The Checkout Counter #26
December 2024
Fanny and Alexander
The Husbands
Conclave

happy new year! thanks to these monthly posts, i was able to write up a 2024 in review, since i can easily go back and see all the things i found interesting throughout the year.

hope your 2025 is starting out nicely—and thank you, as always, for reading :)
Music
  • STARFACE, Lava La Rue
    Alternative R&B, hip hop
Film
  • Robot Dreams, 2023cute! i think this could've clocked in at less than 90 minutes, but that could be because i read the graphic novel ages ago—i still remember a lot of the story beats, and the bittersweet ending stuck with me for a long time. reminiscent of portrait of a lady of fire, funnily enough.

    the people working on this were clearly having fun. there were so many neat character designs and silly things to notice in the background (e.g. a porcupine selling balloons), and there's an particularly fun moment where the titular character interacts with the frame of the screen.
    Animation, comedy, drama. A lonely dog befriends a mail-order robot.
  • Conclave, 2024i knew i would be into this movie. it has everything i love: infighting, workplaces where no one can leave, catholic infighting, guys in important and swishy clothes, cool architecture, investigations, and old people acting like gossipy high schoolers. this was truly engineered in a lab for me.

    based on various social media posts i was able to piece together who the new pope would be, and the movie's last-minute twist—but i don't think that affected my enjoyment, and i still gasped out loud several times. loved the guy in purple who was, like, ralph fiennes' private investigator and would always say, "um, one more thing…" like a much less confident vatican columbo. i love movies!
    Drama, thriller. Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with managing a conclave, the ancient and secretive ritual of electing a new pope.
  • Hundreds of Beavers, 2022i think i was more impressed by this movie than i enjoyed it—the slapstick humor didn't really do it for me. still, the ridiculousness of the latter action scenes were fun, and it's always enjoyable to see what people can create with such limited resources.
    Comedy, action. Before he can ask a merchant's daughter for her hand in marriage, Jean Kayak must defeat hundreds of beavers.
  • Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander), 1982incredible movie to watch on christmas. god damn. the first act is so ornate and luxuriant—every frame is filled with deep reds and greens, candles, glittering crystal and gold…insane production design! and when the children's lives take a sudden turn, the visual contrast is immediate: stark compositions, negative space, sterile blues and grays. i kind of want to watch the 5+ hour version now—maybe something to save for next december.
    Drama. Follows two children of the affluent and theatrical Ekdahl family, as they move from one household to the next.
  • Run Lola Run (Lola rennt), 1998
    Action, thriller. To save her boyfriend's life, Lola has 20 minutes to get her hands on an almost impossible amount of money.
  • The Dark Crystal, 1982this is another movie where i was impressed with its production, but overall ambivalent to the plot. i can see why people got really into this, though—like, these are all puppets! god damn!
    Fantasy. To bring peace to his land, the last of the Gelfling species embarks on a quest to find the missing shard from a powerful crystal imbued with magic.
Books
  • The Husbands, Holly Gramaziosuch a fun debut novel! i reacted audibly quite a few times, both from how funny it was and from surprise (there's a twist at the halfway point that made me gasp when i figured out what was happening lol). at first the premise seemed like it would better fit a short story, but the novel length is warranted and really takes its time to explore what this situation would entail. loved seeing how unhinged the protagonist becomes towards the end.

    i looked up the author, and it's really no surprise that she's also a game designer; the constant world "resets" and changing husbands does feel game-adjacent.
    Contemporary, magic realism. Every time Lauren's husband goes into the attic, he disappears and a new husband takes his place. The world changes accordingly.
Articles & essays
Blogs
Around the web
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