Isolation: Day 181

Episode two of Halt and Catch Fire's fourth and final season ends with James' Laid playing over the characters as they move through the culmination of the episode's interactions, relationship and business shake-ups that no doubt begin to move all these people I've grown to love into position for the series' end in eight more episodes. It reminded me how long it had been since I last listened to James, and how much this song - a song I despised when it made its initial splash in the mid-90s zeitgeist - has come to mean to me since I fell in love with it in a pub in Dublin, circa 2001.

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Watch: I'm not really a Dune fan. I've never read the novels, and the 80's film adaptation is the only film directed by David Lynch I abhor - and feel fine doing so, considering Lynch petitioned to have his name removed from it. That said, I am definitely a Denis Villeneuve fan. And this looks gorgeous, so I'm in:

   

I'd love for Mr. Villeneuve to pattern his career after someone like Christopher Nolan - alternating big-budget, franchise, or high-end IP projects with original films, and I have a feeling that's exactly what he will do. In the meantime, I loved Blade Runner 2049, and I think I'll love this, too.

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Playlist:

I don't do many shuffles, but I ended up having a pretty good one this morning on Apple Music and then translated it into a playlist on Spotify. Here it is:

  

From there the day's music looked like this:

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme

Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank Vol. 1

Lawnmower Deth - Billy

Iress - Prey

The Bronx - The Bronx (I)

 

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Card:

"Quiet contemplation yields unexpected results."

I'll be looking for that today, in the (hopefully) quiet moments when contemplation often sneaks up on me. 

The Neon Demon

Finally watched this last night and it might just be my movie of 2016. Beautiful is an understatement; the visuals are equally hallucinatory, mesmerizing, magnificent and scandalous. And the score - once again Mr. Cliff Martinez hits it out of the park when pairing sounds to Mr. Refn's images. I will own this eventually, and I will order it in the equally mesmerizing double vinyl set on the Milan Records website.

The Neon Demon only strengths my resolve that Nicolas Winding Refn, along with Fede Alvarez and Denis Villeneuve, is at the top of my "modern directors I would follow to hell" list.

Trailer: Denis Villeneuve's Enemy

Based on the absolutely breathtaking power of Villeneuve's Prisoners (which easily made it into my top films of last year) I can not wait to see this, his second film in a row with Jake Gyllenhaal. Couple with that the fact that I have always had a fascination with doppelgangers - well, ever since the days of Twin Peaks back in the early 90's - and I am simply unable to quantify my anticipation for Enemy at this time.