Good morning, dear friend! Happy Monday! How are you, today? How have you been? As for me, I am okay. The weather is lovely, we are indeed entering winter, and I am able to use my beloved sweaters again, and the cozy blankets! Glorious time of year, I have been waiting for it. It has been raining with such energy, as to force me to close the windows. Rain, the upcoming Corn season, the Blog's birthday, my own birthday, May is a prelude to it all... but well, more on that, later. We do have a big piece of writing to delve into, today. I trust we should jump to the main topic already!
So, I hate handling titles before time is right, but, is it too early to call 2025 indeed the year of the Apopcalypse? I firstly used this naming some weeks ago, to mention the ongoing collapse of the gaming industry, as well as the failure of the remake of Snow White. But, it is clear my scope was not enough, as the past few months have been proven to be a catastrophe for the established media as a whole. This does not mean that other alternatives have won, for better or worse, and I see many claiming victory far too soon, that will backfire on them, but it does mean the uncomfortable feeling many have felt over cultural trends is gaining territory within the moderate majority, that don't lean one way or the other too strongly.
There is an unreleased song by Lana del Rey, at this point almost 15 something years old, called "Hollywood's Dead". It is about Lana's own frustration with Hollywood, how it failed drastically to fulfill her expectations. At other days, I thought it was a stretch, things cannot be this bad, at the time I thought. In 2016 or so, when I think I heard the song one of the first times, the industry seemed to be fairly well. There was a downwards trend, the signs of exhaustion were already felt, but it seemed like the scenario was nuanced, and favorable to them. Now, things have changed to such a degree that I am close to naming this old, obscure, likely never to gain impact, song, as the anthem of a whole moment. I saw some videos of the ongoing tour of Katy Perry, an artist that was just out of the height of her career in 2016, at that moment it seemed as an established, untouchable pop gem. She had three albums, two that were a phenomenon, and one not to be put far behind the title. Fast forward to 2025, where we are now, and... I feel betrayed by her current absolute collapse in all fronts. Her new album seemed to be a bad one, and the fame it got make it seem like one of the worst pieces of tune of the past few years. Her new tour, what a failure, if not in numbers, definitely in cultural impact. It is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Maybe saying Hollywood's Dead, when thinking about her decline, is a bit of an understatement.
Speaking of Hollywood, I did hear Wes Anderson's new motion Picture "The Phoenician Scheme", got a 6 minute standing ovation at Cannes, where I trust it premiered. I... I don't think this is the win some would say it is. Since maybe Isle of Dogs, and decidedly since The French Dispatch, Wes has consolidated himself as a broken record, with a lovely cover to hide its shortcomings. I am still trying to give the movie Asteroid City a try, I watched over 30 minutes of that one, and while the aesthetic of it is absolutely impressive, beautiful, the tone, the content of the thing... it feels absolutely, for the lack of a better term, cringe. I don't know, the narration of Edward Norton at the beginning of the piece, so... forced on one way, it demolished most of the movie for me. And the addings of homosexual scenes to it, I smell inclusion for the sake of diversity cash. Wes seemed to have become the golden symbol of a self serving echo chamber... I don't think it was always the case. Or, maybe I give him too much credit, some of his movies aged for me like milk. Though I still love Moonrise Kingdom's aesthetics, the content of the piece, which is a "love story"... between two PRE TEENS, seems absurd and of extreme poor taste. I know I am a prude, and I don't mind the title, as I dislike public display of sex and adjacents greatly, but you don't have to be so, to understand the issue of having two way too young actors doing french kiss on screen. No, it is very weird in the worst way possible, and I could not only see it before, because I watched the movie when I was around 15... now I am 26, and the more I age, the less I appreciate what is being portrayed. I know the paragraph is long, but let me mention this is the same issue with his first success, the movie Rushmore. And also The Royal Tenenbaums. While I do not regret having the dvd for Rushmore, nor for Moonrise Kingdom, I won't rush to get rid of them, even with my growing reservations, I don't think I could really watch those movies again without feeling uncomfortable at best. But the perfect picture to crown this echo chamber has got to be "The French Dispatch", now that is a self serving one. I cannot forgive the fact it is meant to be "a love letter to journalism", not after the immense damage journalists have done to the world during the Covid pandemic and its abysmal government response, they were fundamental in the left's power grab. The timing for the release, arou d 2021-2022, makes it much worse. And the casting. And the featuring of the 1968's college rebellions in Paris, a movement that could have as well killed our civilization, or what was left of it.
I don't hate Wes, now. I still love his visual choices, even if the execution bothers me more and more. But I think the standing ovation at Cannes is more of a warning than reassurance. I want to be proved wrong, though. Maybe we have another Grand Budapest at hands, a movie that despite its flaws, can still be held on its own. I like Michael Cera, I think Jason Schwartzman is in it, too, another actor I like. The aesthetics of it, from what it has been seen, needless to say, stunning. I want to like this piece, I don't think I will, and the people praising it seem to prove this pessimism. All in all, it is not the piece that will reinvigorate Hollywood, save it from its "death" that Lana sang about.
So, 2025, the year where, so far, most have said "we are exhausted of this.". I certainly am, and for a long time, going as far as having organically moved away from mainstream releases for a long time, now, long before it was the fashionable, trendy, thing to do. We have the mainstream gaming industry's ongoing implosion, Katy Perry's growing list of fiascos, and in Wes's new potential "hit piece", a signal that the cultural elite is all too happy with their own failing ideas as to notice the fact that the discomfort is causing an earthquake, and this one may cause the San Andreas fissure to sink California for good, and no one to lament the loss.
I suppose this is what I have had in mind for today, I am gery happy to have been able to write this into a journal-blog entry. And, of course, how happy I am to have you here, dear reader, as to follow my ideas. It is never taken for granted. That all being said, I trust this paragraph is where we are leaving. When should I return? I pray and hope that at some point on this new week! Don't worry, I will see you again real soon, and I wish you the best! Farewell!
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