MOVIES:
Toy Story 4 - Josh Cooley
The Lion King - Jon Favreau
The Lion King - Rob Minkoff, Roger Allers (REWATCH)
Under the Silver Lake - David Robert Mitchell
Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood - Quentin Tarantino
TV:
Big Little Lies (Season 2) - 1x
Euphoria (Season 1) - 6x
Chef’s Table (Season 3) - 1x
BOOKS:
MOVIES:
Muscle Shoals - (REWATCH) - Greg 'Freddy' Camalier
Game of Thrones (Season 6) - 1x
TV:
Big Little Lies (Season 2) - 3x
BOOKS:
Between Here and the Yellow Sea - Nic Pizzolatto
Have you ever felt something inside that makes you simultaneously hate yourself and prevent you from getting things done? Yet you persist on, wondering why you write.
Writer’s block is the worst.
But we do it to make sense of something.
MOVIES:
Fatal Attraction - Adrian Lyne
Free Solo - Jimmy Chin
The Virgin Suicides - Sofia Coppola (REWATCH)
Basic Instinct - Paul Herhoeven
My Best Friend’s Wedding - PJ Hogan
Wall-E - Andrew Stanton (REWATCH)
The Witches of Eastwick - George Miller
True Grit - Joel & Ethan Coen (REWATCH)
TV:
Game of Thrones (season 8) - 2x
Barry (Season 2) - 1x
Chef’s Table (Season 5) - 1x
Chef’s Table (Season 6) - 1x (REWATCH)
Killing Eve (Season 1) - 2x
BOOKS:
MOVIES:
TV:
Game of Thrones (season 8) 1x
Barry (Season 2) 2x
BOOKS:
MOVIES:
Roma - Alfonso Cuarón
Remastered: Who Killed Jam Master Jay? - Brian Oakes
Miss Sharon Jones! - Barbara Kopple
Leaving Neverland pt 1 - Dan Reed
Triple Frontier - JC Chandor
What We Do In The Shadows - Taika Waititi
Cold War - Paweł Pawlikowski
TV:
Relatable - Ellen DeGeneres
Better Caul Saul (Season 1) - 3x
Chef’s Table (Season 2) 2x
Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy 1x
BOOKS:
Born Standing Up - Steve Martin
MOVIES:
Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent - Lydia Tenaglia
Weiner - Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg (rewatch)
Trump Rally - Sean Dunne (rewatch)
ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke - Kelly Duane
Velvet Buzzsaw - Dan Gilroy
Shut Up And Play The Hits - Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern
TV:
Trigger Warning w/ Killer Mike (Season 1) - 6x
True Detective (season 3) - 8x
The Wire (season 2) - 1x
Chef’s Table (season 3) - 1x
Ugly Delicious (season 1) - 1x
Counterpart (Season 2) - 10x
Chef’s Table (Season 6) - 1x
Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy (Season 1) - 3x
BOOKS:
The Book of Leon: Philosophy of a Fool - Leon Black
MOVIES:
Fyre - Chris Smith
3 Mics - Neal Brennan
TV:
Comedians of the World (Season 1) 1x
BOOKS:
Can’t Hurt Me - David Goggins
The Beastie Boys Book - Michael Diamond & Adam Horovitz
MOVIES:
The House - Andrew Jay Cohen
Her - Spike Jonze (REWATCH)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - Milos Foreman (REWATCH)
The Life & Music of Robert Johnson - Peter W. Meyer
Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy (REWATCH)
Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy (REWATCH)
TV:
Baskets (Season 1) - 8x
BOOKS:
Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) - Jeff Tweedy
Every Man A Menace - Patrick Hoffman
Jeff Tweedy - Warm
Twin Shadow - Caer
Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin
Prince - Piano & A Microphone 1983
Pusha T - Daytona
Ssion - O
Kurt Vile - Bottle It In
Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar
Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel
Khruangbin - Con Todo El Mundo
Christine and the Queens - Chris
Shakey Graves - Can't Wake Up
Blake Mills - Look
Jon Hopkins - Singularity
Black Thought - Streams of Thought Vol. 1
Parquet Courts - Wide Awake!
Black Panther Soundtrack
Anderson .Paak - Oxnard
Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth
Grouper - Grid of Points
The Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
Vince Staples - FM!
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Sex & Food
Nas - Nasir!
Chromeo - Head Over Heels
MOVIES:
Anchorman - Adam McKay (REWATCH)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - Joel & Ethan Coen
Ran - Akira Kurosawa
Yellow Submarine - George Dunning
RBG - Betsy West, Julie Cohen
Widows - Steve McQueen
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs - Joel & Ethan Coen (REWATCH)
TV:
Fargo (Season 2) 4x
BOOKS:
The Trial - Franz Kafka
Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art - Gene Wilder
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants - Malcolm Gladwell
I’ve been neglecting these more introspective postings for a while. Namely because it’s unclear to me if anyone reads them. I like to imagine there is someone out there who might.
To be alive today involves a constant negotiation with the superficial appearance of any given moment. Twitter replies, IG stories, news feeds, etc. To participate in the narrative of events, you must devote your attention to these ephemeral moments of pride, outrage and disgust. Most interactions with close friends seem to boil back down to this narrative at play, blurring the lines of distinction to whether independent ideas can still be tangible. If the human race was a television show, the ratings would be at an all-time high. We navel-gaze at our own follies and/or fortunes. We’re capable of being dramatic, hilarious, complex, disgusting, ill-fated - and watching it all unravel is wildly addictive.
We can set limits on how much access we will allow ourselves to use these services but it might only deepen the craving for what becomes forbidden. We love to hear ourselves complain much more than we do trying to devise a solution.
And if we’re making broad generalizations, Americans love to gripe about rising tax rates as if it’s an imposition of Satanic forces leeching off of their hard-earned livelihoods. To some, lower taxes means more money to spend freely as an individual, and therefore mitigating excess spending by a large inefficient government. I understand the intention. While that’s all good and well, we Americans still pay some amount of money to Uncle Sam. Taxes still exist. And right now, I don’t feel good about where any of my tax dollars are going. Try spending a day in one of your community’s underfunded public schools (I’ll bet there’s more than one option near you to choose from) and ask yourself if your tax dollars are being put to good use. Yet, a majority of us seem to accept these failures to innovate our most critical institutions as collateral damage that comes with the times; nothing to do about it. Call your senators. Donate money to the ACLU. Go to rallies. Post an impassioned couple hundred words on your Instagram. Then what? Do you see people taking the streets decrying “taxation without representation"?
This is where I bow out. I so no clear path to a solution for our deeply disabled society when all anyone can do is yell at one another. I’ve been to my share of rallies and believe that change is possible. But I’m pressing pause on cosigning with any organization claiming to represent my best interests. The only feelings of hope and positive energy that I’ve ever experienced came via tight-knit communities of people who care enough to show a little empathy to one another. Tribes. We don’t have to agree about everything, but we can at least understand our mutual respect for why we choose to coexist in a given circumstance.
In the past few months, I’ve felt so beaten down by the onslaught of information forced upon me, I’ve been hesitant to write much of anything. Especially anything with a real point-of-view. I’ve made things, but I’ve felt unable to truly buckle myself into the driver’s seat like I have been able to in the past. I aim to seek these places where a tribe mentality can still thrive and create opportunity for progressive thought. If you know of any, please send them to Jordan@jordanharo.net
MOVIES:
Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean
History of The Eagles - Alison Ellwood
22 July - Paul Greengrass
When Harry Met Sally - Rob Reiner
In The Mood For Love - Wong Kar-wai
House of 1000 Corpses - Rob Zombie
The Brood - David Cronenberg
TV:
The Americans (Season 5) 4x
The House on Haunted Hill (Season 1) 1x
BOOKS:
The Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason - Felix Biederman, Will Menaker, Matt Christman, Virgil Texas, Brendan James
MOVIES:
Starship Troopers - Paul Verhoeven (REWATCH)
Max Max: Fury Road - George Miller (REWATCH)
Wings of Desire - Wim Wenders
Scanners - David Cronenberg
The Old Man and The Gun - David Lowery
Raising Arizona - Joel & Ethan Coen (REWATCH)
Mistaken For Strangers - Tom Berninger
American Animals - Bart Layton
TV:
Neo Yokio (Season 1) - 1x
One Punch Man (Season 1) - 3x
Devilman Crybaby (Season 1) - 5x
This Is America (Season 1) - 1x
Ozark (Season 2) - 1x
Kidding (Season 1) - 1x
Succession (Season 1) - 10x
Maniac (Season 1) - 1x
BOOKS:
The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
MOVIES:
TV:
BOOKS:
MOVIES:
TV:
BOOKS:
MOVIES:
TV:
BOOKS:
MOVIES:
TV:
BOOKS:
MOVIES:
TV:
MOVIES:
TV:
BOOKS: