Colin Wessman

I love those oldies and hoagies, give me some beefcakes and cheesesteaks

2022 Music Resolved: I Walked with You a Ways

Plains – I Walked with You a Ways

Speaking of albums that walk (heh) the line between alt-country and indie rock, here’s the debut album from Plains, a collaboration between singer-songwriter Jess Williamson and Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield. I did not go to many live music shows in 2022, but Plains was one of them, despite being a group that has existed for barely a year. This is because there were several instances where I wanted to see Waxahatchee on her oft-delayed tour in support of one of my favorite albums of the past few years, St. Cloud. However, every time she came to town (or even a nearby city like Wilmington) I was somehow in another part of the country. Fortunately, Plains did play a few St. Cloud tracks when I saw them, and even more fortunately, the interplay between these two recently unified collaborators was a delight to witness. Continue reading →

2022 Music Resolved: CAZIMI

Caitlin Rose – CAZIMI

As is the case with past years on this blog, I’ll be using the last month of the year to write short reviews of albums I enjoyed over the year, but never got around to reviewing. However, in 2022 I stayed pretty on top of talking about albums I liked with my monthly and seasonal recaps of my recent listening trends. So for the most part, the albums I’ll be writing about this December will be ones that came out during the past few months.

This may come as a bit of a surprise, but CAZIMI by Caitlin Rose was undoubtedly my most anticipated album of 2022. Or at least, it would have been if I’d had any preconceived notion that Caitlin Rose would be releasing an album this year, as I’d more or less resigned to the fact that she’d never release another album again. After all, she’s not an artist with the highest profile and the fact of the matter is, making a living as a musician these days wasn’t easy before COVID hit, and now it’s even worse. So I really couldn’t fault Rose if she chose to pack it in. Continue reading →

The Pick: The Money Pit

This episode took us a little while to record, since our own Sean Lemme was busy moving into a new house, not unlike Tom Hanks and Shelley Duvall in this episode’s film, albeit with less destruction. As our lone Hanks-giving pick this year (if you can even call it that considering it’s December), the movie provides a nice snapshot of Hanks’ pre-Big stardom, and is also an interesting early endeavor of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. There’s also an unexpected discussion of the “just guys bein’ slobs” genre of sitcoms as well as a game in which we try to guess the most bankable stars of 1986. Continue reading →

Shocktober: Bodies Bodies Bodies

Bodies Bodies Bodies

Well, Happy Halloween boils and ghouls, as they say (and by “they”, I mean John). As I close out my batch of Shocktober reviews, it seems as though after doing a Blumhouse movie, I also couldn’t go without reviewing an A24 film when talking about the state of modern horror. While I’m not sure Bodies Bodies Bodies is the most typical A24 horror movie, since it’s not nearly as weird as many of their other offerings, it still has the sharp look and off-kilter quirks you’d expect. Also, while it perhaps does play into a lot more traditional tropes than the recent spate of arthouse horror movies that have cropped up over the last few years, it does have its share of unique touches to offer the genre. Continue reading →

The Pick: The Addams Family

With spooky season coming to a close, we spend some time in the residence of the ookiest of all families, The Addamses. We do this by first delving into the history of this fictional family that originated with Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoon that was turned into a TV show that has always seemed to live in the shadow of The Munsters. The 1991 movie adaptation is a bundle of unbridled irreverence that is pretty up our alley considering its mix of the macabre and the wacky. It’s also a great movie to revisit this Shocktober if you’re looking for something to scratch that Halloween itch that isn’t necessarily scary, but still loads of dark fun. Snap, snap. Continue reading →

Shocktober: The Black Phone

The Black Phone

I’m not sure that it has been mentioned yet, but I believe the main reason we ended up going with all 2022 movies for this year’s Shocktober is that it has been a uniquely solid year for horror movies. Not only in terms of the quality of horror films that have been released this year, but also in terms of their viability at the box office in a year when big studio movies are often making a fraction of what it took to make them. The Black Phone very much embodied this, as it made about eight times its budget despite the fact that it doesn’t have a ton to offer that’s groundbreaking or new to its genre. Still, it got decent reviews and it’s a horror movie, which apparently is all it takes to be a hit these days. Fortunately, it’s still a solid little psychological horror film that shakes out to be distinctive and well-made enough to stand out in a fairly crowded year in its genre. Continue reading →

Shocktober: Hotel Transylvania: Transformania

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania

Ok, I promise that next time I’ll actually review a horror movie since it seems all three of my movies so far have been either horror-hybrids or in the case of today’s movie, not a horror movie at all. Still, there is something to be said for movies that scratch that spooky itch this time of year, but are scary enough to be suitable for people that “don’t do scary movies”. The Hotel Transylvania series has been a pretty reliable presence in this genre for the past decade or so, as it’s not quite as lazy as you would think an Adam Sandler animated franchise would be. While this latest installment still has the same playful animation style established by Genndy Tartakovsky that has made these movies great leisurely watches, the fact that the Sandman is missing and the lack of doing much new with these characters (not to mention its streaming-only release) can’t help but feel like these movies might be on their last legs. Continue reading →