So 2025 is off to a real start, ain’t it? As I haven’t been good at doing this newsletter writing thing, I want to change it this year as the world crumbles around us. Sometimes, I miss embargo and release windows for the reviews I write for Film and TV. Here, I’ll post reviews, some short and some maybe long, of the other things I didn’t get to or something that doesn’t have a home to post. First up is posting some reviews for 2024 that I didn’t finish or post. Also, I plan on occasionally writing about songs and music this year. Last year, I got to do my first professional video game review, and I hope to do more. Until then, you might get some quick blurbs on the few games I find a few minutes to try.

I’ve been bad at reading comics lately, but I stay updated on my Shonen Jump. So expect thoughts on that and at least special variant comic book covers because I love buying the shiny comic covers as I feel comic books cost too much not to have cool covers. So basically, this will be my blog like how things were twenty years ago. Post links to the outside writing, maybe some artwork and comics I make, and thoughts on the culture. As Jeezy used to – Let’s Get it!

First up, here’s a review of The Substance, which you can now see on Mubi and in theaters during the Oscar Best Picture marathons that some theater chains do before the Academy Awards ceremony.

The Substance

Do you know what The Substance is? I didn’t until I sat in the movie theater one evening 3 weeks ago and was bombarded with one of the wildest films to be released this year. Directed, Written, and Produced by Coralie Fargeat, it is a film that attacks beauty standards, ageism, and a whole host of issues that women and even men deal with but in most ways propagated by the patriarchal-dominated society we all live in. A film so interesting it brought Demi Moore back to the screen feels like it taps indirectly into the feelings of her and the director. Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a celebrity who has hit middle age and has just been let go because she’s 50 years old, and the studio wants to go in a younger direction. She’s then put on to this new drug called THE SUBSTANCE that she acquires, and when taking it has a pretty crazy effect of making a new younger woman that comes out of her body and can live out in the world for one week before she must return to sleep so that Elisabeth can then live a week. That was wild just typing that. Even though they are the same person, there is an interesting dynamic as the younger version, called Sue (Margaret Qualley), auditions and gets Elisabeth’s old job as a TV aerobics host and takes the world over by storm. Sue wants more and more time in the world at the cost to Elisabeth, who is now rethinking her decision.

The relationship between Elisabeth and Sue is like that of a generational divide, Mother and Daughter, and competing star over the top spot, but all essentially in one character through some of the most insane and wild body horror outside of an old Troma film or something you might’ve seen in a Resident Evil game. Fargeat does some great stuff here with cinematographer Benjamin Kracun in really capturing the exploitive camera angles that we are bombarded with, partnered with more natural or unflattering shots of Moore nude. They also shoot every man looking like disgusting beasts, savages in the world and their hearts. The whole film is tongue-in-cheek. Things go not just left but zigzag as the film reaches its climax in a film that some people won’t understand or entirely fall in love with.

Ignorant Bliss 20|24 Dope List

So this many-hours-long playlist is my favorite songs of 2024, and I’ll be honest, I’ve had some trouble cementing this list, so it might get some additions soon, and I need to arrange the tracks better. Last year, all my playlists had Dragon Ball art in honor of the passing of the Great Akira Toriyama, so I wanted the last playlist to have the Goodbye cover page to put an end to 2024. Here is the playlist in Spotify and Apple Music formats. I know most people use Spotify, but I prefer and mostly use Apple Music (it is superior in every way, so I will not debate this).

Some of the standouts of the year for me was the Kendrick v Drake back and forth, as it did for a lot of Rap and Hip Hop fans. We still need 6:16 in LA on the DSPs, though. One album that I really connected with was DJ Quik & JasonMartin's (fka Problem) CHUPACABRA project. It's full of collaborations with the likes of Lil' Jon, Thundercat, George Clinton, Channel Tres, KAYTRANANDA, Curren$y, and others, but one song above them all had me listening all year. GURBS & YOUNGS featuring Jay Worthy & Larry June just perfectly puts me in the cool LA rap mood. With a beat that perfectly fits June's sonic aesthetics and Worthy's slick-talking rhymes, it's a song that always relaxes me, with Quik putting a nice older player punctuation on the end with his verse.

Evil's Obedience EP was also a favorite of mine through the fall. Memorable lyrics and addictive melodies, along with a solid range of sonic moods through the four-song EP, made it easy to come back to again and again. Leon Thomas' MUTT is by far one of the best male R&B songs of the year. Very Dancable and insanely catchy hook made it a staple for me. Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter take the pop spots on my list. The Mark Ronson remix of Espresso is fantastic. I can't leave out Charli XCX with BRAT, but it's mostly the Talk talk featuring troye sivan. Over the year this was the one song that really ended up having the constant hold over my ears as it was constantly in the algorithmicly created Favorites and Most Listened to playlists in Apple Music. Also Troye Sivan could end up being one of them ones in the pop space. He has that potential.

Other reviews…

January is usually a dry month for new film releases as most of the time this is when most of the films up for awards during what I now call the Movie Playoffs start getting nationwide releases. While these films are old for critics like myself who saw many in November and early December for most this is the first opportunity to see these nominated and award winning films. What’s left of the new stuff is at times quite bad. Here are links to the newer fims I’ve seen in January 2025.

• Den of Thieves 2: Pantera

• One of them Days

• Wolf Man

• Presence

• Dog Man

Well that’s all I have for this one. I hope you all enjoy the playlist and the film reviews. I really do enjoy The Substance (I watched it twice). Comment, share and all those things you’re supposed to say on the internet these days. I hope you all have a great day whenever you maybe reading this.
-Julian Lytle