The Checkout Counter #37
November 2025
The Color of Pomegranates
It Was Just an Accident
Bottoms
the checkout counter is now three whole years old! wow! happy birthday checkout counter. thanks, as always, for reading 😊
Film
- It Was Just an Accident, 2025 (یک تصادف ساده)unfortunately i spent half of this movie's runtime craning my neck to read the subtitles, and even then i had to guess at some of the words being spoken. love my local indie theater, but its vintage seating arrangement isn't conducive to subtitled films!despite all that i was glued to the screen during the last twenty minutes—what an ending. really tied everything together in a breathtaking way. panahi's long takes are so deft and documentarian, it's barely noticeable when a shot hasn't moved or cut in over ten minutes.
Thriller, drama. An auto mechanic, once blindfolded and tortured in prison, thinks he recognizes his former captor by sound. - Bottoms, 2023god this was funny. i don't think i've ever been on a comedy flick's wavelength so perfectly before. love this bizarre, contemporary world where homophobia and social media are practically nonexistent, and murder has the same social consequences as, like, an embarrassing prank.
Comedy. Two unpopular high schoolers start a self-defense club to attract other girls. - Save the Green Planet! (지구를 지켜라!), 2003this was on my radar because the much-talked-about bugonia is a remake of this korean film; i wouldn't have known about it otherwise. i haven't seen bugonia yet (and frankly have no desire to), but i'm guessing that the ambiguity in green planet is presented much more literally in the remake, which would be a shame if true. ambiguity forever!
Crime, comedy, scifi. A pharmaceutical executive is abducted by a man who believes that aliens are taking over the planet. - Jump Tomorrow, 2001charming! i have a very vague recollection of watching this over a decade ago. some of the imagery was still stuck in my head, even when i had forgotten everything else.this feels weirdly ahead of its time, in the sense that it precedes a lot of the twee-quirkiness of the 2000s, but the way it's conveyed here is restrained and much less saccharine (and considerably less white american!). appreciated all the carefully framed shots and fun interior design, which were striking enough to be burned into my memory after all these years.
Comedy, romance, drama. George and Gerard roadtrip to George's arranged wedding in Niagara Falls. They run into Alicia, George's crush, along the way. - The Color of Pomegranates (Նռան գույնը), 1969sumptuous! truly of the most gorgeous works of art out there.
Drama. A impressionist take on the life of Sayat-Nova, an 18th-century Armenian poet. - The Sting, 1973
Drama, comedy, crime. Two con artists seek to avenge the murder of their friend by pulling off the ultimate con.
Articles & essays
- Theory of the Stretched Image, August Kaasa Sundgaard
- Dicing an Onion the Mathematically Optimal Way, Andrew Aquino
- Shadows from the Walls of Death, Hunter Dukes
Blogs
- Welcome to your Throne, Laura Michet
- The Death of DeviantArt and the art-site shaped hole haunting the Internet, Multi-hyphenate
- The Spilhaus Projection: A World Map according to Fish, Southern Woodenboat Sailing
- Building a personal archive of the web, the slow way, Alex Chan
Around the web
- List of existing technologies predicted in science fiction
- IMG_0001really lovely. some of these feel so intimate! i got glimpses of a rodeo, a child riding a tricycle, and a bunch of employees dancing to party rock anthem.
- ambient.garden
December 2025 →
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