Category Archives: Nihilism

Everything Everywhere All at Once sure lives up to its title. The sci-fi comedy takes the red-pill mind-screw of The Matrix and multiplies it by infinity, writes Variety.

The feature stars Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn, a lowly laundromat owner who discovers that she can experience endless dimensions simultaneously. In the internal logic of the film, somewhere there is a universe in which anything that could have happened to Evelyn actually did happen. That means there is a timeline where she is living a parallel life as a huge Hong Kong action star, and an opera singer, and a maid, and a teppanyaki-style chef ad infinitum.

To infinity and beyond

Writers and co-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert wanted that sense of infinity of all of the possible worlds, the depthless rabbit holes, and all of the tiny moving pieces underneath it to remain top-of-mind for the audience. Even if that meant fraying their minds.

The approach was to throw out the rules of traditional filmmaking and just whatever works then it works, says editor Paul Rogers. Dan and Daniel wanted to make a film, and then to break that film, and then we want it to rebuild itself.

Rogers previously worked with the filmmakers (collectively known as the Daniels) to make the equally absurd Swiss Army Man, which featured Daniel Radcliffe playing a flatulent corpse.

We wanted people to be overwhelmed and as confused as Evelyn is but not frustrated. More confused and curious. Theres a fine line between overwhelmed, curious and excited and overwhelmed and I cant take it any more. We trod that line carefully.

Theyd been working on Everything Everywhere for 6 or 7 years and although it seems like there was a lot of experimentation and there was almost all of it was already in their minds by the time we shot.

In prep, the Daniels spent an hour and a half acting out the movie scene by scene to Rogers. There was a big giant whiteboard on the wall with diagrams and sketches of all these universes marked- hotdog finger or Alphaverse or rock world. It was all nonsense at the beginning but it slowly became clear that we were telling a very emotional story.

A world of boundless choice

The script originally centred on a father and his attempt at reconciliation with his teen daughter. With Yeoh on board, the story remains a family drama at heart, which is why it has resonated with audiences, becoming a major hit for indie studio A24 and taking over $50 million worldwide.

You can also read it as an attempt to capture the staggering burden of trying to exist in a world of boundless choice.

If there was a bare bones unengaging story at the centre then the whole project would not work, says Rogers. Once wed established the emotion of a mother struggling to reconnect with her daughter then we could really go to town on all the other flights of fancy.

These are deliberately overcomplicated metaphors for the generational gaps, communication errors and ideological differences that might happen within any family. Critics say the unhinged imagination on display will leave viewers exhausted, but that could be intentional.

We wanted people to be overwhelmed and as confused as Evelyn is but not frustrated. More confused and curious. Theres a fine line between overwhelmed, curious and excited and overwhelmed and I cant take it any more. We trod that line carefully.

Surreal and comic imagery

In an era of information overload, the filmmakers arent afraid to overload the experience. Rogers uses split screens and blurry overlay effects. There are rapidly shifting light sources and dizzying flashing lights that disorient the viewer.

The shift between universes is often accompanied by a change in aspect ratio. Surreal and comic imagery includes an entire scene involving sentient rocks, a persons head explodes into confetti, a naked man flies in slow-motion toward the camera.

We did a lot of little split screens in the footage that youll never even notice, of just combining two takes or retiming a wide shot so that everyone is moving in symphony with each other.

Ive always loved making music videos where the budgets are so low it gives you an insane freedom to experiment. You get to stretch and push and massage that footage and reshape it with any tricks you can whether thats something as simple as sound design or colour or taking it into After Effects and tweaking things, changing out a background or a prop or an extra in the background.

We did a lot of little split screens in the footage that youll never even notice, of just combining two takes or retiming a wide shot so that everyone is moving in symphony with each other.

When Evelyns husband Waymond becomes Alpha Waymond in the Alpha universe of the film, Rogers devised a scraping metal Terminator like sound to coincide with when the character takes his glasses off. When a reversed bell sound rings, its another trigger to take the audience into another universe.

Stress after stress after stress

We were in post for a year. We had a three-hour cut which was too exhausting and frustrating. It took a lot of trims to get it that sweet spot. In retrospect, once youve seen the movie, the opening seems pretty chilled. But if you go back and watch it, its stress after stress after stress in the laundromat and then we kick it into second gear once the Alphaverse enters. Then it doesnt stop until the Rock universe.

The film squashes and stretches the conventional three-act dramatic structure to extremes, as if the movie itself were jumping through a fracturing multiverse.

We worked hard to make sure the Rock universe didnt arrive when the viewer was past the point of no return. We hit them with the Rock universe when theyre saying: I dont know if I can take any more! And we give them that pause for breath and then theyre hopefully prepared for the big final frantic push at the end of the film.

Much of Everything Everywhere was shot in a warehouse in Southern California. It was big enough that we could wreck one part of the building, then walk away and just go somewhere else in the complex to continue filming while our team restored the initial part of the building, says production designer Jason Kisvarday.

Jumping through a fractured multiverse

The film appears to satirise Marvels ever-expanding universe and arrives almost day and day with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but Rogers says this is coincidental.

Dan and Daniel have been working on the idea of the multiverse long before it became a theme in blockbuster movies.

That said there are dozens of cinematic references in Everything Everywhere from The Matrix and 2001: A Space Odyssey to In the Mood For Love and Ratatouille.

Woven into the fabric of this film are a lot of Dan and Daniels favourite movies, Rogers says. One of them is Holy Motors, the 2012 fantasy drama film written and directed by Leos Carax.

We screened this film before starting as the type of film you can make if you disregard the rules, Rogers says. In Holy Motors you have no idea minute to minute even second to second whats going to happen next and thats a really exciting place to be as an audience member.

For me, Everything Everywheres core idea is embodied in Waymonds speech when he conveys the idea that we can overcome nihilism by embracing kindness. That is such a beautiful concept for me that I hoped audiences would response the same way.

Moviegoers with limber imaginations may well appreciate the lunatic ambition and nutso execution of this high-concept hurricane, says Variety, which ricochets like a live-action cartoon.

Less versatile viewers it warns, will emerge frazzled, like Wile E. Coyote after swallowing a stick of dynamite: their heads charred, blinking blankly as smoke wafts from their ears.

See more here:

Behind The Scenes: Everything Everywhere All At Once - IBC365

Alexis Rodriguez, of Buffalo, lights candles as people gather at the scene of a racist mass shooting at Tops Friendly Market in a historically Black neighborhood of Buffalo, N.Y., on May 16, 2022.

Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag

Before he walked into the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, on a mission to murder as many innocent Black shoppers as he could, 18-year-old Payton Gendron posted a rambling manifesto online outlining his motives.

His reasoning was familiar from other far-right shooters: This country isnt going to be resource-rich enough for everyone in the future, so a race war over what is left is necessary today. However heinous, this vision of a bleak, impoverished future,in which there is not enough wealth to go around and the environment is near collapse, is motivating an ever-growing number of young men like him to carry out racist massacres across the West.

Addressing this violence requires considering the role of scarcity not a conspiracy theory, but a very real system of extreme inequality and ecological destruction.

People who commit acts of terrorism tend to act for more than one reason. The racist hatred of Gendron toward Black Americans, Jews, and immigrants was ultimately what made his murders possible. For that, many are to blame, including far-right politicians and talking heads who have continued to wink at the great replacement as being the true source of white Westerners troubles.

Addressing this violence, though, also requires considering the role of scarcity not a conspiracy theory, but a very real system of extreme inequality and ecological destruction. It is a systemin which the most wealthy and powerful continue to see their wealth and power grow at the expense of the masses. Faced with actual strained resources and environmental calamity, some of these forsaken people are turning to dark fantasies like the great replacement theory to make sense of it all.

This is not just about a toxic media ecosystem, but the larger way we have organized our lives in the West. This organizational structure could go by many names neoliberalism, consumer capitalism, exploitation but there can be little doubt that the pessimism it engenders is leading many young people into nihilism.

Faced with a shrinking economic pie and disastrous climate situation, many young people are now convinced that the world they become adults in will be poorer, more polluted, and less hopeful than that enjoyed by their parents and grandparents. It should not be surprising, then, that the appeal of apocalyptic ideologies is taking hold. The problems of economics and the environment are real, but the scapegoating is where the conspiracies come in: It doesnt take much to convince those already gloomy about their futures that the real culprits are immigrants and minorities.

That Gendron is a racist barely needs stating. His manifesto shows no concern for the humanity of nonwhite people, describing them as a pestilence to be eradicated from Western countries. He even advocates killing nonwhite children, arguing that if they are allowed to live, they will simply spawn more replacers a nod to the great replacement theory of demographic change promoted by other far-right shooters, which claims that white people are being inflicted with a genocide caused by low birthrates and immigration.

If there is a major theme besides racism that runs through Gendrons manifesto, it is simple pessimism about the future. In his writings, he concluded that the future of the U.S. will be one of economic decay and environmental collapse. With such a dire perspective, along with a belief that other races and ethnic groupsare both inferior to whitepeople and their natural enemies, his actions followed naturally from his worldview.

We should all be disturbed that he is clearly not alone in believing what he does.

Bullet holes are seen in the window of Tops Friendly Market at Jefferson Avenue and Riley Street, as federal investigators work the scene of a mass shooting on May 16, 2022 in Buffalo, NY..

Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

People who would never dream of carrying out such a crime and who have no sense of hatred for other races feel similarly bleak about the future. A recent study by UNICEF found that a majority of 15- to 24-year-olds in high-income countries had concluded that with wage stagnation, they will be worse off economically than their parents were.

Its not that there arent enough resources to go around in the U.S., but it feels that way to many when a relatively small number of people have been hoarding the wealth. At this point, its almost clich to point out that in the U.S. the 1st percentile of earners have seentheirwealth explode over the past several decades, while that of the bottom 50 percent of the country has remained completely stagnant.

Then theres the alarming state of the natural environment. The total failure of political elites and the wealthy to combat the climatecrisis is fueling despair among the young about whether they will even have a future at all. Although environmentalism is usually associated with the left today, the right has a long history of using concerns about ecological destruction as a recruiting tool. The politics of fear could easily leverage this as a major issue again, making it into a mass appeal to the disaffected; in the mass shooters, we are already seeing it happen on the fringes.

If we really want to see fewer tragedies like the racist murders in Buffalo, we need to combat the nihilism at the core of the shooters worldview.

A recent global survey found that over three-quarters of young people felt that the future would be frightening because of climate change, while fully 56 percent said that they thought humanity was doomed. The conviction that our political choices have doomed us to a future apocalypse is leading to a mental health crisis among young people in the U.S. and beyond.

At the same time, even liberal politicians who pay lip service to the issue seem unwilling or unable to do anything to deliver a plausible picture of a better environmental future. In his manifesto, Gendron went on about the continued destruction of the natural environment while concluding that racist murder was an acceptable way to help stop it.

If we really want to see fewer tragedies like the racist murders in Buffalo, we need to combat the nihilism at the core of the shooters worldview. Fighting racism itself is going to be a part of that effort. If wealth was not so concentrated, however, or if politicians acted as though the climatecrisis really mattered, there would be a smaller reservoir of nihilistic youths for right-wing extremists to recruit from in the first place.

The people with power in the U.S. today whose wealth has skyrocketed even as their fellow citizens prospects darken have the power to do a lot to change that mindset. An end to the class warfare that has enriched the wealthiest sliver of Americans while the rest suffer the ravages of stagnant wages, addiction, and family breakdown would be a good start. If the outlook for the future for young people doesnt get brighter, with more wealth to share and a climate capable of supporting life, we are going to see many more acts of mass murder in the future accompanied by the release of pitiful, imitative manifestos like that Gendron posted before wasting his life to take others.

See the rest here:

Real Scarcity Informed Buffalo Shooter's Racist Conspiracy - The Intercept

Letter to the Editor

May 17, 2022

Dear Editor:

We all have a right to be wrong. Laura Elliss article, Why I am a Pro-Choice Christian and Believe You Should Be Too while carefully constructed simply fails basic litmus tests for critical theological and biblical reflection. This letter will push back against some of the biases in Ellis opinion piece and will present a more rooted, realistic and traditionally Baptist response to the current abortion debate.

My basic thesis is that Christian Realism tempers reckless rhetoric regarding abortion and provides a necessary corrective to the biases of Ellis article. Christian Realism may be defined as the rejection of both idealism and nihilism in favor of a more biblically rooted, common-sense perspective on an individuals participation in everyday relationships. It is a third way, if you will, that frees us from the two most promoted sides of divisive issues in contemporary Western society: fundamentalistic legalism and humanistic liberalism. Christian Realism helps one to balance the possibilities of progress with the limitations of human nature.

In a nutshell, Christian Realism invites us to deal with what is, not with what should be. Ellis article deals more with shoulds than actualities and unsurprisingly comes across as substantively pretentious. Let us carefully consider, therefore, how we may temper the ideologically humanistic propensities of pretentiousness as well as the more conservative bent toward legalism. In doing so, we may better converse with those who either agree or disagree with Ellis to cooperate more fully for a greater good.

I offer four responses to Ellis here that highlight the need for Baptists to embrace Christian Realism when it comes to abortion.

First, the thesis that the United States Constitution protects a womans right to choose to have an abortion is more of an assumption than it is a realistic fact. We can argue effectively that Roe v. Wade turned the concept of a womans right to choose an abortion into law. Yet, making a concept into the law of the land hardly turns such a law into a fundamental human right. Shall we Baptists consider human rights, therefore, from a more biblical perspective rather than a conceptual one? In fact, this is an opportunistic season for asking ourselves, What is a basic human right, anyway?

I commend here the work of Baptist ethicist T.B. Maston, who rightly notes three such basic rights that free us from both the liberal and conservative rhetoric of our day: the right of worship or conscience, the right of the individual from dominance and control by the community, and the right of the individual to keep the rights and responsibilities of both the individual and community in proper balance.

If we take into account Mastons biblically based list of human rights, then we can rise above concepts and get into the realm of reality. For example, we can now conclude that a fetus is an autonomous individual, particularly following maternal-to-zygotic transition. In fact, if science was not so beholden to contemporary politics, concepts would be much less likely to be mistaken as basic human rights. It is therefore more realistic, scientific and biblical to say that a womans right becomes secondary to her responsibility to care for an autonomous being. The ability to terminate the autonomous fetus gives women more power than natural law allows, especially if we consider that all people (even those in the womb) are created in the image of God. Can we not conclude then that abortion is more realistically to be considered a symptom of matriarchy in Western culture than it is a fundamental human right?

But what about the mother in-and-of herself? What about her rights? Her rights must be balanced with responsibilities, especially if we accept Mastons conclusions. Sexual intercourse between a male and female not only involves a free choice, but it also comes with inherent risks that must be assumed by the choosers, namely the risk of conceiving a child.

Ellis argues that not all people have access to contraception as if this situation justifies abortions. Lets recall, however, that contraception may not work, even if one does have access to it. Consider that men who have had vasectomies (which are virtually 99.9% effective) must sign releases that they will not take legal action against their urologist should they conceive a child with a partner after the procedure. Access to contraception, or lack thereof, does not negate the inherent risks taken when a man and woman decide to have sex.

Second, the insinuation in Ellis article that mostly male lawmakers and clergy have no idea about what women go through in their menstrual cycles and pregnancies is not only unrealistic but also borders on ridiculous. Consider those men, like me, who have stood by and with their partners during excruciating difficult seasons of failed conceptions and miscarriages. It is, of course, physically and biologically impossible for a man to understand pregnancy fully, but this does not mean that men are incapable of making ethical, biblically informed decisions about the life of his child, at any stage of the childs life. If a woman appoints herself as the sole expert on gender, then we see taking shape a form of matriarchy that is just as cold and calculating as mansplaining. We may do well at this point to remember the rebuke of Reinhold Niebuhr, that we become evil at precisely the point at which we pretend not to be.

Third, the article posits some rather unrealistic and biased misconceptions about the Religious Right. As one who lived through the days in which the Religious Right thrived, I can argue that the organization or movement no longer exists as it once did. In reality, most Christians today at least the ones I have pastored for nearly 20 years mainly consider themselves politically homeless. The strawman argument which suggests all American evangelical Christians wear red MAGA hats and decorate the crosses in sanctuaries with American flags is largely a political stereotype used for drumming up money and votes by leftist political action groups.

Before attacking people on the Right or Left, would we be wiser to reconsider the more realistic approach to politics we find in the example of Jesus? Jesus seemed more indifferent than anything else to the politics of the Roman Empire. Obedience to God was not conditional upon any political group in power and certainly did not require a revolution or Christ forming a new government. When we drone on about either the Religious Right or the Left, it illustrates more about our desire to shame a group for refusing to fall in lockstep with us more than it does with our loving or praying for an enemy. Isnt it interesting how the oppressed generally take on the characteristics of the oppressor if ones focus is more on the self than it is on our Lord?

Fourth, lets consider more critical, realistic Christian responses to the white-hot abortion debate. Ellis shares a number of seemingly unrelatable quotes from clergy in her article that do little to enact desired change among readers. Take the Barnhart quote, for example. I know of no Christian who advocates for the unborn because it is a convenient practice. I can name numerous people whom I have pastored over the years who have given countless hours to counseling with pregnant women and confused fathers who are often quite scared and in dire need of encouragement.

Instead of sharing confusing quotes, shall we allow for a more robust biblically rooted analysis with regard to abortion? Time does not allow here for as rigorous a biblical treatment as is necessary, but a few examples will suffice. Paul the Apostle asked in 1 Corinthians 6:19, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? Ones body therefore belongs to the Lord. This line of thinking basically dismantles the argument of My body, my choice. Maston bluntly offers: Your body is not your own business. Its Gods business. What would Jesus have us to do with our bodies?

Consider also that sexual intercourse makes a man and woman one flesh (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5). We consequently ask uncomfortable questions about why so many babies are conceived these days and then aborted. It is because humans are more apt to use sexuality in lustful ways than not (1 Corinthians 6:13)? Christian Realists agree then with Jesus that when significant death of the ego takes place and makes room for a more meaningful expression of sexuality, then male and female participants in a sexual union will find fulfillment by dying to self.

This point is where the rape argument can be considered. What if a woman was denied her choice to have sexual intercourse and a child was conceived? I would commend that one review the works of Kerry Baldwin on this matter. Baldwin argues that one victim (the mother who was raped) should not be allowed to do violence to a second victim (the autonomous fetus). More justice would be done if intense care was given over to bring the rapist to justice by forcing him at least to pay restitution or to be castrated. Perhaps both the government and churches have paid less attention to the injustice of rape rather than they have toward using both women and the unborn as pawns in their debates.

Lets get real. Being told that we should either be pro-choice or pro-life is too limiting for biblically based Christians, especially Baptists. Baptists are not ones who traditionally respond well to being told that they should or should not do something due to violations of our autonomy.

The same regard we have for our own congregational autonomy should be applied to the autonomy of the unborn. More realism and less politicized rhetoric may result in short-term pain, but we can be assured of long-term gain.

James Hassell, Austin, Texas

See original here:

Letter to the Editor: A response to Laura Ellis on abortion and Christian Realism - Baptist News Global

I time-traveled between two worlds on Sunday, the day before Politico released the leaked, in-your-face draft opinion by Republican-appointed Justice Samuel Alito that revealed that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The first world I traveled to further fueled my fear that I might never escape from this Trumpist hell on earth before I die. That Sundays New York Times, starting on the front page and consuming six full pages inside, presented its readers with the first of a two-part turgid accounting of How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable News.

Labeled American Nationalist in the articles headline, the deeply researched NYT series describes what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news and also, by some measures, the most successful. That measure of success is the largest megaphone for Fox News in all of cable television with 3.385 million viewers for Tucker Carlson Tonight in January followed closely by Hannity with 3.168 million viewers.

Carlson and company are throwing carefully crafted cannisters of editorial gasoline on the anti-immigrant flames that surged in the wake of 9/11. Carlson, who claims to be an enemy of prejudice, has accused impoverished immigrants of making America dirty reports the Times. Night after night Carlson warns his viewers that they inhabit a civilization under siege by violent Black Lives Matter protesters, by diseased migrants from south of the border, by refugees importing alien cultures, and by tech companies and cultural elites who silence them, or label them racist. Carlson and Fox News are furiously fueling the flames of nationalistic nihilism in America. This was confirmed on Monday night when I made myself watch Hannity and companions enjoy and excoriate the liberal anguish in the crowds of protesters throughout America protesting the Alito Roe vs. Wade majority draft opinion. Alito writes that the Constitution does not include abortion in it. That the 55 Christian white men who crafted the document included nothing about women at all does not appear to concern him.

My personal dismay is the fact that millions of voters somehow dont get it. One of the reasons they dont get it is because we are all living in a world of manufactured disinformation blaring at us through digital megaphones.

My iPhones digital timer rescued me from reading more about Carlson with a reminder that it was time for me to travel to a life-affirming world outside the depressing news in my living room. That world, on that warm May Sunday, was a concert in the always uplifting embrace of music that is the Brick Church Music series in the First Church in old Deerfield. The concert, the last in this seasons series, featured Thomas Pousont on the churchs extraordinary Richards, Fowkes & Company Opus 13 tracker organ with Thomas Bergeron on the trumpet.

I have been a lover of organ music since my days in the mid-60s when I first heard South Philadelphia native Joey DeFrancesco on the Hammond B-3 organ with its Leslie Speaker. He led me to other jazz organists like Jimmy Smith and Garth Hudson.

Later in New York City in the early 70s, I was introduced to E. Power Biggs and his classic organ repertoire. I still have his recording of Johann Sebastian Bachs Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, (BWV 565), perhaps the best-known solo organ piece in the world. There is something about the floor shaking sub bass that can envelope body and soul, especially when Bach commands the keyboards, stops and foot pedals.

Pousont and Bergeron, colleagues in various music programs at Deerfield Academy, wrapped me in a sonic serendipity that transcended the printed words that had darkened my Sunday morning. Bergerons trumpet added a seamless upper voice to the range on First Churchs classic tracker organ. Pousont and Bergeron are brilliant collaborators.

Pousonts son Dorian, fresh out of Princeton University and on his way to medical school, supported his fathers performance of Harmonies by GyrgyLigeti. This 1967 composition required a second set of hands to push, pull and slide the many stops to evoke sounds rarely heard on any organ.

Ive run out of space. But I will long remember how Pousont demonstrated Bachs mastery of the organ once again by calling forth the full range of the instruments voices in his luminous performance of Bachs Fantasia & Fugue in G (BWV 542).

What, I keep asking myself, would it take for us all live in a world of harmony?

Connecting the Dots appears every other Saturday in the Recorder. Greenfield resident John Bos is a contributing writer for Green Energy Times and his essays about our climate crisis have appeared in many regional newspapers. Questions and comments are invited at john01370@gmail.com.

The rest is here:

The Recorder - Connecting the Dots: Worlds of difference - The Recorder

I was a little bit apprehensive going into On The Count Of Threea pitch-black comedy-drama from writers Ari Katcher (Ramy) and Ryan Welch (also Ramy) and first-time director (and co-lead here), comedian Jerrod Carmichaelwhich at its most basic is a story about two depressed friends who, after both coming to the conclusion that things really cannot get any better, make a pact to kill each other. The film opens with the pair in a strip club parking lot in the cold light of day, each pointing a handgun point-blank at the others head. Pretty dark stuff. But the darkness itself is not why I was apprehensive. I love black comedies. Seeing someone mine the darkest depths of human experience for laughs can be a vivifying, electric experienceif its done well. Its those times that it doesnt work, thats when things can get real cringe-worthy, real quickly. And its not easy to avoid that trap. Black comedies can be some of the hardest things to pull off.

Luckily, On The Count Of Three dances around the cringe chasm with surprising skill, avoiding for the most part the pitfalls that usually come with the subject matter: fourteen-year-old edgelordism, cheap nihilism, and insensitivity to a very real, very serious issue. Suicide is a major public health concern in many parts of the world. In the US, numbers from 2019 show that rates of taking ones own life have been rising steadily since at least 1999, becoming by then the tenth leading cause of death overall in the country. For people aged between 10 and 34, it was the second leading cause of death. Among those aged between 35 and 44, it was the fourth leading cause. In addition, suicide rates in 2019 among men were roughly 3.7 times higher than among women. It is this latter dramatic statistic that informs On The Count Of Three, which weaves into its narrative fabric other features of the lethally toxic patriarchy that harm those who identify as male as well as those who do not. The men in this story have suffered greatly at the hands of this structural violence, as it manifested itself through individuals in the form of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse. That combined with the hopelessness of the current economic climate has led them to a point of no return, which is where we meet them, in that desolate strip club parking lot, the cold light of day glinting off their handguns.

That sounds like a lot. And it is. Any story that attempts to tackle heavy issues like these has to pass one basic test first: Is its heart in the right place? Does it treat its characters with empathy and the issues at hand with the gravity they deserve? If not, if its going for something more twisted, does it pull off the comedic sleight of hand and tonal juggling act well enough to justify its existence? The latter is a very particular high wire act that usually requires a dash of heightened reality and a deft writing hand indeedand not everyone can be as good as the team behind Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia. On The Count Of Three doesnt go for that approach. It is fundamentally a comedy, but it is a relatively grounded one. The laughs dont come particularly big here; and while there probably could have been more, and better ones, it succeeds more than it fails at mixing in what seems like a genuine concern and love for its characters with the lighter moments that provide some dynamic shading to the story.

That story follows one of my favourite narrative templates: Condensed, almost-real time. Whether its films that take place over the course of one night, or over a few conversations, Im a big fan of the emotional zooming-in that such structural devices allow. On The Count Of Three film revolves around the central pair of Val (Jerrod Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott), late-twenty-something (or thereabouts) lifelong friends, who decide to have one final day together before ending things once and for all. Its here that we can see the films strongest aspects, as well as its most apparent weaknesses. Carmichael and Abbott do good work and ground the story in humanity, but the script lets them down. While the necessary affection and empathy for them is present, the heavy lifting that the writing should doto let us really know them as individuals, and to feel the bond between themnever quite materializes. We are repeatedly told that Val and Kevin are the tightest of friends, but only once in a while does that actually come across. Similarly, we are almost always kept at a slight distance, with the glimpses into their interior lives shown here not proving quite enough. The two central characters are supported by a talented cast of guest players over the course of the films 1 hour 26 minutesincluding Tiffany Haddish, J.B. Smoove, Lavell Crawford, and Henry Winkler, all effortlessly capablebut its undeniable that more development would have elevated proceedings.

That feeling extends to the films exploration of its themes. While it should be applauded for daring to tackle such heavy issues as it does, it ends up feeling slighter than it should, andinterestinglylonger than it actually is. In addition, there are occasional moments throughoutespecially one right near the end, I wont spoil anythingthat seem to contradict its central message, or at least dilute it. Cinematically, too, proceedings are competent, if uninspired. This is not amateur cinematography by any means, but when measured against something like another recent debut, Emmanuel Marre and Julie Lecoustres fantastic and visually rich Zero F*cks Given, it cant help but suffer by comparison. Still, though, On The Count Of Three, is Carmichaels first film, and despite its shortcomings, it makes me curious to see what the filmmaker will do next.

On the Count of Three is available digitally via Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, YouTube Red, Google Play, and Microsoft Store.

Suicide hotlines: (US: 1-800-273-8255; UK: +44 (0) 8457 90 90 90)

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Review: 'On The Count Of Three' Just About Pulls Off the Tonal High-Wire Act It Needs To - Pajiba Entertainment News

Its a tired clich to note that the movie industry is derivative. Anyone who owns both Deep Impact and Armageddon on DVD could speak from similar authority.

But the most unique insights about our culture are found in such repetition. With apologies to Tipper Gore, our media doesnt shape us; rather, our societal neuroses craft media in our image. It might seem odd to close out the 1990s with two films about extinction via meteorite, but then again, a country that had recently learned more than necessary about its presidents proclivities might just long for sweet annihilation instead.

So, what do we make of the recent cultural takeover of the multiverse? For anyone who doesnt follow Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter, the multiverse is a theoretical concept that trades the conventional understanding of the universe with one where every single possible permutation exists simultaneously. For example, there could be a universe where your skin is blue, or where you are the fifth Beatle, or even one where you chose to do something more productive than read this.

Two films currently in theaters, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Everything Everywhere All at Once, have fun entertaining this theory. The popular animated TV show Rick & Morty has made it its bread and butter for years now. (If you dont know about Rick & Morty, ask the nearest 13-year-old boy you encounter. If none are available, simply insult the show on social media and they will find you.)

Then what societal longing are these media fulfilling, enough to justify enough elbow room for mutual coexistence? Quite simply, everything. The multiverse is modernitys fumbling grasp for meaning, transcendence cloaked in the guise of tolerable science. In a world thats in a hurry to abandon religion, the multiverse tries to fill the growing void left in its wake.

Doctor Strange, Everything Everywhere, and Rick and Morty all make feints at nihilism, if not absurdism. Nihilism in the multiverse does make some sense. Its hard enough to be alone in the universe, but when there are trillions of universes and thus trillions of versions of yourself, you lose even your authenticity. There is no lonelier place than a crowd.

Rick Sanchez in "Rick and Morty." (IMDB)

But interestingly, all three of these media ignore the implications and insist on their preeminence to a bored cosmos. Protagonist Rick Sanchez is consistently the smartest scientist in whatever world he enters. Michelle Yeohs lowly laundromat owner in Everything Everywhere All at Once is sought out across the multiverse because she alone possesses the skills to defeat a trans-universal evil. And the Doctor Strange from our universe proves to be the only version of himself that doesnt betray his friends.

Devotees of reincarnation are unfailingly convinced they were Charlemagne in a past life. None suspect that they cleaned his chamber pot, or perhaps were the pot itself. The same goes for proponents of the multiverse. They understand statistically that they are just a sprinkle on the galactic donut, but cant shake the notion that they are somehow the filling. A character in Everything Everywhere decries that ever since the emergence of the heliocentric theory, humanity has been in steady retreat from cosmic importance.

Christianity affirms that despite ones location, we are made in the image of God and can thus safely reconcile our conflicting significance. But the secular world cannot justify that innate self-worth. The world still requires a savior, and somehow the savior that rises is always the audience surrogate. Everyone else is merely a side character; they, and thus we, are the protagonists of reality.

The contradictions continue with morality. By the logic of the multiverse, moral relativism should be the name of the game. Yet oddly, none of the multiverses pursue this ethical freedom. Instead they opt for a more fuzzy framework. In the cinematic multiverse, a declawed Christian ethic becomes, quite literally, a universal moral code.

Look no further than one of the many climaxes of Everything Everywhere (it makes Return of the King look positively concise), where a character argues that we have to be kind, especially when we dont know whats going on.

Michelle Yeoh, center, in "Everything Everywhere All at Once." (IMDB)

This is a truly marvelous trick. It dissolves any demands to traditional strictures, reducing morality to a peacefully vague platitude. In a truly indifferent multiverse, true kindness has no real rationality besides not rocking the proverbial boat. In yet another climax of that film, Michelle Yeohs Evelyn uses her trans-universal knowledge to satisfy her various combatants with material or sexual satisfaction. But this isnt true benevolence, its more like pacification by satiation. In the morality of the multiverse, kindness is more sedative than love.

The real danger of the multiverse is that it replaces not only the fruits of religion, but even God itself. The main thesis of Everything Everywhere is that our lives are meaningless to the infinity of the cosmos, so whatever meaning can be found in creation lies in the material. But thats like saying we need to pretend oxygen exists in order to breathe.

Similarly, the message of Doctor Strange 2 is that if you cant be happy, you can at least find solace that a version of you out there is living your best life. Heaven does become our own earth. The multiverse provides a do-it-yourself solution to age-old questions of purpose and the afterlife. Perhaps most revealing is a quote late in Everything Everywhere, where our hero declares that the universe made me your mother. Rather than killing God, the multiverse subtly replaces it. God remains a Father, but a cool one that lets you drink in the house.

If this interpretation of the metaverse sounds like a freshman course in existentialism, thats because it ultimately is. The cinematic portrayal of the multiverse is fundamentally juvenile, allowing budding Sartres, too cowardly for Camus, to have their cake and eat it too. The multiverse is essentially the Netflix version of theology; when presented with thousands of options, it becomes far preferable to scroll instead of simply select.

As Chesterton said, the danger of losing God isnt that well believe in nothing, but rather anything. Even all at once.

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Think you can find meaning in the multiverse? Good luck. - Angelus News

What can be said about men? Their manipulative animalistic tendencies are inescapably suffocating. At least according to director Alex Garland. The strokes Garland paints with his brushes are broad, depicting the male sex as Harvey Weinstein like sickos.

After suffering the suicide of her husband, James (Paapa Essiedu), Harper (Jessie Buckley) lives with the immeasurable guilt of his decision. As she seeks solace from heartbreak, Harpers sense of comfort is challenged by the men occupying the English countryside shes vacationing. The owner of the residence is affable, if not too much so, but things quickly get weirder from there. Stalking Ms. Harper is a bald naked man. When reporting the nudists harassment, the authorities scoff at her concerns. If the naked guy sounds crazy, thats only the tip of the iceberg.

Garlands imagery will last long in your head.Menis pure body horror. The perverse nature of its grotesque imagery would make David Cronenberg jump with joy. From a lesser mind,Mencould play as coy, pretentious shock value. Just another flick left on Tubis horror selection screen. But its not. Alex Garland is more intelligent than that but not brilliant.

The simple yet complex nature ofMen states a straight point, then restates it, and restates it again. Yet its done so effectively that it can be enjoyed as a thrill ride. If the rollercoaster isnt fun, you wont forget the thrills. Strangely, on a commercial level,Menworks. Its a film that will elicit reactions likeThe Human Centipededid. The exception being this film has a brain. And like any brain, there are flaws.

Beyond men being sex-addicted pigs, what is the films heart? Are women saints and men the sinners; wolves in sheeps clothing? Even the comfort of a priest transforms into another predatory game of survival. Living with the suicide of her husband, Harpers memory of the destruction of her relationship haunts her. Meanwhile, every guy in this film wants to fornicate or scold Harper. All to remind her that men run the world and expect subservience to their thirst for power from women.

Living as a woman in a Mans world, Harper can find no comfort except when she FaceTimes her American friend Riley (Gayle Rankin). A character that cuts the tension, and lightens the mood, yet breaks the films atmosphere. Removing her character may have been a better choice. Riley feels like a cheap convention in an otherwise well thought out film.

The movie plays like your regular horror film. Someone heads to a secluded area for vacation. Shortly afterward, things begin to get strange leaving our protagonist defending herself from attackers by the midpoint. The movies Freddy Kruger or Michael Myers is its small town occupants. Have you ever seenStraw Dogs?If you have, then youll get the picture.

Garlands trademark cinematic nihilism is admirable. He can stumble at times, appearing pretentious. Others he sticks the landing. WithMen, Garlands filmography is 2-1. The stinker beingAnnihilation. If you can change my mind, Im open to discourse. Some films can be oblique, like a David Lynch picture where youre not supposed to get it because Lynchs intention is to keep the viewer actively guessing long past the credits roll. Annihilation didnt spark enough interest for me to care why Natalie Portman was being cloned. Garlands films work best when they make a clear point, somehow it is continually Alexs distaste for his own gender.

Theres a recurring theme of the male species containing an uncontrollable sex drive. Having seenEx Machinaonce, I clearly remember one aspect of it. Nathan (Oscar Isaac) lives in a secluded house full of sexbots. All of which want to escape. InMen, Harper goes to a secluded area filled with perverts. The main one is a naked guy who chases her around.

WhereEx Machinais filled with full frontal female nudity,Menfeatures even more skin from the opposite sex. And unlikeEx Machina, the nudity is off-putting. The guys are out of shape: older, some even dirty. InEx Machina, the nudity comes from what a straight man considers attractive. Nathan designs his idea of the dream women to pleasure him. Garland challenges the men in the audience not to be turned on by the nudity, yet is fully aware, despite these droids exploitation, he cant control how men will feel.

How the male figure in Men is depicted is representative of a womans objectification. There isnt a safe place other than home (if they have one) for women to go without a man wanting their body. By being surrounded by men who want to do nothing but shed their clothes, Harper cant evade the terror that is the male dominance of this world. That point is made loud and clear, if not anything on top of that. Vile, creepy, and mildly thought-provoking, Menis the perfect WTF flick to bring your friends to.

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Men: Goes for the Guts and the Groin - 25YearsLaterSite.com

It isnt every day the Chinese community or Asians for that matter see their stories writ large in Hollywood. You have The Joy Luck Club in 1993 and, more than 20 years later, Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi, Turning Red, The Farewell and Minari. All great films. More recently, Everything Everywhere All at Once by the Daniels duo, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert was released in the US to critical acclaim, but the strength herein lies not in the blockbuster treatment Asian stories have recently benefitted from but in what it says about the Chinese immigrant experience and philosophies from far afield.

Beyond the kaleidoscope of multiverse madness, this film distils east Asian philosophies like no other before it. While it may seem that the great stories of Asian immigrant families build on the cornerstone of intergenerational trauma, its heart of Buddhist and Daoist thought is what makes Everything Everywhere truly great.

The bagel and the googly eye are two major symbols of this film. Not only is it a surprisingly apt and humorous take on yin and yang, but in the same stroke it explores concepts central to Buddhist philosophy. To boil down more than 2,000 years of Buddhist discourse it is thought that all things exist only through our perception of said things. Therefore, they are without inherent meaning. Theyre empty. This is expressed in the films multiverses. When its characters gain the power to manifest all the potentialities of their lives, they quickly realise that when every phenomenon and concept you can think of are smooshed together, it all becomes a smorgasbord of meaningless nothingness on top of a bagel. It loses inherent value.

This is where the bagels antithesis the googly eye comes in. It says that in the universe of meaningless emptiness there is value, joy and love where we choose to create it. Through the googly-eyed lens, we gain the power to control our infinite emptiness. Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), the dorky husband of Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), reminds her through simple kindness that there is value where you want to create it and meaning where you choose to see it. In Buddhist thought, its our compassion that grounds us makes us human and emptiness isnt the mark of nihilism and despair but an opportunity to leave behind the bad and cherish the good. At least, in very simple terms that is what Buddhism aims for.

Unfortunately, these points are often missed by a western audience and even the near wall to wall positive coverage of this film barely touches on its philosophical significance.

In a roundabout way, its wholly emblematic of Hollywoods dismissiveness of Asian achievements and stories. One of the films stars, James Hong, who plays a grandfather referred to only as Gong Gong, is a veteran of Hollywood, with more than 650 acting credits under his belt. But he only received his Hollywood Walk of Fame star this year after a GoFundMe campaign launched by fellow Asian-American actor Daniel Dae Kim.

Actually, you might recognise another one of the films stars, Ke Huy Quan, if he were 30 years younger. In the 1980s, Quan was best known for being Indiana Joness sidekick Short Round and then went on to play Data in The Goonies. The former child actor told People that he was waiting for the phone to ring but it never did. With few roles for Asian actors at the time, he decided to step away from acting. It was only after watching Crazy Rich Asians that he realised he wanted to get back in the game.

The overt examples of Asians getting short shrift in the media arent hard to find, whether it be Marlon Brando or Mickey Rooney in yellow-face or Kunal Nayyar being the butt of many ethnic jokes in The Big Bang Theory. But its the more subtle examples that shortchange Asian excellence when its at its highest. The Farewell and Minari are victims of these, having been designated foreign-language films despite being produced and cast mostly in America. And going back to the black-and-white era, many a role was denied Anna May Wong due to the racial laws of the time.

Beyond being entertainment, or even allowing us an insight into the psyches of millions of people across the globe, Asian immigrant stories are valuable if you engage with them. As Asian hate crime rises in the United States and tensions flare between China and Australia, understanding the Asian psyche has never been more important. And with all things fraught with uncertainty in this world, it helps to broaden our philosophical appetite if we appreciate the people and things around us in a different light.

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The west misses the point of Everything Everywhere All at Once it gets the Asian psyche - The Guardian

Here are five crucial challenges Ukraine and its global partners and allies must tackle as Russian President Vladimir Putins criminal war approaches its most decisive phase.

Some are short-term, while others have generational consequences. But all five are necessary to transform Putins murderous authoritarian threat into a historic opportunity for the civilized world to shape a better future.

Thats a long listand its only the beginning.

The bottom line is that unanticipated Ukrainian resilience, resourcefulness, patriotism, and bravery have provided the free world an opportunity not only to save Ukraine, but also to reverse years of democratic drift and authoritarian resurgence.

If the democratic world is to avoid the rule of the jungle replacing the rule of law, now is the time to act.

It will be as important in the years ahead that the transatlantic community embrace Russia and Russians as part of US President George H.W. Bushs dream of a Europe whole and free. Policymakers should already be designing how to make that happen. In the meantime, however, Ukraines friends must quell Putins revanchist, historically perverted obsession with restoring some false notion of ancient Rus through whatever means necessary.

The past week underscored positive momentum toward this end.

Finland and Sweden moved toward NATO membership; the United Kingdom tightened sanctions that cracked Putins wall of secrecy around his family and rumored girlfriend; Russian troops appeared to be retreating from Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city; and Ukrainian troops began launching a counteroffensive toward the eastern city of Izyum, targeting Russian supply lines to the Donbas region.

On Sunday, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin jointly announced that their country would apply for Alliance membership.This is a historic day, Niinisto said. A new era begins.

Reportedly, Sweden could arrive at the same decision as early as Monday.

For those misguided voices who still argue that NATO membership destabilizes rather than secures a more peaceful Europe, talk to officials in these two countrieswho have watched the three Baltic members of NATO remain secure while Russia overran Ukraine, a non-NATO member.

Erdogan represents the greatest opposition thus far to Sweden and Finnish membership, based on what Turkey says is Swedens long-standing sheltering of Kurdish terrorists. Yet his language suggests this is more of a negotiating ploy than an immovable object: At the moment, we are following the developments regarding Sweden and Finland, but we dont hold positive views, he said.

Not only has Putins war failed to take Ukraine, but it has also prompted global shifts that go far beyond Finland and Sweden.

Upon receiving a Distinguished Leadership Award from the Atlantic Council on May 11, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Russias invasion of Ukraine has caused a paradigm shift in geopolitics.

Added Draghi: It has strengthened the ties between the European Union and the United States, isolated Moscow, raised deep questions for China. These changes are still ongoing, but one thing is certain: They are bound to stay with us for a long, long time.

We must continue to support the bravery of the Ukrainians as they fight for their freedom and for the security of us all, he said. There should be peace, he argued, but added that [i]t will be up to Ukrainians to decide the terms of this peace, and no one else.

The threats of historic nature have been clear since Putin began assembling his troops last year for the February 24 attack. Now, Draghi argued, the opportunities are clearer.

The war in Ukraine has the potential to bring the European Union even closer together, he said. We must remember the urgency of the moment, the magnitude of the challenge. This is Europes hour and we must seize it. The choices the European faces are brutally simple. We can be masters of our own destiny or slaves to the decisions of others.

What makes Draghi optimistic is that Europe isnt tackling this alone, but is strengthened by the timeless bond of transatlantic relations.

The test now is whether the current unity and momentum of Ukraines friends can withstand Putins escalating brutality and their own fatigue.

This article originally appeared onCNBC.com

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter @FredKempe.

#1 World War II Is All That Putin Has LeftAnne Applebaum | THE ATLANTIC

Between the heroism of Ukraines defenders and his own wild miscalculations of Russias military ability, Putins attempt to create a propaganda narrative to justify his invasion of Ukraine has largely collapsed. That has left Putin only World War II mythmaking to fall back onand Applebaum illustrates how even that is based on lies.

In practice, Putinism is a powerful but ultimately empty ideology, she writes. Its propaganda divides people from one another, creates suspicion, and promotes apathy. State media put forth multiple nonsensical explanations for reality, including multiple nonsensical reasons for the invasion of Ukraine. In different tellings, Ukraine, a democratic state led by a Jewish president, is Nazi, is Russian, is a Western puppet, is nonexistent. Alongside these stories, Russians are spoon-fed cynicism, mockery, and nihilism.

Applebaum continues: If he wants to expand the current conflictif he wants to persuade millions of people to sacrifice their lives and their fortunes to fight across Europe once againhe will need to provide a far more powerful motivation, a far deeper reason to fight, something other than this wars alleged resemblance to a past tragedy. Read more

#2 America Must Embrace the Goal of Ukrainian VictoryAlexander Vindman | FOREIGN AFFAIRS

In Foreign Affairs, Alexander Vindman explains why the United States must push for a peace settlement that not only holds off Russiabut defeats it.

As it stands, he writes, the United States has missed one opportunity after the other to help precipitate a decisive Ukrainian victory and stop Russia from making gains in the Donbas. Instead of foreclosing the possibility of a Russian success, Washingtons strategy of metering incremental military aid to Ukrainebased on a flawed assessment of the risk of escalation and the potential consequences of a Russian defeathas provided Moscow with the time and space to continue its war, even as it now shifts to defending the territory it has seized since February 24. Read more

#3 How Ukrainians Saved Their CapitalLuke Mogelson | THE NEW YORKER

The Atlantic Council honored the Ukrainian people as a whole this week with a Distinguished Leadership Award for their heroism in the fight against Russias invasion. As President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his remarks, [W]e must say and remember that behind the courage and wisdom of our people, there are thousands of real stories, names, and heroic feats.

To understand the individual stories of their heroism more deeply, read Luke Mogelsons New Yorker narrative.

One such story is that of a violinist who volunteered for the Ukrainian military in 2014 after a policeman broke her hand during a political protest. Another tracks the life of an eighty-four-year-old woman with, Mogelson wrote, shrapnel wounds to her groin and abdomen. She did not cry out. When a medic commented on her grit, the woman said that she had also survived the Second World War. Read more

#4 Xi Jinping Scrambles as Chinas Economy StumblesKevin Rudd | THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

To more deeply understand how President Xi Jinpings leadership has damaged the Chinese economy, read this smart analysis by former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, one of the leading China experts writing today.

As Xi hurtles toward what he hopes will be his inevitable reelection as Chinas leader later this year, Rudd writes: Recent economic assessments have predicted a sharply slowing Chinese growth trajectory, to around 3% by 2030 and 2% by 2050. If this proves to be the case and Mr. Xi doesnt radically change course, the global strategic and economic significance will be profound. China would cease being the worlds growth engine. It may not surpass the U.S. as the worlds largest economy by decades end after alland if it does, it wont be by much.

Yet although Chinas economic woes are of Xis own making, dont expect him to admit that: As Rudd notes, the only way to a better economic future is for the leader to change course. But given his Marxist-Leninist ideological predilections, that will be hard, Rudd concludes. Read more

#5 Remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi at the 2022 Distinguished Leadership AwardsATLANTIC COUNCIL

The Atlantic Council on Wednesday held its Distinguished Leadership Awards dinner, an annual salute to individuals whose leadership contributes to a better world. Atop the list of recipients this year were Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and, for the first time, an entire nation: the people of Ukraine.

The acceptance speeches by Draghi and Zelenskyy are worth reading for the insight they provide into our historic moment and the bravery and resilience of the Ukrainian people.

This is Europes hour and we must seize it, Draghi said. The choices the European faces are brutally simple. We can be masters of our own destiny or slaves to the decisions of others.

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said: Do not be afraid and come to Ukraine. Hear thousands of similar stories about us, Ukrainians. Look into their brave eyes, shake their strong hands, and you will see that they are doing all this not for glory, that they need not only awards, but also concrete help and support. Weapons, equipment, financial support, sanctions on Russia, and the most important: the feeling that in this difficult struggle, they are not alone, that they are supported by you, by the whole worldfree states and free nations of our planet. Read more

Image: A woman from Ukraine, together with other Ukrainians, smeared herself with fake blood and chained herself with handcuffs to barrier bars in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin on May 13, 2022. Photo by Carsten Koall/dpa/REUTERS

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Five ways Ukraine's partners can defeat Putin and shape the future - Atlantic Council

Even after a quarter century and nearly 7 million equivalent album units earned from his bands first five albums, according to Luminate, formerly MRC Data, Third Eye Blinds Stephan Jenkins still feels like hes on the outside looking in. This folk musics fking me up/Makes me think I should quit/Maybe Im just scared of it, he sings on Silverlake Neophyte from the groups 2021 album, Our Bande Apart, a collection Jenkins says is his favorite thing he has ever done.

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Musicians are expected to plug the new one. But in Jenkins case, after years of battling former bandmates, managers and, in some cases, himself during dry spells he has emerged from the most fruitful period of his career with a new attitude and a fresh perspective on what and who his band is.

Fans of 3EB (as the act is commonly known) know that Jenkins, after years of working on his songwriting, burst onto the scene with the bands 1997 self-titled debut, which has generated nearly a billion on-demand streams in the United States (according to Luminate), featuring big-swing alt-pop staples Semi-Charmed Life, Graduate, Hows It Gonna Be and Jumper. His signature mix of NC-17 subject matter and earworm choruses heralded a fresh songwriting voice that blended the underbelly frankness of Janes Addiction with the guitar-forward hooks of peak Smashing Pumpkins.

The band followed up with the more musically adventurous Blue in 1999 and Out of the Vein in 2003, though its next two releases each came after six-year breaks that led to Jenkins most prolific period. Since 2019, the new-look 3EB whose only original members are Jenkins and drummer Brad Hargreaves have been on a tear, releasing two albums, a live set and two EPs in less than four years. To me, its very close to the first album in letting the songs be what they are without any of that nervousness of trying to make them into the thing they should be, Jenkins says of Our Bande Apart.

With 3EB setting out in June on its 25th anniversary Summer Gods Tour, sharing the bill with Taking Back Sunday and Hockey Dad, Jenkins talked with Billboard about how modern folk music messes with his head and the time Kanye West paid him a compliment.

What was the founding concept of 3EB? What did you want the band to be?

I wanted to be freed up from genre. I liked British riff rock and singer-songwriter stuff New Order, Joy Division, Cat Stevens, and I really liked hip-hop. I liked the space that hip-hop gave you for expanding the lyric and being really wordy. I didnt like the ethos of grunge where it was nihilism, everybody not caring and turning inward. I had more of a rage to live, to reshape my world on my own terms. My mindset was more eros, erotic, the ferocity of demanding to live on your terms.

What happens when you go from being unknown to having that kind of chart success with your debut release?

I definitely felt validated in a way to know I was going to be able to make a second record, which was amazing to me. To be a musician is to take a vow of poverty, and I didnt have a drivers license or a bank account. I really bet everything on doing music, with no fallback, so to have a gig was amazing.

You have a moment when you get success where you can turn yourself into the person who is talking loudest in the room and what you have to say is so interesting and youre making jokes and not asking questions. I think were all susceptible to that with success and early on I went through that. But I also decided I wanted to be living in a space where I had impact with people and engaged with them about the real, authentic friction of relationships.

This is what I think of. I have a picture its my favorite photo ever of an autistic boy whose parents brought him backstage and asked if he could meet me. His language was such that he doesnt say something at the time where its appropriate to say it. But he loved Third Eye Blind and his parents hooked me up to talk to him about it. We took a picture and he looked at the camera he also had a problem being touched. We smile for the camera and he made eye contact and for me I hated having photos taken of myself I looked at that photo and I said, Thats my real face, this is me, this is the full expression of myself. His parents were tripping me out because he looked at the camera, which was something he didnt normally do. They were nervous because they were meeting this person who was on MTV and the boy said bye at the right time and at that point they completely stopped caring about me at all. That was really wonderful because they were so fixated on their boy making this little milestone moment. That was a sense of what I was doing, my rendering of reality is traveling to somebody else and I felt that.

You seemed to capture that same explosive first-album energy on Blue, especially on Wounded. That ecstatic woo woo! and the gigantic guitar windup feel triumphant. When you write a song like that, do you know in the moment youve written something special?

Oh, for sure, yes. Its one of my favorite records, and during the making of Blue I felt free, truly free. Then what happens is it goes through mixing and mastering and gets shrunk down to this little fking CD and it all shrinks. But theres a moment where its ocean-sized in your head. That was a song about a friend who got raped and withdrew from our friend group and that made an emotional dent on me. Thats [the place where] I wrote from, and I was able to render something of her rage and triumph of ownership of self.

Youve never made it easy on yourself with your choice of topics: abortion, suicide, a pharmacopeia of drugs, oral sex. Do you ever try to wind it back for the sake of mainstream acceptance or radio?

No. Ive always felt that as an indie-rock artist, there have been very few times where Ive been radio-focused. Its about being in a kitchen under suspect light after midnight when the conversation gets real. For me, writing doesnt come from one particular place, its just about trying to stay in a cultivating space where things can actually make a dent on you emotionally.

There was a six-year break before Ursa Major arrived in 2009. What happened?

I produced and co-wrote a couple other albums [Vanessa Carltons Harmonium], produced for a few [Spencer Barnett], so there was that. I cant really account for myself. To make rock music, theres that, Heres what Im doing and I dont give a fk, fk your opinion. Thats the rocknroll mindset and I didnt have it. I felt judged and misunderstood. I also had been going so hard for so long for years before I got a record deal that I think maybe I was a bit stunned by the idea of going out and being subjected to evaluation and criticism.

You talked about the influence of hip-hop, which pops up across so many of your songs, like Semi-Charmed. Do you feel like a rapper at heart?

I just love the daisy age of hip-hop DeLa Soul, ATribe Called Quest and I just felt like rap music was punk and theres a music aspect to it that just immediately compelled me as someone who tends to be overly wordy.

After another long break, you came back with the EP We Are Drugs in 2016, which felt the least restrained you had ever been. Youre 57 could you have written those same songs at 25?

I think the real question is could I have written it without Drake? Drake is an amazing lyricist. I just stayed in my late 20s, thats what I did. (Laughs.)I dont have any wisdom. Im just interested in the music I hear now, and I pay attention to culture now. I dont have any old stories. Im always looking to go surfing with friends. Thats how I roll and thats the energy that comes back to me.

Third Eye Blind still has a young audience. How do you explain that?

Its a phenomenon, and one I feel like I have no control over. Certainly, I dont have any way of fostering it. Its a result of the socializing of music sharing, and what happens is our band turns into playlists and they dont have date stamps on them. People find songs that illuminate where theyre at and then they share them.

Do you see signs of your influence on bands out there now?

Yes. Theres a frankness and rawness in rap lyrics that inspires and repels me because of a lot of the violence and misogyny that gets a pass. But there is a lot of incredible, exciting raw sh-t in there. I was at a baseball game and Kanye [West] was there and he was talking about how he saw that in my music and found it inspiring. Hes a rapper who can do some really raw, genuine stuff where hes looking for that completely unhinged state of freedom, and to hear a nod [from him] like, I understand what youre on about and I dig it was so cool.

Silverlake Neophyte from Our Bande Apart has you questioning your place in music. Are you still wondering if you should quit after hearing some of the new folk music thats messing with your head?

I took this deep dive into the Los Angeles neo-folk scene [Phoebe Bridgers, Adrianne Lenker] and theres this hyper-realness going on there. It made me go, OK, are you being real? I imagined that feeling of being at an open mic night in Silverlake with other songwriters and really laying it down. You dont discover yourself; you make yourself up. We are inventions. [Our Bande Apart] is kind of my favorite album because, to me, its very close to the first album in just letting the songs be what they are without any of that nervousness of trying to make them into the thing they should be. Its not overthought, not overwrought.

Can we do a lightning round? How does it feel to sing those early songs today? Can you still tap into those emotions?

I tap into the audiences emotions and they keep it alive.

What is Third Eye Blind today? Is it you?

(Pauses.)Yes. Im Third Eye Blind and I have relationships with people who are in this band and they bring something precious and vital to it. Both things are true.

Who are the songs for?

Wow The songs are for themselves. They are for the universe. They are for the purpose of being brought into existence and they come with the hope of traveling to other people and bringing them into connection with each other.

Whats the song that came the quickest and the one that took forever?

[Blue album track] Tattoo of the Sun and Deep Inside of You.

What did you see when you look out now in the crowd?

People who feel the joy of knowing they are not alone.

Do you see signs of your influence on bands out there now?

Yes. There a frankness and rawness in rap lyrics that inspires and repels me because of a lot of the violence and misogyny that gets a pass. But there is a lot of incredible, exciting raw sh-t in there. I was at a baseball game and Kanye [West] was there and he was talking about how he saw that in my music and found it inspiring. The point was hes a rapper who can do some really raw, genuine stuff where hes looking for that completely unhinged state of freedom and to hear a nod [from Ye] like, I understand what youre on about and I dig it was so cool.

Best advice you got from a rock hero?

Bono said, Wait til the live album to buy a house.

Worst advice?

The drummer [in an unnamed band] said enjoy it while it lasts.

Best advice youve given?

I told a new artist, Adam Neff, that if you want to be a good musician, live like an athlete and keep writing songs.

Your favorite show?

There are so many, but there was a moment at Lollapalooza [in 2016] where we didnt know what was gonna happen because people vote with their feet and you can be on stage and there can be no one at your show. We set an attendance record for that afternoon slot for the whole weekend. And then some guys took a guy in a wheelchair and crowd-surfed him to the stage and the security guys were going to put him in the pit and I said, Let him up! They put him on the stage and I looked out at the audience at the end of the show and I said, Look how beautiful you are! And I meant that about everyone there.

You have consistently written songs about getting high/drugs, so I have to ask, do you indulge?

Surprisingly not. I think its so overrated. I like like to get up early and get a cold plunge in and go surfing. I like the feeling of being way, way in my body, but nobody likes a goody two-shoes either, so I certainly dont believe in the taboo. But the writing of the taboo can be a metaphor for other things.

Will you be singing these songs when youre Paul McCartneys age?

I dont see why not.

A version of this story originally appeared in the May 14, 2022, issue of Billboard.

Go here to see the original:

Stephan Jenkins on Third Eye Blind at 25: I Wanted to Be Living In a Space Where I Had Impact - Billboard