Chad Comello

Tag: media of the moment

  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    The Naked Gun (2025). Cheers to a movie that knows exactly what it is and how to be that for just the right amount of time. Still giggling about random bits from this days later.

    Weapons. I’m typically a matinee guy but I stayed up past my bedtime to go see this in a theater, and I’m glad I did. We were in whatever you call this thing together.

    A Little Prayer. The kind of movie that inspires you to listen more intently to the birds singing outside your window in the morning, or linger longer at a park bench. ‘Twas a pleasure chatting with the writer/director Angus MacLachlan about this movie, Jane Levy’s knockout performance, and more.

    Lost in the Stream: How Algorithms Redefined the Way Movies Are Made and Watched by Jeff Rauseo. Wrote a review of this over at Cinema Sugar.

    The Assessment. It’s been a minute since a movie gave me as many belly laughs of recognition as chills up my spine like this one did. 

    Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell’s acquired a bit of a divisive reputation, but he remains a great writer with unique and insightful perspectives. Not to mention a great podcast guest.

    Eephus. Gonna be a great autumnal rewatch. 

    Sinners. This has several A+, capital-C Cinema sequences that had me thinking “Here we go, hell yeah.” It also had a lot of stitching around them that perhaps a rewatch will feel more seamless but on the first go seemed to stick out a little. Overall though, an absolute pleasure to see an original film by an amazing auteur and inspired creative team.

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Black Bag. Felt great to see an honest-to-god movie in the theater with a delightfully twisty plot and inspired casting that made me feel as warm and fuzzy as the film’s lighting. Wouldn’t be surprised to find this on my best-of-2025 list. 

    The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson. Turns out there was a lot of drama leading up to the Civil War…

    Lincoln. Rewatched this after finishing The Demon of Unrest as a kind of Civil War bookend. Daniel Day-Lewis’s win for Best Actor might be the most deserving Oscar ever awarded.

    The Pitt. Been watching this Max series that’s an unofficial ER reboot and my hat is off to anyone who chooses to become and remain an emergency nurse.

    A Complete Unknown. I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool Dylan fan like many white dudes around my age and above, so perhaps that’s why I didn’t fall for this as hard as others, Chalamet’s excellent performance aside.

    Parasite. Yes this is dramatic and tragic and twisted and all that, but it’s also so damn funny. “Leave it—free fumigation.” 💀💀💀

    Mary Poppins Returns. No one can touch Julie Andrews’ singing voice, but Emily Blunt really nails the other Poppins vibes.

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  • My sons’ media of the moment

    A spinoff of an ongoing series

    Yotos and Tonies. All day every day. Seriously great screen-free stories, learning, and music for the 5 year old, and something to hold and play with for the 18 month old. Great holiday gifts too for the parents/kids in your life.

    Card games. The 5 year old has gotten big into Uno and enjoyed learning others like Old Maid and Slapjack. It’s been fun to watch his strategy evolve to the point where I don’t even have to consider letting him win since he wins plenty on his own.

    Board games. While at the library a while back with the 5 year old, on a lark we sat down at their public chess board and I started teaching him the basics. He was hooked, so we got our own teaching set for home. Strategic thinking for chess has taken longer to develop but he’ll get there.

    Books. The 18 month old’s current favorites: The Shape of Me and Other Stuff by Dr. Seuss, Find the Duck by Stephen Cartwright, Moimoi—Look At Me! by Jun Ichihara, and more. The 5 year old’s current favorites: the InvestiGators comics series, Pokémon character books, and a variety of library picture books.

    The Wild Kratts theme song. Obviously we still watch the show itself often, since it’s usually the 5 year old’s pick for his limited screentime. But for some reason the 18 month old really loves the theme song, so when he gets upset while in the car (which is often), we’ll play a YouTube video that plays the song over and over again. Shoutout to whomever made that video!

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Midnight Mass. Loved this Netflix limited series for the same reason I love Darren Aronofsky’s Noah: it takes literally all the Bible’s very goth elements (“drink my blood”, the terror of angels, etc.) and transposes it into a deeply human modern story.

    Didi. This coming-of-age story set in 2008 featuring a teenager only a few years younger than I was at the time, so you know the use of AIM and Motion City Soundtrack songs were a bullseye for me.

    Nosferatu. Been knocking off a lot of classic horror blindspots and this 1922 F.W. Murnau silent version definitely qualifies. One favorite intertitle: “The Death Ship has a new captain.” 🤘

    Challengers. Just your typical sports movie featuring a throuple of sweaty, smirking scumbags swirling into a sadomasochistic, psychosexual spiral.

    Fear Not!: A Christian Appreciation of Horror Movies by Josh Larsen. Strongly respect Josh’s perspective as a critic and Filmspotting host, so amidst my recent foray into horror movies I thought this short book was a helpful primer on the redemptive aspects of the genre.

    The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen. Appreciated some historical bits in this but also skimmed over a bunch. Will it inspire me to get back into paper journaling? TBD.

    Night of the Living Dead. Some wild swings between “this looks like a terrible student film” and “holy schnikes”. I knew nothing of it besides being considered the godfather of zombie movies, so all the social commentary and 1968 of it all really hit.

    The Thing. My first John Carpenter movie and it was, uh, rather horrifying.

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson. Another brilliant narrative nonfiction saga from Steven Johnson that weaves multiple historical threads together to tell the riveting story of how dynamite, fingerprinting, anarchism, information science and other seemingly disparate forces all conspired to create what would become the modern surveillance state.

    BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman. Highly recommend this new book for my fellow parents of boys especially, but also anyone interested and invested in a more wholehearted masculinity.

    The Bear season 3. Carmy needs to chill out and call Claire.

    Civil War. Alex Garland’s latest and rather (unfortunately) timely dystopian drama shows what would happen if Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation became president instead of Leslie Knope.

    Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. I’d have to do some research on this, but I suspect the five-act structure of this saga could align rather nicely with the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible. Furiosa? More like Mad Moses.

    The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Might be the most ’70s New York City movie ever?

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Dune: Part Two. I couldn’t see Dune on the big screen so I was glad to catch this one. Anytime I can see a big, weird, tactile, religion-infused spectacle like this is a good time for me.

    Masters of the Air. Produced by the same people behind Band of Brothers and The Pacific, this miniseries on Apple TV+ focuses on the airmen of the 100th Bomb Group during World War II and is well worth your time.

    Molli and Max in the Future. Delightful revamp of When Harry Met Sally with a sardonic, sci-fi twist.

    The Cranes Are Flying. Rather astounding 1957 Soviet movie about the ramifications of war.

    A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next by Tom Standage. From the author of The Victorian Internet, this hit the spot for millennia-spanning history, trivia, and troublesome truisms about transportation.

    Devil in a Blue Dress. A Denzel noir? I’m down.

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  • My sons’ media of the moment

    A spinoff of an ongoing series

    Raffi. His greatest hits have been on heavy rotation as it seems to be the only music that calms down our 8 month old when he’s upset, which is often.

    Hamster maze videos on YouTube. The 4 year old is delighted by these. Random but could be a lot worse.

    Who Smarted? A fun and educational podcast for kids about all kinds of topics.

    Toniebox. As audio players for kids go, we’ve hitherto been a hardcore Yoto family. But several characters the 4 year old loves are only available as Tonies (Wild Kratts among them), so he got several for Christmas. It’s nice to have more variety for listening, even if the overall experience is less ideal than Yoto.

    Mr. Men and Little Miss. The 4 year old has been on a kick with this book series. We own an old copy of Little Miss Scatterbrain but we got more of them from the library and he just loves them. He especially loves looking at the grid of characters on the back covers and asking us what each of their names are.

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  • Podcasts of the moment

    It’s been over two years since my last podcast lineup check-in, and as usual some things have changed while some things remain.

    Changes: Many of the shows in my last update have either stopped publishing or lost my interest, and I’ve stepped away from the political ones. I’m also thrilled I was finally able to ditch Spotify once Armchair Expert went back to being non-exclusive, so I’m back in Apple Podcasts full time (along with Google Podcasts when listening on desktop).

    The Same: I still listen at 1.5x speed. And I still greatly enjoy the parasocial pleasures and intellectual stimulation of podcast listening, even if it does severely reduce my audiobook reading.

    My Current Lineup

    Regular Listens

    • Armchair Expert
    • The Big Picture
    • Filmspotting
    • Judge John Hodgman
    • Office Ladies
    • Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
    • The Town with Matthew Belloni

    Depends on the Subject/Guest

    • The Rewatchables
    • Pivot
    • Unspooled
    • Pod Meets World
    • The Letterboxd Show
    • SmartLess
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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    The Arcadian Wild. Heard about this folk/bluegrass trio recently and got immediately obsessed with “Big Sky, MT”.

    Scream. Somehow I’d never seen this, though I was familiar enough with it based on its cultural ubiquity. Kinda wish the conclusion was a little tighter so it could be a perfect 90 minutes, but campy fun overall.

    White Savior. This 3-part docuseries on Max is a rich text for those of us who grew up in a conservative Christian milieu and went on international missions/service trips.

    The Witch. I like this Robert Eggers lite-horror joint for the same reason I liked Darren Aronofsky’s Noah: it takes its Old Testament inspiration and sensibility seriously, fully committing to a weird and very metal religiosity that too often gets sanded down for popular palatability.

    Oppenheimer. “Men talking in rooms” is a common theme in a lot of the history books I’ve read, but I didn’t expect it to also work as a big-screen epic from Christopher Nolan. I’ll take it!

    The Wager by David Grann. This new book from the Killers of the Flower Moon author makes me very glad I’m not an 18th-century sailor.

    Emergency NYC. Stumbled upon this fascinating Netflix docuseries that follows surgeons, ER staff, flight nurses, and other emergency responders as they treat patients and balance their work with their personal lives.

    Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. A great coming of age story, family dramedy, exploration of religion, female-centric story, and year-in-the-life movie all in one.

    You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. Surprisingly funny and a nice pairing with Are You There, God?

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Reality. Riveting recreation of the arrest of whistleblower Reality Winner, played by Sydney Sweeney. This was my first encounter of Sweeney and was thoroughly impressed. Just released on (HBO) Max.

    Queer Eye season 7. A quality hang as usual.

    Ted Lasso season 3. Hard to top season 1 but have enjoyed watching this story play out. Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca

    Prey. I’ve never seen Predator so this was my first foray into the franchise. Found it to be a riveting, admirably lo-fi thriller, combining the violence of a western with the constant peril of Gravity.

    The Art and Science of Arrival by Tanya Lapointe. Gorgeous coffee-table book about Denis Villeneuve’s masterpiece.

    The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton. Got to talk with Shelton about this book and his career.

    Confess, Fletch. This was a damn fun time.

    Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. Really creative use of Fox’s memoirs, his TV and movie appearances, and reenactments to tell his life story. He’s also still funny as hell despite the effects of Parkinson’s.

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  • My son’s media of the moment

    A spinoff of an ongoing series

    Yoto. He uses his mini Yoto audio player every day, which is an excellent screen-free source of “edutainment”. He’s always ready to spout facts he’s learned from the many nonfiction cards he enjoys. (Some terms he’s learned and repeated: hominid, pyroclastic flow, and bioluminescence among others.) Current favorite cards on repeat these days include Volcanos, Creepy Crawlies, Ancient Egypt, and many more.

    Prehistoric Planet. This Apple TV+ documentary series is just Planet Earth with dinosaurs (David Attenborough narration included), therefore it rules.

    Floor Is Lava. Since he was really getting into volcanoes, we gave this Netflix game show a spin and found it to be goofy fun. He started making his own courses at home and implementing the rules and tropes from the show, like the teams cheering for themselves.

    Paw Patrol. Welp, it finally happened. We’d avoided exposing him to this until he listened to a Paw Patrol Yoto card, and now he’s all about it—even sometimes above Bluey.

    The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak. This isn’t a new one for him but we checked it out from the library recently and he’s fallen in love again.

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. Hilarious and insightful memoir/biography of Lockwood’s Catholic priest father and her experience living with her parents.

    Blankets by Craig Thompson. A stunning graphic novel memoir about small-town life, religion, young love, winter, and so many more things.

    The Climb. An excellent indie film told through episodic, slice-of-life sequences that add up to a deeply funny and humane portrait of male friendship.

    Jurassic Park. Amazing just how leisurely this feels compared to modern action blockbusters, with its long shots and deliberate storytelling pace. Yet still thrilling and not a wasted minute. So refreshing!

    Babylon. A great prequel to (and double feature with) The Fabelmans.

    Arrival. Masterful work from Denis Villeneuve and Amy Adams, and an excellent metaphor for the creative life.

    The Twilight World by Werner Herzog. Happened to stumble upon this bewitching creative-nonfiction novel on a Best Books of 2022 list. In my mind I read it in Herzog’s iconic voice, so that probably made it even better.

    Yojimbo. Some incredible shots sprinkled throughout this 1961 Kurosawa classic. “Whether you kill one or one hundred, you only hang once.”

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Athena. Come for the gangbusters opening 10 minutes—stay for the tense, heart-pounding drama of Children of Men-meets-The Battle of Algiers in a French apartment complex. (Streaming on Netflix.)

    The End of Education by Neil Postman. My third Postman book after Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly. Would probably rank it below those two but still a barnburner.

    The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone by Edward Dolnick. The story of discovering the Rosetta Stone (thanks Napoleon!) and the decades it took to decipher it, thus unlocking the secrets of ancient Egypt to modernity.

    The Hunt for Red October. Finally got around to see this. Enjoyed it but still have to give the ’90s submarine action thriller edge to Crimson Tide.

    Kiki’s Delivery Service. Been going through the Miyazaki oeuvre with the 3 year old and some, like this one, are first watches for both of us. Love being able to show him animated movies with a completely different pace and style than what he’s used to with Bluey/Curious George/Disney, etc.

    The World’s Worst Assistant by Sona Movsessian. Sona is a key part of the success of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast so I’m glad she’s able to cash in on it.

    Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Story of Life by Lulu Miller. A remarkable memoir/biography hybrid that reminded me of The Feather Thief with its nature/animals obsessives at the center and the ethical dilemmas they encounter (and create).

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Barbarian. Despite being a big baby about horror films, I went to see this opening weekend when I came into some unexpected free time. To say it’s surprising in many ways is a gross understatement.

    The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Thus far it’s managing to strike the right balance of serving a global audience, LOTR trilogy fans, and Tolkien nerds. I quit on House of the Dragon after one episode because I’ve had my fill of Game of Thrones content, but I’m all in on this one.

    Bluey season 3. Every season of this show (the best on TV) has a handful of episodes that are stone-cold masterpieces, and thus far “Rain” is holding the championship belt.

    Nope. With this and Barbarian, it’s been a delightfully horrific summer at the movies.

    The Last Movie Stars. A documentary miniseries about fame, love, art, and work.

    Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women by Alissa Wilkinson. A delectable book about food, activism, art, and work.

    A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon. Just straight-up funny for any age. They don’t talk the whole time and my 3 year old loved it!

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan. An excellent oral history of one of the greatest films ever made. One of the many tidbits: George Miller’s first choice to play Max was Heath Ledger, which I now can’t stop thinking about.

    The Northman. A brutal, heavy-metal fever dream from Robert Eggers.

    A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Published thirty years ago, its scholarship is out of date and perspective rather flippant, but the writing remains spicy and illuminating.

    We Own This City. A sequel of sorts to The Wire that was just as compelling with a much shorter runtime. Gotta hand it to HBO Max, which has accounted for pretty much all of my TV viewing over the last year or so between this, Winning Time, Minx, and Station Eleven.

    Top Gun: Maverick. The first Top Gun is kinda bad. This one is not.

    The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey. I’ve listened to the Office Ladies podcast since the beginning—where much of the book’s content has been covered previously—but still found this enjoyable and informative.

    How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. This fits into a nonfiction genre I really enjoy, where the author visits various places/people that connect to the book’s central theme and explores their histories. Smith covers some stuff I was already familiar with but much I wasn’t—including that the Statue of Liberty has shackled feet.

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  • My son’s media of the moment

    A spinoff of an ongoing series

    Bluey. A not-small number of times after watching an episode I’ve thought, “Was that one of the greatest episodes of TV ever?” Hot take: the only TV shows a kid needs, really, are this and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood—the yin and yang of instructive, high-quality children’s entertainment.

    Picture books aplenty. A few he and I have enjoyed in equal measure lately: Creepy Carrots and Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds, Jazz for Lunch by Jarrett Dapier, and Up the Mountain Path by Marianne Dubuc.

    Our Planet. Gave this Planet Earth spinoff on Netflix a whirl with him and he was mesmerized. Nature is so metal.

    YouTube. An amazing learning tool. He learns about volcanoes in a book; check out this compilation of eruptions. He starts t-ball class but has never played baseball before; let’s pull up some highlights of a random game.

    The Okee Dokee Brothers. Always and forever.

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Jackass Forever. A dirty, cringey, gut-bustingly funny cinematic soul-cleanse. Bound for my end-of-year top 10 just like the other Jackass movies.

    Everything Everywhere All At Once. I think I need to see this at least twice to fully appreciate it, not for any plot reasons but because it really lives up to its title.

    Winning Time. I enjoyed this HBO Max show enough to keep watching, but not enough to stick with it after the first season ends next week.

    A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance by William Manchester. Just started reading this and know already it will be a feast. More to come.

    Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood. Richard Linklater’s latest film synthesizes elements from two of his previous ones: the quotidian nostalgia of Boyhood and the rotoscope animation style of A Waking Life.

    Summer of Soul. The two words that came to me after watching this concert documentary: exuberance and excellence.

    Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan. Three stars for the book itself, five stars for the title.

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  • Media of the moment

    An ongoing series

    Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer by Steven Johnson. My favorite author does it again, using his signature storytelling savvy to explain how human life expectancy has doubled in the last century. Vaccines, epidemiology, pasteurization, drug regulation, penicillin, and automobile safety sound like dry topics, but how they came to be is anything but.

    KIMI. A lean techno-thriller from Steven Soderbergh. It’s like Searching meets Rear Window with a dollop of COVID paranoia.

    Station Eleven. The book was on my list of favorite books of the 2010s, so I was cautiously optimistic about this limited series adaptation. Glad to find it totally lived up to the spirit of the book while thriving as its own thing. Special shout-out to episodes 1 and 9 for being exceptional television.

    Hud. That Paul Newman was a gosh-darn movie star.

    We Had A Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff. Told in rotating vignettes, this book spotlights Native American performers and comedians who have used comedy to cope and reckon with the shameful abuse of Native Americans throughout history.

    The Tender Bar. A likable coming-of-age story, with Ben Affleck as the wise and weathered uncle.

    The Last Duel. A stellar cast and interesting premise, telling the story and fallout of a rape in medieval France from multiple perspectives. It’s good but also a tough sit.

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