COLD 2 THE TOUCH – Angel Du$t

After being slightly disappointed with the last Angel Du$t album (but loving those before that), I didn’t know what to expect here. I should have set my hopes somewhat high, though. “The Beat” was my first- or second-favorite song of 2025, easily one of my most played, and the experience of seeing it live landed perfectly. This album is tremendous. At 26 minutes, it’s their most compact release in ten years, but they pack in so much. The linchpin of the whole thing is near the midpoint, the song “DU$T” begins with an acoustic ballad before violently shifting into a breakdown eighty seconds into the song. This is a showcase of their immense range. Closing with the aforementioned “The Beat” was an unexpected choice, when I first read the track list, but it made sense in practice. It makes me think of walking out into the parking lot, among a dispersing crowd, and wandering back to my car after seeing a transcendent show. Two disparate thoughts, I wish the album continued on from there, but also, it’s perfect that it doesn’t.

I’m Not a Robot (2023)

As I watch through Oscar movies for this year, it is painfully obvious how many I missed from previous years. With that in mind, I watched last year’s winner for best live-action short. This was a well-made short with a serviceable science fiction story, sort of a modern version of Twilight Zone. As realization begins to dawn on the main character and panic sets in, the mood is decidedly upsetting, even if the paranoia was a little rushed. The video call between the main character and her partner was an exercise in tension, and I was urging one or the other to say something that would explain it all away. The ending sequence atop the parking garage was assembled particularly well. Not so much in the way the events transpired, which were mostly as expected, but rather how it was presented. I was so engrossed with how it was going to resolve that I gasped out loud when the credits started to crawl across the screen.

AEW Dynamite (2/11/2026)

I don’t often have the time to watch full wrestling shows anymore, but I try to keep up with the must-see matches at the very least, and this week’s Dynamite had two of them. First up was the newly added Tommaso Ciampa against Mark Fletcher. The heat for this match was unreal, especially for a TV match, and not even a main event at that. The plant on the steps was brutal, and the crowd was white hot from then on. The ending was somewhat telegraphed for how often commentary talked about the Australia show next week and the possibility of Fletcher returning home as champion, but that didn’t stop every near-fall from feeling meaningful. Ciampa kicking out of a brain-buster and looking blankly ahead while Fletcher cradled him in disbelief was perfect imagery.

Then, I skipped ahead to the end of the show to watch the strap match between Kris Statlander and the “toxic spider,” Thekla. Strap matches are rare enough they still hold some novelty for me. Add in a healthy amount of blood, and this was a looker. I quite liked Thekla going into her spider pose, only to be yanked out by a quick yank on the strap from Kris. It was short, it was violent, it was excellent.

PlayTime (1967)

This was a new-to-me Criterion watch, and as usual, I went in blind. This movie was hilarious. I was wondering as I watched it, what effect Tati must have had on the Pythons, and then I saw Terry Jones in a featurette on the Criterion release, a perfect coincidence. Monsieur Hulot was not quite bumbling, but there was a certain slapstick quality to the whole thing. The American travelers were equally colorful in their gaudiness. The Paris as depicted was nothing but stark, modernist buildings, made funnier by two obvious sight gags: actual Parisian monuments visible only in reflections and other countries depicted with the same buildings with different decor out front. The hour spent in the restaurant was stuffed with even more visual bits, the doorman holding a handle unattached to a door, two waiters carrying a menu as if it were a corpse. And this is all without even mentioning the delightful, over-the-top sound effects! It was not until the film was halfway through that I realized no story was really taking place, there was no plot, but it did not matter in the slightest. In another time and place, I would be making the Hulot extended universe my entire identity. As it is now, I will be seeking out the rest of the series and probably watching this one again to pick up more.

Ignore the Ignorant - The Cribs

Another day, another Cribs album. This continues the upward trend for me of enjoyable listens, particularly from a distinctive era of 2000s British indie rock. I believe this might be the only album featuring Johnny Marr, and my goodness, it shows. In fact, I thought I picked up some Modest Mouse influence before I read that he was involved in this particular record. I really appreciate the way they slide in some longer songs amidst shorter ones, in a way that contributes to that art-y new wave atmosphere. There was a notable shift between the second and third record, and this fourth one builds on the previous, even if I didn’t get quite the same level of excitement out of it. Of course, I realize this is a disadvantageous way to go about listening to a band, doing a mostly passive cursory once-over through a complete discography, but it’s the way I do things. The immersion is making me eager to start over again and do some more closer listens, so there’s that.