The Checkout Counter #28
February 2025
Challengers
The Vaster Wilds
Evil Does Not Exist
Film
  • Challengers, 2024everything is tennis, except tennis (which is power)

    it's magic what they do to zendaya's tennis scenes—as someone who knows very little about the sport, how she dances and moves the racket to the score is mesmerizing. the way that the back and forth of tennis is used throughout the narrative is so obvious but clever (the story going back and forth in time, tashi going back and forth between patrick and art). what a fun watch!
    Drama, romance. Follows the tumultuous romance and rivalry between three tennis players over a decade.
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1975so bizarre that this movie helped birth the whole light academia/naturecore (??) aesthetic—the unrelenting undercurrent of dread feels contrary to those pinterest board images of pretty teacups and vintage books (but maybe that's the point, i don't know!)

    loved this review by laird.
    Mystery, drama. Three schoolgirls and a teacher disappear into the wilderness during the Valentine's Day picnic.
  • Evil Does Not Exist (悪は存在しない), 2023i'm still scratching my head at the ending—i thought i was completely on this movie's wavelength until its last five minutes. still, a community meeting and car conversation scene had me completely glued to the screen.
    Drama. Two representatives arrive at a secluded village with plans to develop a glamping site. The village residents have concerns.
Books
  • The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groffgroff's prose is so gorgeously written and paced. the way this book doles out bits of information and backstory one by one is delicious. i had no idea when or where this was set before picking it up, so the realization came as a treat. lots more bodily fluids than was i expecting!
    Literary, historical. A girl races through the wilderness, escaping a colonial settlement with just a few stolen possessions.
Music
Blogs
  • Photo a Day, bcj picsit's been so nice to open up my RSS reader and get a new wintery photo a day, particularly since it doesn't snow much where i am. snow is captured in a way that looks pristine and alien.
  • The Year Of The Blog, v buckenham
Articles & essays
Around the web
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