Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: Citizen Vigilante!

Theme: The Man in Black - Johnny Cash

I think "Citizen Vigilante" is Spanish or something for a vigilant citizen; someone who looks out for others. That's what I took away from Uwe Boll's new opus about a dude that teaches people moral lessons about road safety and the importance of paying bus fares.

Sorry interior design bros, black turtlenecks are for straight people now.

Boll is often bashed for the alleged badness of his films, none of which I had ever seen, so eye dee kay, but since Citizen Vigilante is objectively 6/10, it's easily and by far the greatest and best film of the 2020s, followed by nothing, and then nothing else. Citizen Vigilante (I'm going to assume that's his name) lives in the country of EUROPE, which is a subtle reference to the erstwhile IRL continent of the same name. EUROPE is getting ruined by criminal migrants, so Citizen does what noone else will do and the authorities actively try to prevent anyone doing: he very politely offers them multiple chances not to be scumbags, then ends up killing them when they limbo dance under the very low bar he has set for them.

James Gunn thinks it's absolutely deranged to believe this.

For whatever reason, Citizen has drawn comparisons to Dirty Harry and Death Wish, but this is misleading, because those flicks are POZZED. The villain in Dirty Harry was a raaaycist white guy and the ones in Death Wish, despite their dialogue being obviously communist in nature, spraypainted a Buddhism sign on the wall of the crime scene to remind you that ackshyoowally don't forget that moustache man bad too, goy. Pathetic! Citizen makes no such egregious concession to zioshitlibry, though its producers and/or star (self-described cannibalism fetishist Armie Hammer) likely made sure it didn't take aim at their evil ethnocartel too. Nonetheless, it's certainly the closest thing to not being 100% ghey to have been made this decade, unless you count The Will Stancil Show (which I do).

We love you Emily <3 say it back.

Last decade had The Joker, which I told you back then would get a sequel denouncing its fans, and it did, apparently, although, like everybody else, I never saw it, prompting the koan: if a filmmaker throws a bitchfit in an empty cinema, are the chuds owned?, prompting the answer: no. WILL Citizen Vigilante likewise get a struggle session sequel (struggle sequel?) throwing us under the bus for liking it wrong? The thing is, Super Girl just came out and bombed because everyone already knew what it was going to be like, so this already rather desperate stratagem seems unlikely to succeed: you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube because everyone's online now and will simply read someone on twitter dot com dot world wide web telling them all what regime simping is to be found in the sequel and avoid it, perhaps going for a walk instead. Pick up some litter. Help an old lady cross the street. Be a Citizen Vigilante (2026).

Greatest Album of All Time of the Week: Time Immortal Wept!

Theme: Return to Fantasy - Gamma Ray

This dude shows up on all their album covers. I wonder if he has a name, like Vic or Eddy. In the meantime, let us call him Wes.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to metal: one is that it should be characterised by safe-edgy fedoraisms, unreadable band name logos, and fat guys in corpse paint going horgy-porgy-porg into a microphone. The correct one, though, is that it should be van art in musical form: grandiose, unapologetic lucid daydreaming of ripped barbarians, distant mountains with nameless secrets, and evil sorcerers sacrificing busty hotties to Lovecraftian monsters, with wanky yet ineffably narrative guitar soloes and evocative, elevated lyrics like J.R.R.R.R.R.R. Tolkien and Clark Ashton Smith jammed out a literary Desert Sessions of a weekend.

Fortunately, this patrician understanding of the telos of the genre has survived and thrived long past the hallowed heyday of X Caliber and Medieval Steel, despite all efforts to replace it with rap-rock and deathslop. Utah's Visigoth has all the irony-free genre-love and epic sound you could shake a fist at, while Eternal Champion drops Howard references like they've actually read him. But for my money the crowning jewel in the dragon's hoard of retro epic metal must be Legendry's GOAT Time Immortal Wept. Not only does it boast straight bangers and transportive lyrics, but it's utterly unashamed to invoke every production flourish in its modest budget to set the cinematic scene: the album opens and closes to the crackling of a campfire, and instrumental "The Winds Between Worlds" features sound FX of steel sharpening and a forboding gong.

But still more revelatory is the lead guitar tone, which reaches back in time to the genre's ever-more-forgotten psych roots but maintains the muscle needed to power its momentous and frequent workouts. The climactic title track is an 11-minute powerhouse with all the vital velocity and majestic momentum of the best 3-minute single, while "The Prophecy" hits on a jubilant groove seldom heard in metal. But you might as well check out the whole album: it won't last half as long as you'll want to soak in its dungeoneering ambience.