Good moviegoers of Geneseo, I implore you to not look away from this article’s silly title. I know what you’re thinking—‘Cocaine Bear?! Now that sounds like an idea too ridiculous to transform into a film worth sitting through. What makes this movie note-worthy enough to write or read about? What is Cocaine Bear even about, and why should I care?’

Through the last few months, there have been a handful of movies that are gaining significant traction online, whether it’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) or Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania (2023). But one has been shining above the rest: an indie film titled The Whale (2022). 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is just fine. The 31st installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was released on Feb. 17 to some less-than-stellar reviews from critics. The Rotten Tomatoes score for the third installment in the Ant-Man series currently sits at an unimpressive 48%, the second lowest of any MCU movie to date, despite a down year for the franchise in 2022. While many of the topics for negative discussion about the movie are justified, the film as a whole succeeds in doing two key things and should be praised for doing so. 

“The Unbeatable Foe”

(Continued from last week’s article, found online!)

In Caroline Polachek’s relatively brief career, she has made herself into a indie pop icon like no other; her buzzing sonic quality mixed with her exciting and playful lyrics have made her into a force to be reckoned with, and one that has indeed already been recognized by artists like Charli XCX and Beyoncé. With this successful musical debut behind her, let’s get into Polachek’s most recent release—her new album, Desire, I Want To Turn Into You (2023).

Among the most banned books of the 20th century sits George Orwell’s novel 1984 and novella Animal Farm, both philosophical looks at the same idea, but through radically different lenses. On the one hand, 1984 (covered previously in the Lamron Lit Corner) imagines and realizes a “utopian” society in which a unified government holds complete control over massive amounts of lands and populations; banned for a number of reasons, including mentions of sex, mental illness, and torture, 1984 was also banned in the USSR for its clearly anti-authoritarian message. Even more clear was Orwell’s Animal Farm, which is not only anti-authoritarian, but also specifically anti-USSR. That begs the question: why was Animal Farm also frequently banned in the United States if it criticized their main rivals?

With Peter Gabriel’s “i/o” tour beginning in Europe in just a few short months, it seems like the perfect time to look back at the musician’s rise to fame and the best songs in his solo catalog. Initially known in the early 1970s as the lead singer of the progressive rock group Genesis, Gabriel stepped down in 1975 and went on to release nine studio albums, win three Grammy awards, and create the international arts festival, World of Arts, Music, and Dance (WOMAD). Even now, in 2023 and with Gabriel recently turning 73, he continues to impress and plans to release a new album this year. With that said, here are my picks for the top ten Peter Gabriel songs!

Junji Ito is one of the most influential and prominent mangakas (manga artist) of all time, producing several works that have grown to be renowned worldwide. These works contain grotesque, detailed imagery that encapsulate feelings of dread, sadness, eeriness, and fear seamlessly with a storyline that will leave a reader thinking existentially. Though they sound like morbid intrigue, these works are some of the most well-known and talked about on a global scale, and that’s because of the universal feelings that Junji Ito brings about in his approach to storytelling. Ito’s stories have simple characters with an understandable, everyday motivation, forced into a straightforward but horrid situation. 

“there she stood”

As HBO adds more and more ongoing projects to their catalog, many gems are beginning to be hidden amongst a towering library of shows, and one of these is a show that aired in late 2018 titled Barry. This show was written by Bill Haider and Alec Berg, starring Bill Haider as the titular character “Barry Berkman,” alongside many other notable actors like Henry Winkler, Sarah Goldberg, Stephen Root, and Anthony Carrigan. 

H.P. Lovecraft has become a household name for his contribution to the literary horror landscape. Much like Kafka and the “Kafkaesque,” Lovecraft’s blend of gothic imagery with morally torn protagonists and, of course, cosmic entities, spawned “Lovecraftian” horror, a genre that continues to prevail almost a century after the author’s death. From Stephen King to Stranger Things, the cosmic wake of Lovecraft’s work is felt all the time.

“Consuming” by Sparrow Potter

Since the release of her second album, No Dogs Allowed in 2017, I have been obsessed with Sidney Gish; her weird lyricism and sweet, yet intentional melodies were enough to capture the heart of a closetedly-alternative 16-year-old, and Gish has kept me and so many others on a short leash in the four years following her last release of new music. On Wednesday, Feb. 8, however, this all changed with the release of Gish’s new singles, “Filming School” and “MFSOTSOTR.”

After over two years away from theaters, the polarizing director M. Night Shyamalan returns to the big screen with his newest mystery-thriller film, Knock at the Cabin. This film is based off of the book titled Cabin at the End of the World written by Paul Tremblay, which was released in the summer of two thousand and eighteen. Right now, Shyamalan’s film sits at a 68% critic score and a similar 65% percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Cars, known primarily for their music released in the late seventies and early eighties, were a new wave, pop-rock, and proto-punk band formed in Boston in 1976. Consisting of Ric Ocasek, Benjamin Orr, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes, and David Robinson, the group is one of the most influential experimental bands of their time, mixing familiar rock sounds with 50s rhythms and being one of the first bands to popularize what would evolve into the punk genre. With five original albums and one revival album, there’s quite a large catalog to cover, but here is The Lamron’s list of the top 10 The Cars songs.

With the release of HBOs latest smash hit, The Last of Us, picking up heavy traction online, its creator, Craig Mazin, has also grown in notoriety. For many, you may ask yourself—who is this Craig Mazin? Well, this is the creator and screenwriter, plus part-time director, for two of HBOs biggest hits within the last half a decade: Chernobyl (2019) and The Last of Us (2023). These two shows are highly acclaimed works, not just for their expert stories but for their masterful use of atmosphere, tone, and cinematography culminating in unforgettable experiences.

“Mine”

“Second chance romance” is a somewhat recently coined term for an anything but recently invented trope. The trope entails that two lovers whose previous relationship ended in heartbreak will find reunion and happiness over the course of the plot. Despite being fairly common in the storytelling world today, many attribute the trope’s popular beginning all the way back to 1817 with the publication of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a novel centered around Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth whose “second chance” comes about as Elliot transitions into city life in Bath. Having been persuaded by friends and family to leave Wentworth eight years before the novel’s beginning, the man returns with money and fame from his time in the navy. It is here where he and Anne must now decide whether there is still room for love in each other’s lives.

2022 has been a successful year for animation. From Guillermo Del Toro’s retelling of Pinocchio on Netflix to studios like Illumination and DreamWorks releasing material that exceeded Pixar’s output, this year has been bright. One of the year’s shiniest gems was DreamWorks’ Puss In Boots: The Last Wish.