After a late summer heat wave, it’s finally begun cooling down here in Lincoln, to the point where I’ve actually felt the need to don a pullover before stepping outside. As an added bonus, it’s been grey, overcast, and rainy all week long. In other words, it’s now the perfect time to break out some Hood and enjoy their chilly, pastoral take on post-rock.

Wetherby’s finest weren’t always so pastorally minded, though. Their earliest releases, like 1996’s Silent ’88, were scrappy, lo-fi affairs that were heavily indebted to Sonic Youth’s cacophony, with only a few hints at the atmospherics that would come to haunt their later albums. Said atmospherics didn’t really manifest themselves until the Matt Elliott-produced Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys, which Domino released in 1998.

Indeed, listen no further than opening track “S.E. Rain Patterns,” a nearly ten-minute piece that’s all pensive brooding and slow burn, and perfectly captures the mood of the album’s title (which would be dreadfully on the nose for most bands). The song’s first half is comprised mostly of vaguely ominous drones and a stark scattering of piano that presage both the coming autumn chill and falling leaves tossed about by the wind. Other instruments slowly make their presence known: tentative guitars, a plodding bass line, brushed drums, and even a mournful woodwind for good measure.

Finally, at the halfway point, the vocals come in. But in the Hood tradition, they’re almost an afterthought, these cryptic and awkward mumblings about “sympathetic skies,” “forgotten worlds,” and “lost and windy autumn afternoons.” The song picks up the pace during its mopey chorus (“Forget the dreams you had/The times that you felt lost”) in a manner that recalls Hood’s earlier recordings. But even then, some aspect of the song still feels like it’s not completely, fully there.

Hood’s music, ever since I first heard 1999’s The Cycle of Days and Seasons, has always possessed this ambiguity for me, as if some vital part of the music remains stuck in some other place. Like the band, even as they holed up in the studio, were daydreaming about meandering walks under endless grey skies, long walks that took them through autumn-browned meadows and past ivy-covered hamlets, and that yearning was somehow psychically captured onto the tape.

Whatever the explanation, the resulting music is always beguiling, and it speaks to me on a deep, perhaps even genetic level whenever the mercury starts to dip, the skies begin to darken, and the air grows crisp and brittle.

I love the World Cup for the same reason I love the Olympics: I believe both give us a foretaste, however slight, of what awaits us at the end of days, when all the world’s nations shall gather to bring their “glory and honor” into the New Jerusalem. Of course, the World Cup, like the Olympics, is never without issue (e.g., President Trump’s involvement in the Folarin Balogun red card controversy, and FIFA’s sketchy ticketing practices). And yet, when I reflect on this year’s tournament, I can’t help but think that “the beautiful game” will, indeed, be part of that assembled glory and honor.

Looking back at this year’s tournament, here are some of the more notable moments that brought me no small amount of joy over the last few weeks.

Experiencing America

At every World Cup, there’s bound to be some culture shock as tens of thousands of fans arrive in the host nation and discover what it has to offer. Which explains why social media was filled with videos of visitors from other countries wandering, wide-eyed, through Costco and Walmart or experiencing the wonder of free refills, American portion sizes, and institutions like Buc-ees and Waffle House.

On the one hand, it’s easy to be cynical about such videos. (Are big-box stores, crass consumerism, and excessive calories really all that America has to share with the world?) On the other hand, these videos can also be a reminder — the next time I look at the wall of cereal options in my local grocery store, for instance — that many Americans really do enjoy an abundance, and to be thankful for that. And as for non-Americans glimpsing America’s natural beauty for the first time, well, who can be cynical about that?

Cross-Cultural Celebrations

American sports fans received a lesson in what it really means to support your team as kilts-clad Scots marched through Boston with their bagpipes at full volume, Spain’s fans celebrated in New York City’s streets, and the Netherlands’ Oranje Army took over Kansas City. It got even better when support and celebrations crossed borders, like the Boston cops who helped celebrate Cape Verde, the Kansans who embraced the Algerian team, or the Dutch fans who hoisted their Japanese counterpart aloft.

Occasionally, I’ll see someone post something on social media to the effect of, “If it weren’t for the politicians, we’d all get along just fine.” Such a sentiment might be a bit naïve and simplistic, but watching World Cup fans gleefully break down barriers and cross borders, I can’t help but think there might be some truth in it.

The Vikings Are Coming

Speaking of celebrations, the most iconic celebration to emerge from the 2026 World Cup was Norway’s “Viking Row,” during which the team led their fans in a stadium-shaking chant as they all pulled together. Norway was one of my favorite teams in the tournament, and this — along with Erling Haaland’s style of play and scoring prowess — exemplified the joy and style that they brought to the pitch. (It didn’t hurt that they knocked out the legendary Brazilian team during the Round of 16.) That same joy awaited them back in Norway, where thousands of fans rowed to welcome the team home.

Cape Verde’s Victory in Defeat

When FIFA announced that the 2026 World Cup would expand to include 48 teams instead of the usual 32, there was some criticism that the expansion was political in nature and would ultimately dilute and reduce the quality of the matches. But one of the beneficiaries of FIFA’s expansion was the tiny island nation of Cape Verde, located just off Africa’s West Coast, and I don’t think that anyone would ever dare accuse the Blue Sharks of diluting the World Cup.

Led by veteran goalkeeper Vozinha, Cape Verde held their own against Spain, Uruguay, and Saudi Arabia, surprising everyone by playing each of those teams to a draw. They then gave an all-time World Cup performance in the Round of 32 as they squared off against Argentina. The Blue Sharks went toe-to-toe against the defending champions, and even though they eventually lost in extra time, Cape Verde’s plucky, never-say-die performance endeared them to the entire world and earned them a hero’s welcome back home.

Japan Cleans Up

Heading into this year’s World Cup, there was growing buzz around Japan’s national team, with some speculating that they could go all the way to the finals. Sadly, after a solid showing in the group stage, the Samurai Blue were eliminated in the Round of 32 by Brazil. But through it all, the Japanese blessed the World Cup in a very real and tangible way, by cleaning up after themselves.

Win or lose, Japanese fans take the time to clean up the stadiums where their team plays, and you can only imagine how dirty a post-game stadium can get. What’s more, the Japanese team cleans up their changing room, as well. This has actually been a tradition since 1998, when Japan played in their very first World Cup, and ever since, they’ve been offering the world a master class in leaving a place — even a global soccer tournament — better than when you found it.

I’ll admit to feeling a bit of a void in my life now that the World Cup is over, similar to the comedown I experience after the Olympic flame is extinguished. Of course, there’s still plenty of soccer going on; the Premier League kicks off its new season in less than a month, for starters, while Apple kindly reminded me that MLS soccer is ongoing.

As exciting as those matches might be, however, it just won’t be the same now that everyone’s gone back home. The whole world coming together, with so many countries giving their best and learning to appreciate the best qualities of others, proved even more beautiful than the beautiful game itself.

This was originally published on Christ and Pop Culture on July 24, 2026.

After releasing several acclaimed albums of lush dream pop, Love Spirals Downwards called it quits following 1998’s Flux. Shortly thereafter, producer/instrumentalist Ryan Lum began releasing music under the Lovespirals moniker with singer Anji Bee. As for Suzanne Perry, the other half of Love Spirals Downwards, she joined a new band called Melodyguild that released a single EP in 2008.

Perry also contributed vocals to albums by Falling You and Sleepthief, but by and large, she’s been absent from the music scene. Last month, however, Projekt Records released There’ll Be No More Promises, a three-song EP that features one new song by Perry and multi-instrumentalist Cris Miller (Silver Screen). The title song picks up right where those Love Spirals Downwards albums from the ’90s left off, with Perry’s honeyed voice gliding effortlessly over Miller’s endlessly chiming guitars.

The EP’s other two tracks are a re-recording of “Ladonna Dissima,” which first appeared on Love Spirals Downwards’ Idylls, and a cover of “Sally’s Song” from The Nightmare Before Christmas, which Perry originally covered with Melodyguild for one of Projekt’s Christmas releases. In all three songs, Perry absolutely shines; the passage of time has done nothing to diminish her dreamy voice, which sounds just as ethereal now as it did 30 years ago.

There’ll Be No More Promises is currently available via Projekt, which has also hinted at more new music from Perry and Miller in the future.

Stavesacre recently announced that their sophomore album, 1997’s Absolutes, will be reissued on vinyl. As a little teaser, the post-hardcore outfit, which boasts members of The Crucified, Neon Horse, CHATTERbOx, Focused, and Scaterd Few, released a cover of U2’s “Acrobat.” With its roiling guitars and impassioned vocals, the penultimate track from 1991’s Achtung Baby is a perfect fit for Mark Salomon and his bandmates.

On a related note, this isn’t the only cover in Stavesacre’s repertoire: the band has previously covered The Cure’s “Fascination Street” (on 1999’s Speakeasy), X’s “The Hungry Wolf” (on 2001’s Collective compilation), and The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” (on the 2025 reissue of (stāvz’ā’kər)).

Preorders for the vinyl reissue of Absolutes will begin on September 21, 2026 via UnoriginalVinyl.

After the one-two punch of “The Best of Both Worlds” in seasons three and four, the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation had a problem: They had done too good a job of making the Borg a terrifying, galactic-level menace and didn’t really know what to do with the cybernetic collective. At the same time, they couldn’t just forget about the Borg; as an existential threat to the values of the Federation, they were simply too good of an enemy. So screenwriter René Echevarria did the only obvious thing: he made the Borg the good guys.

Or at least one of them.

The following contains spoilers for “I, Borg.”

The Enterprise is exploring an uncharted star system when they detect a possible distress call. They discover a crash site, and to their dismay, it’s a Borg scout ship. Fearing detection, Picard’s first inclination is to flee the scene, except one of the Borg crew has survived. Crusher, being the good doctor that she is, insists on beaming the Borg up to the Enterprise so she can treat it, and surprisingly, Picard agrees.

As the Borg is being treated/repaired, Picard asks La Forge if he can modify some of its cybernetic implants to introduce a virus that will strike at the root commands used by all Borg, thus affecting the entire Collective. Working with Data, La Forge comes up with a clever solution: a seemingly innocuous geometric image that, when processed by the Borg’s implants, will create an invasive program that slowly spreads and cripples the rest of the Collective.

Crusher is horrified by this plan, and compares it to genocide. What follows is one of those classic Star Trek moral debates, except this time, it’s the usually noble Picard who seems to be taking the low road, insisting that the Borg have forced the Federation into an impossible situation and they have no other choice.

The good doctor isn’t the only one with reservations, though. La Forge’s initial interactions with the Borg, which calls itself “Third of Five,” are chilly at best as it continually insists, as Borg are wont to do, that the Enterprise will be assimilated and resistance is futile. But as La Forge spends more time with Third of Five — now named Hugh — the Borg no longer seems like a mindless automaton. Indeed, as La Forge and Hugh interact, Hugh begins to question the Collective’s drive to assimilate, and even goes so far as to suggest that he and La Forge are now friends.

La Forge expresses his growing doubts to Picard but the captain is unmoved, and coldly suggests that La Forge “unattach” himself from the Borg in order to complete the mission. But Picard’s resolve finally starts to waver when none other than Guinan voices her own reservations.

Earlier in the episode, Guinan, whose race was all but exterminated by the Borg, visits Hugh and disdainfully mocks him. But when he finds some similarities between their situations — both of them, having been cut off from their respective peoples, are lonely — Guinan is left speechless. She heads to Picard’s quarters, where she tells Picard that if he’s hellbent on using Hugh to destroy the Borg, then he ought to have the decency to look Hugh in the face first.

And so Picard has Hugh beamed to his ready room, where Hugh recognizes him as Locutus, the Borg identity forced upon Picard in “The Best of Both Worlds.” Picard begins interrogating Hugh as Locutus, insisting that the Enterprise will be assimilated. Hugh pushes back, claiming that the Enterprise, including his new friend Geordi, would rather die than become Borg. Picard doubles down and orders Hugh to help with the assimilation, only to be taken aback when Hugh refuses to comply, and even more shockingly, refers to himself in the singular.

And that’s that. Hugh, La Forge, and the rest of the Enterprise live happily ever after together. Of course, that’s not what really happens. And to be honest, it’d make for a bad episode if it did. Instead, “I, Borg” wisely decides to pile on the complications.

In light of Hugh’s development, Picard decides to change the plan. Rather than using him to infect the Borg with a virus, they’ll send Hugh back as is, in the hope that his newfound sense of individuality will be what infects the Collective and brings them down. That sounds far more humane and civilized, until Crusher points out a fatal flaw in this new plan: What if Hugh doesn’t want to go back to the Collective?

Picard decides to let Hugh choose his fate, and grants the former Borg an offer of amnesty. Hugh is initially excited by the prospect, but ultimately declines Picard’s offer. If the Borg know he’s still alive, they’ll never stop looking for him, which would place the Enterprise in danger. Hugh therefore decides to return to the crash site and await retrieval. La Forge beams down with Hugh, and the two share a brief farewell before the Borg arrive and re-assimilate him.

Hugh seems to be a mindless drone once more. But in the episode’s final scene, he shares a brief-but-meaningful look with La Forge just as he’s beamed away, leaving La Forge alone to ponder the events.

“I, Borg” could have easily been a preachy, “tell, don’t show” episode that beats you over the head with the point it’s trying to make. And indeed, the dialog, be it the crew’s debate about genocide or Hugh’s growing individuality, is pretty on-the-nose throughout the episode. But “I, Borg” is ultimately a testament to The Next Generation’s cast. Everyone with prominent screen-time — namely, Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jonathan Del Arco, who played Hugh — is at the top of their game here.

Stewart makes Picard’s sense of violation at the hands of the Borg a plausible explanation as to why the redoubtable captain might be amenable to genocide and war crimes. Burton ably reveals LaForge’s growing uncertainty and sense of guilt. McFadden’s compassionate Crusher stands out as the lone voice of reason and morality. Goldberg pulls off Guinan’s own moral journey, which starts off aligned with Picard in accusing the Borg before transitioning into doubt after realizing that she might have something in common with her worst enemy. But perhaps the greatest kudos go to Del Arco, who plays Hugh with a sense of childlike innocence and naïveté that proves quite affecting even under all of the makeup and prosthetics.

Some other thoughts and observations from “I, Borg”:

• What was going through the minds of the security personnel as they watched La Forge, Crusher, et al., interact with Hugh? If I’d been one of them, I might begin to worry that the bridge crew was getting a little too chummy with one of the Federation’s worst enemies, and wonder if I should report it or not.
• On a related note, why was Guinan — a civilian — allowed to talk to a prisoner in the brig? Does she basically have free rein of the Enterprise on account of her friendship with Picard? Or did she use her charms to talk her way into the brig?
• I understand why the script would have Hugh decide to leave the Enterprise and return to the Borg; as a sacrificial act, it represents the culmination of his growth as a moral individual, and it stands in stark contrast to Picard’s own behavior. But would the Borg, who are obsessed with efficiency, really have expended the resources necessary to track down and reclaim one single drone? That seems rather un-Borg-like. (This is the same species, after all, that tends to ignore boarding parties on their own ships.)
• In order to escape detection from the Borg vessel that’s coming to reclaim Hugh, the Enterprise hides in the nearby star’s chromosphere. Picard reveals this plan to Hugh in the transporter room just before he beams down to be reclaimed by the Borg — who would presumably learn Picard’s plan upon re-assimilating Hugh. Which honestly seems like a bit of a tactical error.
• Picard has some great moments in this episode as the ostensible villain. (Because, y’know, he’s asking his crew to commit genocide.) But one of my favorite moments occurs in the aforementioned transporter room when Hugh says that he doesn’t want to forget who he’s become. Picard gives him a slight smile, and then, after Hugh is gone, reveals a much more conflicted expression. I imagine that’s the sort of expression a Starfleet captain has after he’s knowingly sent crew members to their doom.
• As I mentioned before, Del Arco’s performance as Hugh serves as the episode’s heart and soul. And all the more so once you know his performance was inspired by his partner, who died from AIDS shortly before Del Arco’s audition. From a 2020 interview: “I opened the script and I heard his voice. As it turns out, the voice was the voice of my previous partner who had died of AIDS and had dementia. I don’t know why, but that was the voice I heard. It was the innocence. It was the wonder.”
• One of the episode’s most impactful moments occurs when Hugh announces “I am Hugh” to a stunned Picard, revealing his newfound individualism. However, Hugh actually refers to himself in the singular earlier in the episode, when he receives his new name. Unfortunately, by the time Echevarria realized that error in his script, the scene had already been shot.
• “I, Borg” is one of the few TNG episodes that has repercussions later in the series. (One other such episode is “Yesterday’s Enterprise” from season three.) Hugh returned in the two-part episode “Descent” in seasons six and seven, where he led a group of Borg rebelling against Data’s brother Lore, who was attempting to take over the Borg Collective. He also appeared in Star Trek: Picard’s first season as an advocate and caretaker of “xBs,” individuals who were former members of the Borg Collective.

“I, Borg” was the 23rd episode of The Next Generation’s fifth season. The show was operating like a warp drive at peak efficiency by then, and that season contains several classic TNG episodes, including “Darmok,” “Disaster,” the “Unification” two-parter with Spock, “Cause and Effect,” “The Next Phase,” and “The Inner Light” (widely considered one of all-time best TNG episodes, if not the best). “I, Borg” easily ranks up there among them, adding some nuance to the series’ biggest, baddest villain while also interrogating our beloved characters, and revealing that even the noblest and most enlightened Starfleet officer is still capable of bigotry and prejudice.

According to the bio on his Bandcamp page, Oscar Robertson (aka, Sholto) grew up with “a love for jazz, soul, krautrock and 60s & 70s soundtracks.” That all certainly bears out on his latest album, The Sirens. Its twelve tracks are all lush affairs filled with swoon-inducing string and flute arrangements, rich production, and deep grooves that recall trip-hop’s ’90s heyday.

As befitting its title, The Sirens is an intoxicating affair from start to finish, an absolute must-hear for fans of orchestral pop composers like Sven Wunder. It all flows together so well, it might be hard to pick a highlight, but “Tied to the Mast” — an instrumental inspired by the tale of Odysseus resisting the sirens’ otherworldly call — always grabs my attention as soon as the beat kicks in. Sholto’s nod-worthy rhythms bolster Clementine Brown and Sebrina Lambert Rose’s swirling strings and Rachel Kitchlew’s shimmering harp notes, with the result being one siren call you don’t want to resist, but rather, give yourself over to completely.

The Sirens is currently available via DeepMatter Records.

This past weekend, a Spirit of Talk Talk concert event gathered together a group of musicians to pay tribute to the seminal post-rock group and celebrate the 40th anniversary of their third album, The Colour of Spring.

Stereogum’s Margaret Farrell posted a full rundown of the event — which featured the likes of Ed Harcourt, Sophie Barker (Zero 7), and Mark Gardener (Ride) alongside former Talk Talk members Simon Brenner, Phil Ramocon, and Ian Curnow — as well as several videos, including the one above of Gardener taking on “Living in Another World” with harmonica in hand.

It’s always great to see a band like Talk Talk be appreciated and receive the tributes they so richly deserve; see also Seal’s stirring performance of “Life’s What You Make It” from this past July.

Takashi Yamazaki is pulling out all of the stops for Godzilla Minus Zero, the sequel to 2023’s acclaimed Godzilla Minus One. First off, the latest Godzilla title is filmed in IMAX, making it the very first Japanese movie to use that format. But more importantly, this latest trailer — in which post-WW2 Japan is still reeling from the Big G’s wrath — teases the one and only King Ghidorah as the movie’s big bad.

If you’re not up on your Godzilla lore, the three-headed King Ghidorah has been Godzilla’s arch-enemy ever since it first appeared in 1964’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. True, we don’t actually see Ghidorah in the trailer, but I’m pretty sure those are its gravity beams at the 1:02 mark, and who else makes that sound at the 1:10 mark? Also, the trailer suggests that Godzilla Minus Zero pulls a few plot points from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, though presumably it won’t feature any aliens from Venus.

I guess we’ll find out for sure, though, when Godzilla Minus Zero arrives in theaters on November 6, 2026.

When Gene Roddenberry and his team set out to revive Star Trek two decades after the original series’ run, arguably one of their biggest challenges concerned their biggest star: the U.S.S. Enterprise herself. The Next Generation was set almost a century after the original Star Trek series, so how would Roddenberry et al. create an even more advanced version of the iconic starship that had traveled to the furthest reaches of the galaxy and beyond? And just as importantly, how might this new Enterprise reflect real-world technological developments, particularly in the area of computers?

The answer to those questions was the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, and suffice to say, the efforts of Roddenberry and his team of artists and designers, which included Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, and Michael Okuda, were a complete success. To this day, the Enterprise-D remains one of the most beautiful and striking spaceships in all of sci-fi, as well as Starfleet’s crown jewel. Yes, even more so than the original Enterprise crewed by Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the TOS crew.

That will no doubt be blasphemous for many Star Trek fans. So just to be clear, the original Enterprise form factor will forever remain iconic, both its first incarnation by Matt Jefferies as well as the Enterprise-A revealed at the end of Star Trek IV. But when I look at the Enterprise-D, there’s an undeniable sense of purpose and intentionality that gives it more than just verisimilitude; it looks and feels exactly like what a futuristic version of the already futuristic Enterprise should look and feel like.

The sleek, graceful lines communicate advanced engineering and material capabilities, as you’d expect in the late 24th century. The forward-leaning pylons, which are connected to the back of the warp nacelles, suggest speed, as if the ship is forever yearning to jump to warp. The many curves — the shape of the nacelles, the “hood” that connects the saucer and engineering sections, the saucer section itself — possess an organic-ness that feels perfect for a ship that is more than just utilitarian or military. For a ship that doesn’t just carry a crew, but is home to families and communities.

Put simply, the Enterprise-D remains faithful to that classic form factor while updating and evolving it in very distinct ways that make sense for the setting and communicate the ship’s 24th-century capabilities.

That extends the ship’s interior, as well. Which, yes, is pretty beige. (Not even the 24th century could escape the ’90s, it seems.) But there’s something purposeful about that, an acknowledgement that the Enterprise’s many crew members and passengers might need something a bit more calming and comfortable while out on deep space missions.

Funnily enough, Jefferies was less than pleased with this aspect of the Enterprise-D, complaining that Roddenberry “had taken the bridge of my ship and turned it into the lobby of the Hilton” — no doubt referring to the open space, plush seating, and Worf’s tactical control station. Granted, that last feature does look a little like something out of a hotel lobby thanks to its expensive-looking wooden façade, but that also injects some warmth into the bridge. Meanwhile, the graceful wings curving around the command chairs communicate a sense of defense and protection as befitting a stalwart Klingon security chief.

But even if the beige decor might look a little dated, one aspect of the Enterprise’s interior that still feels futuristic is its computer interfaces. These days, touch screens are all over the place, from our phones to our cars and refrigerators. But when The Next Generation premiered in 1987, the touchscreens that the Enterprise crew used to navigate the ship, conduct experiments, communicate, and fire weapons didn’t just seem cutting edge; they seemed like the very ideal of how you’d use an advanced computer system.

Much of that’s due to Michael Okuda, who designed the graphical interfaces for the Enterprise’s LCARS operating system. One of the key principles of these interfaces, often called “Okudagrams” in honor of their creator, was that they were adaptable to each user’s needs. As noted in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (yes, I still have my copy that I got back in high school), some of this was intended to communicate advanced computing functionality, while some of it helped with the realities of TV production:

We incorporated the concept of software-definable, task-specific panel layout into our controls because Mike thought it a logical way of simplifying designs that would otherwise have been nightmarishly complex. The basic idea is that the panels automatically reconfigure themselves to suit the specific task at hand. A side benefit we discovered is this gave our actors much more freedom in hitting controls to accomplish various tasks. (Even though our cast tries to get things right, there are numerous occasions when a particular shot will require an actor to hit a button on a specific area of a panel, which may not reflect our original design for that panel.) Variable-layout control panels mean that the button that fires phasers this week is not necessarily the same button that fires them next week.

Thanks to Okuda’s detailed designs, the Enterprise-D’s computer UI still feels futuristic even now, when touchscreens and adaptable interfaces are quite commonplace. More importantly, it’s a tangible UI that feels useful and usable, like something that might actually be practicable even in the 24th century. Contrast that with the holographic interfaces featured in newer Trek series like Picard, which basically consist of people gesturing wildly in the air while bright lights dance around in front of them. Once you get past their “gee whiz” factor, such gestural interfaces quickly reveal themselves to be silly, impractical, and decidedly un-Star Trek. (To my mind, one of the few series to feature gestural interfaces that make sense is The Expanse.)

The Enterprise-D is beautiful, both inside and out. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to last. After its destruction at the end of 1994’s Star Trek Generations, Picard and his crew were given the Enterprise-E, which still looked pretty cool while reverting back to some aspects of the original Enterprise design (e.g., the warp nacelles and their back-swept pylons). The Enterprise-D made a triumphant, albeit brief, return in Star Trek: Picard’s third and final season, only to return to the Starfleet Museum and make way for the Enterprise-G. Whereas the Enterprise-D wasn’t afraid to wholly evolve the ship’s form factor, the Enterprise-G’s design sticks far more closely to the original with a few updates sprinkled here and there, resulting in an awkward and ungainly mashup of old and new.

Of course, Star Trek doesn’t just take place in the 25th century now. Thanks to Discovery and Starfleet Academy, the franchise also now exists in the 32nd century. Which raises the question of whether or not the Enterprise is still traveling the galaxy, and if so, what it looks like.

There’s been some conjecture that Starfleet Academy’s second and final season represents a perfect opportunity to reveal an even more futuristic incarnation of Starfleet’s most well-known starship. If and when that happens, one thing’s for certain: The Enterprise-D set such a high bar, and was so successful at updating and refreshing one of sci-fi’s most beloved spaceships, that whoever is tasked with conceiving and designing the next Enterprise will certainly have their work cut out for them.

I could’ve sworn I already posted something about Ladytron’s recent KEXP performance, but I couldn’t find anything in the archives, so allow me to address that oversight now. To mark the release of their latest album Paradises, the band ventured into the vaunted KEXP studios back in June to perform several of their latest songs. But they capped things off with a performance of “Destroy Everything You Touch” from 2005’s Witching Hour, which is arguably their signature song (even more so than “Seventeen”). And even after more than two decades, “Destroy” still slaps harder than most songs even half its age.

The phrase “Black is beautiful” was popularized by photojournalist Kwame Brathwaite, whose work during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s documented life in Harlem and Africa as well as numerous artists and celebrities, including the Jacksons, Nina Simone, James Brown, and Muhammad Ali. In 1962, he helped stage the “Naturally ‘62” fashion show, which featured Black models showcasing their natural hairstyles and African-inspired clothing. The intent was to encourage Black people to take pride in their own unique beauty and culture, rather than feel compelled to simply embrace white/Caucasian fashion and beauty styles.

Flash forward 60+ years, and the Black Is Beautiful Experience — a multi-artist effort led by Brandon Baker, Kwame S. Brathwaite, Marcus Gilmore, and Nicholas Payton — seeks to pay tribute to Brathwaite’s photography and advocacy. Their latest work is “Beauty in Bloom,” composed by Grammy-nominated harpist Brandee Younger. It’s a rich, evocative jazz number, and the manner in which Younger’s dulcet tones flow together with Joel Ross’s vibraphone, Joe Dyson’s brushed percussion, Marquis Hill’s wistful trumpet, and De’Sean Jones’s string arrangements is the very definition of graceful.

“Beauty in Bloom” is currently available via Black Is Beautiful Experience, and it bodes well for the project’s future releases. As for Younger, her most recent album is Gadabout Season, released in 2025 on Impulse! Records.

For well over two decades now, Chicago’s Russian Circles have been serving up in-your-face instrumental post-rock that definitely hews to the “rock” side of that equation, with pummeling rhythms and face-melting riffs that draw equally from the realms of hardcore and metal. As such, the slab-like imagery on the cover of their latest album, Nine, is quite apropos; there’s nothing subtle about the trio’s music, which is precisely why it’s so bracing.

Case in point, “Seventh Seal.” As befitting such a title, Nine’s final track is a score for the end times. Drummer Dave Turncrantz sounds like he’s trying to summon the Four Horsemen themselves with his galloping beats while Mike Sullivan unleashes his riffs — face-melting to the extreme — with wild and reckless abandon. And it gets even better in the song’s second half, where the band slows to a sludgy breakdown that’ll have the entire pit pounding on the floor with bloody fists.

Nine is currently available via Sargent House.

There’s not much information about Martin Jarl on the interwebs beyond an Instagram page that’s primarily videos of him coaxing a variety of dubby textures from his samplers and sequencers. (Oh, and his cat makes the occasional appearance.) But I get the distinct impression that Jarl’s a pretty chill guy, an impression that’s further borne out by his latest title, In the Dark.

Clocking in at just over half an hour, the album’s seven tracks are filled with bass pulses, shimmering synth notes, and fluttering textures bathed in light layers of reverb and delay. It’s all uniformly enjoyable precisely because it’s so laidback and unassuming. But “Passing (remaster)” is doubly so as it eschews the dub to focus almost exclusively on the shimmer and flutter.

If you’ve ever wondered what Steve Roach’s Structures From Silence might sound like if some beats drifted through its contemplative expanse, then Martin Jarl’s got an answer for you, and it’s absolutely lovely.

In the Dark is currently available from Djuphavet Recordings.

In order to better track my various cultural experiences (e.g., movies, TV shows, books, restaurants), I’ve created the Cultural Diet. Think of it as my own personal Goodreads, Letterboxd, and Yelp, all rolled into one (more info here). Every month, I recap everything that I watched, read, etc., in the previous month.

While trying (unsuccessfully) to hunt down a song that he heard on the radio one night, Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner discovered “lined out singing,” a form of a cappella call-and-response gospel singing that originated in Scotland during the 1800s and was brought to America by Scottish immigrants. Inspired by the haunting choral arrangements, Wagner set out to make a record that emulated their effect, with the result being Lambchop’s seventeenth album: Punching the Clown.

Throughout the album’s twelve songs, Wagner is often backed by the Eau Claire Vocal Sextet, and their pure voices provide an intriguing contrast to his own roughhewn vocals, as well as the stripped down instrumentation (which features Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on banjo). The music is consistently striking, and even reaches theatrical heights on album highlight “The New World Wave.” Here, the sextet’s voices practically soar, imbuing Wagner’s homespun tale of disappointment and family struggle with an unearthly grace that gives me chills no matter how many times I hear it. (On a related note, I highly recommend reading Philip Sherburne’s beautiful review, in which he chronicles how Punching the Clown has become a lifeline in the midst of caring for his ailing mother.)

Punching the Clown is now available from Merge Records.

As Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, et al. add more content, it can be difficult to know what to look for amidst all of the new titles. Every month, I compile a list of particularly noteworthy and interesting movies and TV shows to add to your streaming queues.

If you’d like to receive my streaming recommendations even sooner, become an Opus subscriber today.

Jump to a Streaming Service

• Amazon Prime Video
• Apple TV
• The Criterion Channel
• Disney+
• HBO Max
• Hulu
• Netflix
• Paramount+
• Peacock
• Tubi

Amazon Prime Video

Army of Darkness (Sep 1)

At the end of Evil Dead 2, Ash Williams was sucked through a portal and accidentally transported back to the Middle Ages. There, he must use his modern understanding of science and technology — including his boom stick — to help the medieval warriors defeat the evil Deadites. Bruce Campbell reprises his most famous role, while the film boasts some delightful stop-motion animation and low budget effects. Like the rest of the Evil Dead films, it’s developed a cult following.

Collateral (Sep 1)

All Max Durocher wants to do is earn enough money as a cab driver to launch his own limo business. But his plans get thrown into a blender when he meets Vincent, a slick hitman who forces Max to drive him around Los Angeles to complete a series of jobs. Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise star in this slick Michael Mann-directed thriller that’s filled with action and style.

Eagle Eye (Sep 1)

Jerry Shaw is a college dropout who just wants to get by. But his humdrum life is upended when he comes home to find his apartment filled with illegal weapons and he’s arrested by the FBI. Helped only by a mysterious voice on the phone, he must piece together the conspiracy that has captured his life, and threatens the lives of countless innocents. Eagle Eye received a critical drubbing back in 2008, but I still think it’s a fun, if totally ludicrous, thriller that’s a decent way to spend a Friday night.

Munich (Sep 1)

After Palestinian terrorists attack the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, a Mossad agent is tasked with tracking down and eliminating eleven Palestinians who were involved in the attack. Based on a true story, Munich may seem a far cry from Steven Spielberg’s use fare, but it’s nevertheless a brutal and riveting thriller about the endless cycle of violence and its consequences. Munich stars Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, and Geoffrey Rush.

They Live (Sep 1)

Wrestling icon Roddy Piper stars in this John Carpenter thriller about a drifter who rolls into town and stumbles across a conspiracy that threatens all of humanity. It’s tempting to dismiss They Live as some ’80s fluff, but the film proves quite subversive; Carpenter’s contempt for the decade’s excess and materialism fuels every single frame. That, along with some classic one-liners (you’ll never think about bubble gum the same way) and one of cinema’s all-time greatest brawls, makes They Live a cult classic in every sense of the term.

Neagley, Season One (Sep 16)

This spin-off from Amazon’s popular Reacher series follows the adventures of Frances Neagley, a Chicago P.I. who gets pulled into a dangerous case following the suspicious death of an old friend. Maria Sten reprises her character from Reacher, with Reacher himself, Alan Ritchson, making a guest appearance.

Here’s everything arriving on Amazon Prime Video in September 2026.

Apple TV

Mayday (Sep 4)

Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh join forces in the Cold War-set comedy about a downed American pilot (Reynolds) who must survive in Russia with the help of a former KGB agent (Branagh). Given the presence of Reynolds, as well as the fact that the film was written and directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley — who previously gave us 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves — I’m hoping that Mayday can deliver the fun.

Slow Horses, Season Six (Sep 6)

The latest season of Slow Horses finds the disgraced spies on the run as someone is trying to hunt them down, one by one. Of course, given their various dysfunctions, their greatest enemy may turn out to be each other. The whole gang is back together, led by Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, the misanthropic and disgusting spy leader who’s far more clever and devious than he seems.

Here’s everything arriving on Apple TV in September 2026.

The Criterion Channel

Flow (Sep 1)

In a strange and beguiling post-human world that’s slowly being consumed by a flood, a cat teams up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog to try and find dry land. Made over the course of five years using open source software, Flow is a delightful animated journey that is by turns amusing, moving, and breathtaking (read my review). It’s no surprise that Flow was a massive success upon its release, culminating in a “Best Animated Feature” Oscar — a first for Latvian cinema.

Linda Linda Linda (Sep 1)

When their lead singer suddenly quits, an all schoolgirl rock band is desperate to find a replacement in time for the upcoming school festival. But their only option is a Korean exchange student who barely knows any Japanese. The resulting film is a truly delightful story about friendship, youthful melodrama, and the power of punk rock. Oh, and it features some absolute bangers, starting with its title track, which you’ll have stuck in your head for days.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Sep 1)

Neon Genesis Evangelion takes standard anime tropes (e.g., a group of young mech pilots battle alien threats in a post-apocalyptic world) and steadily subverts them with religious references and psychological themes borne out of creator Hideaki Anno’s own mental health struggles. The result is one of the greatest and most influential anime series of all time, as well as one of the most controversial and hotly debated.

Streets of Fire (Sep 1)

Ellen Aim and the Attackers are the city’s hottest band. So hot, in fact, that they attract the attention of Bombers, a violent street gang who kidnaps Ellen. The only one who can save Ellen is her ex-boyfriend Tom, a former soldier who still has feelings for her. But can their love survive in the city streets? Directed by Walter Hill and starring Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, and Willem Dafoe, Streets of Fire is filled with style, not to mention some solid musical numbers. I challenge you to not get a lump in your throat when you hear “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young.”

Thief (Sep 1)

The late James Caan delivered one of his most iconic performances as Frank, a skilled safecracker who prizes his independence and autonomy above all else. But when he falls in love and starts a family, and starts working for a Chicago mob boss, Frank’s finds himself in uncharted territory. Directed by Michael Mann, Thief is filled with style to spare (read my review), from the Tangerine Dream soundtrack to the realistic safecracking sequences. (To achieve the latter, Mann hired real-life thieves as technical advisors.)

Here’s everything arriving on The Criterion Channel in September 2026.

Disney+

Spider-Man: No Way Home (Sep 4)

After his secret identity is revealed to the world at the end of 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter Parker’s life is turned upside down and his loved ones are threatened. Desperate for a solution, Parker turns to Dr. Strange for help — only for his magical assistance to go awry and threaten the entire multiverse. In addition to Tom Holland reprising his role as everyone’s favorite Webhead, the film also brought together Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire for a webslinger trifecta.

Here’s everything arriving on Disney+ in September 2026.

HBO Max

A Clockwork Orange (Sep 1)

In Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel, a young man (played by Malcolm McDowell) obsessed with sex, violence, and Beethoven is subjected to a controversial treatment to cure his anti-social desires, but it all goes wrong. The film was originally rated “X” and stirred up considerable controversy due to its graphic content. It wasn’t even widely available in the UK until after Kubrick’s death, nearly 30 years after its initial release.

Full Metal Jacket (Sep 1)

Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam War epic is two films in one, the first a brutal examination of dehumanization in boot camp and the second takes place in the chaos of Vietnam itself. Both parts are chilling and masterful in their own right (read my review), though the first half has the added bonus of R. Lee Ermey as a sadistic drill instructor with a real gift for inventive swearing.

The Maltese Falcon (Sep 1)

Arguably the most well-known example of classic Hollywood film noir, The Maltese Falcon stars Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, a jaded P.I. who gets pulled into a mysterious and deadly case involving missing sisters, femme fatales, and a valuable statue. Based on Dashiell Hammett’s novel and directed by John Huston, The Maltese Falcon also stars Mary Astor and Peter Lorre.

Speed (Sep 1)

Keanu Reeves officially became an action movie star in this thriller about a SWAT officer (Reeves) trying to stop a mad bomber (Dennis Hopper) threatening the Los Angeles. When the bomber’s latest ploy is a bus that will explode if it slows down below 50 miles/hour, Reeves must find a way to stop him and save the passengers. Thanks to its strong performances, taut set pieces, and thrilling twists, Speed was one of 1994’s most successful movies, commercially and critically, and its status has only grown over time (read my review).

Fuze (Sep 4)

When an unexploded bomb from World War II is discovered in the middle of London, a bomb disposal crew is brought in to take care of it. Unbeknownst to them, a group of thieves are taking advantage of the chaos to break into a nearby bank, setting up a deadly game of cat and mouse. Fuze is directed by David Mackenzie, who previously directed Relay, Outlaw King, and Hell or High Water.

Backrooms (Sep 25)

When a down-on-his-luck furniture store owner discovers a portal to a bizarre alternate dimension in his store’s basement, he sees an opportunity. But that opportunity threatens to consume not just him, but those closest to him, as well. Originally starting out as a series of YouTube shorts inspired by liminal spaces and online creepypasta, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms became one of 2026’s biggest hits, as well as one of the biggest independent films of all time.

Here’s everything arriving on HBO Max in September 2026.

Hulu

Coraline (Sep 1)

Neil Gaiman’s darkly fantastical storytelling and Henry Selick’s stop-motion animation are a match made in movie heaven. Coraline’s titular heroine dreams of a nicer, more magical home — which is exactly what she gets when she discovers a portal to another world. Of course, given that this is Neil Gaiman we’re talking about, things soon get dark and weird, and Selick’s clever visuals are a perfect tool for conveying that (read my review).

The Green Knight (Sep 1)

Written and directed by David Lowery, The Green Knight offers up a very unique spin on Arthurian mythos. When the mysterious Green Knight challenges the Round Table to a bizarre contest, the only one who responds is the brash and immature Sir Gawain (Dev Patel). When ensues is a bizarre fantasy that challenges the notions of chivalry as Gawain journeys through an increasingly bizarre England to respond to the Green Knight’s call.

School of Rock (Sep 1)

All Dewey Finn wants to be is a rock star. Unfortunately, his antics have left him without a band and soon, without a place to live. But when he impersonates his roommate to land a teaching gig at a prestigious prep school, he discovers that the school is home to musical prodigies. Suddenly, his dreams of stardom seem more attainable than ever… so long as no one finds out that he’s not actually a teacher. Directed by Richard Linklater and starring Jack Black in one of his best roles, School of Rock is a deeply satisfying comedy about the power of rock n’ roll.

Here’s everything arriving on Hulu in September 2026.

Netflix

Alien (Sep 1)

After the crew of a deep space vessel discovers the wreckage of an alien spaceship, they soon find themselves being hunted by a vicious, cold-blooded creature. Directed by Ridley Scott, with designs inspired by H.R. Giger’s nightmarish artwork, Alien is a sci-fi/horror classic (read my review). The movie Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and of course, Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, one of sci-fi cinema’s most iconic female characters.

The Blues Brothers (Sep 1)

When Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) learn that their old orphanage needs $5,000 to keep going, they decide to track down the members of their old blues band and put on a show to raise the money. Along the way, they’ll demolish a shopping mall, enrage a country band, take on some Nazis, and cause massive vehicular chaos across the state of Illinois. Easily one of the best Saturday Night Live films, The Blues Brothers is a true cult classic.

Conan the Barbarian (Sep 1)

What is best in life? Well, as Conan taught us once so well, it is “to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!” In this classic sword-and-sorcery film, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays one of his signature roles, the titular barbarian who must take on an evil cult to avenge his family’s death.

Keanu (Sep 1)

For their feature film debut, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele — of Key & Peele fame — star in this tale of a man who will do anything to get his beloved kitten back, even if that means infiltrating a violent gang or taking on some legendary assassins. As you might expect from Key and Peele, Keanu is hilarious, turning plenty of gangster movie tropes on their head with the help of a cast that includes Tiffany Haddish, Method Man, Luis Guzmán, Will Forte, and of course, Keanu Reeves.

Uncle Buck (Sep 1)

The late, great John Candy stars in this John Hughes comedy about a bachelor who’s suddenly asked to take care of his brother’s kids, with all of the requisite hijinks — and heartwarming moments — ensuing shortly thereafter. The film also stars Laurie Metcalf, Amy Madigan, and a pre-Home Alone Macaulay Culkin.

Here’s everything arriving on Netflix in September 2026.

Paramount+

Changing Lanes (Sep 1)

What happens when a brash, hotshot attorney crosses paths with a down-on-his-luck father trying to make ends meet? Chaos and suspense, in this modern morality tale by director Roger Michell. Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson star as the two men, each from vastly different backgrounds and levels of privilege, who find themselves resorting to increasingly desperate measures to outsmart and outmaneuver each other.

The Crow (Sep 1)

It’s always a risk when talking about The Crow; the tragic on-set death of Brandon Lee has become so interwoven with the movie’s mythos that enjoying it can seem disrespectful. But the fact is that The Crow remains a singular movie of the ’90s, as stylized and goth-y as can be, with intense action and a brooding soundtrack featuring a host of alt-rock superstars (read my review). Lee is absolutely perfect as the titular character, a musician brought back to life to avenge the death of his fiancé, which only adds to the movie’s poignancy.

Edge of Tomorrow (Sep 1)

In this time twisty sci-fi actioner, Tom Cruise plays a disgraced soldier who’s quickly killed while trying to defend Earth from mysterious alien invaders — only to discover that he now relives the same day over and over again. Not only does this allow him to become a super-soldier Groundhog Day-style, but it might also be the key to defeating the aliens once and for all. In the hands of a lesser cast and crew, Edge of Tomorrow’s premise could be ridiculous and boring, but that is most certainly not the case here (read my review).

Galaxy Quest (Sep 1)

The premise — actors from a classic sci-fi TV series are kidnapped by aliens who believe the show to be real — makes it sound like Galaxy Quest does nothing but poke fun at all things Star Trek. Which it does, and brilliantly so, but all of its jokes come from a place of love. As a result, it’s the best kind of parody, one that recognizes the inherent silliness of Star Trek while also capturing what makes Star Trek so great in the first place. By Grabthar’s Hammer, indeed.

Gone Baby Gone (Sep 1)

In this harrowing neo-noir, the city of Boston is galvanized when a young girl is abducted. At the center of it is small-time private investigator Patrick Kenzie, whose quest to find the girl takes him from the city’s seediest neighborhoods to its loftiest halls of power. With its taut pacing, ominous atmosphere, and solid performances from Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Ed Harris, and Amy Ryan (who received an Oscar nomination for her performance as the young girl’s unstable mom), you’d never tell that Gone Baby Gone was Ben Affleck’s directorial debut.

Regarding Henry (Sep 1)

Regarding Henry is not the best Harrison Ford movie, and it’s easily eclipsed by the rest of his early ’90s output, including Patriot Games and The Fugitive. But for some reason, we watched this a lot when I was a kid, and so I have a soft spot in my heart for this sappy drama about a soulless Manhattan lawyer who’s given a chance to rebuild his life into something better after a vicious assault leaves him with amnesia.

Golden Axe, Season One (Sep 16)

Liam McIntyre, Lisa Gilroy, and Matthew Rhys lend their voices to this animated adaptation of the classic Sega video game. (I can’t even begin to count how many quarters I wasted on the arcade version.) Their heroic trio is joined by Danny Pudi’s Hampton Squib, a would be adventurer who joins them in their quest to take down the evil Death Adder.

Here’s everything arriving on Paramount+ in September 2026.

Peacock

10 Things I Hate About You (Sep 1)

Bianca Stratford is the most popular girl at school, but she isn’t allowed to date until her antisocial older sister, Kat, finds a boyfriend — which seems highly unlikely. Until bad boy Patrick Verona enters the picture, that is. There have been countless Shakespeare adaptations over the years, but few are as beloved — or so perfectly of their era — as 10 Things I Hate About You, a classic ’90s take on The Taming of the Shrew starring Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Larisa Oleynik.

Get Out (Sep 1)

Given his work with Keegan-Michael Key on the beloved sketch show Key & Peele, it would only make sense to expect Jordan Peele’s directorial debut to be a work of comedy. Instead, he delivered one of the most acclaimed horror films in recent memory. After a young Black man meets his white girlfriend’s upper-class family, he begins to notice strange behavior and soon finds himself caught up in a nefarious conspiracy. Get Out was a commercial and critical success, winning a “Best Original Screenplay” Oscar for Peele.

The Goonies (Sep 1)

Directed by Richard Donner and produced by Steven Spielberg, The Goonies is about as good as a classic kids adventure film can get. When a group of social misfits on the verge of being kicked out of their homes discover a pirate treasure map, they see it as the perfect solution to their problems — if they can survive the elaborate booby traps and vicious criminals on their tail.

Hot Fuzz (Sep 1)

Nicholas Angel is London’s best cop. He’s so good, in fact, that he makes all of the other cops look bad. Which is why he gets transferred to the sleepy town of Sandford, where the crime rate is zero and nothing bad ever happens. But when locals start disappearing, Angel’s convinced something’s going on. Has Sandford gotten to him, or has he cracked the biggest case of his career? Inspired by classic buddy cop films like Lethal Weapon, Hot Fuzz is action comedy of the highest sort (read my review).

Shaun of the Dead (Sep 1)

The debut feature film by Edgar Wright (if you don’t count 1995’s A Fistful of Fingers, that is), Shaun of the Dead is about as perfect a combination of horror and humor as you could hope for. When a slacker (played by frequent Wright collaborator Simon Pegg) is faced with a zombie holocaust, he and his friends have to find the best way to survive — but things just get more and more complicated. This was the first in Wright’s “Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy, followed by Hot Fuzz and The World’s End.

Tremors (Sep 1)

In this 1990 camp classic (read my review), a pair of drifters arrive in a Nevada town that’s plagued by mysterious killings — killings that turn out to be far more monstrous than previously thought. Tremors is worth it for the character of Burt Gummer alone, a doomsday prepper and survivalist played by Michael Gross. (Yes, Family Ties’ Michael Gross.)

United 93 (Sep 1)

A Hollywood film about the September 11 terror attacks could’ve gone wrong in all sorts of ways. However, Paul Greengrass’ United 93 — which tells the story of the brave passengers and crew who fought against the hijackers, causing their plane to crash before it could hit its target — walks that line admirably by telling a gripping-yet-tasteful story that honors the heroes of that day.

Here’s everything arriving on Peacock in September 2026.

Tubi

After Yang (Sep 1)

In this melancholy and meditative sci-fi film by South Korean filmmaker Kogonada, a family grapples with the potential death of their robot Yang, who has become like a son and brother to them. As the father (Colin Farrell) seeks a fix for Yang, he discovers secrets from the robot’s past that reveal a much more complicated existence. Thanks to its deft handling of heady themes like the relationship between humans and technology, After Yang was widely acclaimed upon its release — read my review — and has been called one of the best sci-fi films of the 21st century.

Desperado (Sep 1)

In this spiritual sequel to 1992’s El Mariachi, Antonio Banderas plays a lonesome mariachi with a deadly secret — and a guitar case full of guns. Completely ludicrous and over-the-top, Desperado is filled with countless action sequences that are held together entirely by Banderas’ charisma.

Django Unchained (Sep 1)

Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz star as a pair of bounty hunters who travel through the pre-Civil War South to track down outlaws and find Foxx’s wife. Which inevitably brings them into conflict with Calvin J. Candie, a vicious and vile slaveowner. Django Unchained has the usual blend of clever dialog and ultra-violence one expects from a Quentin Tarantino movie, but with the added bonus of watching Foxx and Waltz take out plantations and slaveowners. The movie also stars Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, and Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie.

Kung Fu Panda (Sep 1)

The casting of Jack Black as the voice of Po, a panda who dreams of being a martial arts legend, was clearly a stroke of genius. Set in an version of medieval China populated with anthropomorphized animals, Kung Fu Panda is a thoroughly entertaining action/comedy for the whole family that also packs some delightful depth beneath the martial arts hijinks. (And for what it’s worth, I contend that Tai Lung’s prison escape is one of the great cinematic action scenes of all time.)

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (Sep 1)

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation was writer/director Christopher McQuarrie’s first effort in the franchise, and it turns out that his work with lead star Tom Cruise was a match made in heaven. (The two had previously worked together on 2012’s Jack Reacher.) This time around, Ethan Hunt and his IMF cohorts square off against The Syndicate, an international terrorist group consisting of rogue government agents. As you might expect, Rogue Nation is filled with jawdropping stunts, starting with a scene of Cruise literally hanging onto the side of an airplane as it takes off (read my review).

Moon (Sep 1)

Duncan Jones’ Moon is proof that you don’t need big budget special effects to craft an appealing and enjoyable sci-fi film. The only worker on a remote lunar base (played by Sam Rockwell) is struggling with the psychological strain of his isolation when he stumbles across a darker secret. Rockwell gives a solid performance and Jones ably proves that less is more with the film’s stripped down, minimalist approach.

The Mummy (Sep 1)

Starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, The Mummy is a delightful throwback to the classic action serials of the ’30s and ’40s. When an Egyptologist discovers a map to a hidden city, she enlists the aid of an American soldier of fortune to help her, not knowing that they’re about to face a slew of supernatural threats. Filled with cutting edge (for the time) special effects, and more importantly, a sense of fun and adventure, The Mummy is popcorn cinema par excellence.

Pi (Sep 1)

A troubled yet brilliant mathematician uses chaos theory and supercomputers to understand how the stock market works. In the process, he’s drawn into the world of Jewish mystics seeking after the true name of God. Darren Aronofsky’s Pi is compelling on multiple levels thanks to its intriguing plot and themes, surreal visuals (aided by the film’s black-and-white cinematography), and pulsing electronic soundtrack.

Here’s everything arriving on Tubi in September 2026.

I’ve been reading Polygon for a long time now, and I recently noticed that they’ve adopted an “interesting” editorial approach to their articles’ headlines. Instead of telling you upfront the name of the movie or TV series that’s being covered, their headlines are often cryptic and obtuse, and highlight seemingly arbitrary details like box office returns and runtimes. Consider these recent examples:

• “Henry Cavill’s new action thriller from Guy Ritchie is officially a massive streaming hit”
• “The most unforgettable zombie movie of the 21st century is about to leave Netflix”
• “The only Stephen King-directed movie is officially free to watch on YouTube”
• “Robert Pattinson’s 8/10 sci-fi action movie officially finds success on streaming”
• “Tom Hardy’s $478M Sci-Fi Action Movie Officially Surges to #2 on Netflix”
• “3 years later, Mark Wahlberg’s suburban action film is still dominating streaming”
• “Taylor Sheridan and Jon Bernthal’s 121-minute 10/10 action Western remains a streaming smash hit”

I assume the goal is to intrigue you so much that you feel compelled to click on the headline so you can finally solve the mystery of which “unforgettable zombie movie” or Mark Wahlberg film they’re talking about. (For the record, that would be Zombieland and The Family Plan, respectively.)

Now, I confess to sometimes clicking on such headlines out of curiosity, but I always feel a bit frustrated afterwards, like I got duped into clicking. And I’m not the only one. Aftermath’s Luke Plunkett notes this behavior on other geek-centric sites owned by the Valnet media company (e.g., ScreenRant, CBR), and he finds it perplexing and annoying, even offensive.

We’re people trying to get by on the internet here, and being treated like an article is a puzzle box that feels designed solely to torment someone into juicing a pageview, rather than inform or entertain a reader, is a demeaning experience. Nobody should have to dance for their supper just to find out some folks have rediscovered The Wire again.

The more I see these headlines, the more I feel like one of the last living humans on an internet increasingly written by machines for machines. What are we even doing here, when headlines aren’t being written for the people reading the website? What even is a website without that? There’s nothing in these headlines making me want to click on these stories, and there’s very little in them to warrant the deception in the first place. It’s smoke and mirrors from top to bottom.

I can think of at least one reason for this behavior. The last headline in the above list is actually about 2015’s Sicario. But you don’t find that out until after you’ve clicked on the title and then scrolled past the second paragraph — along with a couple of ads and a completely unrelated video that you might be distracted enough to watch.

From a metrics perspective, all of that might look like the behavior of an engaged reader. “Engaged,” however, is not the same thing as “informed.” In fact, “engaged” in this context is more likely just another way of saying “inconvenienced.” But, engagement is apparently what really matters to Polygon and Valnet, and less so informing, or even entertaining. And so I’ve decided to stop following Polygon. I have better things to do with my time than play their editorial guessing games.

(In years past, Twitter accounts like HuffPoSpoilers and Saved You a Click became infamous for summarizing clickbait articles so you didn’t need to click on them. I wonder if someone’s offering a similar service for cryptic headlines like Polygon’s.)

There’s certainly an art to writing good headlines. It’s harder than it looks to write headlines that are clever and intriguing, but also clear and informative. (I still think about the discussion surrounding Greg Storey’s “A Better Tighty Whitey” piece from — checks notes — 2004.) But given how people tend to read online, and how much content’s actually out there, it’s best to always err on the side of clarity. (The same, by the way, goes for your site’s URLs.)

Headlines should be written to benefit human readers, not boost some executive’s marketing metrics or serve the AI bots currently hoovering up the web faster than we can create it. But alas, this is the online media landscape in which we now live.

It’s been a long and circuitous route for Coyote vs. Acme. The live-action/animation hybrid, which was inspired by a 1996 article by humorist Ian Frazier, was originally announced back in 2018. After spending several years in development hell, the film was finally completed in 2023. But despite receiving positive word-of-mouth, Warner Bros. announced they were shelving Coyote vs. Acme in order to get a $30 million tax write-off.

That decision received widespread criticism from filmmakers and others in Hollywood, who saw it as a sign of corporate greed run amok. No doubt shaken by the condemnation, Warner Bros. reversed their decision and shopped the film around to other studios, including Apple Studios, Netflix, and Paramount. Ultimately, Warner Bros. sold the film to Ketchup Entertainment, who had previously released 2024’s The Day the Earth Blew Up. And here we are.

So is this tale of a coyote and a down-on-his-luck attorney taking on the world’s biggest company worth the wait? Or was Warner Bros. right to shelve it? Read on for a selection of critical reactions to the latest Looney Tunes film.

👍 Hoai-Tran Bui, ​“More than worth the wait” 

One of the first things there is to admire about Coyote vs. Acme is just how effortless it is. It juggles its various plot threads and many, many gags by centering its emotional narrative on the relationship between Wile E. Coyote — who, it should be noted, remains silent the entire film and only speaks in signs that he admits he only has a limited number of — and Kevin Avery. The two of them develop a delightful buddy-comedy dynamic, with Forte demonstrating the kind of comedic panache displayed by the best actors who play opposite a cartoon character.

👍 Walter Chaw, ​“A righteously angry film that plays as light and fun” 

In this film, Warner Bros.’ Wile E. Coyote is explicitly positioned as an existential metaphor for the Sisyphusian suffering of living in a time and place where judges, senators, et al., are bought, sold, and mandated to screw the little guy. (The bad guys’ nefarious plan is called “Project: Sisyphus,” natch.) A person’s value is calculated based on employment and income, and the underclass are used as subjects in wide-ranging technological experiments without their consent. Justice? Grow up. Because Coyote Vs. Acme, like the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons that paved the way for it, lands its kill shots with such deadly precision and utter ebullience, it never feels like a lecture. It does, however, feel like that concert you went to last night of a band you loved thirty years ago, and damned if they don’t still got it. It feels like a sermon when the preacher’s riding shotgun with the Almighty.

👍 Isaiah Colbert, ​“Was always worth the fight” 

Now that we’re past the discovery phase and deep into the cross-examination of whether the film earns its hype, our verdict finds Coyote vs. Acme guilty on all counts — delivering a whirlwind of Looney Tunes hijinks, standout hybrid performances from its Hollywood and cartoon actors, and a surprisingly affecting portrait of animation’s most unlucky go-getter, proving its hard-fought battle for a theatrical release was absolutely worth it.

👍 Daniel Eagan, ​“A diverting pleasure” 

Back stories and flashbacks aren’t enough here. The filmmakers, like the animators they are imitating, resort to repetition, at one point unreeling four jumping-over-a-chasm gags in a row. But no matter how hard they try to inject energy, the film remains sober and restrained. It’s just too staid.

What rescues Coyote vs. Acme is the filmmakers’ respect and appreciation for the Warners heritage. No one betrays the animated universe — by suddenly learning how to speak, for example. No one steps out of character, even if Tweety has to play a villain at times.

👎 Owen Gleiberman, ​“Feels presentable and tame” 

[W]ho wants to see Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner turned into the dramatic linchpins of a Looney Tunes Erin Brockovich? It’s true that you couldn’t make Road Runner cartoons today. But you can make a movie like Coyote vs. Acme, which melts down anarchy into presentable buddy mishegas.

👎 Mark Kennedy, ​“Should’ve stayed on shelf” 

Samy Burch’s screenplay veers from underdog-versus-corporate power to zany detective story to end with a moral about never giving up in the face of failure, trying to remake the deeply troubled Wile E. Coyote into someone noble.

👍 Jacob Oller, ​“Takes its silliness all the way to the top” 

Famously completed, then shelved by Warner Bros. for a tax break, then sold to another company in order to finally see the light of day, Coyote Vs. Acme is fittingly about corporate malpractice, filled with whistleblowers, fine print, and weaselly suits. It’s a Looney Dark Waters, both winningly silly and slyly intelligent about what winning really means, all wrapped into a referential live-action Tune world not unlike our own.

👍 Rodrigo Perez, ​“David & Goliath takedown of corporate greed” 

[H]istory gives Coyote Vs. Acme an irresistible extra layer of meta-textual satisfaction. But none of it is necessary for the movie to work. Had Warner Bros. simply released it as planned, director Dave Green’s film would still be a terrific, enormously delightful piece of entertainment — funny, inventive, surprisingly moving, and much smarter about the rich history of Looney Tunes than anyone had reason to expect.

👍 Brian Tallerico, ​“Consistently clever and funny” 

The reshaping of Wile E. Coyote from an antagonist into a victim of the machine works well, but it’s really the non-stop verbal and sight gags that elevate Coyote vs. Acme. Whether it’s Luis Guzman being described as a “no-nonsense, no-silly-stuff judge,” or the random, almost vaudevillian jokes like “They told me he ran off with his secretary but I don’t think so — his secretary was a penguin,” Burch’s script is filled with enough minor chuckles to keep most people smiling throughout. There’s a bit with a courtroom sketch artist of a rocket shoe chasing Guzman’s judge around the court that justified a theatrical release on its own.

👍 Brian VanHooker, ​“The best Looney Tunes movie ever” 

The first thing to love about Coyote vs. ACME is that it’s funny — like, really funny. The jokes in the film vary from big physical gags, background jokes, sharply-written one-liners, and Easter eggs for Looney Tunes fans. They also come at a rapid-fire pace that would best be compared to Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker comedies like Airplane and The Naked Gun. And if every single gag doesn’t land, it’s okay because another one is coming right around the corner.

Coyote vs. Acme lands in theaters on August 28, 2026. Watch the trailer below.

But as CSS has continued to grow and mature, and include features like variables and code nesting, I’ve found myself using Sass less and less. And I’m not the only one. UK-based web developer Chris Smith has written a step-by-step guide to migrating from Sass to native CSS (via TLDR Dev), and the benefits of doing so.

For years Sass offered us superpowers. It was a superset of CSS, opening up a world of possibilities for developers. The ability to use variables, functions and nest our rules was too good to turn down.

Today we have all of this in native CSS. It caught up. So, unless you’re doing something very particular, Sass just isn’t needed anymore.

The only advice of his that I’m a little leery about concerns imports. I do still find Sass useful for managing really large projects, like design frameworks, that have lots of little components (e.g., badges, buttons, cards, form controls). I typically have a small Sass file for each component, which keeps the code nice and manageable. While Smith is technically correct that you could just include each one of those as its own CSS file (e.g., badges.css, buttons.css), it feels a little yucky and disorganized to see a bunch of <link> tags in a website <head>.

I’ll admit there’s some personal programming preferences at work here. It just feels cleaner to see a single site.css file in the <head> instead of lots of little ones. (Or, if you’re practicing critical CSS, a single site.css file alongside a single <style> tag.) It feels cleaner for all of the messy code organization — e.g., managing the cascade and which styles come before other styles — to happen behind the scenes via Sass. But again, these are personal preferences, not technical requirements, so your mileage may vary.

All that said, I’m glad to see more and more developers like Smith embrace the power and flexibility of modern CSS, which continues to improve every year, with still more promising features on the horizon, like native mixins.

Along with artists like The Advisory Circle, The Focus Group, and Pye Corner Audio, Belbury Poly has long been one of the leading lights of hauntology, that bizarre little musical genre that loves to imagine alternate pasts and the future as envisioned by post-WW2 England. Over the past 20+ years, Jim Jupp — the man behind the Poly, and one of the co-founders of the Ghost Box label, where many of these artists reside — has been spinning up musical worlds all his own.

For his newest album, Sorcery, Jupp indulges in his love for ’80s sci-fi and fantasy, and more specifically, the soundtracks that breathed life into such works: “It was a musical moment dominated by the sounds of Prophet 5, DX7 & PPG synthesizers, Fairlight & Synclavier music computers, TR808 drum machine & Simmons Drums (those ubiquitous hexagonal drum pads) and of course the much-maligned fretless bass.”

More: “It’s also an era that’s now seen as something of a golden age for fantasy and science-fiction books, comics, TV, movies and games (particularly in Britain where it was fuelled by a satirical post punk reaction to Thatcherism). In Jupp’s memory these things go hand in hand; as a child his nerdy fandom was soundtracked not as it was for most by Heavy Metal, but by the electronic pop of Bill Nelson, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Japan, and Frank Chickens. Also, by otherworldly TV soundtracks & production music of the era: Elizabeth Parker and Paddy Kingsland at the BBC, The Parry Music Library, Rod Argent’s new age library albums and even Clannad’s Robin of Sherwood score.”

Sorcery will be released by Jupp’s own Belbury Music label on September 25, 2026.

When César Alexandre passed in 2021 due to COVID, the world of dark ambience lost a truly special voice. Whereas many artists in the genre can rely too heavily on horror movie tropes and whatnot, Alexandre — best known for his work as Mount Shrine — produced ambience that relied on subtler, more nuanced sonics that were still quite otherworldly.

Earlier this month, Cryo Chamber, who has released most, if not all of the Mount Shrine catalog, released Alexandre’s final bit of music. The Yasu Ether Project — Yasu Ether was, by the way, one of Alexandre’s other musical monikers — is perhaps a bit lighter in tone than most of his catalog, but I suppose that’s all relative. “Gaseous Peak,” for example, conjures up the same liminal spaces that characterized Lucid’s catalog, while the opening and closing tracks traffic in the sort of grainy nostalgia typically associated with, say, Boards of Canada.

It’s all pretty captivating stuff, to be honest, and it’s been in nigh-constant rotation here at Opus HQ over the last few days. However, the song I keep returning to is “Deaf Clause,” a nearly twelve-minute piece of bleary and blurry ambience that suggests Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, Volume 2 run through Photoshop’s “Gaussian Blur” filter at its highest settings. Alexandre’s bubbling atmospherics are both lush and highly amorphous, resulting in a listen that wavers between serene and surreal, and sometimes both at once.

The Yasu Ether Project is currently available from Cryo Chamber.

Originally published in 1936, At the Mountains of Madness is one of H. P. Lovecraft’s most well-known stories, chronicling the adventures of a fateful Antarctic expedition that discovers horrifying secrets beneath the ice — secrets that completely unravel Earth’s history.

In 2010, Guillermo del Toro announced plans to film At the Mountains of Madness. Unfortunately, his adaptation languished in development hell and was eventually canceled altogether, due in part to Universal Pictures’ reluctance to make an R-rated period-set horror film. To this day, del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness remains one of the great unmade films in recent history.

But thankfully, Adrián Adamec has decided to take up the challenge, and as seen in this short teaser, he’s definitely on the right track. What’s particularly impressive is that this teaser isn’t even actual footage from Adamec’s film, but rather, footage shot while scouting locations for his film. But if this is what he can do with location footage, then I can’t wait to see what Adamec’s actual take on At the Mountains of Madness will look like.

In the meantime, you can watch several of Adamec’s short films on his YouTube channel, or see his work as a visual artist on Alien: Earth. He’s also contributed visual effects to the upcoming Blade Runner 2099 series and Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil reboot.

Given the growing dissatisfaction with today’s preeminent social media platforms — be it X’s embrace of far-right content, the AI slop infecting Facebook, the spread of prank and pickup artist videos on Instagram, or the general invective that often seems to characterize social media discourse — it’s no surprise that people might be yearning for a kinder, gentler, more personal experience. From the aforelinked BBC article:

A platform where users have more control, or simply feel less overwhelmed, could stand out in a crowded market.

For fans like Hawkins and Kristin, the appeal is emotional as much as practical. Both say they would return if MySpace kept its original spirit.

For now, its comeback exists mostly as a promise — a reminder of a time when social media felt a little less polished and a lot more personal.

Here’s the thing, though: You never needed Myspace or any social media platform to have something that’s “a little less polished and a lot more personal,” to have control over your online experience and create a corner of the internet that’s entirely yours for customization and expression. That’s precisely what a personal blog or website has always been for, and these days, it’s never been easier to create them.

A big reason for Myspace, Facebook, et al.‘s success is that they didn’t require you to be a web designer to have a decent online presence. These days, however, services like Micro.blog, Pagecord, and Pika make it incredibly easy to create a blog of your own and start sharing your life and interests with others. Meanwhile, Blento, Cargo, Carrd, and omg.lol allow you to create a simple, highly customizable personal homepage. (Note: Blento does require a Bluesky account.)

Another reason for the social media platforms’ success was that they made it incredibly easy to connect with your friends, family, and colleagues. You searched for someone’s name, and if they had an account, you just clicked a button and their posts began appearing in your newsfeed. You could even determine the nature of your relationship with them and control how many of their posts you saw. (Or in the case of that one friend or crazy uncle, none of their posts.) This promise of connection is arguably the main draw of social media.

But you don’t need a social media platform to connect with others. For starters, RSS allows you to subscribe to another person’s website and see only what they post, and not what some algorithm thinks you should see or some advertiser has paid to shove into your feed. Commenting lets you connect with your readers and your readers with each other, and indeed, prior to social media’s ascendancy, it wasn’t unusual for blogs to have vibrant communities in their comment sections (for better or worse). Finally, webmentions notify websites when others respond or react to them (e.g., when someone writes a blog post responding to something you’ve posted on your blog).

All of those things are certainly more involved than social media, and in a way, more limited. You can’t subscribe to someone who doesn’t have an RSS feed, for example, and configuring your site to work with webmentions does require some technical acumen. But those aren’t bad things, and in fact, they can help ameliorate one of social media’s worst aspects.

Social media platforms are specifically designed and engineered to maximize engagement, regardless of whether you’re looking at someone else’s content or posting your own. They do everything they can to reduce friction and frustration, which is precisely why they can become so addictive.

We’ve all experienced the dopamine hit that comes from scrolling Instagram to watch just one more video or reel. A similar hit occurs when you see that people have reacted to one of your posts, which makes it all the more tempting to post stuff that will get reactions. And since people tend to react more often to outrageous, controversial, and inflammatory content — human nature being what it is — there’s a further temptation to prioritize posting that sort of content. It’s a vicious cycle, but one that social media platforms have a vested interest in sustaining because such engagement is precisely how they keep making their billions of dollars.

But the friction inherent to getting updates only from those people that you follow via RSS (as opposed to some algorithm’s recommendations) is not a bad thing. Relying on RSS rather than constantly refreshing someone’s page to get their latest content creates some healthy distance. And if I no longer want to see someone’s content, I can unsubscribe without fear of it showing up again simply because an algorithm thinks it should.

There’s also some good friction in having to post a response on your own blog or website because you can’t just dash off a comment or click a “Like” button. If I have to post something on my own blog, which I own and has my name on it, then maybe I’ll think twice before dashing off a snarky or inflammatory response. (Obviously, people can blog anonymously, and trolls and other ne’er-do-wells are always going to do what they’re going to do, but I trust you get my point.)

It should be quite clear by now that one of my big soapboxes here on Opus — alongside my fervent belief that buying your favorite artists’ music is an infinitely better way to support them than streaming — is that we should all make an effort to take ownership of our online experience, and not farm that out to Big Tech. It’s far better to have your own online platform, even if you have no desire to be a blogger or — God forbid! — an influencer, than to rely on Facebook and their ilk.

Thus, when I see nostalgia for MySpace, or claims that its return will be an “antidote” to social media fatigue, I feel compelled to point out that MySpace is completely unnecessary for that. Indeed, MySpace, along with Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok, and so on, have never been necessary for us to have a personalized online experience, or for us to share our thoughts and connect with each other.

They didn’t invent or enable any of that. They only made it a lot easier, and as recent years have borne out, that has not necessarily been a good thing.

What do you think of when you hear the term “techno”? No doubt, crowded clubs and discothèques filled with sweating bodies dancing to crushing four-on-the-floor beats. (Or maybe you just think of the Roxbury Guys from SNL.) But what if I told you that there was techno out there that was of a, well, not gentler persuasion, but certainly of a more atmospheric variety?

Although it might be overshadowed by other electronic music genres like house and trance, ambient techno continues to exist in its own unique liminal space, which is probably why I find it so interesting. This month’s subscriber-only playlist, titled “Beats ‘n’ Bliss,” highlights some of the best the genre has to offer, be it the elegant chill of Iceland’s Yagya, Deepchord’s more harrowing sound design, or Germany’s always-reliable Martin Stürtzer.

Accompanying the playlist is the latest episode of my “Playlist Breakdown” podcast, in which I spotlight one of the playlist’s songs and why it’s so special, interesting, and/or meaningful. This month’s episode focuses on “Crepuscular Rays Over the Horizon,” a bit of beat-driven elegance from the Icelandic producer and composer.

Both of these are little bonuses for subscribers who support Opus financially. If you’d like to get access to them (and more), subscribe to Opus for just $5.00/month or $50/year. (You can also subscribe for free and get my weekend newsletter.)