The Checkout Counter #41
April 2026

All the President’s Men

Design for Living

Tokyo Sonata

somehow i haven't had any hay fever symptoms this year, so i've been able to enjoy spring much more. sunshine and pleasant temperatures are nice to experience, who knew!

thanks for reading 😊 until next time!

Film

  • Tokyo Sonata (トウキョウソナタ), 2008so devastating. this captures the usual humiliation rituals of unemployment and job searching, then goes somewhere else entirely. i especially love the time we spend with megumi—her hurrying to close the door as it begins to rain, then opening it again to feel the wind and wet and cold.

    the ending hit me like a freight train. cinema!
    Drama. A salaryman hides his recent layoff from his family. His wife and children have secrets of their own.
  • Pee-wee as Himself, 2025while the tim burton movie was a definite childhood fixture of mine, i never watched a single episode of peewee's playhouse and now i'm wishing i had. what a lovely gift for kids.
    Documentary. Follows the life and career of actor Paul Reubens, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman.
  • If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, 2025this is truly how it feels when several bad things happen at once…endless nightmare scenarios! i gasped when the movie revealed what linda's job was lmao, such a great way to show that.
    Drama. As her life spirals out of control, Linda finds herself drawn to the hole in her apartment ceiling.
  • All the President’s Men, 1976fuuuck this was fun. two solid hours of people taking phone calls and hurriedly jotting down notes with fifty typewriters clacking on in the background. the way journalism operates and is portrayed here is such an alien concept compared to today.
    Drama, thriller. Two reporters investigate a break-in attempt at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
  • And Then We Danced (და ჩვენ ვიცეკვეთ), 2019
    Drama, romance. Initially jealous of his talent, Merab soon befriends the newcomer Irakli as they both compete for a spot in the National Georgian Ensemble.
  • Rear Window, 1954halfway through the film i thought the twist would be that the neighbor was a murderer, but didn't kill his wife—instead he was killing random women and selling their jewelry. my mind was going in grandiose directions, lol. the costume and set design in this is insane!
    Thriller, mystery, drama. A photographer becomes convinced that one of his neighbors committed a murder.
  • Goodbye, Dragon Inn (不散), 2003still don't quite grasp slow cinema but i was certainly mesmerized by the images here. this is better said in letterboxd reviews but this really captures the communal aloneness of moviegoing, and how a theater's dark and large space is like a portal into another world.
    Drama. For its very last screening, a run-down movie theater shows the 1967 wuxia classic Dragon Inn.
  • Design for Living, 1933wow i loved this! it's definitely my oldest favorite movie now. i was so surprised by the frank discussion of sex (they say the word "sex"!), as i don't have much familiarity at all with pre-code films. this slipped in just a year before the hays code went into effect.

    the homoeroticism between the two guys is great, of course, but i was most taken by miriam hopkins and her performance. what a star! she's so stunningly gorgeous and the way the B&W makes her dresses reflect light is dazzling. the character herself is so fun and she's never portrayed as some kind of temptress—she's just a woman with options. when they all end up breaking the gentlemen's agreement, it's simply an inevitability.
    Romance, comedy. When a woman can't decide between two men she loves, they all form a gentlemen's agreement to live together—platonically.

Music

Books

  • Martyr!, Kaveh Akbarthis didn't quite hit me as i thought i might, which is at least in part due to reading this on and off since february. the orkideh reveal didn't quite work for me, but it does make more poetic and thematic sense rather than traditional narrative sense…no surprise that the author is a poet! filled to the brim with truly gorgeous passages and prose.
    Literary. A poet writing a book on martyrdom journeys to the Brooklyn Museum, where an artist performs her last exhibition.

Articles & essays

Blogs

Games

  • Wikipedia Gachamy best article pulls are probably the normandy landings and mads mikkelsen
    Digital trading cards for Wikipedia articles

Around the web

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