If and when you find yourself in need of music that will meet you at the intersection of I love you more than oxygen and I hope you become a ghost in a house that I can burn to the ground and then build and burn again, Phoebe Bridgers will most certainly have something for you.
On “Lost Weekend,” Bridgers’ third full-length solo release and her first major release of original material since wrapping up her work with boygenius, the musician’s name is one of many in the stacked liner notes that include everyone from her partner Bo Burnham (who co-wrote seven of the album’s 16 tracks) and Maya Hawke (co-writer of two tracks) to Jack Antonoff (who produced the album), American Football’s Mike Kinsella, boygenius bandmates Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus and Conor Oberst, who adds harmonica to the song “I Can’t Wait” — but it’s still all her.
While standout tracks “I Can’t Wait,” “Kill Me” and “Haunted” are different in tone than the album’s main single, “Lost Boys,” that’s to be expected on an album that isn’t just about heartbreak or grief or the persistent search for joy, but all of that and more. In this one album, Bridgers not only mourns the loss of her father (who died in 2022) and the end of her highly publicized relationship with Paul Mescal, she sings of the everyday pain and pleasure that comes with just living.
“I have no secrets, only feelings/And I know those go away/There is a difference/Between lying and deciding what not to say,” she sings on “Haunted,” and that just hits so hard, as her songs are known to do and do especially well here, regardless of what mood you need them to help you through, which is the sign of a musical success.
Since the first season of HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” we’ve watched Helaena Targaryen (Phia Saban) grow from an eccentric child preoccupied with insects and murmurings of dreams — shrugged off as nothing more than oddities by the adults who occupy the Red Keep in King’s Landing — to becoming an adult with a tremendous power that she was wise to mainly keep to herself.
The only daughter of Viserys (Paddy Considine) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke), Helaena was a dreamer in more than just the flibbertigibbet sense, receiving flashes of things to come — her brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) losing an eye, Rhaenys’ (Eve Best) dragon Meleys crashing her brother/husband Aegon’s (Tom Glynn-Carney) coronation, hired assassins posing as rat-catchers breaking in to kill her baby son — and though these premonitions could have been a considerable help to those around her, they mainly fell on deaf ears until she herself fell to her death in the Season 3 finale, at which point it was too late. But the joke’s on everyone but Helaena because in taking her undervalued gifts and goodness with her, she’s removed herself from the fray as the only one with the knowledge that power is an ugly thing to die for, but an even uglier thing to live for.
(Ollie Upton/HBO) Emma D’Arcy in “House of the Dragon”
In the fight for the Iron Throne, the Targaryens and anyone from the Hightower line with a drop of lineage blood in the game are neck and neck in a battle to out-dragon and out-incest the other. Helaena, having a Hightower mother but a Targaryen last name, has empathy for both sides, as she does for any of the other tools and pawns of war; the dragons killed in battle, the horses destroyed by enemies, the caterpillars outside the castle that feed on toxic plants but are not toxic themselves.
Removing herself from the game board, Helaena is free. No more subsisting on poison. No more having her warnings be ignored. The Targaryens F’d around, but now they’re gonna find out. Sometimes dreams do come true.
“They eat the leaves of the nightshade, but that would be death for you or me . . . It’s a puzzle,” she warns her daughter Jaehaera in a Season 3 episode. And Jaehaera, who actually listened to Helaena’s warnings when few others did, has at least this to remember her mother by: feasting on poison may fortify you, for a while, but it will only bring harm to everyone around you. Dark-mode Rhaenyra would have been wise to heed this warning when it was delivered the second time.
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(Ollie Upton/HBO) Phia Saban in “House of the Dragon”
In the Season 3 finale, held prisoner by Rhaenyra and refusing to eat, despite being pregnant with what’s presumed to be her brother/husband’s child, Helaena talks of a rare beetle which can only be seen in the summer, which she’ll never see again.
“There’s a beetle that emerges on the cusp of summer. It has lots of colors. Blue, gold, purple. It looks like a turtle,” she tells a befuddled Rhaenyra. “You can only find it in King’s Landing. It sustains itself on the waste of other creatures. It’s beautiful.”
Like the fragile butterflies that flitter around Alicent after Helaena’s death, she was too good for all of this nonsense. Too pure for endless battles over a damn chair.
Hearing this, Rhaenyra is, once again, just sitting there thinking this lady is nuts and very much not picking up on the “you’re trash” goodbye speech that her half-sister is delivering, so Helaena makes it clearer.
“All the things you care about are ugly. This place is ugly. You, yourself . . . ugly.”
Having already made up her “F this” mind that she’d rather throw herself out of a window than live one more day as Rhaenyra’s pawn, Helaena drives the sentiment home with: “You think life is nothing more than not being dead?”
Removing herself from the game board, Helaena is free. No more subsisting on poison. No more having her warnings be ignored. The Targaryens F’d around, but now they’re gonna find out. Sometimes dreams do come true.
(Ollie Upton/HBO) Sonoya Mizuno and Phia Saban in “House of the Dragon”
Like the fragile butterflies that flitter around Alicent after Helaena’s death, she was too good for all of this nonsense. Too pure for endless battles over a damn chair.
Amid struggles for dominion, making the choice to pack it up and take her power with her — a truly useful power, at that, even more so than dragonfire, I’d argue — Helaena’s “no thanks” refusal to participate exhibits a level of nobleness and bravery the others will never live to even come close to. Refusing to fight is, often, the biggest fight.
During a press conference for “House of the Dragon” reported on by Variety, Emma D’Arcy spoke of the character Helaena, saying, “She’s maybe the only character who has a proximity to power, but remains kind of uncontaminated . . . I think her death condemns Rhaenyra to the path she’s chosen. There’s no way back after that.”
Loyal, love to be steered. Allegiance to suffer, only to serve. Helaena saw through all of it, and what she saw but had yet to say, well, she took that to her grave.
For a good portion of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” we watch all versions of the film’s namesake arachnid-juiced hero (Tom Holland) — full leotard, half leotard, sans leotard —cyberstalking Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya), his best friend and love interest, respectively, who now have no memory of him at all since the last time Spidey put them both in harm’s way, in 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
Romantic threads are a standard given annoyance in these films, put in so there’s something for everyone, to advance the plot when there is no more plot to be had, and to give me the opportunity to jump into the debate of: “They’re just men when they’re not saving the world, they should be allowed to date” with an emphatic: No they shouldn’t!
If you’re new to the Spider-verse, or you’ve forgotten the details of what took place in “No Way Home,” Spider-Man called upon Doctor Strange to wipe the memories of MJ, Ned and the rest of the world during a tear in the multiverse in which Peter Parker’s identity was made known, which was obviously bad news for him and everyone around him. Shortly before this spell is cast, Parker makes a promise to MJ that once things stabilize and there’s no longer the threat of a dimensional collapse, he’ll find her and make her remember not only who he is, but that she’s in love with him. At the end of the film, we see Parker pay a visit to a donut shop MJ is working at and make the choice to leave her be, rather than tip her for his coffee and cruller by backflipping onto the counter and throwing a posterboard with “YOU LOVE ME” written on it in her face.
But flash forward just short of five years, and here he comes again, putting the woman he claims to love in harm’s way just as she’s gotten settled into a relatively danger-free life without him, newly graduated from MIT and nuzzled up with a boyfriend who, while considerably less exciting, will almost definitely not get her killed.
(Sony Pictures) Tom Holland in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”
What is the plot of “Brand New Day?” You may be asking yourself this regardless of whether you’ve already seen the film or not. Well, given the amount of Marvel Cinematic Universe hooey thrown into this thing . . . what isn’t the plot? But don’t worry, amidst all of the flippin’ and swingin’ and jizzy web-shootin ‘, MJ and other women characters such as a movie-saving Jean Grey (Sadie Sink) and Black Widow (Florence Pugh) are given a few lines so that, regardless of what’s going on, men in the audience will receive flashes of someone to fantasize about saving or showing their pepperoni nipples to.
Sometimes the best way to love someone is by leaving them the hell alone.
The fact that superhero movies always cram in a love story element is both annoying and ridiculous, but it makes sense. Big-budget films of the “Superman,” “Batman,” “Spider-Man” variety need to make sure they turn a profit by getting butts in seats, and that means layering on whatever (and however) they’ve determined each and every one of those butts will be expecting to see in order to make it seem worth tapping their cards for the price of admission and concessions. Romantic threads are a standard given annoyance in these films, put in so there’s something for everyone, to advance the plot when there is no more plot to be had, and to give me the opportunity to jump into the debate of: “They’re just men when they’re not saving the world, they should be allowed to date” with an emphatic: No they shouldn’t!
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Batman has a crush on someone? Cool! She’s probably gonna die. Superman has been in love with Lois Lane for years? Awesome, she’s never gonna be safe again because every one of his enemies is going to try and throw her off a building. Spider-Man finds time to haunt MJ’s Instagram stories amidst all manner of chaos breaking out in the streets of New York and beyond? Well, sure, let’s just do whatever, at this point. Just like the average moviegoer likes to chuck some Reese’s Pieces in their tub of popcorn to get that salty and sweet action going, most people like for their eyeballs to get breaks from the stomach kicking and face punching by watching implied or actual grab-ass. We’re a simple species. And that’s OK. Still ridiculous though.
(Sony Pictures) Zendaya and Tom Holland in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”
In “Brand New Day,” as Spider-Man is dealing with his genes mutating in a way that increases his powers, gives him migraines and makes it so that he no longer needs the use of synthetic webs because real (real gross) ones now shoot from his wrists, there’s so much else going on in this still, somehow, pretty boring movie.
Extras are flash-mobbing in the background as Jean Grey telepathically hops from body to body to do a mixed-bag of whatever she wants: infiltrate the Department of Damage Control, mess with Spider-Man, look for her sister who’s dead. The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) is grunting and groaning around, helping Spidey and providing elbow-jab opportunities for guys in the audience to turn to their dates and loudly whisper: That’s me. Black Widow is holding meetings in a Russian bath. The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) is like, “Did I kill anyone?” And where’s Spider-Man? Putting flowers on Aunt May’s grave each day and pouting when MJ is finally like “Thanks for saying you love me . . . I don’t know you.”
How about this? Maybe in the next Spider-Man movie, and every superhero movie to follow, we put to rest this shoehorned lovey-dovey nonsense and leave viewers with the big takeaway that sometimes the best way to love someone is by leaving them the hell alone and that, in certain circumstances — especially if you’re tasked with saving the world on a daily basis — your job actually is more important.
In the Season 3 finale of Bravo‘s “The Valley,” succinctly titled “The Valley of the Damned,” Danny Booko — who does voice work for movies and video games when not reigning as secret-glugger #1 in this Vanderpump-adjacent reality show — takes his maddening schtick one silly voice too far, introducing “Count Bookula.”
While attending a vampire-themed party at castmate Brittany Cartwright’s house, Booko goes to work on making damn sure he ends the season in the cringiest way possible — having spent the previous episodes speaking down to his wife, Nia Sanchez, making women on the show uncomfortable and frat-boy screaming ‘Let’s Go,’ constantly — adapting a pickle-tongued “Bookula” voice upon entry and not dropping it until he gets too drunk to bother and, later, has a plastic cup bonked off his head by Janet Caperna. (And here I will go on record to say: TEAM JANET!)
Roughly 15 years or so, I twice attended an immersive fright house called “Blackout” in New York that was really nothing more than a cheaper way to have a date with a dominatrix. During these occasions, myself and other paying attendees entered a pitch-black warehouse, one by one, and were made to do such things as dance with short naked men, spit in strangers’ hands so another person could slurp it up and be chased until our only option was to fall over the back of a couch. These experiences came to mind while hearing Danny take on a yet-to-be-previously attempted vampire voice as he dodged dirty looks and jettisoned drinkware.
Danny, my love (said in Nia voice), you sucked the most this season, and that’s for sure.
Not since “Once More with Feeling” — the 2001 musical episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” wisely released on vinyl by Mondo in 2019 — have I taken the genre of music best described as “TV songs” as seriously as I am, right this very second, listening to Lestat de Lioncourt‘s debut album, “The Failures,” released on Spotify and elsewhere just days after the finale of AMC’s “The Vampire Lestat.”
Confronted with pondering just how good or “valid” rock songs written for a show about vampires could be, you may be tempted to take on a “what in the Dingoes Ate My Baby is this now,” attitude about the whole deal, but factor in that each original song was written by Daniel Hart — who not only wrote the music for both previous seasons of “Interview with the Vampire,” but has also written music for “A Ghost Story,” “Mother Mary” plus countless other projects — and that these songs are sung by Lestat himself (Sam Reid), and it shakes out to the album as a whole being worthy of not just respect as a body of music, but heavy rotation for being actually . . . well . . . good.
Out of the 23 tracks on “The Failures,” which include demos, remixes and alternate versions of songs featured in “The Vampire Lestat,” the stand-outs and repeat plays, for me, can be found in the Sisters of Mercy-esque “When I Call Out Your Name,” along with powerballads from the show such as “The Loneliness,” “Stained Glass Eyes,” and “Brutal Love” — all of which would not seem out of place on a late-career Peter Murphy album.
“I actually found it much easier than writing songs about myself. Having the permission to be silly and bratty was so freeing,” Hart said to The Quietus, discussing composing from Lestat’s perspective.
Silly and bratty as the songs can sometimes be, they’re also beautiful, fun and worth a serious listen.
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