I Regret NoTHING
Except, maybe, losing two pieces of the puzzle
I’ve loved puzzles since I was a kid. I remember being dropped off at pre-school and going ape-shit at the thought of my parents leaving me alone with a roomful of strangers until the teacher showed me to the classroom’s puzzle collection. As soon as I was sitting in front of a Big Bird puzzle, all focus turned to transforming a jumble of disparate jigsaw pieces into a picture of Jim Henson’s aviary yellow nightmare, and I was at peace.
As I got older, the puzzles I attempted became more difficult. It wasn’t long before I demanded 100-piece puzzles, which became a need for 500-piece puzzles. I’m currently at the stage where I’ll turn my nose at anything less than 1,000 pieces.
Before Lucía and I started dating, I had gone through something of a puzzle dry spell. I tried to get back into puzzles during the COVID lockdown, but once I realized I had to focus all my attention on a puzzle—I couldn’t watch TV, listen to an audiobook, or really do much besides focus on the puzzle—I kept putting off trying to solve the puzzles I accumulated in search of an isolation hobby.
With Lucía, though, my intense addiction to solving puzzles was transformed into something approaching a team sport. I had a puzzle mate with whom I could obsess alongside. Much like alcoholism and drinking alone, getting really fixated on solving a puzzle seems less worrisome when you’re doing it with somebody else.
Last week, Lucía and I finished solving the THE THING puzzle pictured above. This was one of the puzzles I bought during lockdown, and I’m glad I have finally checked its completion off the list of phantom choices that hang over my head like a grim reaper of COVID-19-born consumerism. It was a damn hard puzzle - with a painterly style that blended colors together in a way that made matching the geographic position of pieces near impossible. It was also a particularly gross-looking puzzle for my horror-averse partner to have to look at for over a month. I am proud of her for really digging into the gore and viscera brought to life by artist Justin Erickson. “I think this might be a tooth, but it could also be an eye” is the kind of thing you live to hear your forever partner utter.
We stayed up until 1:30 AM on Thursday trying to solve the puzzle - Lucía countering the gnarliness of the puzzle by watching the last season of BRIGERTON in the background. While working on the puzzle until past midnight seemed like a good idea at the time, we both certainly paid the prize the next day with our general loginess.
We haven’t picked a new puzzle yet, but after Lucía’s very sporting willingness to stare at John Carpenter’s nightmares for the last two months, I feel like I owe it to her to pick something with puppies.
Debora Lancianese and I have been working on the next chapter of WHERE WOLF. If you’ve ever wanted a behind-the-scenes look at how a comic book writer and artist hash out a scene together, here you go:
Remember, you can request a copy of WHERE WOLF from your local library or buy a personal copy directly from the publisher, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Ghoulish Books in San Antonio, or Whose Books in Dallas. If you've read WHERE WOLF, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon, Goodreads, The StoryGraph, or wherever you discover new books.
CUCKOO opens in theaters this weekend. The film, by Tilman Singer, is super weird in the best way possible. Hunter Schafer stars as an American teen who moves with her estranged father into a strange resort in the German Alps. She gets a job working for Dan Stevens, playing a patented Odd AF Dan Stevens role, and that’s where things go south. Much like Singer’s previous film LUX, CUCKOO offers both all the answers and none of the answers. The movie is strange and revels in trying to explain its off-skew plot thoroughly, but it will still leave audiences baffled. It exists in its own weird universe, and the result is a movie that feels like a nightmare - complete with the kind of nightmare logic that settles into your bones like a growing cancer. CUCKOO has some of the coolest imagery I’ve seen in a horror movie this year. If all is just with the world, it’ll also inspire some killer Halloween costumes. Catch this weird-ass movie in a theater near you!
Also opening in limited release this week is GOOD ONE, from writer/director India Donaldson. The film stars Lily Collias as a queer teen who agrees to accompany her dad on a camping trip with his best friend. Once on the trail, the teen is forced to bear witness to two men who have been friends long enough to both love and hate each other in equal measure. The film offers an interesting juxtaposition of the current generation of kids and the passive-aggressive toxicity that exists in an average “healthy” male friendship. Is it a comedy? A tragedy? Much like most male friendships, it’s a little of both. Don’t miss a chance to catch GOOD ONE if it’s playing at a theater near you!
Bret Nelson sent me a copy of THE PART MART, the children's book he made with artist Pete Mitchell. It's a fun body horror tale for kiddos with some fun, gnarly ROBOCOP riffs and a kid-appropriate message about loving the body you were born with. Pick up a copy for the David Cronenberg-obsessed kiddo in your life.
Emil Ferris' second volume of MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS again wows with genuinely incredible artwork. The story is a dense, sprawling time capsule of the moment childhood begins to melt around you, intersecting with Chicago's history and a healthy love of horror. It’s a meatier nut to chew on than the first volume, but I loved it quite a bit.
I recorded a podcast with John Wesley Downey about Houston, movie theaters, and desert island film picks. You can listen to it here.
I’m entering my final month hosting films at the Alamo Drafthouse. Sad times, but at least I’m going out with some great screenings.
Join me on Wednesday for a screening of Jim Jarmusch’s STRANGE THAN PARADISE. A trio of aimless drifters take a trip across America in a series of vignettes, shot in master takes and etched in beautiful minimalist black-and-white. Jarmusch nails cool cinema like few others. Buy tickets here.
An eight-year-old Drew Barrymore stars as a pissed-off pyrokinetic in FIRESTARTER. After her parents were experimented on by a shadowy government organization, Barrymore’s Charlie is left on the run, chased down by a ruthless assassin and a legion of highly combustible goons. Tangerine Dream’s score is magical, and the film’s explosions are unbelievable. Buy tickets for Friday’s show here.