Another month down in what has consistently been a pretty horrific year thus far. I’ll admit, it’s been pretty tough working in the legal field right now and seeing all the horrible things that laws are being used for, and the ways that lawyers are just rolling over and enforcing these absurd are frequently illegal demands. Last month, I talked a lot about struggling with isolation in response to everything that is going on, and how important it is to embrace community in this time.

Well, I’ve made some progress, but certainly have a ways to go to reach my ideal. This past month I was fortunate to see a friend perform in Into the Woods with Nina West. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a live theater performance, and I’ll never stop being amazed by the talent it takes for these productions to come together. I got together with friends to play a murder mystery roleplaying game where on the cusp of ascending the throne of hell, I was instead cast down to eternal torture (so I won the roleplay but lost the murder mystery vote). I hosted a friend traveling for a wedding, and had a great time just catching up and spending time together. I’m trying to be conscientious about being more proactive, being social, and going out of my comfort zone.

Part of this involves being more aware of what’s happening in my community and trying to keep tabs on community events. I’ve been going to my library more frequently of late, and I’ve been trying to keep tabs on all the resources and events available. As you might imagine, I love libraries, and it’s been infuriating and heartbreaking to see the attacks and cuts that libraries across the country have had to endure. I’m tracking bills in my legislature that will harm not just libraries but community supports generally, and I’ve been doing my best to be mindful of what is happening at my city hall, at my statehouse, and in Washington. It’s exhausting work, and I struggle to find the balance between staying informed and needlessly stressing myself out.

In all of this, media does a lot to help keep me grounded, to help understand what is being felt in the cultural zeitgeist, and to serve as an important reminder of how powerful art can be in shifting hearts and minds, for better and for worse. I always struggle with feeling as though I’m wasting my time. I go through periods of trying to maximize my productivity, falling prey to the “rise and grind” mindset that so many insist is necessary to even take part in modern society. I want to write more, I want to read more, I want to volunteer more, and I want to engage in more activist work. When factoring in all the time spent commuting, working, cooking, cleaning, and eating, it often feels as though there is vanishingly little time for anything else. But the act of sharing that time with others is important to break through the toxic messaging constantly being shoved upon us, and to avoid becoming atomized.

There’s no one best way to do this. It would be easy for me to try to say that volunteering and activism are, but it’s also important to take time for rest and relaxation. Creating a balance is the only way to achieve sustainability. Find ways to engage in parallel play with someone, go with friends to a movie or show, host a dinner party or a board game night, start a blog or a newsletter. Go to a protest, volunteer at a food pantry, take part in a donation drive, sign a petition, or even just pick up litter. We have more tools of connection than ever before, which are also being used to divide and alienate us. Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed, don’t let yourself be beaten. Everyone is craving connection in some way, so find a way to connect. Because right now, the only way out is through.

Well, that’s probably enough moral aggrandizing for this week, so let’s focus on some media, shall we? In March, I managed to cut back on the activities that serve more as time sinks and to increase my engagement with meaningful media. I still listened to 143 podcasts, but less of that was done just idly sitting around and instead was part of my prep for a half-marathon (I’ll let you all know how that goes). I read a lot more, getting through 3 (almost four but alas) books, 138 chapters of manga, 101 articles, and 61 comics. I watched 2 movies, 19 episodes of TV, and 60 videos. And of course I went and saw the aforementioned musical, Into the Woods, which was a 5⭐(biased) experience of a 3.5⭐ work. There was a slight dip in how I rated things, with only 7 things getting a 4.5⭐ on my personal rating scale, but just hang on for April’s roundup, because less than a week in I’m getting pretty close to hitting that mark. But let’s dive into specifics.

The Best of Movies

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is definitely the movie that I’ve thought about the most of the two I saw this past month. I’m not going to rehash everything that I said in my initial review, but clearly this was a movie that was great on an artistic level and not so great in terms of its writing. It’s kind of a bummer for me to see the Tunes flopping and struggling, with this movie making only $11 million on a $15 million budget. It certainly didn’t help that Warner Bros. did absolutely nothing to market or promote this movie.

Something I’ve been grappling with is the repeated notion that I’ve seen thrown around by a few different media influencers that this movie is for kids (a sentiment I agree with) and that the Looney Tunes generally are for kids (a sentiment I strongly disagree with). Do I think that the Toons are kid friendly? Yes absolutely. But at their best, the Toons should be a family friendly franchise, meaning that there should be details engaging for kids and adults. At their best, the Looney Tunes were the most popular shorts of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Movies were sold on the fact that a Looney Tunes short would be shown beforehand. This doesn’t happen if only kids are enjoying the cartoons. And the frequently layered writing and innuendo of the Toons was successful in making jokes directly targeting adults while flying under (most) kids’ radars.

I think the future of the Looney Tunes is very much in flux at the moment. But I’m glad that Ketchup Entertainment went out on a limb to save this movie from the Warner Bros. graveyard, and that they’re doing the same for Coyote vs. Acme. I don’t know if the Toons will ever return to the level of prominence that they had in my childhood, when Space Jam, the Animaniacs, and the Tiny Toons were ascendant. To be frank, I’m not even sure that I want that time to return. But I certainly would prefer if the Toons didn’t go the way of Felix the Cat and so many other cartoon mascots.

Chicken Run was definitely a better movie, and is even better returning to as an adult. This movie is much more referential than I’d ever realized, and discovering that helped me to appreciate just how deep this work actually is. And compared to most of its compatriots from the early 2000s, the art and animation of Chicken Run still looks pretty spectacular today. It also made me pine for the era of rich DVD features. Seeing all the behind the scenes work also helped increase my appreciation for the movie, especially the scenes detailing the foley work and the 16 piece kazoo orchestra.

The Best of TV

After a shaky start to the month, and a pretty milquetoast episode that fundamentally misunderstands the people behind book bans, Abbott Elementary has had a string of pretty excellent episodes by focusing on its greatest strength, its characters. Snarky principal Ava is really getting highlighted this season through the introduction of her absentee father and potential love interest DeShaun. Quirked up white boy Jacob really got to shine in the episode Karaoke, Italian American stereotype Melissa is getting some growth in her relationships, and neurotic mess Gregory is finally getting his chance to have a go at running things. I don’t think this latest season of Abbott is reaching the heights of the first two seasons, and the show has been struggling ever since it managed to sort out the will they, won’t they relationship of the main character, but it’s still one of the better sitcoms going right now and it’s at least trying to make meaningful cultural commentary.

Elsewhere, Ghosts had a fun couple episodes at the start of the month before going radio silent after St. Patrick’s day. While I’m still having fun with the show, it’s unfortunate that the show has found itself trapped from having meaningful character growth. And finally, the elephant in the room that is Reacher. It’s unfortunate that Reacher’s third season is fully embracing the most problematic, fascistic undertones of the series, but I did rewatch the first season with my partner, which really heightened my enjoyment and appreciation of that part of the show. Once we get through the second and third seasons together, I probably will write something about how Reacher has unfortunately declined in quality the past couple years, but if nothing else I think Reacher is managing to capture the cultural moment.

The Best of Video

It’s pretty surprising that I haven’t watched more of the work of Jacob Geller. That’s not to say that I’m unfamiliar with him. I’ve known for a while that Jacob was well respected in both the video game critic and “breadtube” spheres, and I’d seen him pop up in many different podcasts, including Remap Radio, Minnmax, and Aftermath Hours, and I’ve even listened to his podcast Something Rotten a couple times when I was digging for analysis of specific games. But this month was where I’d finally started watching his video essays specifically. His video Capitalist Present, Collective Future: An Analysis of Labor in Night in the Woods and Tacoma really struck me, particularly because it was the first video essay he ever released. There’s a depth of analysis here that I often long for in games criticism, and he delivered. His earlier videos also have the benefit of being markedly shorter than his more recent works.

Going down memory lane, I watched two videos from my high school years with friends recently, the first being the Shia LaBeauf song and the second being the live poetry reading of I Came to This Orgy to Honor My Pet Snake Tito. Both are avant garde, offputting, yet incredibly funny art pieces, and I always enjoy seeing videos in this vain. Lastly, food creator Adam Ragusea put out a video that does contain a recipe, but is mostly focused on how society lies about how expensive/inexpensive it is to cook your own food, and how most food content fails to take into account things like food deserts, ingredient shortages, and meals that are truly accessible. I watch a lot of food videos, and it’s refreshing to see someone acknowledge that life doesn’t magically get easier when you start cooking food at home.

The Best of Podcasts

Panic World drives me insane by having some of the highest highs and lowest lows of any show that I listen to. After starting out the month with an abysmal episode where host Ryan Broderick spent an hour mocking AI skeptics with journalist Casey Newton, the show proceeded spending the rest of the month putting out nothing but hits with episodes on Gens Z and Alpha’s rightward shifts, the death of the #MeToo Movement, and a piece on how easy it is or isn’t to hire a hitman online. It’s as though the show is contractually obligated to have one stinker a month.

Elsewhere, Organized Money had an excellent episode with the father of the term “enshitification” Corey Doctorow on the problems of big tech, with a decent chunk focused on my personal favorite topic of privacy rights. I’ve been listening to a lot of the NeverPost backlog and this episode on how social media and the internet impacts the grieving process always hits me hard on a personal level.

Worlds Beyond Number is still doing some of the best work in actual play with an incredibly tense set of episodes that have revealed some shocking revelations about characters’ pasts and forced the main heroes to do some deep reckoning with their beliefs, flaws, and the way those two things intertwine.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention how impressed I was when John Warren of the VGBees podcast used his platform to amplify an immigration lawyer and talk about all the craziness that’s happening in the political world right now. I think it’s easy to underestimate how much of a risk it can be for a media influencer, and particularly a video game influencer, to have an episode not only where video games are not mentioned, but specifically focused on talking politics and boosting others. It’s a move that I deeply respect and want to shout out.

My favorite thing I listened to this past month though was the Be Good and Rewatch It episodes on BBC’s Pride and Prejudice miniseries. Be Good and Rewatch It was a short-lived venture from the former Waypoint Vice now Remap Radio crew where they attempted to branch into film and TV criticism. But the 6 episodes on Pride and Prejudice were a pure delight. They spent 16 hours analyzing less than 6 hours of TV, and it was so good! The depth of their analysis about this timeless story, but also their specific critiques of how this adaptation compares to others and to the original was just a masterclass of media analysis. As much as I love and support the crew at Remap, frequently they no longer have the opportunity to display the same depth of analysis they had when they weren’t running their own business, and this series was a welcome reminder of why I fell in love with this crew in the first place.

The Best of Comics

Rose Tide Rising, despite having a slower month, continues to be top quality amongst the comics I read. This past month saw a lot of setup and worldbuilding occur to lay the ground for more drama in April, some of which has already played out. But generally, we get more backstory on the way that the shapeshifters in this story work, some important background on key characters, and of course a deepening in the romance between the two leads. Something that’s been notable to me is that Day is becoming gradually more comfortable at showcasing action. Historically, this series has excelled with static shots and transitions, but now that the action within panels is improving as well, I can recognize that this was previously the weak point of the series and is now being shored up. I’m excited to see the art continue to grow.

Kingly continues to be one of the most darkly funny series out there. This past month saw updates that are bringing quite a few different story lines close to a climax. The series updates infrequently, but I’m hopeful that April will bring these stories to their resolution. Kingly is an awful person and his continued ignorance continues to harm everyone around him. I’m curious how the recent plot developments will impact the titular hero, and how the author will handle brining a reckoning to a character whose stupidity rather than malice causes harm. Because at the end of the day, is there any difference?

Finally, The Order of the Stick had a busy month with many more updates than typical for the author. While the plot is progressing somewhat slowly at this point, the meta D&D satire still has some of the funniest panels in narrative comics that I’ve seen. The recent exploration of the nine hells that’s been occurring has been particularly fun with the way humor and menace are intertwined. For a series that’s approaching its end, I’m hopeful that it sticks the landing. But who knows, at the rate the story is going “approaching its end” may mean 10 more years of updates.

The Best of Manga

Shonen Jump recently launched a new sports series Embers about a young delinquent who becomes inspired to try his hand at soccer. It’s a series chasing in the shadows of giants such as Slam Dunk and Blue Lock, straight down to copying some of the artistic stylings of the latter, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t a good copy. This series manages to capture in its first few chapters a lot of what draws people to sports stories in the first place. The striving for improvement, the weight and burnout of greatness, and the cutthroat nature of competition are all present and all stylishly presented. The series is still so new that it’s hard to tell if the author will be able to maintain quality once he truly hits the grinder of weekly releases, but it’s definitely caught my attention.

Akane-banashi and SpyxFamily both had strong months carried less by the strength of the storylines they’re in and more so by the artists’ mastery of the fundamentals. The pacing, dialogue, and art of these stories is just so incredibly strong that even when there are lulls in the overarching narrative, these series are able to keep you engaged.

Choujin X is a series that I’ve struggled with because of how it often underwhelms me compared to the author’s previous work, Tokyo Ghoul. Yet I’m forced to admit that this past month, the author put out a couple of chapters that are some of the finest in his career, even if it does lean a bit too far into the idea that two people talking can solve any problem.

As an aside, I’m considering doing a piece on Shonen Jump magazine as a whole and which works I would or wouldn’t recommend and why, so let me know if this is something that you all would have any interest in.

The Best of Articles

Unfortunately, I have no way of sharing the best articles that I read this month, as they are both paywalled on the Remap Radio website. Since Remap launched following the abrupt closing of Waypoint by Vice, the crew there has not done nearly as much writing as they once did under the Vice News umbrella. Excitingly (for me), this seems like it’s starting to change.

First, they put out a piece on how XCOM: Enemy Unknown changed the way tactics games are made when it launched in 2012, for better and for worse. As someone who loves but is terrible at tactics games, this was fun to read and to imagine that I might be better if there were more varied design philosophies. Likely not.

But my favorite piece they put out was a study on Roger Ebert, his criticisms of the game industry, and the ways those criticisms have borne fruit. This hit me with particular force because I’ve been reading a lot of Ebert criticism lately as I try to deepen my appreciation and understanding of film, and by god Ebert was one of the best to ever do it. No wonder the man won a Pulitzer for criticism. He was a noted skeptic of the video game industry, saying at first in jabs that video games aren’t art, but eventually pulling back due to his declining health and the harassment he was experiencing by gamers, which continued up to his death. This piece looks at the one video game that Ebert was a vocal fan of, the ways that the game hasn’t been preserved, and the way that harassment has been seeded as an integral element into games culture, leading to grievance warriors like Asmongold, Sargon of Akkad, and are very own shadow president, Elon Musk. It’s an excellent piece, and I wish it didn’t cost $15 a month to access (I have an early adopter discount).

404 Media continues with their amazing journalism and I truly cannot fathom how they maintain the output that they do. They’ve covered the way that the current administration is wiping digital archives, the Tesla Takedown protests, and JD Vance AI voices, but outside of politics they’ve also covered how deepfake models are taking over instagram, including pages that are creating deepfakes of individuals with down syndrome. But it’s not all bad news. Wikipedia Editors are also launching a photo service in an attempt to create high quality unlicensed pictures of celebrities to use on the website to replace the many, many unflattering photos that currently are present, and I think that’s neat.

Lastly, I’ve been chewing on a piece by the internet’s favorite leftist lawyer, Loloverruled. On his substack Vanishing Points, he recently had a piece entitled You Can’t Fuck the Sad Away talking about The White Lotus, but also his own struggles with depression and self-described sex addiction. But what really made this piece stand out was a section talking about how misogyny in society allows women to be used as tool’s for growth by men. It was a raw and personal piece, and it’s pretty clear that the guy has a lot still left to figure out, but I couldn’t help but admire the sentiment to do and be better that he was striving for.

The Best of Books

I already talked about the best book I finished this past month, that being Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews. It was a fun, well executed Dark Academia Queer Romance, even if the plot never quite neatly ties together.

But the best book I read this month that I’m still working on finishing is Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation, a book focusing on influential films from the director’s childhood. Tarantino is someone who going into this book I had a lot of complex feelings about, which have only heightened in reading this book. I won’t talk to much on this (so that I can say more once I’m finished), but Tarantino is someone who clearly, obviously cares about movies, film history, and the people behind the camera. He idolizes the boundary pushing directors of the 70s and fairly roundly mocks how tame movies have come since. Yet when he talks about the ways he respects the way past directors tackle racism, fascism, and authoritarianism, I can’t help but think about how lacking his own commentary is on these issues.

The last book I’ll talk about (even though I read more), is Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos. To be blunt, I didn’t enjoy it. Nor did I enjoy Slaughterhouse 5 when I read that. It’s disappointing, because Vonnegut is an author who I have an immense amount of respect for, but there’s something about the very specific brand of nihilistic optimism that I always find somewhat offputting. I want to keep giving Vonnegut a try, and I want to get a bead on what has made his writing specifically so beloved. I just hope that I’m eventually able to find a book of his that hits for me. If any of you have a recommended jumping in point for Vonnegut, please let me know.

That’s it for March. Good riddance. Here’s looking to April and hopefully things are a bit less of a mess. At the very least, I’m excited to talk about the 5 star works that have already crossed my path. As always, please reach out if something from this piece stood out to you, if you have a critique, if you’re looking for a personalized recommendation, or if you’d like to recommend something to me. I’m always looking for more media. Until next week, take care of yourselves.

Soma