She Stars on My War til I Rogue One

Hey, Team.

I’ve watched the latest Superman trailer– or rather the 00:51 mark of the latest Superman trailer, no less than 30 times. There’s something about his face smashed into a crater of asphalt as his eyes roll in a wild frenzy to catch sight of his assailant. I want to spit in Superman’s mouth! Feels right!

Here’s what’s on the docket:

Andor

That’s a wrap on a stunning piece of story telling that is somehow a prequel to a deeply mid movie! Can we get some noise going in the chat for Latinos In Space!!!!

Our cast of characters and their respective fate is tailored to their own political leanings, which I enjoyed reflecting on. The fascists and imperialists, selfish and short sighted, brutal arbiters of instant gratification who only ever smash down obstacles and build shoddy one-use fortresses of ego. The imperialists, ever driven by the immediate, are gripped by the scruff and their noses pressed into the filth they made. They must watch their failures unfold before they are snuffed out. There is no one high-ranking enough to avoid it, hell, even Darth Vader ends up tossed on his ass. Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser), someone who has operated as a Machiavellian orchestrator of the empire’s cloak and dagger exploits, does the only thing these pigs do when put in a corner. A panic over his failure to live up to the ever shifting standards of the Emperor grips him and he is forced to recognize his efforts were all for naught in the face of a galaxy-wide rebellion. He holes up in the war room, locks the doors, and commits suicide.

Syril, (Kyle Soller) the once-pristine cog,¹ stumbles through the destruction and violence of a manufactured uprising, his eyes wild in horror that he had a part in this massacre. Even so, he is incapable of fully accepting the humiliation of his being made into a patsy by his quasi-maternal lover Dedra Meero (Denise Gough). Amid the chaos, he sights Cassian (Diego Luna) and throws himself into a violent tussle. He deals a brutal beating to the insurgent that has haunted his career; to Syril and Meero, Andor is the focus of their obsession and fury, someone whose face is burned in their minds. As Syril steadies himself to deliver the killing blow, his bruised, exhausted and visibly confused nemesis asks, “Who are you?” The question hovers in the air just before blaster fire pierces Syril’s skull. This is the hardest question he’s ever been asked. Who is Syril? He has unknowingly become someone straddling the fence; an eager servant of the system who is sympathetic to the plight of the people his precious empire is crushing. He has spent his days fretting, openly expressing outrage at policy that offers no constructive benefit, wobbling with his arms out for balance as he tries to navigate a narrow and treacherous path. And then, after all this work, all his efforts, all his attempts at imperial heroism, what greets him is only the degradation that he is still just an anonymous, disposable piece in an unfeeling machine. “Who are you?” It is his final indignity. His body drops and he is left without ceremony or care. He’s just the corpse among many, quickly forgotten in the fracas.

As for the reigning queen of perpetually swallowing back a teaspoon of bile, Dedra Meero, she simply white woman’ed too close to the fascist sun. She ended up exactly where those that align themselves with such powers do: humiliated, punished, brutally reminded they are but a gear that will be ground until it breaks. She truly believed her work for the empire would be rewarded. She truly thought that she was safe within the inner circle. She willingly blinded herself to the truth that unless someone is completely like the ruling class, no one is safe within such a power structure. She was successful in her task, but the way she achieved it was via a leak in information, something which is humiliating to the empire. It does not matter what dead animal she dropped on their doorstep as a gift, they are furious that she was able to find animals to kill at all. In logic that is backwards to all but those who fall in with the short sighted preening of an inherently individualistic government, they do not eliminate the problem (leaks), but rather focus on the humiliation (someone used the leaks). Obviously they will eliminate the person who uses the leak, calling it tying up loose ends, when really they’re punishing someone for being better at doing her job than they are. She finds herself stiff with anguish in a labor prison much like the one Cassian once found himself trapped in. I feel no sympathy for Dedra Meero. She earned her keep.

As for the antifascists and rebels, they accept their fate as but one step in a long winding path to progress, they will most likely never see the crops growing from the seeds they plant, but they have faith it will protect and nourish generations to come. They will not simply throw together materials and call it a house, they must carefully construct something that will last far beyond their own lives. And so, the rebels who perish go out with faith that it will not be in vain, they have no idea if it was worth it or not, so those that live owe it to the fallen to make it so.

Papa (Stellan) Skarsgård, you’ve delivered another banger, baby! A former sergeant of a death squad, Luthen Rael spends his final years embodying the radical acceptance that the future is not his. A selfless credo that would take anyone by surprise if they weren’t paying attention. This “anyone” apparently includes the entire rebel base Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and Bail Organa (Benjamin Bratt) have made base of operations. Whatever. Luthen and his adopted daughter Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) hauled serious ass to provide intel– dirtying their hands with near abandon. Their blood, sweat, and terror is an investment in a future inhabited by strangers who will have the privilege of being unsoiled by such dire compromise. Strangers that may never know how much they sacrificed, let alone who they were. To this duo, this is a fair exchange.

This season’s final trio of episodes made a feast out of visual morsels. An envoy of storm troopers is depicted in amputated snatches. The grime building in the grooves of armor, the even stitching on a cap, the absentminded tapping of boots. It’s hard to tell what piece belongs to whom; these men are the faceless mass. They’re all the same boot, they’re all the same filthy breastplate, their individuality was forfeit once they became the fist of a fascist regime. They are meat for the grinder, their bodies serve no purpose but to give and receive death. The manufactured uprising on Ghor was the first taste of this– troops deployed expressly for the purpose of having their bodies pile up before news cameras. The body only exists as a disposable tool under the empire. The flesh exists to be torn. A reality Heert (Jacob James Jeswyck) meets chest-first when K-2S0 uses his limp corpse to absorb blaster fire, his head lolling against his frail shoulder before being chucked aside like a crumpled and greasy burger wrapper. For all his posturing and climbing, he was, like Meero, just a body. Just a thing to use then dispose. His death will not be mourned, it will only be marked as a casualty and logged as a small setback in the pursuit of Cassian Andor. At most there might be a vague disappointment that his dying means he can't also be placed in a labor camp. There are no heroes in fascism. Strength through unity is a facade for the truth: all are unified to serve at the pleasure of one. A bundle of sticks to be snapped and burnt on a whim. There is not a whisper of protection, loyalty counts for nothing, all are simply providing brute strength for a lone figure that’s whipped the masses into a loyalist frenzy.

I have complicated feelings about Bix. Let’s acknowledge right away that Adria Arjona is the most beautiful woman in the world. Moving on. There is a gap in the story that is distinctly Bix-shaped. The second season introduces a Bix who’s dreams and waking hours are blended by the horror of her torture and memories of death dealt by her partner, Cassian. Her grip on reality is the shimmering air over hot asphalt. Even so, she grits her teeth and forces herself forward. But then the fallout of her assault directly led to her drifting purposeless, opiate-clouded and alone, utterly cloistered in a Coruscant safehouse. I’d hoped to see her wrestling with trauma while still working to achieve the rebellion she’s devoted to. So devoted she abandons the father of her unborn child in a last-ditch effort to keep him true to the path. I’d hoped to see her on missions, squeezing her eyes to blur the memories of torture and the fetid grip of men who believe themselves entitled to her flesh. Her fingers trembling as she destroys envoys, her eyes skipping frantically about her surroundings as she slips amongst the ranks of the privileged to sow seeds of rebellion. Her body clenched, sweatily white-knuckling through every task,²² this could have been an engaging parallel to Cassian’s own missions where he charms and controls every room. His only fumbles seem to be the result of being Too Competent Sometimes. Alas, instead she burns her letters and erases herself from the narrative. A small saving grace is her gentle smile to the horizon as the waist high grain surrounding her bends in the breeze. She cradles her infant, literally bearing hope for the rebellion’s success. If audiences can take anything from Andor, let it be that the whole point of building a better world is not for us to enjoy it, but rather to bolster the hope that someone down the line will live to see the fruits of our labor.

And just for fun: Welcome back, Alan Tudyk! King of the charismatic robots! K-2SO you sonuvabitch. I love you, big guy. K-2SO is immediately noticeable long before he is shattered and rebuilt by the rebels. He sits with his squadron, utterly still, until Syril steps in. The droid leans forward, openly curious, his illuminated eyes flick up and down to take in the man. It’s as if K-2SO recognizes a fellow automaton. Andor presents a very exciting approach to androids and how they are as individuals: it’s not programming, it’s impulse control. This suggests that all androids are unique lifeforms, they are more than machinery for completing tasks, they have goals, feelings, fears, affection. This is not totally unheard of in the Star Wars universe, there’s an abolitionist droid who, infuriatingly, becomes the satnav in the Falcon, R2 and 3P0 are two distinct personalities, the droids on homesteads are like curious children. This offers a facet to the rebellion that would be served by investigation: where do droids fall in the hierarchy? Is their autonomy ever truly considered by the rebels, who themselves identify as individuals forced to be unwilling parts of a brutal machine? Would they ever acknowledge that in general they treat droids the way the empire has treated them? Fun to think about! I want to watch trash reality tv with K-2!

The Rehearsal, season 2 episode 4: “Kissme”

Hey, I've never screamed so much while watching television! I’m still processing.

Thank you all who checked in on me. Yes, the announcement of Anemone did send me into a towering rage. Yes, I do need to find, grab, and shake Daniel Day-Lewis until he admits he has never actually gone into retirement. His voice catching and skipping with the movement, I need to hear the words “I’m actually just very selective about what I perform in, but for some reason am compelled to project a bullshit air of mystery to it. As if being highly selective isn’t a giant fucking neon sign reading ELUSIVE & HARD TO IMPRESS so bright all apartments on the block are forced to invest in blackout curtains.” What do you mean you’re coming out of retirement? The Phantom Thread only left theaters last week³.³ You’re coming out of retirement– I’m coming out of hiding and am headed to your home address. Disney’s first gay character antics is what your retirement is. I’m coming out of retirement to be in my son’s movie. I’m in your walls.

The nepotism, something considered a massive professional faux pas in many circles, is an added layer of blistering on my ankles as the flesh chafes along the hard ridge of these freshly resoled brogues. There's the brand value of operating under your famous father’s name– Cronenberg, Depp, Day-Lewis, Hawke, etc. All with varying levels of notoriety bundling the child up and providing a spectrum of renown and opportunity. All with varying levels of talent to back up the name. Cronenberg absolutely receives massive passes for his swings at nu-horror cinema courtesy of global love for his father. Maya Hawke has been banking (openly or not) on the indie cred of her father, careful to omit the Hollywood, Tarantino, Producers Remake-Only-I-Liked-Apparently, star-blast of her mother Uma. It’s an interesting tight rope she walks. Don’t talk to me about Depp. She wowed me in Nosferatu, but the intentional blindness to her privilege of name in two (!!) continents drives me up the wall.⁴

This might seem like a random aside but it’s not for nothing that both of M Night Shyamalan’s daughters are nepo creatives. Their name has notoriety in a “aw geez there’s more of him???” kind of way. It’s less of a door being opened and more of an eye peeking through the crack of a deadbolt while they ask to be let in from the cold. His daughter Ishana has an almost apprenticeship-like experience with film. She and her sister were raised around and within it, but with an interesting quirk: their father bankrolls all his work. These are projects with very real very immediate impact on their livelihoods, these are creations that require work before, during and after. Yeah they’re schlocky and can be kind of stupid but you have to admire the hustle. His daughters have been raised and trained under this approach to creativity. Ishana has been working on multiple sets in various roles and departments for years, learning the trade. Gaining experience and connections and earning the right to take her first steps out of her instructor’s shadow and create work of her own. Like a stonemason, like a tailor, like… hm… a cobbler.

I’ve no idea what SonDay-Lewis’s debut will entail but I do know there’s nobody else in the business with that double barrel surname but his alleged retiree for a father. First of all, good for Ronan making a feature film. His previous credits are directing a short film and a music video. A feature is a big leap, a lot of work, a lot of time, and this will surely be a monumental experience for the young artist. But I’m eternally pissed at his dad, so…

The halo effect of associating him with the celebrated actor offers an immediate belief of artist merit, if he’s Daniel’s boy, certainly he must also be one driven by passion, a selectiveness, a full devotion to The Work. Surely he’ll only make bangers. And just like D-Day Lew not stopping at “I’m picky about what I attach my name to” and needing to add a “I must be coaxed out of retirement by something that truly intrigues me; truly sets my artist’s heart ablaze,” a double barrel of marketing: it coaxed Daniel Day-Lewis out of “retirement” to be in his son’s work. Clearly, it must be something special.

Total aside but this whole time I actually thought Daniel Day-Lewis was Irish. So I’d been offering some leniency in my ire, a sort of friends and family discount. He is not.⁵ All bets are off. Cooked. I’m flying coach to Italy. I've packed only gasoline and a book of matches; I don’t plan to survive the blaze of his cobbler shop.

Gavin Newsom has just about announced a presidential bid for 2028, something we all knew he was fixing to do. He hates homeless people, he is a shithead about trans people, he wants to massively deplete healthcare for immigrants, he’s a grifting piece of shit. “I’ve been, always, a hard headed pragmatist.” he says. Sure. Okay.

This video by YouTuber withcindy is a horrifying deepdive into booktok bleeding into real life and the people in charge that let it happen! You know how corporations run quirky social media accounts to pretend their brands are people? This is corporations running quirky social media accounts to pretend their people are brands. Essentially, a hockey team provided the tools for coordinated sexual harassment of their players and it led to a massive online fallout.

With the exception of Kendall, all KarJenner spawn has had a spinoff show for the express purpose of saturating the public consciousness with the greater family brand. Kylie’s short-lived program was dire, and not because of weak storylines.

This list of birthday lessons by Taylor Swift is sweet until you hit the part where she carries an army grade bandage dressing kit because it is a reality of her fame that she may be attacked by a stranger who believes she owes them her body.

Why is Gen Z getting more Christian? I’d argue it’s a need for community (hello rapidly vanishing third places), a desire for structure (in a world that is infinite choice, infinite sensation, the choice paralysis could only ever lead to wanting someone to tell you what to say think eat wear), following trendy aesthetics (catholiccore on tiktok and pinterest), and seeking places that are analogue and “real” (book clubs, sporting events, cocktail parties, physical places are becoming highly valued to younger generations, although some do still exist for the purpose of later being posted as “authentic” content).

The Standard: Inside London’s hipster church scene, where Gen Z is finding God

Dazed Digital: Trump and the changing face of America’s young evangelicals

The New York Times: America Wants A God

Vox: Gen Z is finding religion. Why?

Speaking of fascism and the seductive call of unity and a rigid rule of law, this young woman interviewed in Dazed Digital’s article about the political divides of older and younger Gen Z said something bone chilling: “I don’t agree with a lot of things that the right says, but at least they are answering this call to people on what younger Gen Z feels like,” says Nivriti. “We’re the most fortunate generation in terms of freedom of possibilities, but we don’t know what to do with our freedoms; we need structure and the right has structure that the left doesn’t currently have.”

A former liberal, she complains about the Democrats only ever speaking in terms of existential crisis, messaging that made her feel as if she had no control over her life. A reader may balk at the inconsistency of desiring control over oneself leading to seeking a party that openly plans to remove all autonomy from its constituents. I assume the same shock is afforded to women who voted for Trump, Latinos that side with hardline xenophobic and racist border policies. It is the simultaneous desire for proximity to power whilst surrendering responsibility (and by extension accountability) for oneself and one’s actions. There is a type of mind that yearns to say “I’m just following orders.” I hesitate to write it off wholesale as a result of

immediately followed by a political party that made it policy to pretend the pandemic was

But… it certainly didn’t help. Zero faith in the competency one party that markets itself as “less likely to intentionally kill you”⁶ combined with atrophied empathy and critical thinking (thanks a bunch, ChatGPT) isn’t exactly a smoking gun. But it’s certainly got a barrel, a trigger, and there’s a metallic tang of burnt potassium nitrate and sulfur haunting the air.

…and I’m literally always saying that!!

Okay, that’s all for now, Team. Talk soon (threat)!