https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city daily 0.75 2025-10-31 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/words-amp-games-death-stranding-2on-the-beach monthly 0.5 2025-09-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/95bc7c8f-6d30-4d5f-8cb6-e5c344c72872/DEATH+STRANDING+2_+ON+THE+BEACH_20250626111820.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: “Death Stranding 2: On the Beach” - Make it stand out Another taken by me, amidst one of the more imaginative and unforgettable boss fights of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/07563d0d-6359-4cd4-8d00-ff4356761002/DEATH+STRANDING+2_+ON+THE+BEACH_20250719033136.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: “Death Stranding 2: On the Beach” - Make it stand out One of many screenshots I took across my vast journey in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’s rather generous photo-mode. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/84946b2f-18c4-4988-a5be-fddea35b4ddd/death_stranding_2_on_the_beach-245337621-large-1825624058.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: “Death Stranding 2: On the Beach” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/01783f3f-6b76-4a12-991f-15f28e58604b/DEATH+STRANDING+2_+ON+THE+BEACH_20250709235851.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: “Death Stranding 2: On the Beach” - Make it stand out Robots & Polaroids, also from my playthrough. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/qxbv5bba5mxsbf3muu01o81i3e8lk2 monthly 0.5 2025-06-16 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/anodyne monthly 0.5 2025-05-16 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/cb41w8gw4xvvu6bt7v4zsppu7q6efd monthly 0.5 2025-04-16 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/lost-thoughts-on-a-rainy-friday-in-march monthly 0.5 2025-03-10 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/jellyfish-apotheosis monthly 0.5 2025-02-10 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/an-ode-to-david-lynch monthly 0.5 2025-02-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f44a04f5-8527-4c76-914c-071dcb97e5c3/28cuksmqgede1.jpeg Hidden City - An Ode to David Lynch - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-cool-records-i-liked-of-2024 monthly 0.5 2024-12-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/81236643-9e9c-4021-9e4d-f9e61bc944d8/Charli_XCX_-_Brat_%28album_cover%29.png Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #10. Brat - Charlie xcx Yeah…it’s that catchy of a record. This deserves a spot alongside Billie’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, but I chose this purely for how much more I spent with this album. When discussing the proverbial pop-sheroes and Grammy’s arm race, no shade to Chapelle Roan or Sabrina Carpenter, even Taylor Swift’s excellent Tortured Poet’s Department, but I found myself gravitating towards Brat a lot more when in the mood for doing something. Sure, there’s a lot out there to be said about this album, and you’ve probably heard it somehow by now, but I think brat might go down as one of the catchiest records of the decade. If you’re in the mood for something energetic, put this one on. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ef9ea7da-5a4c-4510-9bd3-3c401f9582ec/silent-hill-2-button-2-1666206547932.jpg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #6. Silent Hill 2 - Akira Yamaoka The only soundtrack I’ll include on this list, it was none other than the legendary Team Silent Hill composer himself, Akira Yamaoka who came back to redress what has been an enshrined, beloved cult-classic of a soundtrack to 2001’s Silent Hill 2 on Playstation 2. As a huge fan of the series, I was initially skeptical of how The Medium and The Blair Witch developer Bloober would handle the remake, but after getting to play it this year, I can say it’s without a doubt, 100% a new, instant classic. Yamaoka shines here once again, delivering with delicacy this interesting, harmonious blend of haunting meets melodic overtures, somber into scary, atmospheric one moment and into terrifying, industrial-esque sonic attacks. What I like about Silent Hill 2 as a record is that it perfectly takes what was already distilled beauty of its predecessor and fundamentally rearranges and alters it into a depressive siren’s song—for instance, Laura Plays The Piano immediately reintroduces motifs of the original, but gradually absconds into this feeling of being lost, misremembering something, but in the best way possible. Unimaginably beautiful, this is. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1dcdf41c-d29b-4829-9505-2a1f3cb3152e/lizzy.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #8. Older - Lizzy McAlpine I fell in love with Lizzy’s 2020 Give Me A Minute and have been a fan since. Older feels a lot like her previous entry but with more robust of a sound, even anthemic for a couple of songs. All Falls Down, my favorite track, catechizes the hypnotic blend of McAlpine’s signature style, for which the upbeat personification of loneliness, heartbreak, failure and existential-sondering have never sounded so hummable. Themes of alcoholism, addition are rampant here, suggestive to me of a uniquely bitter heartbreak that singularly often accompanies watching a loved one medicate themselves to death, though it doesn’t feel exploitative nor cheap (at-least, to me anyways). Better Than This might be my favorite ode to that One Relationship™ a lot of us have had in which the walk away afterwards is as complex emotionally as it is psychologically. I Guess has this spaciness, fall, dreamy-like mood that gives a totally The Virgin Suicides vibe. You Forced Me To, has a haunting and vulnerable, Elliott Smith self-titled vibe in the best way possible. Then there’s Movie Star, which perhaps has my favorite lyrics of the album: “I want to change/I want to grow/But it’s physically impossible/Stand here and not say that I love you, even if I don’t/Who am I to/Who am I to myself/What are you changing about me?” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/333d123f-e754-4658-9d86-b1f52706a23f/junior+varsity.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #3. My Star - Junior Varsity (For what it’s worth, I couldn’t find a jpeg of this 2024-released EP.) Junior Varsity has a really bright, infectious sound that kind of reminds me of this mix between The Subways, Tokyo Police Club, Paramore and Bikini Kill, but infused with new pop-punk-emo-esque sensibilities that give them a familiar, though fresh sound. My Star, although a thoroughly solid EP, only has 6 songs, but of those there’s more than enough energy, along a creative, brash exploration of what has so often been a formulaic genre. The track, New York really screams and is fun to blast. Do You Really Like Me? is this interesting TikTok confessional that comes across like the band invoked the spirit of Daniel Johnston doing spoken word. Really cool band, really fun record, and I’m already looking forward to when this Los Angeles-based trio (hopefully) releases their full-length album in the coming future. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ec1e799a-d8c1-47c0-9722-99d271eaccfc/201216-faye-webster-underdressed-at-the-symphony.jpg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #2. Underdressed at the Symphony - Faye Webster Oh, man…this record feels like autumn to me. As a really big fan of Faye and her 2021 brilliant I Know I’m Funny haha, 2024’s Underdressed at the Symphony continues what I’d say is her brand of sound: a somewhat somber, post-surf rock infused, indie-folk-electric suffusion of mellow-shoe-gaze meets Mac Demarco-esque sublimation that both manages to transcend yet exorcise this universal/relatable earnest-vulnerability into the epitome of not-giving-a-fuck coolness (…if that makes any sense, whatsoever). I love her music and I find so much identification between the instrumentation, arrangements, lyrics and sound as in the short, bittersweet saying-a-lot-by-not-saying-too-much song, Feeling Good Today: “I got paid yesterday/I’ll probably buy something dumb/Because I’m pretty childish/But all my friends are the same/Just finding something to do/Find a new hobby just to ditch it”. Also, I’m going to go ahead and say that I’m loving the experimentation with Autotune. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/0b63edb0-85ab-4cda-81fd-50d31314ad67/Kendrick-Lamar-GNX-1732295478.jpg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #1. GNX - Kendrick Lamar “Wow,” is pretty much what I’d use to summate this record into one word. There is a lot happening here, a lot of pretext, history, multi-faceted commentary, emotion, wordplay, stellar production, etc. I had the pleasure of listening to this on a short road trip the day it was released and I quite literally yelled when I heard reincarnated—a track I feel that is meta-textual with its subject matter of addiction, personally overcoming said experience, finding relationality by exploring past avatars who were trendsetters, as well as Kendrick saying in a sense that he himself is the next Tupac Shakur (no doubt sampling Pac’s Made Niggaz as a way of not-so-discretely codifying this). Then there’s man at the garden, a raw, explorative, vulnerable song that comes off more as a journal entry than something for us to hear. Honestly, I could go on and on about it, but this might be my favorite record of the year, an album that easily plays from beginning to end without any filler. Amazing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f27c859d-4e05-4b8a-8c57-7f426659e883/8383e316655cbc4624927fce040d5230.jpg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #5. Charm - Clairo To me, Clairo shares a few musical similarities to some of her contemporaries that I won’t name here, but it doesn’t stop me from coming back and back to Charm. The wandering piano throughout the record, late 1970’s woodgrain floral brightness of the album’s tone, her whiserpy-like vocals that sound more like soothing hymnal or next-door humming than singing come together to seal the deal on the explicit meadow/field of flowers Vibe™. Thank You easily just hooks you in and has this classic sort of catchiness that feels poppy without sounding like soulless industry plants (pun intended). Second Nature is what I recently describe to someone as probably the soundtrack to my internal monologue; Echo has an early aughts indie-like ambiance reminding me of Arcade Fire or Of Montreal; the beautiful terrapin carries with its willowy airiness a semblance, touch of hurt that seems to feel as though understatedly mature without necessarily needing to contextualize what or as to why she’s singing what she does, and I think it’s done so well: “We can go wherever we want/The plains, the sand, the salt, the dust/You can say whatever you want/I don't care, I'm already gone/We could drive a mile down the road/To get a drink or two, you know.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e701d690-ec57-4aaf-a38c-6dc156e69824/sza-sos-deluxe-artwork.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #7. SOS Deluxe: LANA - SZA Granted, while this is more of a reiteration than bonafide release that just came out very recently, but similar to her Grand National Tour cohort Kendrick, I just have to describe this as: omg. I mean, 30 For 30 just makes me want to pump the volume and get even yet more excited imagining how it’ll be hearing it live. Tracks Another Life and Scorsese Baby Daddy have this SZA presence bordering-on-rock meets a twinge of Rhianna; Kitchen feels as though equal parts a ballad and personification of her extraterrestrial aesthetic, combining dreamy reverb-drenched vocals with the body of her identity as a neo-R&B, soul and hip-hop artist. Kill Bill has a nice, mellow-vaporware and pop-infused ambiance which feels simultaneously vintage yet contemporary. Really, I don’t care if this’s cheating, because even 2 years after the fact, SOS is just as relevant and good as it was the first time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/999f8ca5-f481-46ad-b193-c2675b03b708/marias.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #4. Submarine - The Marias From another LA-based band, Submarine is a record that naturally commixes a host of different genres so fluently, organically and naturally that it’s hard to really put a pulse on what exactly this could be described as (other than, “indie-rock”). Their exceptional 2021 CINEMA initially attracted me to their sound, which for me felt like if Mazzy Star could speak Spanish and combine neo-R&B, hip-hop, electronica influences into their arsenal, along with a darkly-romantic noir ambiance, then maybe they could be reborn into The Marias. The track Hamptons feels every bit shoegazey with a subtle infusion of traditional mariachi syncopation and backbeat, as well an aural Bjork, Zola Jesus and/or FKA Twigs-sort of instrumentation that it feels rightly intuitive, experimental, dreamlike and ethereal without sacrificing their typified, primal catchiness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b529d61f-95b0-4c3e-b425-5ab523aee9d3/ariana.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Cool Records I Liked of 2024 - #9. Eternal Sunshine - Ariana Grande Love or hate her, it’s undeniable that Ariana has exceptional talent and her career has been able to shift and evolve with her own identity. Described by Rolling Stone as her “divorce record,” I think what makes Eternal Sunshine notable is Ariana playing with genres here as as if a paint palette, brushing together fusions of dance, electronica, hip-hop and modern pop because of her heartbreak, with the album title/track no doubt an overt and thematic homage to the 2004 Michel Gondry film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. One of my favorite tracks Supernatural sounds on par for the Ariana sound, but with pronounced synthesizer and eletronica elements that sound fresh though familiar, similar to her cover of the boy is mine. I like the aquatic-like melody on I wish I hated you that reminds me of a sort of Jim O’Rourke-esque Yamaha Tenori-on instrumentation; yes, and? feels to me as if Ariana went trying to throw her hat in for a Madonna kind of vibe, and I totally dig it. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/assorted-excerpts-from-a-journal monthly 0.5 2024-12-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/48282a29-7a9a-4609-99ec-820b9c4b2cb2/Untitled+design-2.png Hidden City - Assorted, random excerpts from past journals #1 Blanche: I don’t want realism. I want magic! …yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! -Scene 9, pg. 117, A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-fictional-characters-i-identified-with monthly 0.5 2024-12-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b6f40a0c-1ff6-4b11-a8a7-7d772c40bb0c/Heather.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #7. “Heather Mason” - Silent Hill 3 (2003) The third installment and iteration of Konami’s beloved cult franchise, Silent Hill 3 is a game that came at a time where I felt deep resonance with its protagonist and daughter of the first game’s protagonist, Heather (or, Cheryl) Mason. Though a bonafide survival-horror game through and through, Silent Hill 3 is also at the same time a piece of interactive art that explores topics of teenage angst, bodily identity, pregnancy, mental health, the paranormal, cults and as well as other themes intertwined throughout its design and artistic direction. There is a sense of self-awareness transcribed among Heather’s internal and externalized narrative, for which we as a player are given explicit privy to her youth, thoughts, reactions, and motivations, all of which are craftfully and succinctly curated into a compelling protagonist who is intelligent, resilient, flawed but overall relatable. Teenage me had never felt so utterly expressed before. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/4b41f93e-873a-49e4-aceb-7886f2ed6624/Lita.jpg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #8. “Sailor Jupiter” - Sailor Moon (1992) Also known as “Lita” in the original DiC dub of the television series, Makoto Kino aka Sailor Jupiter was a character I found myself closely relating to as a youngster, waking up way before school to tune into a show which seemed no else cared for. Beyond Jupiter’s embodiment of Jupiter in an astrological sense (Sagittarius, December), she is so often depicted complex, a girl who’s both externally feminine yet masculine in her personality, the tallest of her companions with a fiery disposition, though beneath her veneer a softie who craves romance and sappiness. There is probably an unwritten blog post somewhere within me about fictionalized female characters and overall, how the mere representation of height alone can speak volumes for the many young girls who grow up with a not so favorable view of their tallness versus mainstream depictions of femininity (i.e. Netflix’s Tall Girl comes to mind about this very topic). Enjoying somewhat of a revived interest and renaissance in our pop-cultural zeitgeist now, Sailor Moon remains one of my favorite works of Japanese animation, also scoring high on the nostalgia factor. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/8670f080-7740-464f-ab75-4df74f719963/ugly-betty.jpg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #1. “Betty Suarez” - Ugly Betty (2006) There are no words. I will not expound other than saying…this was me, pretty much. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/2573556c-c50b-49e8-8878-fe574ede7cf8/Alex.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #5. “Alex Kraken” - XXY (2007) Based on the short story Cinismo by Sergio Bizzio, this 2007 Argentinian film is perhaps the only movie I’ve ever seen (or let alone any visual medium) to not just depict the mere existence of an intersex person in a mature, nuanced manner, but as well have them lead a compelling story. XXY tells the story a young Alex, who is seen navigating the complex, difficult experience of coming to terms with her body and her sexuality. She is seen as understandably brooding, adversarial to convention and to some degree even for a few scenes maybe internally tortured, all of which in my opinion carry merit in light of the conditions intersex people face in society. Actress Inés Efron’s performance is stellar and easily the highlight outside of the screenplay by writer and director Lucía Puenzo, both of which combine to bring the character of Alex alive and striking a nerve right in my soul. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/7fd2d5b2-1e0f-43cf-afe8-8f34b6bcf162/yorkie.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #2. “Yorkie” - Black Mirror: San Junipero (2016) I can’t emphasize just how much this performance, archetype, aesthetic and overall tone of San Junipero truly struck a chord within me. To date, this character and idea of “Yorkie” (phenomenally performed by Mackenzie Davis) is perhaps the closest depiction of what it felt like to inhabit my own skin for a long period of time in my 20’s. The character is very much coded neurodivergent in-addition to her explicit demurred nature, shyness, trauma, and to some degree juvenile naivety within her experience, though the way her characterization is handled feels understandably nuanced and strays from the usual two-dimensionalization so many queer characters are given in TV/film. By far the best episode of Black Mirror for me, haunting as it is bittersweet, complex, challenging and unafraid to reach for heartstrings. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e6584d04-a1e7-4a68-8ddc-f653fedd08c7/combined.png Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #9. “Enid Coleslaw” - Ghost World (1993/2001) My introduction to Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World was the 2001 Terry Zwigoff film starring Thora Birch as the ever-so-angsty and existential Enid Coleslaw—a character that I felt as far as the silver screen was concerned, a direct continuation/spiritual successor to MTV’s Daria, though Clowes had first initially developed both Enid and Rebecca from his 1993 comic book series, Eightball. I imagine much of what makes Enid relatable to me beyond an overall depiction of facing the complexities of young adulthood, is this almost sort of meditative introspection about being at a crossroads of skeptical cynicism about the role of meaning in the world around us, as well what that entails in an existential, individualistic sense. I remember before having read the comic, watching the film and feeling understood by a fictional avatar. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/fbbf3820-ee02-4f7a-b924-22dab46e4231/Mary+Lou.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #10. “Mary Lou Finney” - Absolutely Normal Chaos (1990) One of my favorite childhood books, Charon Creech’s Absolutely Normal Chaos is a direct spinoff of her Newbery Award winning YA novel, Walk Two Moons, with the main character Mary Lou Finney being the link between both stories. Taking place in a small, midwest town of Easton, Absolutely Normal Chaos is a relatively tame procession of events told through epistolary form, although the joy here is Creech’s narrative so perfectly encapsulating that angsty awkwardness so prevalent with the tween, coming-of-age experience. Having revisited this book recently, there were still parts that got me to chuckle and smile, as the understated wit to Mary Lou’s voice has a certain timelessness to it, taking me back to the same age when I identified reading it. If anything, I attribute this book as one of the earliest (among countless) influences comprising the DNA of Saturday Mornings Forever. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/251fad1e-48f3-4367-a3df-ca785f3ca1ee/Laura.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #4. “Laura Wingfield” - The Glass Menagerie (1944) It’s no secret that Tennessee Williams had a profound impact on me as a writer and playwright, and his 1944 seminal classic, The Glass Menagerie remains one of my favorite plays of all time. Laura Wingfield, who is one of the main characters, is depicted as a highly duplicitous individual, a girl who’s personified both as naive though innately perceptive, childlike in her idiosyncrasies though dually intuitive, and it is this poetically written interplay between these primal, fundamental aspects within her that creates a sort of dynamism which contributes to the overall drama. Having read and seen this stage play, my heart sits forever in a place of suspension whenever her character is on-stage, for which, there will eternally be one part of myself that I see within her, and for many reasons I won’t get into here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a23e8ee9-637f-431f-a3e3-b7aea7bf94f5/Daria.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #6. “Daria Morgendorffer” - Daria (1997) MTV’s late 1990’s cult classic and sleeper hit continues to this day to live in my mind as relevant, funny and ahead of its time. The character of Daria herself, who was originally developed by Mike Judge as a minor character for his breakout animated series Beavis and Butt-Head, would be further developed by showrunners Susie Lewis Lynn and Glenn Eichler as a unique and fully fleshed-out identity in her own spinoff. Her character, so endemic of the proverbial apathy of at-the-time-young Gen-X’ers and curious millennials in an era of the so-called “End of History,” Daria remains as a time capsule to sensibilities of its time, as well as social commentary, self-aware satire of pop-culture and consumerism and media and ad infinitum. Daria’s overall disenchantment and teenaged-angst will always be a part of my adolescence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/5ed81851-75cb-4f30-a905-799edcbcebfc/allison.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Fictional Characters I Identified With - #3. “Allison Reynolds” - The Breakfast Club (1985) Encapsulated with the self-ascribed moniker “basket case” of the group, the fictional character of Allison Reynolds was another character I found myself (embarrassedly) identifying with. Throughout the visual representation/storytelling within The Breakfast Club and also in the script, Allison’s characterization has always struck a chord for representing the lot many of us experience coming from neglected childhoods, where the externalization of such as one comes of age results in the furtherance of such isolation and of alienation. For much of the movie, I found myself mesmerized by her interactions and in some strange, innate way, felt “told on” by writer and director John Hughes for giving spotlight to folks who so often never find themselves represented in media, television or film. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/the-past-is-forever monthly 0.5 2024-11-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/51d7da2e-17d7-4e9f-a46c-f2a7a5328d1f/Pages+from+SCN_0001+copy.jpg Hidden City - “The Past Is Forever” https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/the-light-in-their-eyes-went-out-like-flowers-in-the-dark-a-short-story monthly 0.5 2024-10-19 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-of-some-of-my-favorite-slashers monthly 0.5 2024-10-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/d8154c9b-1677-4c72-acb2-439ea8b69c1f/halloween2poster.jpeg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #9. Halloween II (2009) Written by Rob Zombie I think Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (especially director’s cut) is a vastly misunderstood film. Many hardcore fans of the franchise seethed at Zombie’s first iteration/reimagining, with much of the criticisms, vitriol of his remake boiling down to the de-mythologization of The Shape’s identity, giving Michael Myers an even sympathetic background, depicting his upbringing from a broken home, as opposed to what was formerly something fundamentally Evil without rhyme nor reason. While 2007’s Halloween was more of an origin’s story, I feel Halloween II is a much darker, cerebral film examining not how, but why the aforementioned Shape continues to exist, villainously killing at-random, for which, the film explores his psyche through music-video-y vignettes involving his late-mother with these ephemeral, juxtaposing sequences that could be described aesthetically as a sort of Salvador-Dali-esque, gothic transfusion which depict a sort of hallucinatory-psychosis. The film opens with a pseudo-Jungian explanation of the white horse archetype—something I feel that while perhaps isn’t too forthright, nevertheless serves revelatory for the film’s meta-textual analysis of what goes on in the mind of Frankenstein. This reiteration of Michael Myers is unequivocally brutal, graphic and gory, the world around him if-not uglier in-contrast (something I feel Zombie intentionally contrasts visually and even logically—with so much dysfunction of our world, there has to be a blowback, or i.e., consequence), while there’s this carnival-y energy about the film, as though even if we as the audience can’t identify/empathize with all the victims, there’s nonetheless some shock, horror that exists if-purely on the merit of being hunted by such a physically imposing incarnation of evil. There’s also correlations with Malcolm McDowell’s unhinged portrayal of Dr. Loomis who exploitatively profiteers off of Michael Myers that I think, lends to the film’s implicit thesis about what we know as evil perhaps satiating a taboo for society’s grim, macabre fascination with death and violence—along with those who peddle said content, or in-effect, live off of death. Lastly, this film is one of few in horror that I feel, depicts PTSD somewhat fairly (albeit, detethered from its absurd circumstances) in that, depicting just how unraveling, debilitating, frustratingly-complex, even non-linear it can be to manage, treat, and ultimately, survive. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/20b4a6a8-3780-403f-a47d-dc4bd442e6d8/my+bloody+valentine+poster.jpeg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #8. My Bloody Valentine (1981) Written by Stephen A. Miller & John Beaird This is as campy, schlocky and 1980’s typified corny/cheesy/everything else you can imagine, and in all of the best, can’t-help-but-laugh-at-how-ridiculous-this-is-type ways for a horror movie. My Bloody Valentine is probably a film that punches above its weight and somehow transcends what would otherwise come across like another nameless Troma-worthy B-movie (though I tend to love Troma films, but that’s besides the point) as something to be remembered within the scope of its sub-genre. I mean, this is a horror film leaning in and justifying its killer rampage from a broken heart by the killer, and the way its done so is without a doubt so absurd, it’s actually sort of, oddly endearing—if that makes any sense (something 2001’s Valentine tried to abscond in favor of the self-referential Scream just years before it, but didn’t quite succeed for reasons I won’t go into here). The imagery, the setting, the laughably-absurd sensibilities portrayed by a group of teens who are by all means, ecstatic about throwing a Valentine’s Day party a hop, skip and jump away from a mine is just…well, it’s really unforgettable in that Troll 2 sort of way. While of-course, I wouldn’t go on record to say My Bloody Valentine is scary whatsoever, it’s fun, even if it did cement a certain ridiculousness that would soon plague the slasher sub-genre for years to follow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/224d22a4-6272-40ed-a84c-3a15509033d5/MV5BYjZhMzFiZjItODA3ZC00MmRhLWIzMGYtMmVjOWUwYTA3MTRjXkEyXkFqcGc%40._V1_.jpg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #5. Psycho (1960) Written by Joseph Stefano & Robert Bloch Some say this is in-fact, the first slasher of them all, or as others call it, a proto-slasher. And though Alfred Hitchcock had his fair share of documented issues, controversy, the man at-least knew how to make a compelling piece of film. Whether it’s Hitchcock’s direction, artful cinematography by John L. Russell, nothing-short-of-legendary performances by Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, or its wonderfully suspenseful score by Bernard Herrmann, Psycho is more than a visionary, prophetic horror-thriller well before its time, but a protogenesis of to establish the framework necessary for a number of films to follow in its spiritual footsteps (no, not Psycho’s sequels, but thinking more in-line of Italian giallo films, the likes of which Mario Bava, Dario Argento would later inhabit). Yes, there is some problematic optics involving the grand reveal (the likes of which I won’t get into, but yes, they’re here) that I feel perhaps even single-handedly created negative trope/stereotype coding about gender-non-conforming folks in Hollywood—although the film does try to explain it via its epilogue, however that’s besides the point. This is an excellent film, every bit as important and if-not foundational to the wider genre of Horror as a whole today as it was back then, and one of the only blockbuster films I can think of that takes place (albeit, even briefly) in Phoenix, Arizona. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a47736f8-6971-4e0d-b431-7075a510edf5/anightmareonelmstreet3dreamwarriors-dvd-japan2.jpg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) Written by Wes Craven, Frank Darabont, Chuck Russell and Bruce Wagner Since I’ve already posted about this here, I’ll just leave my following writeup as follows: “Back in the day, as a small kid in 90’s-Americana, there always existed the playground debate of, ‘Freddy vs. Jason vs. Michael,’ i.e. a fruitless, circular conversation revolving around which old-school slasher villain would win in an all-out match (and no, despite enjoying 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason, it doesn’t count, in my opinion...and besides, the movie’s a legitimate comedy). As an adult, I can see each of the big 3 served different purposes; Jason Vorhees took the mantle of comic book-y/anime antagonist, Michael Myers as a more (often, less) grounded, and Freddy Krueger fulfilling the role of horror-comedy court jester. 1984’s original, Nightmare on Elm Street is a true attempt at good-honest terror, but its series’ 3rd entry, Dream Warriors, that makes no attempt at such. In fact, I’d say Dream Warriors is where Freddy begins to find his proverbial voice, an everlasting canticle of goofball humor commixed in horror. Just as Halloween 4, Dream Warriors is the actual direct-sequel to the first film, while the second had another set of characters altogether (and ultimately, swept aside). The talented Patricia Arquette stars as one of many teens in psychiatric inpatient, the lot subjected to a returning Freddy’s demonic possession. What makes this film interesting is the sense of comic-book-y tonality, as if the MCU verse made superhero-horror, and I believe that it absolutely works (this film’s blend of unintentional Marvel and horror).” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/7fce6c45-7daf-4ac2-9cf3-beb80acf9bad/Screenshot+2024-10-07+at+12.04.12+PM.png Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #1. Halloween (1978) Written by John Carpenter & Debra Hill While I’ve written about this post in another list here, I will just reapply what I’ve written about this creepy movie: “Halloween is the one and only movie that’s ever truly frightened me. This film had the unfortunate success to help create the onslaught of copycat slasher flicks, but there’s a lot more to this movie than cheap thrills, jump scares, excess gore or whatnot. To me, most of John Carpenter’s early work has this “feel” that I can’t quite describe, but Halloween encapsulates the dark and lingering moodiness so prevalent in his filmography. Ghosts, monsters, the paranormal don’t do it for me, but Halloween’s antagonist is a goulash of the otherworldly and primal, a bogey but a man in a mask, the commixture of our childhood fears manifested. The plot while simple, can be viewed as a metaphor for class-consciousness or suburban racism, among other things. Later rereleases of this film destroyed the ambiance/tonality by intercutting additional unreleased footage of the “gore shots,” which completely take me out of it. What makes Halloween scary is what you don’t see, the implication, tension in shadow. If you haven’t ever seen this movie, do yourself a favor and make sure to watch the original theatrical cut; nothing of value is lost with any of the additional footage.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6e6ae246-7196-46c3-a36c-5305f6026c83/candymanposter.jpeg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #4. Candyman (1992) Written by Clive Barker & Bernard Rose Another on this list for containing socio-political-racial messaging, themes, motifs, subtext and outright on-the-nose plot elements, Candyman is an interesting meld of both social commentary and psychological-horror, with aspects of its historical narrative beholden to the greater (and much more realistic) atrocities/horror(s) of institutional and structural violence. Taking place what we now know as at the defunct urban projects of Cabrini Green, Chicago, Candyman stands out from its contemporaries by not absconding a heavily metropolized, inner-city setting of urban decay but instead leans into it, contextually transmogrifying backdrops of impoverished liminal spaces into a playground for a supernatural evil lurking within its very history and spirit. Our two leads here are both versatile and convincing without having to overplay the fact we’re watching a horror movie; Virginia Madsen does wonderfully as an awestruck, well-intentioned though somewhat naive student doing a project about the titular character, played just so iconically by Tony Todd that it’s already visually legendary (in my book), and their chemistry, interplay seemingly teeters naturally, from psycho-sexual to horrifying. The hook, the bees, the scenes—Candyman is a slasher classic, and I’d argue, for all the right reasons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/d0de49c5-4312-4d9a-b7ff-6e29d7890697/usposter.jpeg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #3. Us (2019) Written by Jordan Peele Okay, so this one I think barely makes the cut (no pun intended) for fitting the loose criteria for what I’d define as a bonafide slasher, and I might even go so far as to perhaps label this as a neo-slasher—a redefinition/revamp of the tried-and-true, some-decades-old formulaic tradition of what we know as a typical slasher, injecting a subversiveness, transgressive mixture of social commentary and horror-comedic satire, wholly self-aware and yet dramatically engaging nonetheless. I had the absolute blast and privilege of seeing this opening weekend and it was quite a visceral experience to hear everyone in the theatre teeter between full-on laughing and shrieking all within the same few moment’s notice. Everyone nowadays recognizes the incredible visionary work and undeniable brand of writer/director Jordan Peele, especially in-respects to the medium of horror and inverting various tropes on their head into self-actualized attestments to not his love of film as a filmmaker, but also as a person of color in America. There’s not a lot I can say here without spoiling the film for you, but this movie is both hilarious and scary, deep yet dually viscerally engaging, suspenseful and dramatic—two of the latter elements I feel, can get lost when a writer and/or filmmaker get too self-aware and tongue-in-cheek, wink-wink, nodding at the audience. My persona favorite of the Jordan Peele horror films I’ve seen so far, and an excellent take on a sub-genre of horror now hollowed and devoid of what it used to be. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/4a5ff5ca-ceee-4a59-9b98-207064a37a80/Scream-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-Door-Panel-20x60.jpg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #7. Scream (1996) Written by Wes Craven If 2019’s Us can be seen as a purposeful subversion of what remnants remain of the slasher sub-genre, alongside 2022’s X by Ti West as the fundamental injection of arthouse and avant-garde into those same remnants, then perhaps we can also interpret Wes Craven’s 1996 Scream as though an indictment, if-not representational death of The Slasher as we know it. What I mean is, Scream is such a self-aware, poignant, funny, scary commentary on the slasher sub-genre itself, that it near feels as though the long-awaited, final nail on the coffin for slashers meta-textually, like this swan song meta-narratively, like not only is the script written for seasoned veterans whom’ve more-than-likely grew up watching franchises like Friday the 13th, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, but also to the everyday moviegoer, speaking to us that this recipe, formula for horror isn’t just dead as we know/knew it, but as well, that it’s been repeated so much to such an umpteenth and tenuous degree, we can now hold up the corpse of its facade as a charade to speak to what horror means on a greater basis. The self-referential nature of Scream works here, because of its irreverent, sarcastic tongue-in-cheek nods to what we should know (inserted as though selfsame composites to the ever oh-so-hip teen of the 1990’s), it then plays those same awarenesses against us by implicitly asking that if we knew we were in a horror movie, and furthermore, were aware of those established rules, how would we fare given all those things were true? Perhaps ironically, the series would only then continue to be a mockery of what it satirized, churning out sequels over sequels that seemed to have only lost what made the original so unique—that the killer we know as Ghostface is in some way, the ghost of the sub-genre of slasher having its revenge. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/69c5ba50-b7be-4e26-9e5f-cc6353396197/Fridaythe13thpart7_1988_fr_original_film_art_5000x.webp.jpeg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #10: Friday the 13th: The New Blood (1988) Written by Daryl Haney, Manuel Fidello & Victor Miller Basically, the subtitle you could ostensibly fit in for The New Blood could be some form, variant of Carrie Versus Jason, in a nutshell. Do I think what fans of the series refer to as Part 7 of Friday the 13th film franchise is certainly the best? Nowhere near; in-fact, I think besides of the fact that this film in-particular got severely gutted by the MPAA in order to avoid an X-rating (if you watch the movie, there’s pretty noticeable gaps of reel missing/cut between setup>surprise>kill sequences, in my opinion), this is one of those where the idea of it seems to be forever/infinitely more satisfying than what was executed. The unintentional camp is ‘over 9000’ here, lots of the acting feels stilted bordering-on-satirization/comedy, the script comes off as though it was finished by the seat of the writers’ pants, et-freaking-cetera—okay, for sure this film is a gemstone in the rough, perhaps not a diamond per se, but I think beyond its imperfections (to which, I feel are ultimately a de facto part of a corny 1980’s drive-thru, popcorn and candy experience) is a schlocky, campy monster movie masquerading as a slasher. The protagonist is compelling enough (to a degree…), the premise of the film somehow works (when it does…), and on a basic level, it’s memorable enough to warrant a watch compared to other films in its own franchise, and finally, I enjoy the crux of what idea went behind it (ala’ A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors—i.e., blending/mashup of genre), and because of its relatively faster pacing, can stomach it better than others in the series which (in my opinion, obvi) attempt to dress up these dime-a-dozen flicks into something more than what they are at their core: the quintessential, sleazy 1980’s slasher. Sidenote: If looking for a ‘better’ entry to this series, Part VI: Jason Lives is a great monster-slasher drive-thru flick. Pound for pound the better slasher per se, Friday the 13th: Part II through Part III and up to (Part IV): The Final Chapter are what I would say are good places to start with Jason. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/78f1b723-860f-43a1-a9ac-05c432e15e9a/phenomenaticket.jpeg Hidden City - 10 of (some of) my Favorite Slashers - #2. Phenomena (1985) Written by Dario Argento Once more, to take from another Top 10 List here, I’ll just copy what I initially wrote about this excellent cult-classic slasher: “After her breakthrough performance in Sergio Leonne’s Once Upon a Time in America, Jennifer Connelly took an impressive task to lead Dario Argento’s next horror cult-classic, Phenomena (aka Creepers in the States). Argento, an Italian filmmaker known for his stylized, highbrow mixture of giallo (Italian for “yellow,” colloquially used as a phrase to denote extreme filmographic violence/gore, “yellow,” an Italian reference to pulp) and psychological-slashers, had previously broken ground with 1977’s Suspiria. Phenomena follows in a similar vein to Argento’s 77 classic: both are set in boarding schools with dark secrets, their histories spurring an occultist maniac’s rampage for blood. Also starring in Phenomena is Halloween’s own Donald Pleasance, who plays a much-toned down role as professor McGregor, a bug-keeper, yet he still manages to light up the screen (yes-Connelly is also incredible, but that goes without saying, of course). While not a “scary” film per se, what Argento manages to do is pull off tension and palpable suspense by subverting certain expectations, be it visually or through the writing. Later on in the film, there’s a touch of pseudo-scientific world-salad that tries to explain what-becomes the plot involving superhuman powers and magic, though I find a certain charm about Phenomena’s story. If you’re familiar with the survival-horror genre in video games, you might have known/played a Capcom series entitled Clock Tower, to which its story, themes, setting and tone are all indebted to this movie. There exists a rare cut of this film that’s completely unedited (besides the original Italian release) called the Version: Integral, only released in Japan (and on obsolete media), which restores cut footage from its US counterpart; Anchor Bay has a mostly restored DVD re-release, though it’s still missing a some scenes. Whatever you do, don’t see Creepers unless you haven’t a choice.” https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/early-autumn-sometime-sonata-a-dream-or-vision monthly 0.5 2024-09-24 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/dreams-my-in-horses monthly 0.5 2024-09-14 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/unknown-spaces monthly 0.5 2024-08-29 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/halloween-2000-something monthly 0.5 2024-08-19 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/i-wish-karma-was-real-and-other-things-heard-in-recent-dreams monthly 0.5 2024-07-31 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/check-out-my-piece-for-best-of-the-southwest-10-phoenix-restaurants-roll-out-summer-specials monthly 0.5 2024-07-12 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/now-a-contributor-to-best-of-the-southwest monthly 0.5 2024-06-25 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/deedees-balcony-a-new-stage-play-in-iii-acts monthly 0.5 2024-06-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/418a83f4-bc28-4bef-aa46-a9665924aaee/Black+And+White++Modern+Alone+Story+Book+Cover.jpg Hidden City - “DeeDee’s Balcony”—A new stage play in III acts - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remnants-of-a-defunct-myspace-blog-circa-december-2007-to-august-2008 monthly 0.5 2024-06-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/9721ca3c-ac20-499d-85c8-6a31a9fb095a/Untitled+design-5.jpg Hidden City - Letters from a defunct Myspace blog, circa December 2007 to August 2008 #4. So, without any advance or sequence entranced, left for Montauk Looking out the train-car windows like they’re portals It's how you do with just your eyes; a New Year’s ghost in New York And my favorite quote (at the moment): PJ Harvey’s, Good Fortune: “And I feel like Some bird of paradise My bad fortune slipping away And I feel the innocence of a child Everybody's got something good to say” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/5ad18023-cf06-421c-bef1-8fa21297fe97/SCN_0064.jpg Hidden City - Letters from a defunct Myspace blog, circa December 2007 to August 2008 - New Pictures & Their New Receipts Current mood: Undeniable? Emackulate. Matador Records. Cat Power. Internship. Jobbing. New Camera but old **sort of, they’re old but…oh, what the heck. Last of the Phoenicians, no more photography in the desert tesseract cell shades! Finally. Speaking Spanish and Spanglish plainly. Vanilla is the existential yogurt to the hardly yum-yum diet of the new 21st century. And I wither wrinkled, sauteed. Ciao* https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a29918ed-2d0a-4750-84cb-71a7273318ce/Daybreak+Coney+Island+Shore+%5BUse+for+Artists+Way%5D.jpg Hidden City - Letters from a defunct Myspace blog, circa December 2007 to August 2008 Wednesday, December 19, 2007 (The Today I Lost My Identity) Current mood: Unbelievable…? Today. Loss of words, anything to say. But I'm your ghost. And I love the world. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/are-you-sure monthly 0.5 2024-05-20 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/empire-of-glass monthly 0.5 2024-04-15 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/overcast monthly 0.5 2024-03-06 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/another-10-records-that-changed-my-life monthly 0.5 2024-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ea0ae313-8bb4-465b-a9d1-dc29b5a0197c/Spice-Girls-Spiceworld-album-cover-820.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #8. Spiceworld (1997) - Spice Girls Okay, so in what world does this exist alongside the same list as Illmatic and Daydream Nation? Well, I can’t say for certain, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that I might have a taste bordering on random (to put it one way). I both unironically and ironically love this record, for everything it represents and what it meant to me as a very young person. Do I think this is the pound-for-pound better record than Spice? I’m not sure of that either, but I find myself listening to Spiceworld just a bit more (okay, so maybe they’re even and I’m just picking one instead of both). I mean…Too Much isn’t so much a song as it is the soundtrack to my as of yet fictitious, Hollywoodized™ flashback-montage of my life. Denying captures the late 1990’s je ne sais quoi of what I still love about being alive, everything to what I find irresistible about The End of History nostalgia and its subsequent aesthetics and sensibilities—Spiceworld is the album to put on when I need a pick me up. Of-course not everyone will ‘get it’, but who cares?! Girl Power! Also, this album pairs with one of The Greatest Films of All Time™ and no, I’m not just saying that either. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/5a5c41f1-3d45-4e61-8fee-006beeadb65f/55491.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #4. Illmatic (1994) - Nas In the running for perhaps the greatest hip-hop album ever made, Illmatic’s continuing, dynastic legacy precedes it for good reason. Since I’ve already posted a blurb about this record in a previous list here, I’ll drop what I wrote about it once more. “Maybe the best hip-hop album ever. A personal favorite, rivaled only by Kendrick Lamar’s 2017, DAMN. Illmatic is the feature-length debut by Queensborough-based rapper, Nas. This is a tour de force, a marvel of not only poetry through lyricism, but production. A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip serves as one of the many producers who gave this album life, and the production’s attention to detail only shines with repeated listens. It’s hard to put a specific genre to Illmatic, because each track stylistically drifts; New York State of Mind could quantifiably be labeled gangsta rap, but the sondering One Love feels more associate to generalized East Coast rap. Nas flies out the gates here, kicking down a sonic portal and into your ears with a jazz musician’s dexterous finesse (a parallel perhaps keen, for his dad loans instrumentation on the anti-ballad, Life’s A Bitch). Dreams soaked of ambition, gangster flicks, guns, death, cannabis, paranoia, hopelessness and more, Illmatic encompasses a unique though familiar palette of subject matter, varied from grandiose to self-effacious. Of course, the beats alone are of noteworthiness, transcendent of genre and time, moving to not only your stereo’s bass, but rhythm of your heart. This is obligatory hearing, not just for a hip-hop enthusiast, but anyone who’s a fan of music, storytelling and art.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/c44c2ae2-e2bc-4575-bce9-1abf150a2224/Daydream+Nation+sonic+youth+cover.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #1. Daydream Nation (1989) - Sonic Youth What hasn’t been written/said about this special cut of late-1980’s and mash of punk, noise, ‘art-rock’, tour de force? I suppose if you know about this record you’ve probably either A) listened to it a ba-jillion times like I have, or B) have at-least some knowledge about as to why this album was so prophetic and influential. Maybe it’s the atonal dissonance throughout the hazy meld of dreamy, fuzzy-static-y noise and ambient-esque punk that feels as if its permeating out of your speakers rather than playing—maybe it’s the syncretic meld of power and uniqueness as to its aural sensibilities that still resonates decades later—there’s nothing but endless praise here. What might have also contributed to my liking of this record was that I happened to have found it while as an angsty teen (though I feel is absolutely not some kind of prerequisite), and just the vibe of it spoke to my already-preexistent proclivity for punk and avant-garde. Daydream Nation is innate, true to creative soul both carnal and discordantly spiritual, something like a prophecy but rebellious proclamation and dejection of the status quo. Sure, Sonic Youth had some great contemporaries already knee-deep in that similar sort of sonic aura (i.e. Hüsker Dü’s amazing Zen Arcade, Wire’s emblematic Pink Flag, etc.), but there’s this aliveness™ that continues to haunt and seek retribution whenever I hear those opening chords to Teen Age Riot. Though for sure it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, this will forever be important to me. Plus, this album inspired a pretty fun, albeit somewhat Lynchian-derived, shlocky-cult film named after it (one of which I happen to love, but that’s neither here nor there). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/5a487ee0-baf8-4006-8344-e60a85cbc176/R-395498-1283287877.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #5. In Blue (2000) - The Corrs Just as Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, this album is another I save for specific moods/vibes and/or occasions where I wouldn’t normally otherwise, say a cloudy morning or sunshower. Nominated for 2 Grammys, In Blue – beyond the nostalgia – remains special to me on the merit and strength of its songwriting, production, and overall feel that kind of escapes what I could define it as; something to the wandering guitar of All in a Day speaks to me even now—the harmonizing, layered notes preceding Give Me a Reason resonates emotionally—the straightforwardness of the album’s barebones, earnest lyricism has a special place in my heart, despite however saccharine it might come across, and although In Blue perhaps lacks any textual themes, to me there’s definitely an ambiance to it, like some lost echo of Y2K, bubblegum mall-pop™—capturing an nondescript feeling of temperamental catchiness, an underlying somber beneath a contagious aesthetic of pop for pop’s sake. I don’t really know how to explain what this record means, represents, captures for me, but I feel like it’s important nonetheless. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6d4c8900-8c4b-4d20-a90b-8a010dcba092/61wJx-%2B0I2L._SL1400_.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #3. The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) - The Velvet Underground & Nico Probably a no-brainer to those well-versed in rock history and/or arthouse/avant-garde, but no matter how many times I try to ‘get over’ this record, I can’t. For the longest time in my life, this was my go-to, default Favorite Album of All Time™, though as my tastes evolved, it was only inevitable that one day I’d drop this influential album down a peg (my, imagine!)—but, that doesn’t mean The Velvet Underground & Nico is-as any less special…in-fact, quite the opposite, for what still lands for me here is illuminatory™ to what I’ve always valued about music: uniqueness, truthfulness, creative, built from emotion. In my teen years discovering/exploring punk rock, I was recommended this album for being a sort of ‘proto-punk’ predecessor to what became a bonafide movement/genre, and while I don’t disagree necessarily with those sentiments, I will say there’s also a lot more than that which comprises just why this album is so good (excluding whatever creative influence[s] the late-great Andy Warhol either had or didn’t have on this record—outside its symbolic cover). There’s this mix of droning, avant-garde noise—texture ala’ John Cale intermixed against the nuts-and-bolts songwriting of the-late Lou Reed (who, I must say tangentially, I had the pleasure of running into twice in New York—albeit, highly impersonally, nothing beyond a passing ‘hello’ the second time) that creates this aural tension (something that paralleled their creative differences and eventual split). I mean, the iconoclast of Sunday Morning’s beautiful melody contrasted against its dark, somber lyrics—I haven’t even mentioned the amazing guitarwork by Sterling Morrison; the excellent, minimalist-ambient drums of Maureen Tucker; and of-course, the incredibly talented Nico herself. So much can be (and has been) said about this album, and I’ll continue to love it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/4dae0e8b-e38b-4f96-9e87-d822ea99525d/maxresdefault.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #10. Mist (2016) - Chihei Hatakeyama Some albums don’t need words to get their point across, and some don’t even need what we recognize as a “song” to move our soul. Hailing from the suburbs of Fujisawa, Japan, Chihei Hatakeyama is a newer electronica artist who (I’d say) specializes/excels in the use of aural, sonic landscapes via what we refer to as “ambient” music (think: Brian Eno, Cliff Martinez, some Aphex Twins, etc.). Mist is a particularly noteworthy (teehee) album, as it captures so perfectly, surmises so eloquently without the use of words, this distinct, instinctual harmonic resonance and connection between memory and consciousness. I’d guess one could say this is the proverbial equivalent to Akira Yamaoka’s Silent Hill ethereal dreamscapes, moments of introspection mixed upon sondering recollectiveness™. I feel this record in me, something that doesn’t speak to my brain as much as my entire body and soul—not to sound too sensational mind you, but there is something very special here that’s hard to put into words, like an aural canvas, a very intimate page ripped from somebody’s sketchbook that you weren’t supposed to see but did, an old reel of film footage in the basement of your grandmother’s house, that one photo you kept for some reason and don’t know why—there’s a million ways (I feel) to describe just what this album invokes in me. The last time I had a time with this album was in February of 2023, wandering the lonely and snow-dusted beach of Coney Island, and let me tell you, this is pretty close to what I hear in my head whenever I’m thinking about thinking. Perhaps not the most uplifting per se, but strangely enough, Hatakeyama’s sound is exactly what I love whenever questioning the nature of things, remembering, or handing oneself to the moment on a long walk, remembering what it is you find special to your soul, and why. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a4ace147-b9db-4162-a534-87554cd84013/faye-webster-haha-funny-i-know-768x768.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #9. I Know I’m Funny Haha (2021) - Faye Webster For certain generations in our timeline, some of us have the ability to say, “this [insert here] got me through the pandemic/quarantine,” and to speak to that, Faye Webster’s incredibly crafted I Know I’m Funny Haha circa 2021 got me through the latter of yet another unprecedented, remarkable historical event. I love the chill, laidback jazzy instrumentations—Faye’s vibe here is akin to say, something Twin Peaks or Mac DeMarco in the sense of wandering escapism, crude yet humorous tinges of self-effacing-ness™, reverb-twangs of depressive self-introspection. She reminds me of contemporary Lizzy McAlpine, in that the exploratory journey of songwriting meets unenthusiastic, beyond-mellowed-out Gen-Z diary unearthing feels natural without becoming a mockery of itself. In A Good Way is something so relatable that I quote to this day. Cheers feels like an anthem for my life from the lips of a stranger. A Dream With a Baseball Player speaks directly to my soul, both musically and lyrically. The insight between the lines is where I think I Know I’m Funny Haha transcends many of its contemporaries—for it feels like every line, note was carefully curated out of an exorcised soul, enough that I’d say this album meets the criteria for the phrase, ‘criminally underrated’. I love her lyrics; they feel like poetry to me. One of my favorite, heart-wrenching sections I’ll put here, from Both All The Time: “There's a difference between lonely and lonesome/But I'm both all the time…I don't get the point of leaving my house/Cause I always come back…And I'm too scared to look/I never know what happens/So I keep rereading the same book/Cause I know how it ends/Yeah‚ I know how it ends.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/23e91d56-5b55-4ab0-801b-863d37324b45/2ae60351e04b79a80dd27ba7bd8841bd.900x900x1.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #7. Antics (2004) - Interpol It’s hard to imagine that this album turns 20 this year, for it seemed just yesterday I was listening to this endlessly on repeat, soaking up every crescendo-ing™-post-punk, looming, reverb-tinged guitar evocative of Bauhaus-meets-Nick Cave-meets-the-Chameleons, What Does Anything Mean? Basically-meets Echo and the Bunnymen-sounding of an atmospheric yet romantic clash, something so uniquely refreshing, yet strangely familiar. This album was on, was there for me during a particularly stormy and rocky point of my life, and even though it has its own negative correlations to my past, something about Antics feels so transcendent of its time period. I’d be apt to even say the album is genreless™, despite sounding like a hodgepodge of other things before it, because of the innate oneness of its sound—like 4 people who are invoking songs from their heart or subconscious, as opposed to being crafted by bottom-line producers. Reading about the band’s formation (in-addition to having had a short-lived stint on their now-defunct message board) helped solidify my own beliefs about art, music, creativity—for the-then members (now without Carlos) formed Interpol not on the basis of musical aptitude per se, but rather, sought another out based on aesthetics, ideals, a general if-subconscious understanding of artistic commonalities. I had the pleasure to see them at The Curiosa festival alongside the Cure, Mogwai and the Rapture, and it was every bit enthralling as when I first heard the words, “Rosemary, heaven restores you in life.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ef217040-2721-4e40-b9e3-22d5ece7a575/R-1224465-1256169655.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #6. Apartment Life (1997) - Ivy Apartment Life sounds and feels like it could both be a sister album to In Blue and also be included on some kind of indie sampler circa the late 1990’s (though obviously, the label Atlantic is by no means indie whatsoever). I guess if I had to describe the genre for Apartment Life (I don’t), I’d probably label it as pop, but at the same time, also say it has shoe-gazey elements, parts post-punk-ish if-new wave meets jazzy muzak (think: Prefab Sprout, Aztec Camera, Johnny Hates Jazz, the House of Love, etc.), a dash of alternative meets dance…or in other words, perfectly Hidden City™. Singer Dominique Durand’s vocals shine especially here, invoking a persona similar to that of Nico (i.e. heavy accent), and her strange-yet-natural progression of monotoned hum harmonized to arpeggiating melodies still feels intentionally juxtapositioned. Alleged a-then exchange student from Paris without any experience prior to joining Ivy via NYC classifieds, Durand has this palpably non-rockstar vibe, cadence to what and how she sings—for listening to Apartment Life feels intimate yet distant, poignant without context nor reason, like this album was made for somebody other than you (if that makes any sense). Not to get woo-woo, but Ivy has an apparent mood here, immediate though obscure, insomuch that what it doesn’t try to do perhaps says more than what it does. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/c97d5780-ab85-4e3b-ae35-6c60a005d1b6/8739b162b9add95b9a0f2cb25060c4ea.jpg Hidden City - Another 10 Records That Changed My Life - #2. Stereotype A (1999) - Cibo Matto Oh, man—how many people have I tried to give this album a listen. Another one of those, “if you know, you know” sort of records, but for vastly different reasons than my first pick. The endlessly talented duo of Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda comprise the duo we know as Cibo Matto, and in-addition their talents, were assisted on Stereotype A by Sean Lennon (yes, of Beatles lineage), making their collaboration wholly self-evident, for the entire album casts quite a diversity of sound. Electronica, space-age-y rhythms, jazzy-fusion funk to bossa nova, trip-hop; Stereotype A has this natural eclectic-ness™ of genre that perhaps wouldn’t work normally, but not only do they (somehow) pull it off, but do so satisfyingly well. Yuka also doubled as the producer of this album, and the level of which it’s produced – arrangements, mixing, sound, etc. – lends well to repeated listening. This one of those kinds of records you can either put on the background or actively listen, overall a vibe through and through. My favorite track is probably Spoon, though the rapping about Union Square in Sci-Fi Wasabi brings to me a special nostalgia about my time blasting this throughout NYC streets. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-television-shows-worth-remembering monthly 0.5 2024-02-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/2e72f55c-61d4-4922-9d4c-f87b8dd64497/03736bfb-2c30-4bc5-af08-f085e48ccb0f.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #3. The Wire (2002-2008) Created by David Simon. As a fan of Simon’s well-written, though problematic (to say the least) book for which the series was based, 1991’s Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, and also its subsequent television adaption, NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993-1999), The Wire felt like a creative culmination or continuation of its source material, like the 3rd installation to a decade-long crime saga. Some say this is a cop drama, crime show, though I see The Wire also as a cultural, socio-political, systemic exploration and commentary of a city’s inhabitants whose journeys are endemic of greater issues. Police brutality, racism, poverty, political corruption, the social caste system-to-crime pipeline, prison-industrial complex, media—all of these and more are depicted here influencing one another, showing how this complex web of seemingly competing functions and ideologies of society can ultimately fuel the very issues they are built to tackle. Some serious talent had their breakthroughs here—to name a few: Idris Elba, Wendell Pierce, Andre Royo, the late Michael K. Williams, Seth Gilliam, and of-course, Sonja Sohn. What makes me really appreciate this show is not only how grounded its premise, stakes, characterizations and motivations truly are, but to put it bluntly, how the cast is focusedly (and appropriately) Black-led, predominately driven by people of color in ways most televisions shows never depict, nor give adequate, dignified screen time for. It’s a beautiful, though desperate synergy here: Baltimore at its heart, exploring the stories of what’s rarely accurately given light, and that is its underserved, marginalized communities of inner-city and urban areas that regularly endure monolithic, complex systemic pressures. Yes, the cops are depicted here as mostly the Good Guys™ , despite their explicit straying from higher good and into the ‘grey’; yes, there is a jingoistic, underlying message here that law enforcement, while depicted as flawed and problematic, robust though underfunded, but ultimately at the end of the day, they’re all just blue-collar joes caught up in it like the rest of us (to which, take or leave its messaging at the door); and yes, the thin blue line justifications are rampant; however, regardless of your views of The Wire’s competing, overt and subtextual political messaging (and to give credit the show’s strengths), the barebones human drama depicted on its own is well worth the price of admission, let alone everything else it has to say over important issues, and despite my criticisms, I’m in the camp of people who think this is one of the best TV shows ever made. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/66be77f0-729b-4d41-bd4d-a7a2a2f708f8/6OTZ66ZlJvOVb5A8ALiPzTD0n3H.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #4. High Fidelity (2020) Based off the novel, High Fidelity by Nick Hornsby; developed by Veronica West and Sarah Kucserka As a fan of the original 1995 Hornsby novel, in-addition the excellent (though teency problematic in-retrospect) 2000 film adaptation of the same name starring John Cusack, I was not only primed for Hulu’s 2020 High Fidelity reboot/reboot, but perhaps was (probably) the more-than-likely intended Millennial and/or Gen-X target demographic. If you’ve already watched the Cusack film then you’ll feel right at home here, though instead of our self-loathing, self-admitted asshole protagonist, Robb, the series is led by a sort of doppelgänger/alternative to him, one Robyn (nicknamed “Rob”) who also owns/runs a Championship Vinyl, and instead of Chicago we are in Brooklyn. Part as to what makes this series so engaging is how it delicately balances and preserves the spirit of its source material(s) (not to mention paying plenty of homage), but also simultaneously transgresses it, in-essence normalizing a queer woman of color’s love life—one who so also happens to be independent, a business owner, both likable and not, quirky, neurotic, interesting though challenging, immature yet profoundly wise, etc. I loved the comedic beats woven between Rob’s ups and downs on her journey for love, and how well the writers approach a genre often-rife and dominated by a proverbial chauvinistic tone/lens, but done in a way effortlessly natural, innately authentic, breathing with life rather than ideologically soap-boxy. The ever talented Zoë Kravitz is exceptional here, playing the part of our unreliable protagonist quite well—coincidentally, a role opposite to that of her mother, Lisa Bonet, who appeared in the 2000 film as the memorable, “Cheryl Crow-ish, crossed with a post-Partridge Family, pre-L.A. Law Susan Dey kind of thing, but you know, um black,” Marie DeSalle. Just as the original, various music and pop-cultural references become inundated to the show’s narrative, as well as the tried-and-true exercise of Top 5’s list-making. Sadly, whether due to COVID-19 and/or other behind-the-scenes reasons, High Fidelity wasn’t greenlit for another season, so the 10 episodes we got are that much more special and bittersweet. Maybe it’s to the show’s benefit it’ll be remembered as one and done ala’ Freaks and Geeks, in that—given shows lengthy as the 15-season Supernatural, or the 19-and-running Grey’s Anatomy, High Fidelity’s small asking price for admission of 10 episodes can lend its strength and be finished over a couch-bound weekend. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/c1c2fd2a-223a-4e7a-a234-97f52d2f1013/410h1f4728n51.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #7. Freaks and Geeks (1999) Created by Paul Fieg Back to the cult classics and for that, NBC’s short-lived, 1-season Freaks and Geeks lives on as both an awkward, yet endearing portraiture of suburban American uncoolness circa the early-1980’s. Wood-panel station wagons, shag carpets, mustard plaid to corduroy-everything typifies the backdrop to which we follow one Lindsay Weir (played superbly by Linda Cardellini), a self-hating ‘geek’ who vies to fit herself in with an aforementioned group of ‘freaks’. burnouts, outcasts to channel her (relatable) rebelliousness, angst and brooding, coming-of-age teenage cynicism. Just as other shows on this list, it’s hard to define what kind of show Freaks and Geeks exactly is: is it a dramedy, or a coming-of-age story, maybe nostalgic recounting and/or young adult drama? The best way I can quickly describe this show is The Wonder Years meets Superbad. While I have my criticisms regarding its homogenous lens of relatability and lack of people of color in any real or notable roles, there’s still some excellent topics explored and interpreted through the same milquetoast perception we’ve become privy, as though the same double-edged naivety we fell in love with in The Breakfast Club, its inoculative bubble is its own strength—speaking to the meta-narrative of a digital-less, internet-less culture…one where what one saw/lived around them was what one knew. For example, Freaks and Geeks to this day remains the only television show I’ve ever seen even approach (let alone handle with dignity and nuance) the mere existence of an intersex character (who’s not depicted as a walking trope). Drug use, social hierarchies, abusive homes, bullying, identity, privilege and classism—there’s real themes/topics explored and done in a way that doesn’t feel placating, yet remains relatable, inevitable through the writing, acting, directing, etc. In 18 memorable episodes, it feels as though we’ve really gotten a slice of someone else’s life through a visual time capsule. Even now as I write this, the way Lindsay’s house looks on the outside, her lawn, dinners over the table with family, McKinley High—everything feels plucked from some alternate reality rather than a set. It’s interesting to note that a lot of the cast went on to have considerable careers, to which, going back in time and seeing them in this heightens the already implicit nostalgia prevalent throughout. And, if I had to pick a favorite episode, it would probably be #4, Kim Kelly Is My Friend. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/74ffed67-6815-43f3-879c-c005e9d6d968/7uY4pCOxbEdv4M8jTE4uMPVoSIW-1030832215.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #8. The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) Created by Rod Serling There have been multiple reiterations/reboots of this original series, insomuch that the title, The Twilight Zone now refers to its own media franchise rather than a colloquial designation to what I immediately think of as that iconic, black-and-white, retro opening with the *teeny-teeny-teeny-teeny* spiraling theme. What can I say that hasn’t been already written about this sci-fi-horror progenitor? Innovative and original? As much as anything can be, I assume. Creepy, sometimes (if-unfortunately, unintentionally) funny? Check. Influential long after it stopped airing, to which, its spiritual successors would undoubtably owe at-least a part of their lineage to (i.e. The Outer Limits, Black Mirror, Tales From the Crypt series, etc.)? Yes, for certain. The Twilight Zone, for all of its imperfections, successes, risks, and subsequent reiterations, still lives on as a perfectly good idea on paper to translate/adapt in-motion time and time again, and that is the concept of what we know as curated anthology, thematic overture, a collection of unrelated tales woven in such a way that feels connected (ala’ Final Fantasy). True, some episodes indeed lack a satisfying “twist” and are straightforward, wholly unsophisticated with their moral, while others do offer a nice (and often insidious) “reveal,” and it really is a mixed bag from one episode to the next. In-fact, I would probably enjoy making a list of my favorite 10 from the original series, because of the show’s diverse plots, settings and subject matter. Most of what we see pretty much falls in the realm of sci-fi horror, but there are episodes definitively rooted in existential horror (think: Ari Aster films), many akin cautionary tales of human nature, then there are a few even with happy endings (more or less, contextually). What makes it satisfying is knowing you’re in good hands here, and that for every dud of an episode you may regret spending precious time on, there are another half dozen that will knock it out of the park (at-least, for me). The tone of this show feels so perfectly executed, even when it fails; The Twilight Zone is so visually impressionistic that even if it were silent, I’d argue it still would have the same weight and heady impact so many years later. Some of my favorites, off the top of my head: The Midnight Sun, The Hitchhiker, Where Is Everybody?, And When the Sky Was Opened, The Shelter, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Eye of the Beholder, The Hunt… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/9a56bd8a-844f-4c1a-b636-401f2d0c39b5/kTQuzO8eIcEE1BDI6BSj7ALWxyG.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #2. Dead Like Me (2003-2004) Created by Bryan Fuller Another cult-classic/sleeper on this list, Dead Like Me is a vibe akin to Twin Peaks, an interesting meld of styles/genres, that being (in my inference/opinion): dark comedy, dramedy, noir, fantasy, socio-religious commentary and satire. There is something to be said of the modest, 2-season Showtime series’ premise, and that is an earnest, heartfelt yet cynically skeptical exploration of the nature and framework of Death itself. What questions Dead Like Me introduces speaks to a greater ethos beyond its screen, and feel as if strangely, intuitively relevant, not apart from our daily lives: where do we go after we die?—who/what determines our journey into the next life?—is there a grand schema to all of this, or is it as arbitrary and monotonous as a meter-maid punching our proverbial ticket?—etc. We follow Georgia “George” Lass (excellently played by Ellen Muth) who one day is plucked from her rather humdrum, dull existence, then thrown into a quasi-Dickensian cosmic/supernatural position to be one of many preexisting arbiters of Death. The premise here is handled with an emotional honesty to appeal to our own experiences over losing loved ones, even our thoughts about how would we feel about witnessing our lives without us in them. Dead Like Me successfully juggles existential malaise alongside its poesy, heartfelt explorations of mortality, spirituality, relationships and the innate banality to it all in a grand sense. Unfortunately, what we did end up with as a series finale felt underwhelming and lacking a true, resolute conclusion. In 2009, there was a film released to serve as the end of the show, titled Dead Like Me: Life After Death, however, I personally wouldn’t deem it required viewing for anyone who falls in love with this show. Yes, there are some aspects to the writing that show their age, yes there are tonal shifts midway through season 1, the write-off of characters and/or other imperfections, but what does remain is funny, a darkly-warm mirror to our own inanities about Death mythology, how we can learn to make the most of whatever time we have left and not be afraid of passing on. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/0d2ec3e9-baea-4475-95b9-e6255acceb1e/Untitled+design-3.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #9. The Real World (1992-2017/2019) Created by Mary Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray For this selection specifically, I’m going to just go with the first 3 to 5 seasons, before the advent of what we all know now as the modern ‘reality show’. Specifically, and especially was MTV’s The Real World’s first season, in NYC for being the very first ‘reality show’ in actuality and of its kind, before all the Frankenstein-cuts, scripted characters and/or plot lines, overly cartoonish typecasting—the list goes on. There’s a strange, even now dare I say fresh feeling to those first few seasons, before the art that we know of today as always filming oneself and being watched became typified; the conversations feel awkward, vulnerable, authentic, misdirected, heated, exploratory—how the way people really talk to another. Maybe it’s because there’s an inner nostalgic in me for the 1990’s and my former dwelling of New York, but I can’t help but fall in love with what felt like some sort of genuine social experiment gone awry and sold to the public as documentary. Later and later seasons would eventually become scripted, even directed, and the barrier between the cast and crew further obfuscated by the intentional setting up of confrontations in order to generate drama (any of this sound familiar?), however…again, those first few seasons have a genuineness that I feel supersedes what would ultimately (and ironically) lead the series to become a mockery of itself. For instance, Kevin and Rebecca’s arguments that first season over race and sex are captured unadulterated, non-performative and frankly put, awkwardly vulnerable, despite their heated volley. In-fact, a lot what we see is so unscripted, that it begs to challenge the imagination of our collective memory, and (now) to re-imagine a world before the age of hyper-produced reality-fiction, because this strange idea of simply capturing people on film unscripted - drama or not - feels so impossible now that we shall never trust the word of another producer ever again. I really can’t stress enough that this isn’t simply a nostalgia pick, but some memorable, quality experiences to take away after watching those first few seasons. A time-capsule, yes, MTV’s Real World is, taking us all back to a time and place for which we remember these daytime episodes littering through the channel surf, but to stay tuned and actively watch with a new set of eyes…well, it’s a completely different experience now, for me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/4c74c6bc-d6b4-4016-9c0b-627b9ee7851d/Untitled+design.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #6. The Sopranos (1999-2007) Created by David Chase Another show for which endless has already been written. A neo-Goodfellas meets All in the Family and a bit of The Honeymooners, The Sopranos is one of the best television shows I’ve ever seen, and one of the very select few I’ve chosen to rewatch more than once. The acting, sets, casting, directing, music, writing (especially), everything cohesively builds this show into something that feels transcendent to other shows before, even after. At-first, one may watch and take away more of the crime-related plot points and all the like, however, I’d like to say The Sopranos is an indictment of not just its obvious genre-origins and tropes, but also American culture itself—there is an existential examination at play here I’d argue, and the parallel of Tony Soprano’s sociopathic mindset versus what can inferred as existential decay (even nihilistically so) within our society feels relevant. For every outlet a mob boss could have to be happy, there are many true-to-life depictions of the banal mundane, the vast employ of suburban emptiness to echo what could be a siren song for the American dream (or rather, what was lost in chase of it…). So much has been written, I’ll just say go watch it, even if you’re remotely interested. It’s that good. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/c26fa9bc-f9d7-4ab2-bf91-66626cf847a2/thewalkingdead-1633729801542.png Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #10. The Walking Dead (2010-2022) Created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard; developed by Frank Darabont This show marks an era of my life. I will never forget those days awaiting a new episode, spending time wondering the respective fates regarding my beloved characters, shedding tears whenever someone I grew an affinity to/with was killed…The Walking Dead will forever be a companion to my young adult life throughout my drifting in NYC around the same time. Many discussions were had with friends, chosen family about who we related closest, what could or couldn’t (or shouldn’t) be done according to any one situation, anger about pivotal deaths to a dysfunctional family we loved watching over time—there was such a large social component, much like its contemporary (and I’d argue, rival) Game of Thrones was at their heights. I thought, daydreamed, wrote of my para-social connections to these fictitious characters (not the actors, mind you), and that is what lends AMC’s The Walking Dead (or now, TWD) an absolute obligatory addition to this list. In-fact, I’d happily rewatch it again, knowing full well all of the botched fates to be, the stilted writing and directing that would haunt the series in the later seasons, and on and on. I can absolutely stand by my opinion that the first few seasons of The Walking Dead is some of the best television ever made. It’s a shame what ended up becoming of this once tour de force, powerhouse of ensemble, however what I will say is that there are some worthy moments and arcs that justify a continuance following lets say, seasons 4 and 5. In another, fictitious life, where I had endless amount of time and resources, I’d love to assemble a fan cut of the later seasons to distill the bloated runtimes, remove the “bottle” episodes, filler, and focus in on the important storylines that actually would go somewhere. For fans of this show, I would probably put together a top 10 of my favorite characters, but here are some in no particular order, off the top of my head: Maggie, Darryl (of-friggin course), Glenn, Shane (yes, I know), Judith, Michonne, Carol, Ezekiel, Tyrese, Beth (yes, another…), and on and on, like we all once did with the-now defunct, The Talking Dead. Sure, this may be a nostalgia pick, yet as silly as this sounds, The Walking Dead—for a period during its height, was a big part of my life, and thus, will forever deserve its spot for me <3 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/98df2627-7b1c-45d6-b5e7-bfcff5d1a17e/ZxMRoqPywkkVdR6UsCKKmpLmxSlsuJpOyeWmow22GOo-2509887515.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #5. Riverdale (2017-2023) Based off Archie comics by John L. Goldwater, Bob Montana and Vic Bloom; developed by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, I’ll be honest, I loved Archie comics and had (and have, still) a Betty & Veronica subscription before I ever saw an episode of Riverdale, nor knew of its radical departure from its source material. There’s so many things to say about Riverdale, both positive and negative, but as its inclusion to this list, I prefer to view it in a more favorable light than its detractors. The show is and isn’t so many things, often subverting the audience’s expectations to differing results, to which, I happen to enjoy how off the rails it gets. If you can picture a kind of world like The Simpsons, where over-extraordinary things regularly happen amidst a premise of everyday, any-town, then one might start to appreciate the absurd heights of which Riverdale challenges, casts it characters against unbelievable odds. As our story progresses, so too does its escalating stakes without any thresholds, and I for one love that it doesn’t hide the fact that it’s based on a comic which does the same thing: anything can happen in a panel, only for the next to keep what’s convenient from it (or not), then discards the rest. It was a bit jarring to see things such as (SPOILERS) Archie becoming a bareknuckle boxing champion in prison, Betty own her dark, dominatrix side, Veronica run a speakeasy as a mobster princess, Jughead ascend the inherited throne of a motorcycle gang—plus, there’s even more, way more. The ludicrousness of what realism the plot discards is why I loved Riverdale that much more: the more isn’t what this show attempts to temper nor throttle, but leans into. The progression to over-the-top comic book hilarity is gradual, and what once seemed farfetched in season 1 becomes par for the course by season 3. Countless homages (including a very sneaky, cleverly hidden nod to Carnival of Souls) litter the fictional town and are rampant of outside film, television and pop-cultural references; there’s illogical breaks into song and dance as though we’re watching Glee; there’s tonal shifts repeated in juxtapositioning fashion throughout the series, and so much more overly-gratuitous, in-your-face leaps to the point where one must sit back and simply laugh—Riverdale perhaps has perfected the art of not taking oneself so seriously (nor giving any proverbial F’s). Somehow, Riverdale is a merger of the routine cult-classic (shlock, campy, over-the-top niche) while also at the same time, managing to be popular—warranting 7 seasons. In any other timeline, something like this might’ve failed, but this delicate, precise dance of chaos, fan-service, suburban-pulp-fantasy and everything else you can throw in works, even when it doesn’t. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e0a20622-5a8f-4fe8-abb7-7a2f9fa55fdc/Untitled+design-2.jpg Hidden City - 10 (non-animated) Television Shows Worth Remembering - #1. Twin Peaks (1990-1991; 2017) Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch Categorized and often heralded as a certifiable cult classic, Twin Peaks remains still as an interesting, syncretic meld of a hodgepodge of differing themes/aesthetics/genres—noir, soap opera, paranormal thriller, murder mystery, romantic melodrama, arthouse, camp and crime drama. What starts out as a fairly routine, straightforward premise quickly evolves into so much more involving deception, ancient spirits, parallel and combating worlds, doppelgängers, romance, ad infinitum. The thing for me that works here is how naturally each of Twin Peaks’s elements flows together: the incredible score by Angelo Badalamenti; the subversive and transgressive subtextual themes within its writing/imagery; its amazing cast of talent; the iconographic scenery, opening intro; and last but not least of all, its beautiful, albeit eerie haunting of the town itself. Everything from relationships to the very fabric of this fictional sleeping town is disrupted, threatened after the mysterious death of one Laura Palmer (for all intents and purposes, the proverbial heart of the town). Special Agent Dale Cooper (hamly acted by Blue Velvet/David Lynch favorite, Kyle MacLachlan) is brought in to investigate, thus kicking off what is an unexpected, twisting journey into the very spirit of evil. There’s so much more to be said about this show, and while it definitely is not made for everyone, for those whom this resonates, it does seemingly profoundly. Twin Peaks has gone beyond withstanding the test of time, and has remained influent to a number of creative works in its wake (Riverdale, Silent Hill, Mizzurna Falls, etc.). The 2017 reboot/return (aptly titled, The Return) was received to warm reviews, though some of its reception felt mixed by long-time fans—I suspect it was deliberately written to introduce more questions than it was supposed/expected to answer. I enjoyed it for what it was, though perhaps my favorite season will always be the first just for how well it was made. Fire Walk With Me, an excellent prequel film done after the initial series, I felt was worthy to be held alongside the original, though the recasting of Donna remains a sore spot for me, and also, some of its graphic depictions of sexual violence can be triggering. All in all, I think my favorite episode is episode #29, Beyond Life and Death—the imagery of the last 20 minutes will forever be seared into my psyche. Lastly, though I felt dissatisfied with how her character’s arc was handled/written, Donna is probably my favorite; I enjoy characters central to a story who aren’t depicted as “special” or “chosen,” but rather, are regular, everyday joes who rise above their circumstances and limits. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-of-my-favorite-non-christmas-christmas-movies monthly 0.5 2023-12-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/38319a5e-5b5c-4a01-9ad7-621b17f86366/batman-returns-movie-poster-15x21-in-1992-r2000-tim-burton-michael-keaton.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #6. Batman Returns (1992) Written by Bob Kane, Daniel Waters and Sam Hamm “But what about Nightmare Before Christmas?”, you may ask, and my response is that I’d consider that one to be a Christmas movie, while Batman Returns really has nothing to do with Christmas other than that it just so happens to take place around the holiday, and thus, fulfills the criteria of being a Christmas-adjacent film. I will say right off the bat (no pun intended) that while I don’t think this is director Tim Burton’s greatest work comparatively, Batman Returns is definitely a vibe, resonant of darkly comedic, Christmas-gothic imagery/aesthetic that works. Penguins with rocket launchers? Skating clownish henchmen with hockey sticks in confetti snow? I mean, if you’ve ever seen anything by Tim Burton, then the last descriptions will strangely invoke some kind of imagery to picture in your head. Michael Keaton and DeVito of-course are spectacular with almost everything they do, but what knocks it out of the ballpark for me here is Michelle Pfeiffer’s depiction/transformation(s) between the neurotic, shy wallflower Selena Kyle and her leather-clad alter-ego, Catwoman, to which she embodies/delivers a really, really good characterization of one interesting, though very disturbed woman during a midlife crisis (and I must say, entirely too relatable, even uncomfortably so—a younger self I was, to Kyle’s whole pre-Catwoman schtick). This is a fun movie, not particularly great on its own merit, but as a non-Christmas, Christmas movie, Batman Returns pays dividends by its holiday vibes throughout. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/4a52847d-dfab-47a0-a1ce-a5912fe83d55/KEY_ART_3_4.jpeg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #8. Black Christmas (1974) Written by Roy Moore In terms of genre/feel/tone, Black Christmas is pretty much the opposite of the last pick in this list. Black Christmas, directed by - funnily enough - the same Bob Clark who would go onto direct A Christmas Story, is not for the faint of heart, despite lacking any grotesque, graphic depictions of violence and/or gore. Some may say this is the first slasher as we would come to define the genre, before Halloween or other films which would typify a legacy after, so know what you’re getting into here. Yes, this film revolves around Christmas for its plot, but it is decidedly 100% not a Christmas movie, and to play devils advocate here, one macabre “anti-Christmas” film with no real moral or idealogical takeaway other than, don’t go into the attic of your creepy old sorority house. While not my favorite slasher by any means, this film takes the cake for creepiest move I’ve ever seen to be anywhere within the ballpark of Christmas, and yes, that includes the next pick on this list. Some of what we hear during the killer’s phone calls still gives me the heebie-jeebies, and overall, Black Christmas has this very unsettling tone I can’t describe. It wasn’t overly creepy nor scary to me personally, say the way John Carpenter’s Halloween was (and still is, given the right setting), but it’s difficult to put into words just how…off the mood is—juxtapositioned/iconoclashed against Christmas. If you are a horror fan and haven’t seen this yet, make sure to treat yourself to this cult classic during the holiday season. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/75e0ef52-093b-43c8-8faa-717a1069632b/the-apartment-md-web.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #5. The Apartment (1960) Written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond Aw man, do I love me some Billy Wilder films (Some Like It Hot, Irma La Douce, Ace in the Hole, Sunset Boulevard, etc.), and The Apartment ranks up there with one of my favorites, along with Jack Lemmon, who remains on my list of favorite actors of all time. Shirley MacLaine of-course is no exception, and delivers us a memorable performance of one Fran, a woman caught up in transactional debauchery between Lemmon’s character, C. C. Baxter, who’s agreed to let his firm’s higher ups “borrow” his apartment for their infidelity escapades. The film takes place throughout the holiday season and has a wonderful vibe to it without being a bonafide Christmas movie. As a film of a different era, the filmmaking here is/feels a little more “honest,” in that classical sense and way of approach, where there aren’t quick, fancy-hip cuts, fast action sequences and the like of modern movies, but have what we may now deem extended shots, dialogue-heavy scenes worthy of a stage play, moments of dare I say quietness as we breathe with the film (pretentious as it may sound, that’s the best way I can try to describe what I’m thinking). The Apartment does remain a rewarding, heartfelt yet somewhat cynically-hued romantic comedy, or dramedy, and there is something about these kind of movies that resonate with me on an individual level long after I’ve finished watching. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e6c49340-117d-4d79-9e36-0b0ad6359fea/s-l1200.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #9. The Mothman Prophecies (2002) Written by Richard Hatem and John A. Keel Yes, I’m a big proponent of this movie and think it’s underrated for what it is. Once more, I will repeat it when I say this film somehow manages to be a better Silent Hill film than any of that franchise’s attempts to leap into the silver screen. The Mothman Prophecies is loose adaptation of the same named book written by one of the film’s principal screenwriters (Keel), and let me tell you it is miles ahead of its source material in my opinion. What could have easily become forgotten into the heap of countless schlock adaptations, The Mothman Prophecies manages to outmaneuver its pulpy origins by focusing less on the cryptozoological creature/monster/phenomenon, and centers around a story of grief, trauma and overcoming one’s own inner demons. This film’s inclusion makes the cut for managing to a psychological-thriller/horror that takes place on/around Christmas, involves Christmas in its plot, but at the same time has nothing to do with it. I’ll copy/paste my previous blurb here: Though not without faults, The Mothman Prophecies is a criminally-underrated psychological, supernatural horror-thriller. The movie takes a lot of creative liberties to deviate from its source material, which, in my opinion (having read the Keele book of the same name) saves this screenplay from devolving into nonsensical, early-UFO-and-vaguely-racist-conspiracies gumbo. At its core, The Mothman Prophecies manages to be a monster movie without having a monster on-screen (spoilers), the shtick/premise being how grief and trauma inform our phenomenological responses, the Mothman itself anthropomorphizing a person’s hauntings, their inner-turmoil, if-demons. Most of the tension comes from John, Richard Gere’s character loosely-based on the source material’s author, how he descends upon a small, eerie town, drawn to it without any semblance of logicality. Stylistically, this film feels as if a love-letter to many things: David Lynch, Silent Hill, John Keele’s novel, Jacob’s Ladder, and a soupçon of Stephen King. The tone for this film feels unrivaled, and I love it without end. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/8576368e-f086-4070-a66a-4f2fccdc0a60/Eyes+Wide+Shut+poster.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #4. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Written by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael I’ve listed this movie already in a couple of other lists, so I will briefly synopsize it what what I’ve written before and copy/paste as to save (us) time: What are dreams, things that happen in our subconscious, or conscious fantasies that pervade our daydreams? Is there something greater underneath it all, or are we, at the end of the day, just a large group of under-sexed, unhappily married, mammals? Eyes Wide Shut takes it upon itself to play around with said questions, all in the form of a psycho-sexual thriller. For me, this is the best Stanley Kubrick film, and it feels like a greatest hits or amalgamation of his entire body of work. There’s no clear answers given in this movie, and what conclusions to deduce are fickle given that, Eyes Wide Shut doesn’t make the “realness” of its plot pertinent to tell a story. I like to think this film is about class, and how the escapades of society’s petty-bourgeoisie are ultimately unknowing, myopic, occult fever-dreams that are a parallel reality to our own. This film takes place around and on Christmas, in NYC during the late 1990’s, and though the street scenes were filmed on a lot, as an ex-Manhattanite/NYC-expat myself, Eyes Wide Shut does a good job of making it feel like we’re wandering Greenwich and the East Village. Does this movie have a happy ending? Only you will be able to answer that, I think, and for what the film leaves open to interpretation do I think it was meant purposefully to be filled by our own imaginations and fears. This is as “anti-Christmas” movie as you can get, in my opinion, and my favorite Stanley Kubrick film. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/78604e4b-aafa-4a1e-a4c2-0b5af0f18c39/enemy-of-the-state-year-1998-usa-director-tony-scott-will-smith-movie-HAHABX.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #2. Enemy of the State (1998) Written by David Marconi An unofficial sequel and spiritual successor (of sorts) to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974, The Conversation, this 1998 powder-keg of an action-thriller is - in my opinion - a perfect exemplification of the non-Christmas, Christmas movie. Taking place during the jolliest season, Enemy of the State is anything but a Christmas film on its own, and as the criteria states, just so happens to take place during Santa fever. I’m a big fan of director and producer Tony Scott (True Romance, Man on Fire, Domino, Top Gun, Crimson Tide, etc.), and within this wild, sensational flick remains the injection of late 90’s-early 2000’s Jerry Bruckheimer over-the-topness that now ages so delectably vintage. Will Smith is excellent here, and pairs wonderfully with the one and only, great Popeye Doyle himself, Gene Hackman. What we get from Enemy of the State is the typical innocent man framed/fallen into odds against his will plot we’ve all seen countless times, but there is a nice, satisfying journey of action-thriller written solidly, and has nice bits of Smith’s comedic personality drizzled throughout. Having recently rewatched this in the past couple of years, I can attest it’s held up to the test of time, and though some its stylizations, flimographic techniques feel somewhat dated (lots of Dutch-angles, for starters), this is a great piece of filmmaking through and through. Enemy of the State is one of those movies you find yourself watching in a “I can’t explain but I can’t take my eyes off the screen” sort of way; overall a great non-Christmas, Christmas movie. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e8f6bf40-6fcd-4ecc-b36e-3cbf4eff1c7e/MV5BOWJiMDU2Y2QtN2I3NC00NWE5LWI0ODktYWZjYWM5NmJkNzg3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTYzMDM0NTU%40._V1_.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #7. You’ve Got Mail (1998) Written by Miklós László, Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron It was between this and When Harry Met Sally for the Nora Ephron romcom, and I decided on this due to the sheer nostalgia factor, coupled with You’ve Got Mail’s powerful Christmas scenes. To be fair, this movie doesn’t revolve around Christmas primarily, but it does manage to have a holiday vibe to it, and what we see of Christmas truly lands. To newcomers of the Lands of Early Internets™, AOL/America Online at one point in time was the internet, in the same colloquial way we say we need to Xerox something rather than make a photocopy, or BandAid versus using a bandage, etc. So, the technological obsoleteness won’t be everyone’s charm, but for those that do remember an age/time where the internet was treated more as a friendly, niche companion rather than the colossal, adversarial relationship we have with it now, this movie is a real treat. Yes, I’m quite the sucker for the unofficial Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan trilogy (Joe Versus the Volcano, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail) and it’s no secret that I love the late-screenwriter/author/whatever-else Nora Ephron and her work, so it was a no brainer to include this. If you weren’t already aware, You’ve Got Mail is pretty much an American adaption of a 1937 Hungarian play, Illatszertár (en, “Parfumerie”) by Miklós László, or if you’d like, another film based off the same play, 1940’s The Shop Around the Corner starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan. In short, I unironically love this movie, romcoms as a genre, and this one feels like a cozy winter’s morning, bundled under blankets and sipping your favorite warm drink as it snows outside. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/00102fa8-4d3f-4906-8c04-93725d5327df/die_hard_1988_japanese_b2_original_film_art_a_1024x1024.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #3. Die Hard (1988) Written by Roderick Thorp, Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza This one sort of comes close to cheating, as there are some who firmly believe Die Hard is really a true Christmas movie 100%, and though it takes place on Christmas, Die Hard - in my interpretation - merely uses the holiday as a backdrop and plot device, rather than a focus on any given spiritual/holiday mantra which Christmas films typically do. Just as Mean Girls, there aren’t a lack of memorable lines or one-liners in Die Hard—such as my personal favorite, read by the late, great Alan Rickman: “Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.”. It’s hard to imagine now, but Die Hard broke the mold during its time of what an Action Hero™ was supposed to look/act like; instead of big, brawly muscles, Bruce Willis was casted as more of a “survivor” archetype, one that was fast talking, witty, funny, messy and clumsy, but an average-Joe who could rise up to meet the challenges ahead. The movie is paced great, the direction is good, the acting is awesome, Alan Rickman as our villain really is believable, the Nakatomi 1980’s-noir-y vibe/ambiance is such a great setting, and overall the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously—which is why I think ultimately, it works in favor as opposed other action movies that end up being rewatched as unintentional comedies. Die Hard understands the willful suspension of disbelief it asks of its viewers, and I think that agreement makes for the “right” kind of tongue-in-cheek vibe. If you haven’t seen by now, I’d highly recommend it, especially as an “anti-Christmas” movie. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/de43db13-0637-49cc-b995-3342cb3c2006/1Ju45uncn6jUUoDxwr4flUNgdYG.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #1. Mean Girls (2004) Written by Rosalind Wiseman and Tina Fey There’s a strong flavor of Christmas within this film, and is definitely not a Christmas film the way we know. Funny, iconic, endlessly quotable to this day, Mean Girls feels as though it hasn’t aged the way we collectively remember other films from the early aughts. Where’s there to start with this film? The costumes, acting and direction, screenplay, music—I can’t help but feel a good portion of this movie remains rewatchable, and is as every bit a great coming-of-age comedy among its predecessors: Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, etc. 10 memorable quotes that came to mind: “Four for you Glen Coco! You go, Glen Coco!” “…stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen!” “Is butter a carb?” “Irregardless, ex-boyfriends are off-limits to friends. That’s just, like, the rules of feminism.” “On Wednesdays we wear pink.” “She doesn't even go here.” “It's not my fault you're, like, in love with me or something!” “Get in loser, we’re going shopping.” “It's not my fault I have a heavy flow and a wide-set vagina.” “You know that I’m not allowed to wear hoop earrings, right? Yeah, two years ago she told me hoops earrings were her thing, and I wasn’t allowed to wear them anymore. And then for Hanukkah my parents got this pair of really expensive white gold hoops and I had to pretend like I didn’t even like them. It was so sad.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/218914be-77f8-4086-92e7-fc131d46c468/goodfellas_1990_french_small_original_film_art_7d158ff6-3b79-41c0-bbf4-62ac671d9ee2.jpg Hidden City - 10 Of My Favorite Non-Christmas, Christmas Movies - #10. Goodfellas (1990) Written by Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese There is so much Christmas in this movie! Of-course, of-course, detractors might point out that the extreme and graphic depictions of violence, drug use, etc. make this a very non-Christmas (or non-anything holiday related) movie, but I disagree. Goodfellas, a movie about the fairy tale/allure/mythos of the Italian-American mafioso, I feel also has its parallels with a Christmas-like story, in that Henry Hill can be interpreted as one whom invokes the holiday spirit by getting everything he wants, only having to reconcile his materiality for that of his soul (and also, conveniently, his life). Okay, that’s a little bit of a stretch, but there is a fair lot of Christmas festivity, backdrops, vibes, even music (Frosty the Snowman; Christmas [Baby Please Come Home]) and traditions are captured here with a certifiable vibe/mood/ambiance. Am I half-joking…? Yes and no. I think it would be understandable to say that when one thinks of a movie relating to Christmas, or even full-serve “Christmas movie,” 10 out of 10 times they probably aren’t going to say, “Goodfellas,” or even think of it, but I’d like to take this time to persuade you otherwise. True, the film’s writer and director Martin Scorsese doesn’t really have anything even close to resemble a family or holiday film in his catalogue, but if I had to choose one (I didn’t), I’d pick Goodfellas as something of a Dickensian-mobster Christmas tale. This is one of my favorite movies he’s ever done, right up there with The Departed, Mean Streets, Bring Out the Dead, Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street, etc. Go ahead, rewatch it and tell me now you don’t see/feel/hear the Christmas festivity I’m talking about. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/some-unrelated-miscellaneous-thoughts-as-of-12122023 monthly 0.5 2023-12-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e194e534-bbef-474b-a5a3-9bc075aa7771/Laura+Carpenter+Book-2.png Hidden City - Some unrelated, miscellaneous thoughts as of 12/12/2023 - The Diary of Laura Carpenter: A Saturday Mornings Forever Story “Told from the perspective of one picture-perfect, though misunderstood young woman, The Diary of Laura Carpenter is an interquel to Saturday Mornings Forever, taking place before, during and after Charlie Bluesmith’s misadventures of 1999. “I’m dying to live.” — Laura Carpenter https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/when-we-were-kids monthly 0.5 2023-12-08 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/what-is-desire monthly 0.5 2023-11-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/badea7f1-d843-4e8b-b9d2-b4255e72720c/Photo+18+%5BCOMPLETE%5D.jpg Hidden City - What is desire? - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/temporary-infinities monthly 0.5 2023-05-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f7650a4f-2d0d-4b97-b6ca-1370fa90dcf6/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_30_02_FN.jpg Hidden City - Temporary Infinities - Make it stand out The belongings of memory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e8d5c346-5c75-4385-bf84-f22a375f29e7/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_15_09_FN.jpg Hidden City - Temporary Infinities - Make it stand out Time is interpersonal, personal, subjective and objective…somehow. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/a-day-such-as-this-one monthly 0.5 2023-03-29 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/a-brooklyn-house monthly 0.5 2023-02-21 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/nyc-a-love-story-in-pictures monthly 0.5 2023-02-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719436201-22CCC6X1SJIBV2BQE6IB/1998CAM_2023_02_04_13_33_00_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719389027-B1XADRDXZD2JULVTZ1Q0/1998CAM_2023_01_31_13_27_37_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719389341-JZEJFSSNBDB71K0UDF60/1998CAM_2023_01_31_13_30_33_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719386423-9D5ZQU5NQF1PRBSOAAG2/1998CAM_2023_01_31_12_59_51_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719418979-SZ6AP7GX204D5FAVWU7E/1998CAM_2023_02_01_13_53_42_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719440025-K4AZI1FNIUNJ0HMT0LZ9/Coney+Island.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719391692-PHCER1L5OEOWUC6JPIPE/1998CAM_2023_01_31_13_56_07_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719424677-TGMV4PAQHTVLQYBEF122/1998CAM_2023_02_02_12_55_38_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719417729-1BSFU3M46BQFZV43FTH8/1998CAM_2023_02_01_12_44_44_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719397631-9LB39ZIRJLWDA1GSQ1IV/1998CAM_2023_01_31_16_40_00_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719396976-43ATUU31128AF2YSNBW4/1998CAM_2023_01_31_14_06_47_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719400449-VZ45F5D8YII3NKDLLN6W/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_06_45_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719428033-Y7KES4QJRBPMB5HFZJVB/1998CAM_2023_02_03_12_13_07_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719394121-TVFDWC2TATDTIYC9B4YA/1998CAM_2023_01_31_13_56_16_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719420332-BJK0GGJ0M24S4Y7AGV3J/1998CAM_2023_02_01_14_58_59_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719440805-HT5OVBMCDXINTT4NF778/Cyclone.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719407131-Z24P9T42Q2JLS9SV9H6W/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_16_53_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719421705-YT81S0YA15U3KAMEAKM7/1998CAM_2023_02_01_19_08_19_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719429871-8H9K9ATY622Q4S8N6LRS/1998CAM_2023_02_03_12_52_34_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719394532-YMJLB2C2U023J21BN0MI/1998CAM_2023_01_31_13_56_21_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719427436-ABUMPKD16MN32QOLMIH7/1998CAM_2023_02_03_11_14_48_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719407154-ZOJS9T1RBSJ3U3UUFH55/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_17_38_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719416232-IETGKYHZPX1WJVPGXYY9/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_43_33_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719439670-EMFYUAB2ZGFUBRD5MMD2/Coney+Island+2.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719401844-Q27R303YN4MKKUU4MDW6/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_08_07_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719404336-VYECO7SM2BG2AL9N5OZ4/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_14_55_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719403122-FQ9TH0EPCM0KJMY9D2XN/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_13_22_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719416531-N6S9OXLPBROCW4I884X4/1998CAM_2023_02_01_11_00_29_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719409868-TKUUDXI7ADG0LQDSOUON/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_18_42_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719410424-SNSMJHW24KBMH3N4680R/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_30_19_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719414580-V8LVQIRQAX9LVSR8N5ZH/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_42_10_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719422424-4YI6IETNRT5SLG5U0U6H/1998CAM_2023_02_01_20_07_28_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719424930-VIMDCOBGYZQ1F50Z1ITO/1998CAM_2023_02_02_13_37_41_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719438601-AH9OHHE9OH4ZW3P3QPHW/1998CAM_2023_02_04_13_37_14_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719440994-D900PQ0MIPETE4LSW003/Dylan+Room.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719429876-SBQZHA6QM33M5CDYG6U6/1998CAM_2023_02_03_13_09_56_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719439074-B25N7TZHAAI14UPHLIPK/1998CAM_2023_02_05_11_11_14_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719432483-V7W061LP9QQNGNTV50FZ/1998CAM_2023_02_03_13_23_08_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719433069-MFIJW4JE8BJ29HE12WL4/1998CAM_2023_02_03_15_57_09_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1675719413114-TZWV96SFXRA3UTGEPL0X/1998CAM_2023_02_01_10_38_10_FN.jpg Hidden City - NYC: A love story in pictures https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/saturday-february-11th-7pm-live-reading-plus-a-preview-for-the-interquel-to-saturday-mornings-forever monthly 0.5 2023-01-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ec25f4d9-f91f-4b70-aa8e-3e7a8741e315/Lula%27s+Arts%2C+Sweets+%26+More.png Hidden City - Saturday, February 11th @ 7PM: Live reading, plus a preview for the interquel to “Saturday Mornings Forever” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/divorcing-jellyfish-vhs-vs-uhd4k-dreams-life-like-casablanca-and-other-things monthly 0.5 2023-01-25 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/the-one-with-the-olives monthly 0.5 2023-01-12 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/raindrops-keep-fallin-on-my-head-reading-more-nora-ephron-the-power-of-rejection-and-other-unsolicited-ramblings-to-begin-2023 monthly 0.5 2023-01-10 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/im-in-love-with-being-in-love monthly 0.5 2023-01-01 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/father-we-never-knew-a-stage-play-in-ii-acts monthly 0.5 2022-11-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/04728325-0b55-4bf0-9a21-e7a7e05ef66b/father+thumbnail.jpg Hidden City - Father We Never Knew - A stage play in II acts - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/some-updates-and-previews monthly 0.5 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/cf88043d-2464-4f05-a0aa-88200f59a5be/Father+We+Never+Knew+Cover+copy.jpg Hidden City - Some updates and previews - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/dear-loneliness-a-poem monthly 0.5 2023-02-21 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/i-dont-like-it monthly 0.5 2023-01-25 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/broken-cassettes-a-short-story monthly 0.5 2022-08-14 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remembering-8-12-1963 monthly 0.5 2022-08-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/dc2bcd53-5ab6-4aa8-8a1b-18c024f3df7e/6185_47352.jpeg Hidden City - Remembering: “8 1/2 (1963)” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/58a496b7-4f2e-417c-8a56-37743ffff687/218acda2-dd52-4375-8912-2af5d1263ba9_1.5c70c4b0ca2d74ea7aea7c62f99026d0.jpeg Hidden City - Remembering: “8 1/2 (1963)” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/d0ff803e-e396-4278-b0d5-f22d8e3acd90/2b12e5e552f498c4887e87c760be008c.png Hidden City - Remembering: “8 1/2 (1963)” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/22feecd1-a0fb-4ce4-9650-5e1f87388148/967fb2486ebe8039b6af09de69f832a7.jpeg Hidden City - Remembering: “8 1/2 (1963)” - Make it stand out 8 1/2’s protagonist, “Guido,” verbalizing the echoes amidst his creativity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/3e443a32-7b81-40cb-a0c8-9131bf495a65/otto_e_mezzo_1.jpeg Hidden City - Remembering: “8 1/2 (1963)” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tie-your-shoes-frank monthly 0.5 2022-08-05 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-great-westerns monthly 0.5 2022-07-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/d97a6289-98b3-4fd6-ad3f-c66e41433c38/833f47f1350bac8cca49c3e84890a2a6--thriller-horror-1938969800.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #8. Ravenous (1999) Written by Ted Griffin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/0d5e70d4-2152-424e-8094-f44e5c05ac65/butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid-movie-poster-thomas-pollart-2953166324.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Written by William Goldman https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e6558706-b18b-4fce-ad63-2bd4e5036888/2ogVOei8k5WPixP2RVJFMn16zII-1131540423.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #10. The Hateful 8 (2015) Written by Quentin Tarantino https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/cd436334-f0e9-4178-b07e-36f1ddecc928/15353675533_4aa5ebf151_o-720708663.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #6. My Name Is Nobody (or, Il mio nome è Nessuno – 1973) Written by Sergio Leone, Fulvio Morselli and Ernesto Gastaldi https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f449144b-7046-441f-9bd4-506f2dbc249c/e2f8936e44a813ce96bfb485ff4f861a-2660334900.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #7. A Fistful of Dollars (or, Per uno pugno di dollari - 1964) Story by Adriano Bolzoni, Víctor Andrés Catena and Sergio Leone, dialogue by Mark Lowell, written by Víctor Andrés Catena, Sergio Leone and Jaime Comas Gil https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6383791e-86c4-450d-b64f-be7e3b1df463/walker-1861855052.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #1. Walker (1987) Written by Rudy Wurlitzer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/762226cd-9ca3-4c9f-ab24-9144fe524d1f/6ED4Wr2vgOc7yPiXIqovwLiQfCl-773827777.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #3. Once Upon a Time in the West (or, C'era una volta il West – 1968) Written by Sergio Donati and Sergio Leone, story by Dario Argento, Sergio Leone, and Bernardo Bertolucci https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/4c7fff62-e1f9-4e4e-9ff6-ad58825cf49b/23-1939-Stagecoach-Poster-77675.-327569207.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #9. Stagecoach (1939) Story by Ernest Haycox, written by Dudley Nichols https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/81812591-c918-422c-be37-06973f661bdd/1404618-2099052897.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #5. The Harder They Fall (2021) Written by Jeymes Samuel and Boaz Yakin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/d47b9161-4654-43ff-9949-04be05be0c0e/mLh1miY6WwO9btwKoZlJVMgqpZV-236747372.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great Westerns - #2. Cemetary Without Crosses (or, Une corde…un colte… -1969) Written by Robert Hossein, scenario by Dario Argento and Claude Desailly https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-great-post-1980s-hip-hop-albums monthly 0.5 2022-07-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a5cb6c99-ff57-466e-aa00-f18476315d8b/0075679397362_600.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #3. The Naked Truth (2005) Lil Kim https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e9ac7835-bd7e-4329-897b-74ede7b152f6/4316fc9c19c61d9ab94965470aeb1075.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #9. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) Lauryn Hill https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/9ca101aa-7ddf-46df-b229-e775627547ac/2014-07-31-tu.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #5. All Eyez On Me (1996) 2Pac https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6b5d3083-7626-49ae-bcb6-1623fd03a1c7/R-15644697-1595179110-8714.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #6. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (1994) Raekwon, with Ghostface Killah https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/7f2fb7fd-fd0b-46f0-9031-d7df8cc7cb5d/speech-therapy-crop.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #4. Speech Therapy (2009) Speech Debelle https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/8c2180a7-e891-4b3f-bdd9-270471f3e724/R-6281070-1424864752-8129.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #10. Hell Hath No Fury (2006) Clipse https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/658e2aef-3426-438b-b29f-a7fe17f009a8/Damn-632x632.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #2. DAMN. (2017) Kendrick Lamar https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/26163b98-792b-4a11-84c3-b9e713f539c9/16722-illmatic.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #1. Illmatic (1994) Nas https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e9804317-9a00-4fe0-b11b-18aa687cbea5/Desiigner-New-English--620x620.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #7. New English (2016) Desiigner https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/d8de69df-076a-4862-8ae5-630f8bc13b4b/boy-corner.jpg Hidden City - 10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums - #8. Boy in da Corner (2003) Dizzy Rascal https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remembering-2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her monthly 0.5 2022-07-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a34c807a-05ab-42e3-8ec5-1deeafd31478/bb945f12ba5728b4e8b754eb79ded2cc.png Hidden City - Remembering: “2 or 3 Things I Know About Her” - Make it stand out “Language is the house man lives in.” - Juliette https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a88c2dac-99a9-408f-bbb6-f2c11c98ae9f/s_725-191483.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “2 or 3 Things I Know About Her” - Make it stand out Marina Vlady as our protagonist, “Juliette” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6c20e2d0-cdf9-4b19-8aed-cabc354e6e8c/03f30940f60f5bfdaf5c0fcfe05c67f7-719819694.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “2 or 3 Things I Know About Her” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/2e13c0d1-5a72-4ab3-956f-ffb32c7ab578/Screen+Shot+2022-07-01+at+1.57.30+PM.png Hidden City - Remembering: “2 or 3 Things I Know About Her” - Make it stand out “Our thoughts are not the substance of reality, but its shadow.” - Narrator https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remembering-a-woman-under-the-influence monthly 0.5 2022-06-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/56fabc6c-9951-41e2-972c-b87902a93c3c/a-women-under-influence-480x637.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “A Woman Under The Influence” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/2f9a6e1e-a7cd-45ab-a8cd-1bca5c4345c0/1-a-woman-under-the-influence-silver-screen.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “A Woman Under The Influence” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b3755373-190d-4a6d-ba8e-15e01c0939cc/a-woman-under-the-influence-cover_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqHqCWY7CldLKwaY35XtOhoWzuHQQFpK1yqrOE7-cr3Ls.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “A Woman Under The Influence” - Make it stand out Peter Falk as “Nick Longhetti” and Gena Rowlands as “Mabel Longhetti” https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/if-at-any-point-youd-reconsider-then-im-all-ears monthly 0.5 2022-06-18 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/words-amp-games-10-of-my-favorite-rpgs monthly 0.5 2022-06-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/2581a2bf-f13b-4a86-bd47-fd0879d02b1f/60329-the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-collector-s-edition-windows-front-cover.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #8. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 2006, developed by Bethesda Game Studios https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1a239ef1-888e-40ee-8ba2-f826798aaa30/final_fantasy_8_ntsc-front.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #2. Final Fantasy VIII 1999, developed by Squaresoft https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e4c9cabb-e436-4df0-a161-a4ff6ac45397/mass_effect_2_frontcover_large_0jcHQeiOL55bm0E.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #3. Mass Effect 2 2010, developed by Bioware https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/3e186624-8a17-47c9-87d2-ae39ab13e3bc/ebBox.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #5. Earthbound or Mother 2: Gīgu no Gyakushū 1994, developed by APE & HAL Laboratory https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ee959da7-41c5-4631-a7e4-c35fc8e9da2a/9a6951a33e4c39e8561d4341754e5c22.png.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #7. Lunar: Eternal Blue 1994/1998, developed by Game Arts & Studio Alex https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/71abb772-118b-492a-bd29-27e460dceea7/Star-Ocean-The-Second-Story__48261.1521136293.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #4. Star Ocean: The Second Story 1999, developed by tri-Ace/Enix https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/c3e8aaa4-6695-492e-98d6-02e79e1c4803/bloodborne-the-old-hunters-edition-429457.1.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #6. Bloodborne 2015, developed by FromSoftware https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/cf51e8e2-3353-4cc0-b58f-f604537cd421/1*4zq1uUWKXxykZHfV-8PhOQ.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #1. Chrono Trigger 1995, developed by Squaresoft https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/542b1a31-74dc-4166-a454-740b2e6fdb32/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-japanese-507885.10.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #9. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2017, developed by Nintendo https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b8fddd88-334f-455a-b33f-25c877f7fc10/ffxiii.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: 10 of My Favorite RPG’s - #10. Final Fantasy XIII 2009/2010, developed by Square-Enix https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remembering-rashomon-1950 monthly 0.5 2022-06-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ddb1e84a-ecd6-4b35-8d62-bf2c475abdc8/Rashomon-2-1024x743.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Rashomon (1950)” - Make it stand out Toshirô Mifune as the bandit “Tajômaru,” and Masayuki Mori as the swordsman, “Takehiro” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b21232ce-102e-40a0-b5d6-298d741738b6/Rashomon-002.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Rashomon (1950)” - Make it stand out The rainstorm of which we’re treated to each story in Rashomon. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/3abe2982-cd3c-4560-acee-19de001ef203/pUbZ8vGQbugDFRn9GokUzlIPNcz.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Rashomon (1950)” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/ranking-my-favorite-breaking-bad-characters monthly 0.5 2024-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/dcdbe7fc-b774-4df2-96ac-f2ae8d1aef44/my-image.png Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Breaking Bad” Characters - Make it stand out No mention of my dislikes/lower tiers, but…this pictograph is self-evident. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/c965de05-e77a-4e8f-8f89-645b2b768836/bb.png Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Breaking Bad” Characters - Make it stand out Jesse & Walt by Biko Tescon https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/if-i-live-to-see-the-day monthly 0.5 2022-05-22 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/insomnia-october-3rd-2010 monthly 0.5 2022-05-14 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/nyc-coastline-2014-predawn monthly 0.5 2022-05-06 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/ranking-my-favorite-game-of-thrones-characters monthly 0.5 2022-05-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/361daa3b-f331-4f36-beec-5ae8411facfd/a885d7f7226c58256397320f0d967132.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #7. (Sir) Bronn of the Blackwater “Lesson number one: assume everyone wants to hit you.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/52eca6f7-0946-412a-b259-2b420b640876/TVTywinLannister.png Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #6. Tywin Lannister “A lion doesn’t concern itself with the opinion of sheep.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/51449015-3f0d-49b4-9c65-2ce00829c961/tyrion.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #2. Tyrion Lannister “Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a611e122-9b43-4b3e-b506-123002d18b93/tr0kzkb0y4k21.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #9. Cersei Lannister “Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/4eb02e3f-9199-4077-954a-4d5d46ee6f5b/The_Hound.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #10. Sandor Clegane, aka “The Hound” “Fuck the king.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f4b9f6a3-c78b-49d3-a50b-148e4f96991a/wp6407791.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #3. Arya Stark “I'm not a lady. I never have been. That's not me.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/48679ba1-2a62-4e25-918a-853761e25d00/e6cd2e92feda8ce79d661d29069059cf--game-of-lord.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #5. Lord Varys “Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick. A shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/bd8c2a27-d9b7-42a3-89c5-f047ed0a49d1/brienne-tarth.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #1. Brienne of Tarth “All my life men like you have sneered at me, and all my life I've been knocking men like you into the dust.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1dfae6c9-5eab-4bf5-8ced-9d90cf81992b/744631.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #8. Theon Greyjoy “What is dead may never die.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/7d809fc6-d92b-4dbe-99f8-6142f4fe0677/jon-snow-game-of-thrones-season-7-2017-f1-2160x3840.jpg Hidden City - Ranking My Favorite “Game of Thrones” Characters - #4. Jon Snow “There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it.” https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/wild-horses-2008-springtime-in-fire-island monthly 0.5 2022-05-06 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-of-my-favorite-cult-thriller-films monthly 0.5 2022-05-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/eda14f34-3521-41fc-a291-bcdbe162c0c6/afsa.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #10. Summer of Sam (1999) Written by Spike Lee, Victor Colicchio and Michael Imperioli https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/687488b8-d706-4401-99bf-cb36ba717365/ad78a-flatliners-1990-poster.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #6. Flatliners (1990) Written by Peter Filardi https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/210cd164-c8ee-4137-b0ba-39f7e3556c20/dafa.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #7. Donnie Darko (2001) Written by Richard Kelly https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/5cbfe20a-2d0a-42ee-a836-3f9ac433969b/27783a205b56def4fe4c04f4f287e944.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #1. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Written by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/01cb6404-cdc7-4dae-b7b1-658dde852e09/282a61bce94a95efe4e84af852fce8ba.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #9. Zodiac (2007) Written by James Vanderbilt, based on the novel by Robert Graysmith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b71f7d31-350f-4549-a054-5d7e9ad8e0ce/1990-jacobs-ladder-poster1.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #4. Jacob’s Ladder (1990) Written by Bruce Joel Rubin https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/c0dffe35-46d8-44f1-a595-a690d97b49bc/blue_velvet_original_film_art_1_spo_2000x.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #3. Blue Velvet (1986) Written by David Lynch https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/92230990-d42d-4bb8-ab42-0be8ccafb9a8/xl_99557_5075461e.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #2. Fear (1990) Written by Rockne S. O’Bannon https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b3263ed0-5265-429b-888a-1f995487864b/abrelosojos97007.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #8. Abre Los Ojos (1997) Written by Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6c1d8bc3-5248-49b3-823c-60fc1eccc30d/f7c54846b423a7fa8bb00327afcee83a--movie-posters.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Thriller Films - #5. Run Lola Run (1998) Written by Tom Tykwer https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/miscellaneous-uncategorized-and-uniformed-thoughts-as-of-tuesday-april-5th-2022 monthly 0.5 2022-04-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/69799567-b47f-4360-84b7-36542e0d268d/20170601_132253+copy.jpg Hidden City - Miscellaneous, Uncategorized Thoughts as of April 5th, 2022 - Sentience, consciousness, existence, reality feels like a mushroom trip (…profound, I know). I miss VHS, not because it’s inherently better (it’s not), but because it’s worse. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f33a66bf-700c-4e53-b8e0-1363b7a662b8/20170520_225930+copy.jpg Hidden City - Miscellaneous, Uncategorized Thoughts as of April 5th, 2022 - Nostalgia is a canopy. Sometimes, I feel like I’m doing my best and at other times, exceeding in underachieving. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e46ba5a3-a35e-433d-97d9-992a384a5283/Scan4+copy.jpg Hidden City - Miscellaneous, Uncategorized Thoughts as of April 5th, 2022 - Creative writing feels more than a lifelong pursuit, hobby or outlet, but like a ball and chain shackled around the ankle, something to pull alongside that takes effort, time, space. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/91d61448-1b9b-4b86-88ed-c11bcbbbd5d8/page-45+copy.jpg Hidden City - Miscellaneous, Uncategorized Thoughts as of April 5th, 2022 - Sometimes, I feel like our memories about people we loved who passed on keep them alive. (They’re still here, to me.) I miss snow, rainy days, cold weather, seasons; constant sun (and heat) depresses me. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remembering-the-act-of-killing-2012 monthly 0.5 2022-04-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/970f5156-172e-4392-ad4c-56a06636d4ab/act-of-killing-the-2012-anwar-congo-medium-shot-1000x750.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “The Act of Killing” - Make it stand out Now-deceased Anwar Congo, a former hitman for the paramilitary organization, Pancasila Youth https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/329038ad-a6d1-45fe-b5f3-0803c3425118/screenshot5.png Hidden City - Remembering: “The Act of Killing” - Make it stand out Anwar Congo and Herman Koto rounding up civilians for a movie in The Act of Killing https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e656aa86-7e5f-471f-9aa0-f94f05ae3c29/the-act-of-killing-2.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “The Act of Killing” - Make it stand out The Act of Killing - Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn and anonymous https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/the-fundamental-subjective-nature-of-dreaming monthly 0.5 2022-03-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/71f1a7e1-8fc1-45fb-b9b2-ce97a4dae367/street-in-the-fog+copy.jpg Hidden City - The Fundamental, Subjective Nature of Dreaming - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/48c64bb9-7561-4a91-81f5-a24ab3c6b6f2/nature-forest-trees-fog-4827+copy.jpg Hidden City - The Fundamental, Subjective Nature of Dreaming - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-of-my-favorite-cult-horror-films monthly 0.5 2022-04-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a25049c1-5025-4d54-8052-02c1cf89f308/phenomena+4.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #4. Phenomena (1985) Written by Dario Argento https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/048b38b3-64da-49ec-a88d-dc3dfba0b35a/the+thing.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #9. The Thing (1982) Written by Bill Lancaster, story by John W. Campbell Jr. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/81a584f0-f4af-45ae-aa3f-cb181392e9ef/c119e59359f6f7f32a266197b0036ac0.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #10. The Lost Boys (1987) Story by Jan Fischer, written by Jeffrey Boam https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/51dabfa4-495b-45b5-b9d0-3fe46bdbfac3/dawn+dead+5.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #5. Dawn of the Dead (1979) Written by George A. Romero https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6ee8ed6a-f97e-48f4-80e6-d8df00bb1f04/pet+semetary+22.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #8. Pet Sematary II (1992) Written by Richard Outen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/d9ff305c-e7ae-4dc9-a35a-dd1ea4b83f00/mothman+2.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #2. The Mothman Prophecies (2002) Written by Richard Hatem, adapted from the novel by John Keele https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6ccca071-2a34-4c8a-b2bc-e4bf31691cf0/blair+witch+7.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #7. The Blair Witch Project (1999) Written by Heather Donahue, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/88ba587e-e397-4c52-a402-f57a85a97b87/dream+warriors+6.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) Written by Wes Craven, Frank Darabont, Chuck Russell and Bruce Wagner https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b4752212-b81c-4efa-99d3-0663e6773852/carnival+1.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #1. Carnival of Souls (1962) Written by John Clifford, story by Herk Harvey https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f39ca9d3-0311-443c-bbad-d617b104975f/halloween+3.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Cult-Horror Films - #3. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) Written by Alan B. McElroy https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/words-amp-games-ranking-fromsoftware-titles monthly 0.5 2022-03-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/3b706614-1e43-4ffc-a5d6-5207dfb5ffac/307690-dark-souls-ii-scholar-of-the-first-sin-playstation-3-front-cover.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: Ranking FromSoftware Titles - #6. Dark Souls II (2012) Think: Baldur’s Gate meets Dragon’s Dogma https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/81356446-6874-4697-9b05-6950ba737c19/bloodborne_the_old_hunters_cover.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: Ranking FromSoftware Titles - #2: Bloodborne (2015) Think: H.P. Lovecraft meets Castlevania. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/eeecc0fe-cdb5-4f03-b1de-cdccebfe19ac/260890-king-s-field-playstation-front-cover.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: Ranking FromSoftware Titles - #7. King’s Field (1995) Think: Daggerfall meets A Link to the Past https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/81ed9087-7187-4410-a324-1a5af09c0391/Demons-Souls-cover-art.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: Ranking FromSoftware Titles - #4. Demon’s Souls (2009/2020) Think: Dungeons & Dragons meets Kid Icarus https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6d68bc04-0ded-40df-827e-2a3ca3fb759e/announce_180111_1.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: Ranking FromSoftware Titles - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/487b1ec1-bdf2-4665-ae33-cd81d8197e0e/dark-souls-remastered-cover.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: Ranking FromSoftware Titles - #3. Dark Souls (2011) Think: The Legend of Zelda meets King’s Field https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/432aaa09-75f0-4fb0-906a-43886b4640de/thumb-1920-457681.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: Ranking FromSoftware Titles - #1. Elden Ring (2022) Think: Breath of the Wild meets Dark Souls https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/027219d5-55ab-43d2-a9f5-77ca984a859e/adfafseee.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: Ranking FromSoftware Titles - #5. Dark Souls III (2016) Think: Dark Souls meets…Bloodborne https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/words-amp-games-elden-ring monthly 0.5 2022-02-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/52ec188d-7b00-43c7-b2f8-9207ebfc7a65/elden-ring-map-size-4-768x878.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: “Elden Ring” - Make it stand out Elden Ring’s The Lands Between and its massive map zoomed out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/48808e89-9e60-4412-ba54-005a2fd55777/featured-elden-ring-how-to-get-mount-900x506.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: “Elden Ring” - Make it stand out A player character riding Elden Ring’s summonable “Torrent” through The Lands Between https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/39b802d7-f83b-4e24-9f3a-3ca1319eed06/elden-ring-big-world.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: “Elden Ring” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/26d77398-5841-49e7-8ed2-22d5dd561b20/2726205-elden-ring-artwork-logo-schrifzug-banner-george-rr-martin-2uOLkF2DXEef.jpg Hidden City - Words &amp; Games: “Elden Ring” - Make it stand out Elden Ring by developer FromSoftware, published by Bandai-Namco https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remembering-mansfield-park-1999 monthly 0.5 2022-02-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/7e20a854-3ff4-4da3-9b79-87fdc520d094/mansfield.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Mansfield Park (1999)” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/47df2b91-3247-4085-a725-e34aff28f352/36b4f9ae2bb211f9781d75d1da7354d5.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Mansfield Park (1999)” - Make it stand out Alessandro Nivola as “Henry Crawford” and Embeth Davidtz as “Mary Crawford” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a16ee337-4b8a-43bb-9f7c-351444288bcb/dfadf.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Mansfield Park (1999)” - Make it stand out Frances O’Connor and Embeth Davidtz as “Fanny” and “Mary” in an intimate scene https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6adce058-2baa-415d-8923-95133a6384f3/efsdfa.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Mansfield Park (1999)” - Make it stand out Frances O’Connor as “Fanny Price” in Mansfield Park https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-of-my-favorite-films monthly 0.5 2022-04-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/277b9d4a-e8f9-4921-8b6e-812584b825cd/11292539_ori.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #1. Y Tu Mamá También (2001) Written by Alfonso and Carlos Cuarón https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b98d6514-1cc5-40e2-a343-5900e83b349c/zstcd4upFhHeTu8sQY8o6y68QJM.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #2. Carnival of Souls (1962) Written by John Clifford, story by Herk Harvey https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/077b0059-f4b8-4821-920d-3731f218c570/4bedfacfc65fe535352a8d0e7606ec85.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #3. The Breakfast Club (1985) Written by John Hughes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/81cc0fe7-ea2c-4dd8-bdc4-b36280a9e34c/yQWjr64wDl8qFlyCPJShjaXEBPf.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #7. Days of Heaven (1978) Written by Terrence Malick https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/3cd451a9-2102-4c9a-b19a-e5a9a25e8764/3123.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #5. Spice World (1997) Written by the Spice Girls, Kim Fuller and Jamie Curtis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1d5fc7bd-c28d-40c7-a322-6e39657d592f/breathless-movie-poster-1960-1020238047.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #8. Breathless (1960) Written by Jean-Luc Godard https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/34c2d0c9-0fe0-442a-90a8-c138d9e41c3a/The-Passion-of-Joan-of-Arc-1928-Carl-Theodor-Dreyer-onesheet-eng.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #6. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Written by Joseph Delteil and Carl Theodore Dryer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/eaf96dce-803a-468a-82ef-8ec33c0cd3aa/pFEayvusfp3KSLDv92cARhf7HOC.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #9. Ghost in the Shell (1995) Based on the manga by Shirow Masamune, screenplay written by Kazunori Itô https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/d8c78001-985d-4a54-a810-59260e557999/uq8RZ4Ryb3fADKyCv1f8xUokgCs.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #10. Halloween (1978) Written by Debra Hill and John Carpenter https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/bdef4c81-1158-45e8-b42b-c6c043d2830d/73be08d3f9fafd10e507d223ad6429e8.jpg Hidden City - 10 of My Favorite Films - #4. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Written by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-stage-plays-that-affected-me monthly 0.5 2022-04-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a0b06535-9c99-418a-8acd-bf2be7160b28/baby_logo.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #4. And Baby Makes Seven (1984) Paula Vogel https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/68c77b15-0874-4876-9a4a-1ee2eeb6fa11/my-name-is-rachel-corrie.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #1. My Name Is Rachel Corrie (2005) Taken from writings of Rachel Corrie, edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/c0c0ff1c-0ae4-487f-83b2-9a0d07bc4d83/unnamed.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #10. The Children’s Hour (1934) Lillian Hellman https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/48746777-8778-4bb4-9eb1-b6a11a69430e/three+sisters.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #8. Three Sisters (1900) Anton Checkhov https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/6342f5e8-d728-4c01-9a9a-e0464f9b3297/othello.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #7. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (~1603) William Shakespeare https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f2ec5766-dcf9-4ad6-bee4-70cf9b5e9d64/cant+take+it+with+you.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #5. You Can’t Take It With You (1936) Moss Heart and George Kaufman https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/21dc40a5-a13c-4afb-a967-4388cf2dbdd2/glass+menagerie.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #2. The Glass Menagerie (1944) Tennesse Williams https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e7f56a69-90c5-4407-86e6-0165b08860f0/glengarry.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #6. Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) David Mamet https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ba315e1f-730c-4245-940f-1e5a484f08fc/real-women-have-curves-play-2389e1aa-07b0-4c02-b11a-66865aa74e7-resize-750.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #3. Real Women Have Curves (1990) Josefina López https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/25f6b198-6d80-4749-b4fe-dd268844c79e/no+exit.jpg Hidden City - 10 Stage Plays That Affected Me - #9. No Exit (1944) Jean-Paul Sartre https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remembering-knight-of-cups monthly 0.5 2022-01-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/fc39dd72-4818-46c3-9e5a-e7e4d650bf0d/Screen+Shot+2022-01-31+at+3.05.38+PM.png Hidden City - Remembering: “Knight of Cups” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/05b23a9b-1ac4-4ad0-8c0a-a26318c8cc97/tumblr_njfih4lAAR1t5e3l3o1_500.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Knight of Cups” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/63d8e859-91ef-4db1-8414-5134bb4e7407/iu-4.jpeg Hidden City - Remembering: “Knight of Cups” - Make it stand out Christian Bale as “Rick” and Imogen Poots as “Della” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e082e3c1-4114-42a0-9ffc-4ff2e07d4df2/knight-of-cups-bale-blanchett.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Knight of Cups” - Make it stand out Christian Bale as “Rick” and Kate Blanchett as “Nancy” https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/10-records-that-changed-my-life monthly 0.5 2022-02-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f5c4c533-570a-4635-bfbf-2998d7eda26b/the_replacements_let_it_be.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #4: Let It Be (1984) The Replacements https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/23dbe47a-cde9-45ae-9ef4-a9f080e23ba2/Oasis_1995_WhatsTheStoryMorningGlory_cover.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #8: (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? (1995) Oasis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/3781e977-c5b6-4e59-ba29-b7f764b79c53/julianna-barwick-the-magic-place-review.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #6: The Magic Place (2011) Julianna Barwick https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ba1bd880-66ed-4746-9cf0-2ab1a68dffaa/a1893873712_10.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #7: Clocktower Park (2004) Kate Walsh https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/485f74db-692b-40fc-942b-f3a63150d371/elliott-smith-either-or.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #9: Either/Or (1997) Elliott Smith https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/ca2380ce-e218-44e0-914f-c89292099eb6/beth-orton_daybreaker_1.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #2: Daybreaker (2001) Beth Orton https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a96669e6-ced2-4bd8-af6b-655868187cea/jukebox-4eeb8ad87f9ba.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #5: Jukebox (2008) Cat Power https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/5c8da082-277c-4f99-86c8-ef7c92dd4ecb/Damn-632x632.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #10: DAMN. (2017) Kendrick Lamar https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/680b9bbf-740f-4e9c-8358-3bfb23fb2562/dido-no_angel1.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #3: No Angel (1999) Dido https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/8c07527f-769b-4c6a-9ac4-4fe756ac1a44/stories_from_the_city_stories_from_the_sea.jpg Hidden City - 10 Records That Changed My Life - #1: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) P. J. Harvey https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/remembering-breathless monthly 0.5 2022-04-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b41b0f9e-3dcd-47ac-a025-695208367da7/Breathless+22.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Breathless (1960)” - Make it stand out Jean Serberg as “Patricia” and Jean-Paul Belmondo as “Michel” in Breathless. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/8082c221-9aac-419b-a3d8-58c2bdd8c39c/breathless15bw.jpg Hidden City - Remembering: “Breathless (1960)” - Make it stand out Jean Serberg as “Patricia” and Jean-Paul Belmondo as “Michel” in Breathless. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/b769de5d-496f-4b25-9525-88a1e61d0edf/iu-3.jpeg Hidden City - Remembering: “Breathless (1960)” - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/differences-between-various-drafts-of-saturday-morning-forever monthly 0.5 2022-01-12 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/saturday-mornings-forever-character-composites-amp-likenesses monthly 0.5 2022-01-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333398157-AT1ZM5E249KDZOYRYSRZ/iu.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Amy (Baldwin) Imaged as Tatyana Ali. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333426991-V7YXY4JT51BWLRJJHPAD/gettyimages-471365454-1024x1024.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Anthony (Bluesmith) Imagined as Rob Reiner. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333434882-AVRO10K5B4MR9AMTEB44/740full-imogen-heap.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Charlie (Bluesmith) #1 Imagined as Imogen Heap (sans glasses, braces). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333455169-2TV5IMSDIAYJWWDZZUHW/iu.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Charlie (Bluesmith) #2 Imagined as Imogen Heap (sans glasses, braces). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333455189-HIFZIWQ6HYHXZL9LFP3D/Imogen%2BHeap.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Charlie (Bluesmith) #3 Imagined as Imogen Heap (sans glasses, braces). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333472783-6RT0VJQZXJX6V3TEF57N/TeAta.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Dakota (Haney) Imaged as Mary Thompson Fisher. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333492159-2Q79QDCOYVRSO0WVE624/9a066b243cebb9323cb4ff6e594541c1.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Eddy (Taylor) #1 Imagined as Romeo Williams. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333491763-XZQI0PWXCIFBREDQKGQX/romeo-miller-attends-the-jason-derulo-listening-party-for-his-new-album-talk-dirty-at-1oak-in-west-hollywood.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Eddy (Taylor) #2 Imagined as Romeo Williams. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333502267-KQHC34T5GFKXFZLE94UA/gettyimages-1291956849-2048x2048.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Frances (Moorhouse) Imagined something similar to person in stock photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333519317-MJLB0BFYFQ0LZNPPKXCL/4da4ddf18abdf.image.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Gill (Bridges) #1 Imagined as Chaske Spencer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333520749-9XROPUAWSSQCRPOHT67P/121583.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Gill (Bridges) #2 Imagined as Chaske Spencer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333535485-LD9A4GKJISY3AXAO385G/article-2316952-198C9C4A000005DC-812_634x633.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Heather (Peletier) Imagined like Drew Barry in this photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333547403-D1H0AIWYLC9SEFNSFWSZ/iu.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Jay (Woods) #1 Imagined as John Cassavetes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333547417-1AE7EANVU8OGNIU08SBI/tumblr_lf70sfJ3oY1qazanuo1_500.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Jay (Woods) #2 Imagined as John Cassavetes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333565296-KRSDWUZKR6TCPIG8D4H4/Sorina-Tarca1.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Laura (Carpenter) #1 Imagined as Sorina Tarca. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333565416-W6200NKXCDT7B6S4E4CS/LC+reference+1.jpeg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Laura (Carpenter) #2 Imagined as Sorina Tarca. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333578957-KY1SFIKI0JNEDBL98LYU/MichaelCrichton.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Lawrence (Carpenter) Imagined as Michael Crichton. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333594762-N21SA59ME2F46NDDOZ21/iu.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Lorie (Carpenter) Imagined as Jackie Onassis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333617077-1YG8O3SZ7W4PQ12NBORS/gettyimages-481545757-612x612.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Meg (Derenberger) #1 Imagined as Sandy Dennis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333617101-HNPL9N9KCYULQL3XF8Q5/gettyimages-457305066-612x612.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Meg (Derenberger) #2 Imagined as Sandy Dennis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333627192-IBF1CHRSALNKW0F4THIS/c5d639b2283c8e8f2f300daf15d176c5.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Michael (D'Addario) Imagined as Jason Cerbone. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333636218-9XELEE5SYQIF4KNM9LDI/29801f8d6f9f2ae639e30dfc1fec2edf.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Olympia (Farrar) #1 Imagined as Lizzy Kaplan. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333636264-0FEF2GJQ1F3OV0TCW4L6/sub-buzz-620-1571759685-2.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Olympia (Farrar) #2 Imagined as Lizzy Kaplan. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333649372-T2AEZ9FUDTEWSQEWT8NU/1024px-Michael_Pe%C3%B1a_Labor_Cesar_E._Chavez_Memorial_Auditorium.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Pablo (Rodriguez) Imagined as Michael Peña. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333683637-YYXGJMIM6RYLU8SGL3NX/a8_y584ygSej3u6CTgoT6GVkRfu86boByB4TJeUY9Qk.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Robb (Greenbaum) #1 Imagined as River Phoenix. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333683650-YXRIX988T9EVX56XGZEH/Unknown.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Robb (Greenbaum) #2 Imagined as River Phoenix. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333698219-0XVATXNDOQOG2BJJHXQE/642f3ea39a6d06dc4fc2f0e1d3389f13.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Sheila (Bluesmith) #1 Imagined as Florence Marley https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333698582-7P3DY48B7BINUJ99AX9Z/310140-COM_AF.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Sheila (Bluesmith) #2 Imagined as Florence Marley. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333731048-WP9V3431AD1C99FYS1R3/871c122d9500d4384e9bd9b761321011--iphone--korea.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Tada (Okada) Imagined as Nakagawa Taishi. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333806356-YCAQQJP8FE3403HUXV00/Screen+Shot+2021-12-21+at+10.22.14+PM.png Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Trudy (Gunderson) #1 Imagined as Marina Stadnik. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333806220-1OXD59O7ITJFV2GPR16C/gettyimages-1332854859-2048x2048.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Trudy (Gunderson) #2 Imagined as Marina Stadnik. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1641333817678-CK0I2A5DMPCKFGJ6M65W/hoopoflearning-student-4-2530.jpg Hidden City - Saturday Mornings Forever - Character Composites &amp; Likenesses - Vivi (Mitchell) Person’s likeness imagined similar to photo for Maricopa Hoops for Learning. https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/professor-carvers-feedback monthly 0.5 2022-01-10 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/saturday-mornings-forever-the-playlist monthly 0.5 2022-01-10 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/charlie-bluesmiths-prologue monthly 0.5 2022-01-10 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/the-hidden-city monthly 0.5 2022-01-10 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/TV monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Breathless monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Prose monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Miscellanious monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Tier+List monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Play+Review monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Dreams monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Pop-Culture monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Updates monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Film+Review monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Nostalgia monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Short+story monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Cut+Content monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Original+work monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Poetry monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Movies monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Music+Review monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Stage+play monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Impressions monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Literature monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Horror monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Old+Writings monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Publication monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Best+of+the+Southwest monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Game+Review monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Photography monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Television monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Writing monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Life monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Saturday+Mornings+Forever monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Top+10%27s monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Event monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/hidden-city/tag/Fiction monthly 0.5 https://www.amdangelo.com/home daily 1.0 2025-09-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/418a83f4-bc28-4bef-aa46-a9665924aaee/Black+And+White++Modern+Alone+Story+Book+Cover.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a29e30e7-0d5a-48de-ad89-2d4b9d39904a/father+thumbnail.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/87180792-e96b-41a0-bd55-0626b3bbf2a2/SMF+Thumbnail.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/1632084685329-PGG0Z89GOVP09QJCXTGL/Photo+10+%5BCOMPLETE%5D.jpg Home https://www.amdangelo.com/photography daily 0.75 2021-09-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/11f931a7-cfdb-4a16-a631-fbff57392724/Photo+4+%5BCOMPLETE%5D.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/8e9d992f-9716-423d-92c8-d546c6c34f54/SCN_0001+%28dragged%29+19.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/9bf6be68-f45e-443d-8dc3-608e5456b1ba/Photo+10+%5BCOMPLETE%5D.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/24d94cb5-c458-4b9c-89b7-9e393165a7b4/Photo+5+%5BCOMPLETE%5D.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/fac886be-b7f8-4c57-9c56-7e69f56629ca/Photo+9.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/f2f73f17-668b-42e4-8771-1123ce22973e/Photo+29.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/e41768bd-0382-4ec0-8f4d-5b097364ecc0/Photo+10.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/a28b2680-ab11-46bb-98bb-fa0144badcd6/11.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/8abdcb3b-aef2-4807-80c8-8e8b86f355d6/Photo+15+%5BCOMPLETE%5D.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/2cab1bf7-8e3d-4fcb-b400-4fc0487a5d6f/20160821_104121.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/13ba506b-9e49-493d-a0a3-e0a8a3f7f3ae/Scan4.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/8dac1f58-edce-4f80-a5b1-03704349bb95/20170903_143338.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/5862c028-a87f-4b89-9af3-ea8599f0806c/25.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/614794ef81244072fb66aba5/0dbe4140-432b-4f26-8144-2e937faf450a/20180910_123336.jpg Photography https://www.amdangelo.com/contact daily 0.75 2022-02-03