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People had been telling me to watch this movie for years, I finally gave it a shot and it’s mindblowing. The film is a total artwork that takes place in an interior landscape of the human soul, called “The Zone”, with deeply felt apocalyptic evocations of Christianity. Tarkovsky provides us with aesthetic mastery of all the filmmaking elements, from set-designs both naturalistic and sculptural, breathtaking cinematography, deely psychedelic music, and brilliant portrayals of raw human emotion. With all these filmmaking elements in place, he conducts them all like it’s a Beethoven symphony. This film might contain the most aesthetic merit of any movie I’ve ever seen. Another thing is that the movie actually killed them to make it - some of the cast and crew including Tarkovsky and his wife were poisoned while filming scenes on a river near a chemical plant, and they died as a result. Essential viewing!
Nov 2, 2022
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The best $25 I spend every month. Literally pays for itself if you see one movie
plus if I see a bad movie I don’t feel like I wasted money
Jan 30, 2024
I recently watched The Monkey for free at Chicago's Music Box Theatre — and even stuck around for Perkin's Q&A session. I have to say, it was the best movie-going experience I've ever had. An organist played the score with diabolical cymbals in the background — come on! And the movie was hilarious and equal parts gory!
Feb 11, 2025
Staying at the Roxy in NY (formerly the Tribeca Grand) is akin to being on an elegant cruise in Manhattan. It’s my home away from home in the city. Everything is there: from live jazz in the massive atrium lobby with the glass elevator zipping up and down and the divine food and drinks (I recommend the lobster roll and a mescal cocktail) in recessed leather booths shaped like teacups, to the gorgeous red velvet theater below - which offers the best films on screen in Manhattan - curated by the brilliant Illyse Singer. After attending a killer film and fascinating Q&A, retreat to the Django, the speakeasy next door, which stays open til 4AM and is often where the hottest underground music acts play… What else could you ask for?
Jan 16, 2025
Top Recs from @adam-green
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I started collecting perfumes on the tour for my “Aladdin” movie in 2016, my bandmate was an amateur perfumer and his passion for aromatic materials was infectious. Studying scent unlocked an entire dimension of sensory experiences I had been ignoring. I realized that perfumers were trying to communicate with us, the raw materials had developed symbolic meanings over thousands of years, and could be used in combination to create very specific artworks. I began to see perfumes as snowglobes that carry information as a landscape, that there’s a lot of encoded information in them. Collecting them became an adventure, walking around the city realizing every city block had stores with samples of these precious artworks. I even started to obtain vintage bottles of perfume from 30, 50, even 80 years ago that still smelled great, and I began to understand in more depth how people used to smell and why. I recently wrote an epic perfume adventure book that I hope to put out soon.
Nov 2, 2022
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Lots of people love Alejandro Jodorowsky’s psychedelic movies like El Topo and The Holy Mountain, there is even a documentary about his famously unmade Dune movie. What people don’t seem to realize though, is that for the last 40 years, Jodorowsky’s been authoring numerous graphic novels that comprise 20+ other movies he would have probably made if he’d had the budget for them - and they are all fully fleshed out in comic book form! For example if you are mourning the fact you will never see Jodorowsky’s Dune, now realize that he put those ideas into a comic book series called The Metabarons. If you are wondering what happens after El Topo, know that there is a graphic novel sequel he recently released called Sons of El Topo. A series, Techno Priests, is like Jodorwosky’s Star Wars. In fact, his graphic novel with Moebius called The Incal was so good that Luc Besson ripped it off to make The Fifth Element. If you are willing to read the comics, you’ll experience Jodorowsky quietly creating a universe of Miyazaki-level creativity. Inspiring is an understatement!
Nov 2, 2022
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I bought Beck’s Mutations album the day it came out, and I loved how Beck collected so many concepts on that record. After listening to it, I made the decision to write down all the ideas in my head, so I started carrying a pocket notebook. It’s been 24 years since then and I still write in one every day. Beck changed my standard of what a modern songwriter could or should be doing. I came from the indie-rock mentality where everything was sort of homespun and amateurish, Mutations made me realize that a contemporary artist could make a record at the level of Bowie, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen.
Nov 2, 2022