The Checkout Counter #43
June 2026

Thief

My Sunshine

Fallen Leaves

we're halfway through the year already…! my june was filled with good meals, movies about people desperate for connection, and impassioned manifestos.

hope you're able to keep to comfortable temperatures, wherever you are. until next time!

Film

  • Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (偶然と想像), 2021i was feeling pretty neutral about this until once again, the last story in the anthology. what a lovely tale of coincidence and memory and play, with a speculative fiction twist. a computer virus so widespread it makes everyone go back to using mail and telegrams is a fun storytelling device.
    Anthology, drama, romance. Three stories of three women and their unconventional romantic encounters.
  • Fallen Leaves (Kuolleet lehdet), 2023i've only seen one other movie from this director and i'm very keen to seek out more. the anachronistic production design and deliberately stilted acting are just my cup of tea, and they're done in a way that's completely unromantic and unsentimental. woman who steals from work and guy who drinks on the job, what a couple. a perfect movie dog, too.
    Romance, comedy, drama. A supermarket employee and a sandblaster meet at a karaoke bar. Soon after, they both fall in love and lose their jobs.
  • Thief, 1981wow! every frame is just dripping with style and mood. how enthralling to watch experts at work and artfully use huge pieces of equipment. thermal lances are very cool.

    i wouldn't have been surprised if james caan started quoting marx towards the end there. i can easily imagine him saying "labor is entitled to all it creates" then whipping his gun out and blasting a bunch of guys. what a picture.
    Thriller, crime, drama. An expert safecracker agrees to lead one last diamond heist to ensure his future of an ordinary family life.
  • A Poet (Un poeta), 2025the kind of movie that makes me want to grab the screen and say "noooo" out of secondhand embarrassment. agonizing and funny and so clearly reflective of arts industries around the world. it's kind of like if tár was good (sorry!). loved cecile's review.
    Drama, comedy. An aging and increasingly irrelevant poet finds purpose by nurturing the writing skills of a teenage girl.
  • My Sunshine (ぼくのお日さま), 2024beautifully composed shots and production design! feels very quaint and nearly saccharine, until the reality of bigotry comes crashing down upon everyone. the stylish end credits were much appreciated.
    Drama. A figure skating coach trains two of his young students to ice dance, and the three form a short-lived bond.

Music

Games

Articles & essays

  • Manifestos for the Future, Hans Ulrich ObristFor one thing is certain: without some kind of a manifesto, we cannot write alternatives that are more than vague utopias; without a manifesto, we cannot conceive the future.

    [...] What interests me about the manifesto is that it’s a defunct format. It belongs to the early twentieth century and its atmosphere of political and aesthetic upheaval. The bombast and aggression, the half-apocalyptic, half-utopian thrust, the earnestness—all the manifesto’s rhetorical devices seem anachronistic now. For that very reason it’s compelling, in the way a broken bicycle wheel was for Duchamp. Things that don’t work have great potential.

    lots of great ideas to chew on here. very much an inspiration for my manifesto jam entries.
  • On prioritizing play, Matthew Prebeg and Mercedes TorrendellA lot of narratives about technology assume that we either control the machines or the machines control us. But the reality is that technology is so interwoven into our lives, our culture, our values, our power structures, that everything about technology reflects us right back. They are intimate extensions of us.

Blogs

Around the web

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