4 Favorites: July 2024
'Dark Matter,' 'Horizon,' 'Star Wars,' and Sturgill
Welcome back to the 4 Favorites series!
Didn’t get around to watching a lot of new movies this past month. July was a good month for rewatches and for watching “Lost” for the first time since it aired (I’ll probably write about that more in September. We have to go back!). So this newsletter will focus on some movies, some TV, and a book and an album that I enjoed last month.
I combined all of my month’s writings into some previous newsletters, but if you missed those, here they are:
But now, as Vin Diesel says … THE MOVIES:
“Dark Matter” (The TV show and the book)
Apple TV+ makes some really great shows, but unless those shows are “Ted Lasso” or “Severance,” they don’t get any ad money.
Case in point: “Dark Matter.” This adaptation of Blake Crouch’s bestselling 2016 novel about a physicist who gets a chance to experience what his life would be like if he made a couple of different decisions a decade ago is a fun ride, even if the book is more propulsive. I started reading the book after one episode and finished it in a day. I’m still not done with the show, but at halfway through the season, I like what I’m seeing. (Plus, it co-stars my queen Jennifer Connelly, which can’t hurt.)
The audience is ahead of Jason (Joel Edgerton) for most of the first episode. It takes a while for the show to match the book’s frenetic energy, but once it does, it’s off to the races. The multiverse story somehow feels fresh, even though the book is 8 years old and we now live in a pop culture world awash with variants and Deadpools and Wolverines. Think of it as a messed-up, sci-fi version of “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
Show available to stream on Apple TV+; book available wherever you buy books (like Bookshop — or the library, which is what I did).
“Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1”
Kevin Costner’s latest Western directorial effort is a huge gamble. “Horizon: An American Saga” is a four-part film series about how the West was settled during the Civil War.
The first part, out now, clocks in at a little over 3 hours long. It doesn’t wrap up any of its several plot threads; in fact, Costner keeps introducing characters and conflicts right up until the final 5 minutes before playing a sizzle reel for the rest of the series. This is clearly a fourth of a movie.
The second part, set to be released in August, will now debut at the Venice Film Festival in September after Part 1 lost so much money that Warners pulled Part 2 from its release schedule. Costner ponied up a lot of his own money for this series, and left “Yellowstone” because of “Horizon” filming conflicts. He’s said he will try and make his money back the old-school way, via licensing rights, streaming and VOD/physical media sales. Hopefully it works, because “Horizon” is a singular, if confounding, work.
I am fascinated and baffled by this movie at the same time. I was entertained throughout but can’t recall anyone’s names. The plot threads all kind of connect thematically but awkwardly jut up against one another otherwise. Maybe it should have been a miniseries (I thought of “Lonesome Dove” a lot while watching this).
But Costner clearly loves the Western genre so much and shoots those wide open vistas so warmly, and is so confident about what he’s doing, that I can’t help but be on board for what’s next.
There’s a shot about midway through the movie that I’ve been thinking about off and on ever since I saw it. Costner shoots a man dead in a duel outside a house, and the shootout takes place entirely in the reflection of water in a feeding trough. It’s those kinds of flourishes that make this movie interesting. Will it stick the narrative landing three movies from now? I hope so.
In theaters now and also available to rent or purchase on VOD.
New ‘Star Wars’ stuff
I’ve been kind of down on Star Wars lately. “Andor,” the first season of “The Mandalorian,” and some new animated shows (“Clone Wars” season 7, “Tales of the Jedi”/Tales of the Empire,” “Bad Batch”) are the only things from the new Disney+ era that I’ve really enjoyed.
On the whole, I feel like Disney Star Wars has gone the way of the late-stage MCU — too self-referential for its own sake, too afraid to do anything that will rock the boat, and too unsure of who its audience is (a de-aged Mark Hamill magically showing up as Luke Skywalker at the end of Season 2 of “The Mandalorian” reeked of trying to desperately appeal to man-children instead of the younger kids the show was supposedly made for).
Enter: “The Acolyte” and “The Living Force.”
“The Acolyte” isn’t without the usual Disney+ problems. The season is too short, whole episodes go by where nothing big happens, and the dialogue is stitled at times. But there is a ton of Jedi lore nerdery, some awesome kung-fu lightsaber fighting and an overall fun plot that doesn’t have anything to do with the Skywalker Saga, since this takes place hundreds of years before the prequels. I had fun with it, which is more than I can say for some of the rest of the latest crop of Star Wars shows.
“The Living Force,” on the other hand, is closer to the Skywalker Saga, but not by much. John Jackson Miller’s new book takes place in the few years leading up to the events of “The Phantom Menace” and features Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi as supporting characters.
But the plot doesn’t revolve around Anakin — this book is all about how the members of the Jedi Council have become too far removed from the people they serve. Qui-Gon issues a challenge to each of his fellow Jedi: Find one person, and help that one person. Doing so will have the same effect as changing the galaxy.
The resulting book is a great hangout story with an action B-plot, featuring a lot of minor Jedi that we’ve only seen in passing before. It’s a fun read simply because it lets you just spend time in this world without the threat of a cataclysmic event on the horizon (although Palpatine is scheming and waiting in the wings).
More Star Wars like this, please.
“The Acolyte” is available to stream on Disney+; “The Living Force” is available wherever you buy books (like Bookshop — or the library, which is what I did).
Sturgill Simpson reinvents himself (again)
Technically, “Passage du Desir” is Sturgill Simpson’s eighth full-length album. But it’s his first under his new Johnny Blue Skies moniker, seemingly following through on his promise to only ever release five albums under his own name (Those five being “High Top Mountain,” “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music,” “A Sailor’s Guide To Earth,” “Sound & Fury” and “The Ballad of Dood & Juanita” — he doesn’t count his two “Cuttin’ Grass” bluegrass albums from 2020).
So is this album a Sturgill record, or a Johnny Blue Skies record? Both.
Simpson, who is known for changing up his musical styles with each album, does that seemingly with each song here, but the writing manages to make it all cohere. This is an album about a man repeating the process of finding himself, and enjoying it all.
“Who I Am” is probably the most “Sturgill”-sounding song on the whole album, but there’s also “Scooter Blues,” which sounds like the best Jimmy Buffett song that Buffett never wrote. Other songs delve into yacht rock and light R&B and the kind of cosmic psychedelia he showcased on “Metamodern.”
I didn’t think I would like any of this year’s new music the way I enjoyed Pearl Jam’s latest album, but “Passage du Desir” is up there for me.
Available to stream on Spotify (below) and Apple Music and also available on physical media (support your favorite local record store!).
That’s all, folks. If you liked what you saw here, click that subscribe button (promise I won’t send any annoying emails) and tell all your friends!
This newsletter was written and edited by me. Views expressed here are my own and don’t reflect the opinions of my employer.
If there’s anything you want to see covered in a future newsletter, let me know!
You can find me in other corners of the internet as well. There’s Friends At Dusk, my podcast about Christopher Nolan films; my personal website (which focuses on pop culture, stories about religion and my journalism clips); a Twitter account and a Letterboxd account. Subscribe away.