned up and professional. None of them have ragged edges or varying demeanors. Sidney Lumet's extraordinary Fail Safe, which also chronicled an impending U.S. nuclear disaster, lent vivid, wildly divergent personalities to its various characters. That included characters with high-ranking jobs in the American government.

Dynamite’s various politicians and nuclear experts, meanwhile, are excessively polished. The greatest on-screen flaw in these characters is that they munch on Doritos at their workstation when they’re not supposed to. Everyone’s loyal to their partner. Every child they pass has a smile and a cheerful wave. The worst thing about the president is he’s a harmless “narcissist,” but less so than his predecessors. Rather than having a nuclear apocalypse intrude on a recognizably real world and morally complex humans, A House of Dynamite has tragedy befall hollow automatons lifted from a U.S. Army recruitment ad.

The characters here are such a snore that not even exceedingly talented artists like Greta Lee (woefully wasted) and Jared Harris can lend much life to them. There's also the problem that every single white boy under 40 in this feature looks like a series of indistinguishable clones. Good luck discerning Gabriel Basso, Jonah Hauer-King, Kyle Allen, and other guys from each other. One of them needed to wear a hat, have blue hair, or a tattoo, something to make it clear who the hell they are. That’s a microcosm of how A House of Dynamite focuses on so many human beings yet none of them register as people.

It's also puzzling that Oppenheim’s central narrative structure doesn’t go anywhere unexpected or interesting. In the first segment, a group video call is introduced featuring subsequently important characters like the POTUS, Brady, and Baerington. It’s no surprise that these lives intersect nor are there interesting revelations nestled in shifting focus onto their storylines. Compare that to Weapons, which had fun details like a random man outside a liquor store asking beleaguered teacher Justine for bus ticket money…only for that guy to later be revealed as key character James.

Oppenheim’s script is too respectful and stuffy for elements like that. Pursuing pervasive gravitas, though, just instills A House of Dynamite with a chilly exterior. It’s impossible to latch onto these people who never register as human beings. Absolutely terrible dialogue, namely the POTUS beginning a dramatic soliloquy with the phrase “I was listening to a podcast…”, hammers home the film’s endless writing problems. This movie truly is what would happen if the screenwriter of The Maze Runner and a Divergent sequel tried his hand at writing a nuclear paranoia thriller. I Live in Fear, this is not.

“Six o'clock, TV hour, don't get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform, book burning, blood letting
Every motive escalate, automotive cinerate
Light a candle, light a votive, step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means
No fear, cavalier renegade steer clear
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
And I decline”

With her 2009 Best Picture Oscar winning movie The Hurt Locker, Bigelow established her new go-to cinema verité filmmaking style mimicking shaky-cam documentary camerawork. This approach emulated the idea that audiences were in the Iraq War terrain right with Hurt Locker's characters, with explosions and other events "jostling" the camera. Lending that approach to A House of Dynamite already makes no sense because the film takes place in Washington D.C. and various steady military bases. There are no exploding bombs or other elements that could inspire quivering camerawork. That’s the whole point of the story…the nuclear missile hasn’t landed yet.

It's not even like the barrage of quick cuts, sudden zoom-ins, and ceaselessly quivering camerawork is supposed to convey terror at impending nuclear Armageddon. Bigelow and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (whom Bigelow previously worked with on Locker and Detroit) capture pre-missile launch idyllic scenes like Walker playing with her kid or Cathy Rogers (Moses Ingram) cheerfully waltzing into work in the same fashion. To make matters worse, A House of Dynamite has that unmistakably bright and excessively digital sheen of typical Netflix original movies and TV shows.

Even Bigelow has succumbed to these cinematography norms. Random shots of people in cars or government offices look indistinguishable from similar images from Space Force or The Gray Man. Not only does this make House of Dynamite look off-putting, it also undercuts the entire point of that mockumentary shooting style. The cinema verité approach is supposed to make audiences feel like they’re watching reality as it unfolds. However, the Netflix lighting upends any tactility or lived-in qualities in the visuals. In Bigelow’s newest movie, you get the worst of both worlds. The lighting is bad, but it’s also realized through hyperactive editing and messy blocking. Love it or hate it, Bigelow’s ramshackle shooting style previously had purpose to it. Not here.

“The other night I dreamt of knives, continental drift divide

Mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein

Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs

Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom

You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck”

Speaking of thoughtless, one-size-fits-all artistry, Volker Bertelmann's House of Dynamite score is a mess. This feature's so proud of his orchestral tracks that the opening Netflix logo is even preceded by 15-ish seconds of Bertelmann's music playing against a black screen. That confidence is woefully misplaced. Much like with his repetitive All Quiet on the Western Front work, Bertelmann can only communicate ominousness through "LOUD NOISES!!" and battering audiences with one uninspired leitmotif.

Low-pitched string instruments dominate the sonic landscape and there’s no musical variety as the script jumps around from one location to the next. A Battle of Gettysburg recreation has the same score as White House Situation Room denizens reacting to unspeakably bad news. Bertelmann’s score is downright terrible, but at least it provides a useful encapsulation of why A House of Dynamite doesn’t work. It too is one uninspired note hit ceaselessly for 112 minutes.

It's shocking to remember that Bigelow’s earlier genre films like Near Dark and Point Break oozed such exciting, subversive energy. Those titles were as unpredictable as A House of Dynamite is determined to ruffle no feathers. It doesn’t present a challenging or unique vision of America under duress, while its visual and sonic sensibilities are insultingly familiar. The only way this movie really works is as an extensive advertisement for the latest iPhone models. Every single character in this universe possesses these unwieldy devices and constantly keeps their back camera (and accompanying Apple logo) proudly facing the camera. Tim Cook will be pleased. Shouldn’t a filmmaker of Bigelow’s caliber aim higher than that?

It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)

It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)

It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)

And I feel fine (I feel fine)