Favorites: January and February 2018

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

Movies

Heat (1991)

I'm embarrassed to say that before last month I had never seen Heat, Michael Mann's crime epic in which Robert De Niro and Al Pacino become entangled in a cat-and-mouse game on opposing sides of the law.  It turns out the film lives up to the hype and more.  De Niro and Pacino are terrific, of course, but Mann is the one who elevates the film to its legendary status, imbuing the movie with a mythic quality that genuinely makes you ponder its musings on life and how we spend it.  Plus, the post-bank robbery shootout still might be the best that has ever been put to film.

Paddington/Paddington 2

Film Twitter was all abuzz about these films, and with good reason, because they are truly delightful.  Unlike everyone else, I'm slightly partial to the first movie, but both are heartwarming, funny, and astonishingly directed family films.

Music

Kero Kero Bonito

I first became aware of KKB last year when Frankie Cosmos, one of my favorite artists, talked about her love of the band when she covered their song "Fish Bowl."  But I didn't get around to checking them out until this year, when I decided to listen to their album Bonito Generation and fell completely in love.  Their cutesy, playful style may not be for everyone, but if you can get on their level, you're in for music that's actually impressive on a sonic level (the amount of neck-snapping synth sounds on display in "Lipslap" is astonishing) and has some pretty thoughtful observations on that limbo period of semi-adulthood that is your 20s.  I haven't listened to TOTEP, their new EP that dropped last week, but they're one of the bands I'm most excited about now.

The Smiths singles and B-sides collections

I like the beginning of the year, because not many new albums have come out yet, and it gives me time to catch up on older music that I have been meaning to check out.  Despite being a fan of The Smiths' proper albums, I never listened to much of the singles collections like Hatful of Hollow, Louder Than Bombs, and The World Won't Listen.  And just as everyone has always been saying, they really do contain some of the band's best songs.  Most collections like these are inessential, but you're missing out if you've never heard songs like "Sheila Take a Bow" and "Unloveable."

Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche

I had also never really listened to The Avalanche, an album of songs that didn't make it to Sufjan Stevens' masterpiece Illinois.  I love Sufjan's recent changes in style, but a part of me misses that lush orchestral sound he was working with during his 50 States project.  This record is very clearly a collection of outtakes, but even his toss-offs have a million interesting ideas in them, and something like "The Pick-Up" is up there with some of his best work.

Television

American Vandal

There was something that irked me about American Vandal, which caused me not to watch it last year.  Even with all the effusive praise it was given, I was convinced I wouldn't like it, due to my general apathy for true crime shows and podcasts.  My stubbornness ended up being unwarranted, because I loved it once I finally watched it.  The show builds off of its premise -- excavating the ins and outs of the case of a bunch of penises being drawn on all of the faculty's cars in a high school parking lot -- and goes deeper and deeper into the silliness.  But it also delivers a story that's terrifically constructed, making great use of the engaging high school world it sketches out.

The End of the Fucking World

Every week there's a new Netflix show that the internet insists I have to watch.  The overwhelming amount of content makes me want to give up on checking any of them out.  If there's one to prioritize over the rest of the deluge, however, it's British import The End of the Fucking World.  The less said about it the better -- just know that it's got an extremely original voice and two fantastic performances from Jessica Barden and Alex Lawther.

Other

Ellen Pompeo's Hollywood Reporter profile (article)

I never thought I'd be recommending an article about Ellen Pompeo, of all people, but the profile on her that came out earlier in the year was hilariously candid.  She's an icon.

Hayley Ever After (blog)

Hayley G. Hoover is one of my favorite internet people, and I've missed her work ever since she stopped making videos on Youtube.  Her new blog fills that HGH hole in my content diet.  Even when she's talking about things I think I won't care about, I always find myself lost in her delightful writing voice.

We Are Okay (novel)

I loved Nina LaCour's YA novel Hold Still when I was in high school, but I hadn't read any of her books since then.  Reading We Are Okay, her highly praised 2016 novel about a girl isolates herself in her freshman year of college after a traumatic event in the previous summer, felt like being greeted by an old friend.  LaCour's writing is so gorgeous, and even though this is a sparse story, it's also full of complex shades of love, grief, and loneliness.

Favorites: October 2017

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

Movies

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

Netflix now puts out so many original films at this point that I've given up on trying to keep up with them almost completely, but I'll always make time for a new Noah Baumbach movie.  And you won't regret investing your time in The Meyerowitz Stories, which immediately ranks up there with his best work.  I tend to prefer Baumbach's collaborations with Greta Gerwig, but this feels like a synthesis of all that he's done before, both with and without her.  The terrain that Meyerowitz covers -- strained relationships amongst a prickly Jewish family in New York -- has been well-excavated, but this film spins itself in all manner of truthful and empathetic directions that justify its existence.  It's a modest film that feels so full -- you'll lose count of all of the dazzling threads, tiny motifs, amusing tossed-off moments, and poignant stuff of life.

Music

Bully - Losing

Bully's debut album from a few years ago took me by complete surprise.  Unlike so many of their peers whose sound feels like a loving nod to 90s alternative rock through a modern lens, Feels Like sounded like it was genuinely unearthed from 1995, at once harsh and sugary sweet in the way so many records from that period were.  This time around, the band loses some of its overt hookiness for an album that's a little more jagged and introspective.  The result makes Losing less immediate than its predecessor, but its pleasures reveal themselves upon repeated listens.  Songs like "Kills to Be Resistant," "You Could Be Wrong," and "Hate and Control" can stand right along with the best tracks from their debut.

The War on Drugs - A Deeper Understanding

For the last few years, The War on Drugs have been my number one "I just don't get it" band.  I listened to Lost in the Dream a few times when everyone was freaking out over it in 2014, but I stood with Mark Kozelek when he dismissively called it "beer commercial rock."  The songs were solid, yet it felt like the band was being elevated by older critics who grew up on Dire Straits and similar influences.  What converted me was being able to see what makes them special with my own eyes in their KEXP performance a couple of months ago (their one around the time their previous album came out is also worth checking out).  In a live context, the space and subtlety of their sound truly shone, and it primed me to enjoy A Deeper Understanding.  I still may not be as high on The War on Drugs as everyone else, but this album has some of the most transcendent musical moments I've heard all year.

Television

Mindhunter

What I said up top about being unable to keep up with Netflix's release of original films goes tenfold for their television series, to the point where I might not be able to catch up with all of their newest offerings in time for end of the year list-making season.  I'm glad I decided to prioritize Mindhunter, whose first season I just finished and ended up loving.  The biggest draw of this show about two investigators in the 70s who led the charge in studying and classifying serial killers, is that the first and last two episodes of the series are directed by David Fincher.  He proves how much visual language can enhance a story as he brings an electrifying energy to the proceedings with his careful, precise arrangement of shots.  That kind of cinematic rhythm is needed, given that the show is entirely comprised of people in rooms having long, methodical conversations.  But it's not just a strong visual hand that's necessary for a show like this to work, so thankfully the writing (from a staff that contains Mad Men greats like Erin Levy and Carly Wray) is just as skillful and exacting.  Mindhunter is a show that's interested in the long game, where even elements that seem off in the beginning -- a flat female character here, a miscast lead there -- prove to be deliberate choices with intelligent motivation.  Even if you're not hooked by the first hour or two, stick with the show.  It's something that's ultimately rewarding enough to deserve the goodwill.


Miscellaneous

Prozac in My Apple Juice (Essay)

I'm a big fan of when writer/Youtuber Allison Raskin writes about mental health, and her Medium post for Wednesday Books was no different.  She's able to write her lifelong struggle with OCD with such wisdom and humor.

Favorites: September 2017

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

Movies

Raw

I don't think Raw came to theaters in my area -- and if it did, it was only here for a week -- so I was finally able to catch this horror-meets-coming-of-age film on Blu-Ray this month.  Garance Miller is terrific as Justine, a girl who starts experiencing cannibalistic urges during her first year at a high-pressure veterinary school.  And while I don't necessarily think we needed another film where a monstrous transformation serves as a metaphor for coming of age, some assured direction from Julia Ducournau (making her debut) is more than enough to make it worthwhile.  Just don't watch it on a full stomach.

Music

The National - Sleep Well Beast 

2017 has been branded as the return of mid-2000s indie rock, given that we've gotten new albums from stalwarts like Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Dirty Projectors, and The New Pornographers.  The National added to the deluge in September with the release of their seventh album, Sleep Well Beast, another set of perfectly cut jewels of songs.  Their previous album was a little more sedate, so I was worried that they would continue down that road, but Sleep Well is the most they've sounded like a rock band in while.  The guitars have been pushed to the front of the mix, the drums sound more propulsive than before, and they incorporate some electronic splashes to beef up their sound.  The result is their best album since Boxer came out 10 years ago.

Television

The Good Wife

I finally finished my yearlong journey through all 156 episodes of The Good Wife, CBS' recently completed legal drama.  At its best (which I consider to be the show's fifth season), The Good Wife was just as thrilling as its prestige competitors on cable, offering surprisingly complex arcs and a deep world from which any corner could be pulled for conflict.  And though the creators' boasting about the high bar of difficulty they were required to clear at 22 episodes per season, the length of each season did allow for some risk-taking and experimentation that a shorter model wouldn't allow for.  Great network dramas are becoming rarer by the day, so it felt nice watch this show and remember what the format is capable of.  Don't let preconceived notions stop you from giving this a spin.

Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later

I loved First Day of Camp, the prequel to cult classic Wet Hot American Summer, when it came out a couple of years ago.  The gang came together again for a sequel this time with 10 Years Later, another season of gentle, goofy comedy antics and I couldn't be happier.  While not as top-to-bottom excellent as First Day of Camp, 10 Years Later has some big laughs in it that make the whole endeavor worth it.  I wouldn't mind little expansions on this world every few years until the end of time.

Miscellaneous

I Hate Everyone But You (Novel)

I've written before about my love of Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin's hilarious YouTube channel, so I would've supported their debut YA novel regardless.  But I Hate Everyone But You benefits from being genuinely enjoyable as well.  Told in epistolary form, the novel follows Ava and Gen, two best friends who go to two different colleges and must deal with the trials and tribulations of long-distance friendship.  It's a funny and emotional tale about the work it takes to maintain any meaningful relationship, which is a valuable lesson for a culture that prioritizes romantic pairings over everything else.  I managed to read it in only two sittings, that's how good it is.

Favorites: August 2017

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

Movies

Detroit

Kathryn Bigelow made her return to theaters this month with Detroit, her first film since 2012's Zero Dark Thirty.  Like her previous work, Detroit is another collaboration with screenwriter Mark Boal, and the two of them bring the same journalistic grittiness to this story about an instance of racially motivated police brutality at the titular city's Algiers hotel in 1967.  That style doesn't lend well to storytelling angles other than fly-on-the-wall observations, which has led to people questioning the benefit of showing such brutality.  However, I think that criticism comes from the mindset of people who are fully aware of the fact that things like this can happen.  For most of America though, this supremely crafted film is necessary and vital.

Music

Amine - Good For You

It feels like now more than ever, all of the up-and-coming rappers sound similar, incorporating a mumbly flow over gooey bass-heavy beats from Metro Boomin or one of his many imitators.  There are some who aggressively go in a contrasting direction, opting for a traditionally bars heavy style that ends up feeling the same as everyone else is doing it too.  A rapper like Amine stands out then, simply by virtue of not sounding like either archetype.  That's not to say that he's wholly original -- his debut album Good For You recalls the bright, playful music of D.R.A.M. and Chance the Rapper -- but it's path unbeaten enough to feel fresh.  He's not the most skilled rapper, but that's almost besides the point.  The entire album is so fun and vibrant, it doesn't even need to be technically proficient.

milo - who told you to think??!!?!?!?!

Milo is another rapper who seems to exists on a completely different trend cycle, maybe even a different plane of reality altogether.  Nothing about his verbose, unconventional style should work in 2017.  He constantly quotes Nietzsche and name checks Nabokov, he rhymes "diaphanous gossamer" with "blasphemous philosopher," and he makes a call to "the last real MCs" at one point.  It's enough to make you recall the days of calculator rap, where underground rappers were overly concerned with how smart and authentic they sounded, but only came off as corny.  But despite that, his new album does work.  He's a gifted rapper, riding warm but sparse beats with an exacting precision.  And all of the philosophical talk is a gateway to some incisive observations about being black and the crushing weight of simply existing.  I was mostly unaware of milo beforehand, but this album has turned me into a total fan.

Television

The Deuce

This series doesn't officially premiere until September 10th, but HBO put the pilot online early, so this is as good of a time as ever to get in some advance stumping for it.  For those not in the know, David Simon is one of the most reliable television creators out there.  The Wire is his unanimous magnum opus, but Treme, Generation Kill, and Show Me a Hero are all excellent across the board as well.  He's back, along with frequent collaborator George Pelecanos, for The Deuce, which tells the story of the birth of the porn industry in 1970s New York.  The pilot itself didn't get anywhere close to that though, instead providing a 90-minute introductory course into the ecosystem that existed beforehand.  Usually, it would be frustrating for a show to take so long before getting to the actual premise, but Simon and Pelecanos are two of the best world-builders in the game.  Together with gorgeous direction from Michelle McLaren, they've given us a heavily textured, fully detailed world already.  I'm beyond excited to see where they go from here.

Miscellaneous

Drama Chameleon: Won't the Real Taylor Swift Please Stand Up? (article)

Let's get this out of the way: I, one of the biggest Taylor Swift fans in the world, hate her new song.  It sucks, the video sucks, the album title and cover sucks, the whole album rollout sucks.  But I read this Stereogum article from Michael Nelson that recontextualizes this whole situation today and I loved it.  I'm not sure I agree with every point it makes, but it made me think.  So few thinkpieces these days actually do that.

John Early dancing

You may know actor/comedian John Early from his appearances on 30 Rock, Broad City, High Maintenance, Search Party, or Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.  But you should know him for his amazing videos posts on Twitter of himself dancing in public.  I don't know why he does it, but I watch them over and over and never stop laughing.  Here's one.  Here's another.

Favorites: July 2017

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed.

Favorites: May 2017

Favorites is a monthly feature that offers up quick thoughts on media, both new and old, that I've recently enjoyed for the first time.

Falling down the strange, brilliant Poppy rabbit hole

Remember lonelygirl15?  If you're around my age, you're probably old enough to be aware of it even if you didn't actively follow it.  For the uninitiated, lonelygirl15 was a popular YouTube channel that started around 2006 as a series of vlogs by a girl named Bree that slowly began to reveal itself to be weirder and weirder, as it gave hints of her family belonging to a cult and fans began noticing some inconsistencies in her videos.  After a few months, the channel was exposed as a hoax, but those months in the dark were a landmark of mid-period internet history, as it was one of the first examples of people collectively obsessing over something the way that we seem to with every TV show and meme that pops up today. Of course, that also represented a pivot for internet culture, the point at which we all became too savvy to ever fall for something like that again.  But we've been graced with what the modern version of that would look like in the form of Poppy.

Here's the rundown for those who aren't aware of this phenomenon: Poppy is the face of the YouTube channel That Poppy, where she posts short videos (usually between 20 and 90 seconds) that feature her doing and saying a collection of bizarre and unsettling things.  In one video, she starts off by saying that she has so many ideas, and begins to list a bunch of random and unconnected phrases.  In another, she wishes she could just disappear and then proceeds to do just that.  These little videos started in late 2014 and many were just weird in a funny and goofy way, but as time has gone on they've gotten darker and are being released at an increasingly frequent rate.  Nobody thinks this is real, but that hasn't stopped people from getting invested in where it's going anyway.

If you were to stumble on one of these videos in isolation, it just feels like a strange piece of internet detritus, the product of some odd girl who has too much time on her hands.  But when taken as a whole, you can see the channel for what it really is: a brilliant, complex satire of social media and celebrity culture.  Though it's never explicitly stated, after a while you can catch what she and co-creator/director Titanic Sinclair are going for.  (Sinclair was also a part of Mars Argo, a less successful pre-Poppy music/video project that was aimed at parodying the same things.  But that's a rabbit hole for another time.)  Many of Poppy's videos are ridiculous spins on what celebrities and Youtubers do: she shills for products, she posts clickbait, she tries to be relatable, she apologizes for making a video in her pajamas even though she still looks glamorous.

But the most common satirical theme of That Poppy is her excessive need for validation, masked by her love of her fans.  The artist-patron relationship is something we usually see as pure and beautiful.  Poppy reimagines that dynamic as something more hollow and sinister, two engines fueling each other but never truly getting anything out of it.  Through her videos, we're allowed a glimpse into "her world," but there's always a computer screen that stands between us.  And though she constantly talks about how much she loves her fans, it's usually paired with the reminder to like and subscribe.  Her channel is a portrait of a young woman trapped, not just by the confines of her monochrome set but in the Sisyphean quest for a satisfying amount of adoration and recognition.

None of what is being said is particularly unique, sure.  Go to any college and you'll find some freshman with a Fight Club poster on his dorm room wall decrying the falseness of fame.  But the style in which Poppy's videos are delivered is what makes them so special.  Like David Lynch meets Dadaism meets terrifying ASMR, the videos often code their real points so deeply that it allows for another layer of just taking in the odd, off-kilter experience.  Their formal techniques include recurring phrases, a spooky organ score, audio that disorients you by being slightly off-sync, and Poppy eerily facing something unknown off to the side of the camera.  Over the course of its run, the channel has built upon that style too, progressing from the pastel colors that characterized the early videos to the washed out white of the more recent ones.  And through those minor shifts, they've been able to tap into so many emotions from such strange angles.  It's weird, funny, disturbing, but most of all, there's a deep underlying sadness to it.

Because of their abstract nature, the videos have become party to an intense amount of fan speculation.  If you look at the comment section of each one, you'll see numerous threads trying to parse what's going on in the video, what it could be trying to say, and how it fits into the larger narrative of the project.  People have theorized that she's a robot, a member of a cult (which she hilariously denied in her most cultish video), and even being controlled by the Illuminati.

Perhaps, then, Poppy is also commenting on the kind of Lost and Westworld wormhole of fan engagement that dominates a large part of the internet.  After all, the pacing of the "narrative" almost seems like a troll itself.  There are times when things feel like they're coming to a head and everything is finally going to go bugnuts insane, only for it to press on the brakes and recede back to its baseline level of disturbing, like last year when she began glitching out and having nosebleeds, only for that thread to seemingly get dropped after a while.  It leaves you to wonder, "Is there any endgame?  Will we be strung along forever"?

It's so fascinating and enticing the lengths to which the project goes to enshroud itself in mystery.  We know almost nothing about Poppy herself -- her real name and life are never discussed, her age is unknown ("Poppy does not identify with an age," she replies when asked), and in all of her interviews and public footage she performs in character.  If you really want to find out her real identity, you can do so through some minor sleuthing, but revealing it here would ruin the fun a little bit.  Poppy is best when she's just Poppy.

One bit of information I buried the lede on -- which just makes all of this even more brain-melting -- is that Poppy has a genuine pop career as an artist signed to Island Records.  And here's the thing...her music is pretty great.  There's nothing particularly innovative about something like her biggest song, "Lowlife", which has the reggae-inflected pop vibe that you'd hear from Gwen Stefani back when she was a thing, but it's the best possible version of that.  And lest you think her talent is just a product of studio processing, there's the video of her singing an acoustic version of her song "Everybody Wants to Be Poppy," which displays just how forceful and magnetic her natural voice is.  But my favorite work of hers is a cover of Mac Demarco's "My Kind of Woman."  It's everything great about Poppy in a nutshell, as she transforms the original version into something that's deeply melancholic and enigmatic.

Does the fact that she's an actual pop artist undercut her YouTube persona, which is all about digging at celebrity culture?  Maybe, but there's evidence that her music is just another arm of this labyrinthine artistic statement.  On the surface this is just your standard catchy pop, but some of the lyrics could be read as a subversive commentary on this type of music as well.  In a certain light, her song "Everybody Wants to Be Poppy" could be about our gradual descent into monogenre, as bands and artists of all creeds bend towards a pop sound.  Then there's "American Kids," which you can see as slyly making fun of people who try to gain cred by showing disdain for and distancing themselves from their own generation.  In many ways, she's reminiscent of how Das Racist made rap exciting in a new way for me around the turn of the decade, as she makes fun of the tropes of pop music while still having enough winking respect for it to churn out a terrific example of the genre.

In fact, Poppy's actual music might be the most brilliant part of this whole endeavor.  She's got the talent and the look to be a bonafide star, but if she didn't have the gimmick of her outre YouTube channel, hardly anybody would even be aware of her (and knowledge of the real person's background lends credence to that theory).  On top of the myriad layers of her existence is the idea that cuts the most: that our culture today often values narrative and so many other distractions over genuine quality.  Are her YouTube videos just an empty viral plot to boost her music career?  If you look at it cynically, you could arrive at this conclusion.  But that doesn't take away from the ideas that it makes us think about.  In the form of That Poppy, she and Titanic Sinclair have created something that could mean everything and nothing at the same time, that could be an important statement or just more fodder for the content disposal machine.  I can't think of anything more 2017 than that.

Favorites: April 2017

Welcome to the debut of this new feature: monthly favorites!  I watch alot of YouTube channels, where the concept of making a video about one's favorite things from the previous month has become ubiquitous, and yet I never thought to apply that concept to this blog until my friend Sarah did a "What I'm Enjoying" post on her blog the other day.  (Shout out to Sarah, who has had to listen to my dumb pop culture thoughts for over a decade.)  So because I'm very unoriginal, I'm copying the rest of the world and hopping on the favorites train.  There is so much art that I've never been able to talk about on this blog because I just don't have enough time, or I can't think up a piece that's expansive enough to post here.  This will be a nice way to get out some quick thoughts about things I like.  Plus, I sometimes find the serious, analytical voice that I apply to this blog a little suffocating, so these will be a pleasant respite where I get to be slightly looser.

Will I be able to do these every month?  We'll see!

The creators of Jules and Monty strike gold again with Pantheon University

Two years ago, I wrote about Jules and Monty, a web series created by Tufts University drama students Ed Rosini and Imogen Browder along with help from many of their friends in the theater department.  Jumping off of the craze at the time of people making YouTube adaptations of literary works, they wrote a modern take on Romeo and Juliet, but set in college and formatted as a series of vlogs.  If you haven't watched it yet, do so immediately because it's an absolute joy and the tragic ending haunted me for at least a week after finishing it.  What awed me the most about Jules and Monty was here were these college students only a year or two younger than me making an adaptation that was better than similar web series with 10 times the budget.  It was enough to make me think, "I'll watch anything these people create until the end of time."

Which is what I did when they released their follow-up the next year, a series called Wave Jacked about a group of students who band together to try to put on an old-time radio play on their college's premiere station.  Rosini, Browder, and their Neat-O Productions group could've tried to keep reliving the magic of Jules and Monty over and over, but this was a refreshing departure in many ways.  For one, it was an original work instead of an adaptation, and it wasn't done in vlog format.  But it was also such an odd, unclassifiable little story, blending gentle comedy with surreal elements with semi-spooky noir.  Judging from the view count for the series, it's not as beloved as Jules and Monty, and I still prefer the latter as well, but it's hard not to be taken by the sprawling charm of Wave Jacked.  There's a unique sense of life in the series, and you can tell it was a personal work for the creators.  (You could almost read the story, which is about a bunch of college kids scraping their resources together to put on a show, as a meta-commentary on Rosini and Browder's creative pursuits.)

Earlier this year they announced Pantheon University, their final project together, as most of the crew involved with producing these series were in their final year of college.  Pantheon would be a return to adaptations in a way, but for this series they were reimagining Greek gods and goddesses, and the myths surrounding them, in a modern college setting.  This time around they seized a different trend, the method of releasing all 13 episodes at once, like many shows that premiere on streaming services.  But they added an extra wrinkle: aside from the finale, the episodes were designed so they could be watched in any order (though there is a recommended sequence, which is how I watched it).  Despite the fact that all of this sounded extremely exciting to me and I loved their previous work, I didn't immediately watch it when it was released in April.  Maybe it's because I knew this was going to be the last series from this group of people and I didn't want to say goodbye.  Maybe it's because I'm horrible at watching things when every episode is presented to me at once.  But either way, the tab stayed on my browser for months while I constantly told myself, "I'll get to it soon."

Well I finally made good on my promise to myself and checked out Pantheon University, and I'm happy to report that it's Neat-O Productions' most complex, intelligent, and creative work yet.  Unlike Romeo and Juliet, there's not one concrete story to Greek mythology, which allows them to pick and choose from an array of characters and tales.  As a result, they're able to get more ambitious and freewheeling with their storytelling.  And that sense of playfulness takes the series to interesting places structurally as well.  The idea that these little short stories can be watched in any order gives Pantheon University a wild, massive feeling.  There are references to events that make more sense a few episodes later, subtle arcs that build in the cracks and corners of the story, and an expanding and shrinking sense of time.  After watching the series all the way through once or twice, you can map out the sequential order of every single thing that happens if you truly want to, but it also works if you think of the show as a fascinating Mobius strip where all the events just occur freely and the timeline bends back on itself.

There's such an astonishing breadth to Pantheon when taken as a whole.  Though there is a throughline to the story, each episode functions so well as its own discrete short story with varying themes and filmmaking styles.  There's an episode that's shot as a simulated unbroken take, a choose-your-own-adventure episode, a mockumentary episode, a musical episode, and so much more.  And they're not just stylistic switch-ups for the sake of stylistic switch-ups -- the form always matches the content for each character.

I'm also impressed by the clever ways in which the series translates these characters to a real-world, modern context.  Some the choices feel like a natural extension of what we know about these gods and goddesses (Zeus is the president of the college's most popular frat, Ares is a hothead), but many of them take an extra step that at once seems fresh and logical (Aphrodite runs a campus hookup site, Hades' underworld takes the form of the university's underground radio station).  Best of all, these stories are able to maintain Greek mythology's overarching theme of gods meddling in the lives of others' because it makes sense that a group of young people in the same social circles would be this invested in what's going on with the people around them.

If you're not an expert on Greek myths, don't fret.  I was a little bit rusty too.  (Though if you're like me, watching these episodes will cause you to read through the Wikipedia pages of each of these gods and goddesses.)  These stories work because they're compelling, not just because they're riffing on ancient myths.  Take the Aphrodite episode for example, which tells the story of her romance with Ares.  In this episode, we're introduced to Cupid's Bow, the algorithm-based hookup site that Aphrodite runs to help her peers find someone to have sex with.  In voiceover narration, she describes the rules she and the site live by: no romance, no repeat matchups, and the use of protection is mandatory.  When she begins using Cupid's Bow for her own purposes, she finds herself increasingly drawn to Ares.  Despite the surface differences between the two of them, along with the ethical gray area of her rigging her own system to get repeatedly matched with the same person, Aphrodite and Ares fit together.  It's a fascinating angle from which to approach this story.  This is a woman who lives by a code, and watching her reckon with something that causes her to question her convictions is really interesting stuff.

Of course, knowing more about these myths enriches the experience.  The Hades episode is perhaps the best example of this.  It's a re-telling of the story of Orpheus' trip to the underworld to save Eurydice, but it also touches upon Hades' relationship with Persephone, mirroring these two sets of separated lovers.  When I first watched it, my foggy memory caused me to not quite register the myth they were tackling with Orpheus, and I still enjoyed the episode.  But on my second viewing, after I familiarized myself with the story again, I absolutely loved it.  In particular, the way that they handle the end of Orpheus and Eurydice's story in a non-supernatural way almost makes it more moving and resonant than the original version.

All of these semi-standalone stories culminate in a satisfying finale that displays an excellent control on the scope of the series, wrapping up every character's arc beautifully.  That cumulative power of the series is really overwhelming once you take a step back and get the full view of this mosaic of complex, soulful little narratives.  Jules and Monty might be Neat-O Productions' most famous work, but Pantheon University should be the one they're most proud of. 

Both Jules and Monty and Wave Jacked had a series of "Vlog Vlog"s, which is what they called their behind-the-scenes production videos, to go along with the actual episodes.  They were funny, entertaining, informative, and in my opinion, essential viewing.  So it makes me a little sad that there aren't any for Pantheon University (although they promised it would happen, so maybe one day? Please???).  It makes me even more sad that this is the last series we will see from Browder, Rosini and the rest of the gang, but what a high note to go out on.

Highlight episodes

1. Dionysus
This episode centers around Dionysus, a director in the drama department, as he struggles to concoct his magnum opus.  A perfect example of form matching content, the installment is told in the style of a musical and it's absolutely delightful.  This is the episode that really made me sit up and recognize the brilliance of the series.  It's incredibly funny, the songs are catchy, but it's also a dreamy, thoughtful rumination on the creative process.  If you watch Pantheon University in the recommended order, then this episode arrives at about halfway through the series, which is the perfect placement for it.  It's the one that has least amount of impact on the overall plot of the story and yet it deftly comments on everything we've seen or will see in the other episodes.  You can tell everyone involved put everything they had into this episode.

2. Hera
In my Jules and Monty review a couple of years ago, I mentioned Imogen Browder's excellent performance as Juliet as the highlight of the series, and she once again delivers as Hera.  She's just an amazing talent, bringing a sense of life and reality to a character who could've been painted in much simpler terms.  This episode depicts the complexities of Zeus and Hera's long-term relationship, tracking their meeting in freshman year all the way up to the events that occur in Zeus' episode in their senior year.  Compressing such a long passage of time allows you to see all the rhythms and phases of long-term coupledom right next to each other, from the initial stages of bliss, to the rough patches, to the sustained sense of comfort.  And it's not just the acting that carries the episode -- there's a skillfulness and subtlety to the writing that shows the way that Hera has been defined by her relationship with Zeus ("I don't know what college is like without him," she says at one point) while still making her a three-dimensional character.

3. Hephaestus
This episode features alot of classic story ideas thrown into a blender together in a way that I've never really seen before.  Part of it is a sci-fi story in the vein of Ex Machina, about man (in this case, computer programmer Hephaestus) pushing science and technology too far (creating an artificial intelligence program and trying to trick others into thinking it's human).  There's also a little bit of something like You've Got Mail as it tells a story about the budding friendship between Hephaestus and Hera.  It's a charming and sweet episode that also has a nice tinge of melancholy to it.

If you only watch one YouTube channel, make it Just Between Us

I think that I've outgrown YouTube.  Just a few years ago, I was an avid visitor of the site -- I was subscribed to like 50 different channels, all of which I watched regularly.  But between having a job, watching TV/movies, listening to music, and writing blog posts that nobody reads, I just don't have time to watch somebody vlog about a bath bomb.  There are still about five channels whose content I'll watch whenever they upload a new video, but it had been years since I felt truly excited about YouTube.  At the ripe age of 24, I inexplicably felt too old for something.

Who knew that all I needed was Just Between Us, a comedy series from writing partners/best friends Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin, to fill me with life?  Somehow, I had never watched a single video of theirs and had only even vaguely knew about the channel until a few weeks ago when Hank and John Green mentioned that they were filming an episode of the show.  That's what finally made me think "Hmm, I know of Gaby Dunn from around the Internet.  Maybe I should check this channel out."  So I watched one video.  And then I watched a few more.  I just couldn't stop watching them, they were too delightful.  In the span of a couple of weeks, I had watched every single episode.

The format of the show is simple: every week they read a relationship/sex/life question submitted by a viewer and attempt to give that person advice, which is only sometimes helpful but always hilarious.  Each episode is loosely scripted, with alot of room left for improvisation.  Within that structure Gaby and Allison play exaggerated versions of their actual selves -- the former's character is a carefree, aggressive feminist and the latter is a neurotic, Type A personality.  When the show first started in 2014, Allison was the straight man to Gaby's antics, but their characters have since evolved to the point where they're both pretty wacky, Allison maybe even more so than Gaby.  Judging from the comments on their videos, people often have trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that JBU is scripted and the women are playing characters.  In a way that's understandable, because the show is so fun that you almost want it to be how they really are.

Plus, the show is at its best when it allows a little bit of reality to come in.  In past videos, Gaby has discussed her polyamory and bisexuality, even sharing the story of how she came out when she was younger.  Even more refreshing is Allison's openness about her lifelong struggle with OCD and other mental health issues.  There's still a stigma that society has against mental illness and it's really inspiring, heroic even, to see Allison's ability to take it seriously while also spinning comedy out of it.  In a weird way, watching her has helped me understand and be less ashamed of my own battle with mental illness.

You can pick whether Gaby or Allison is your favorite, but doing so would be against the point of the show.  Really, Just Between Us is about a beautiful friendship, about two people who form one wonderful comedy powerhouse.  (It's a testament to Gaby and Allison's chemistry that seemingly half of the audience ships them.  Granted, the internet will ship anything, but there's something about JBU that really taps into that impulse).  Watching it will give you that same feeling of watching something like Broad City, where the warmth is just so infectious.  Honestly, I can't think of anything that makes me as happy as this channel does.  There are episodes that I have watched multiple times, and I never rewatch YouTube videos.

Last year, the duo began releasing sketches on Thursdays to go along with their regular Monday advice videos.  These shorts already started out polished, but they keep getting better and better.  Judging from YouTube views, fans seem to favor the sketches too.  I prefer the more candid feel of the advice videos, but really it's a matter of personal preference, since both formats are great displays of Gaby and Allison's talent as writers and performers.

Which makes it such a bummer that the show apparently isn't very financially successful, as Gaby described in her terrific article about the grim economics of YouTube.  In a fair world, Just Between Us would be making five times more money than whatever it's making right now.  Hopefully their Patreon (which I support them on) will get more patrons over time, because this is the best thing on YouTube.


I've compiled a list of some of my favorite Just Between Us videos as a primer for any newcomers.  All 15 of them are advice videos because I love those so much that I couldn't fit any sketches in.  But try some of those out too; you can't go wrong.  Plus, these videos are only about three minutes long, so watching this whole list will take you the same amount of time as watching an episode of TV.

Episodes to get you started:
1. How Important Is Sex?
2. What If Someone Only Wants You For Your Body?
3. Are You A Gaby Or An Allison? (ft. John and Hank Green)
4. What Is Consent?
5. Allison's #dearme Story
6. Why Is Allison Bad At Dating? (Dating With Mental Illness)
7. What Was Your Worst Breakup?
8. Why Is Gaby Prettier Than Allison?
9. Is Anything Real?
10. Do Labels Matter?
11. Can You Date Your BFFs Crush?
12. Which Ex Do You Hate The Most?
13. What If Your Crush Is Taken?
14. How Do I Accept My Small Boobs?
15. Can You Be With One Person Forever?

E. Lockhart's dazzling "We Were Liars" doesn't disappoint

My first foray into E. Lockhart's work was with the Printz Honoree, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, a story about a girl navigating the tricky terrain of her male-dominated, classist boarding school.  It was an excellent example of Lockhart's skill at developing a compelling protagonist (one of the great female leads of the last 15 years, in my opinion), incorporating thoughtful themes, and taking big storytelling risks.  What appealed to me the most, however, was its boarding school setting.  There's something about the idea of a boarding school that allows great young adult storytelling possibility, and many of my favorite books of all time -- Looking For Alaska, Harry Potter, etc. -- make use of them as a setting.

Her new novel, the mysterious We Were Liars, tells the tale of the Sinclairs, a rich family who spends each summer together on a private island near Cape Cod.  The story's told from the perspective of Cadence, the oldest grandchild in the family, and the main focus is on her and her cousins Johnny and Mirren, along with family friend Gat.  Because they're all a few months apart in age, they've formed a closed bond (the rest of the family calls them the "Liars"), even though they only see each other during the summer.  In a way, We Were Liars adapts elements from the boarding school narrative to a non-boarding school setting.  It's got teenagers left to their own devices, since even though their parents and grandparents also live spend the summer with them, the island is so big that the four Liars generally just hang out with each other and nobody else.  It's also got a contained location, but instead of a boarding school, the island is the setting where all the action takes place.  Location is so important that there's even a map of the island, which gives you the layout of all the different manors and their spatial relation to one another, at the beginning of the book.

There's no denying that We Were Liars gets off to a slow start.  Because there is so much history involved with the Sinclair family, whose ranks stretch past a dozen, the beginning chapters have to deal with a hefty helping of exposition.  The timeline skips around too: since the Liars only see each other over the summer, the story elides over many months to get back to the period they spend together.  It's an understandable move, but one that makes opening chapters woefully bereft.  None of the novel's many characters are able to make much of a mark, since those early stages get swallowed up in the budding infatuation between Cadence and Gat.  It's pretty standard stuff too, as far as teen romance goes.  Eventually, it begins to seem like the book is just about privileged white people and their boring problems.

Things don't really settle down and become intriguing until the "Summer Seventeen" section, where the story finally slows down.  The four Liars come into sharp focus and become interesting characters (all with unique voices), a welcome change from the beginning of the novel.  Lockhart once again proves that she's adept at writing fascinating, complex female characters, because Mirren and Cadence particularly shine.  You can see much of Frankie Landau Banks's DNA in Cadence, whose fiery, no-nonsense mindset makes her interesting to follow as she sorts through the mystery of what's going on.  Mirren, on the other hand, has an aloof personality that masks a delightful, biting wit.  Most of the novel's best lines come from her mouth.

By the time story starts ramping up, it becomes very clear that Lockhart is interested in interrogating the very same kind of privilege that I complained about in the first few parts of the novel.  It's hard to express the joys of We Were Liars without spoiling the plot, but it's best to go into the book knowing as little as possible.  With that being said, the final act of the book brings everything together in a way that's breathlessly paced, shocking, and emotionally rich.  With We Were Liars, E. Lockhart has crafted an intelligent, haunting novel that will linger in consciences long after the last page is turned.

Jules and Monty brilliantly translates Shakespeare to a modern context

In the summer before I went to college, I became obsessed with this web series called Dorm Life.  It was sort of like The Office, except it took place on the floor of a freshman dorm instead of a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  I loved its homespun quality -- it was just a group of friends at UCLA coming together to make a little show.  It didn't have the budget of a TV show, so it took the fly-on-the-wall feeling and strong character development of mockumentary TV and condensed it into small bites of comedy.  Though it's been gone for a long time, I somehow still find myself thinking about it, and when I look back on my recently finished college experience, I become disappointed that I didn't build the kind of relationships that I loved in Dorm Life.

That series was an example of adapting a TV format to a strictly internet-based medium, but in recent years, web series have evolved enough to create shows that take on a format wholly unique to the internet: vlogs.  It has seen a recent explosion thanks in part to the Hank Green produced smash hit, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and its spiritual successor, Emma Approved.  Those two series were notable because they were able to adapt classic works of literature -- Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Emma, respectively -- and transform them into a YouTube-friendly vlogging style.  Now there are tons of these kind of stories out there, and you can't go too far on YouTube without finding a modern version of War and Peace or something.

But the format has reached its peak with Jules and Monty, which recently ended its 18-episode narrative about a month ago.  Jules and Monty feels like a mixture of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Dorm Life.  It takes from the former in that it adapts a famous piece of literature -- Romeo and Juliet -- and from the latter by making its modern setting college.  The Italian city of Verona has become the University of Verona, a northeastern college with a toxic frat culture. Consequently, the warring families of Capulet and Montague are now rival fraternities, KAP and MTG.  The series tells the tale of Jules Caine, the younger sister of Cliff (their version of Lord Capulet), the leader of the KAP fraternity; and Romeo Montgomery (but everyone calls him Monty), a lower-level member of MTG.  Through a sequence of alternating vlogs for their Communications class, we see the process of them meeting and getting together, and the tragedy that ultimately ensues when their respective alliances are tested.

Jules and Monty was written and created by Imogen Browder and Edward Rosini, two theater students at Tufts University, during their sophomore year.  The idea came about as sort of a surprise, as Imogen messaged Ed in the previous year and said that she wanted to do a web series, and the two of them proceeded to script out an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet over the course of a summer via Facebook messages and Google Docs.  It was then filmed with the help of their friends in the theater program and the university production department during the fall semester of 2013.  But despite the shoestring budget and tiny crew, it doesn't look like a web series made by a group of college students.  The amount of passion put into the project shines through, because the whole thing feels incredibly polished and professional.

Imogen Browder and Edward Rosini also take on the lead roles of Jules and Monty, and reveal themselves to be capable actors in the process.  Browder is especially talented, possessing a screen presence and vulnerability that's as engaging as any actress playing Juliet that I've ever seen.  Whenever she's in a scene, it's hard not to be absolutely hypnotized by her incredible performance.  She takes Juliet, a character who could be seen as weak and lacking in agency in the source material, and turns her into the heart and soul of the entire story.  Just look at the way she nails one of the play's iconic passages.

Though its one of the most widely taught of Shakespeare's plays in middle and high school, Romeo and Juliet has its fair share of detractors.  There are some who find its story of two teenagers who fall in love over the course of a few days to be juvenile and shallow.  On the other side of the spectrum, there are others who consider Shakespeare's satirical look at young love kind of mean-spirited and cynical.  Jules and Monty being created by and focused on college students allows it to fall into an interesting middle ground.  They're old enough to recognize that the feelings these characters have aren't the end-all-be-all in the grand scheme of things, but young enough to still make the romance full of weight and sincerity.  This series strips away the original play's melodrama and grounds it in a sense of reality that seems to ask, "What would it be like if this happened to real people"?

The college setting helps sell the idea of these characters clashing with each other because of their constant proximity, and how drunkenness fuels many of their decisions.  But it also really understands the dynamics of the tight-knit friendships that develop at this age, especially through Jules and her best friend/roommate, Nancy.  The latter might be one of the greatest creations of the series, and is certainly the most original.  She's a riff on The Nurse, but gets transformed from the insubstantial character she is in Shakespeare's original play into what is essentially the story's third lead.  From the very first episode that we see her in, you get a good sense of her friendship with Jules, and how her more outgoing boldness compliments Juliet's sweet reservation.  All she wants is what she thinks is the best for Jules, and her arc, which results from that single motivation, is fascinating.  That the writers (and Evey Reidy, who plays her) are willing to make a character who could've merely been a minor player into a fully-formed human being just makes the series even more impressive.

One of the other things that makes it so accessible is its use of language.  Unlike many present day adaptations of classic literature, Jules and Monty actually incorporates bits and pieces of Shakespeare's dialogue within the modern speech.  The switch is very deliberate too -- characters usually lapse into heightened language during moments of passion or inebriation.  It emphasizes the emotions of each scene, but it also helps to make The Bard's oft-daunting writing more accessible, providing context by slotting it between chunks of regular college vernacular.

*Plot details for the end of Jules and Monty follow.  Skip the next two paragraphs to remain unspoiled*

The most notable and intelligent thing about the series is how it adapts the ending.  Monty gets expelled and has to move back home after an altercation with Tye (Tybalt) puts the latter in the hospital.  Then Nancy -- out of a desire to end the violence between MTG and KAP, and help Jules move on -- forges a letter from Monty that makes Jules believe he's broken up with her, then convinces Jules to block him on her phone and every form of social media.  With Monty out of her life, Jules falls into a deep depression, which causes her grades to drop.  Eventually Professor Lawrence (The Friar) advises her to transfer to another school in order to escape the bad memories and her abusive brother.  Monty makes a last ditch effort to try to win Jules back, but he sees her empty room when he returns to Verona, and assumes that she's already left.

So Jules and Monty doesn't end with a double suicide, just a missed connection.  By removing death from their misfortune of communication, it lowers the scale of the play's conclusion, but somehow makes its tragedy more crushing and real.  In the play, Romeo and Juliet die, convinced of each other's love at the very least.  In the web series, the pain and uncertainty lives on.  Jules moves away, never knowing that Monty still wants to be with her; and Monty never knows that if he would've just arrived a few seconds earlier or stayed a few seconds longer, then he would've seen Jules again.  Their lives will continue.  They will likely fall in love with other people.  But there will always be the ache of that "What if?" factor.  In retooling the ending, the series managed to perfectly capture the process of growing up and growing apart that many college students go through.  It's a devastating way to go out.

*End of spoilers*

A show like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries took full advantage of YouTube as a medium by having multiple side channels where you could see what characters like Lydia, Gigi, and Darcy were up to when they left Lizzie's orbit.  Those videos almost feel essential to getting the entire experience.  Jules and Monty plays out all in one main story, but the experience becomes so much richer if you watch the behind-the-scenes videos in between each episode, called "Vlog Vlog"s.  Just as you'll become endeared to the characters in the actual story, you'll also start to fall in love with the funny, affable people making the show.  Through these crew interviews and production vlogs, you get to see the process of a group of people coming together contrasted with the series they're making: a story about a group of people falling apart.  It makes for an interesting, engrossing binge-watching process.  

Most of all, I'm just in awe of the fact that a web series so smart and thoughtful could be made by people my age.  It seems like the crew wants the experience to last as much as the fans do, because even though the main story has concluded, the channel has been releasing weekly director's commentaries and extra behind-the-scenes videos.  Eventually it'll come to an end, which makes me sad, but Imogen and Ed have alluded to having another project in the works, and I anxiously await whatever it is.  Jules and Monty fills me with the same mouth-frothing, I-want-to-tell-everybody-I-know-about-this enthusiasm that I felt when I started watching Vlogbrothers videos, or discovered Five Awesome Girls, or binged on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time.  I wish I was important enough for this blog post to give it the kind of audience it deserves, but for now I'll settle for tossing this praise out into the void and hoping it reaches whomever it can.  Start with episode one, I promise you'll be hooked.