Tw: mild spoilers for Obsession and Oppenheimer

If you don’t know, recently there has been a lot of gen zers complaining on the internet about how many sex scenes there are in movies nowadays. The common consensus is that its only acceptable “if its relevant to the plot“ but otherwise sex scenes are unnecessary.

First of all, the idea that sex is more common in movies nowadays is just so untrue. The people saying this obviously haven’t seen very many movies from the 70s and 80s.

Second of all, people saying this seem to consider film as entertainment rather than art. They think if a movie has sex or nudity it must be to turn the audience on which makes them uncomfortable and these people don’t like it when films make them uncomfortable but films are art and art is supposed to make you feel a variety of emotions. Some art is designed to make you feel uncomfortable.

Also, film isn’t just a storytelling medium. Not everything has to serve the plot. For example, in Obsession (2025), a film recently hated for having a sex scene, while us actually seeing it accomplishes the same thing in the plot as if it was implied, it makes his terrible actions so much more vivid and repulsive.

Oppenheimer (2023) also faced a LOT of criticism for its nudity, but by showing Jean nude, we are exposed to the reality of what Robert did and we get a better sense of his guilt.

One final example, in Babylon there are plenty of scenes with tons of nudity, but it serves to show the debauchery of old hollywood. It would feel antithetical to the setting if there was no nudity and everything was tamed down.

Sex is a huge part of life and I don’t see my movies should try to ignore that.

Of course theres plenty of exploitative sex scenes that truly are only there to draw in crowds of people who want to see x actor or actress nude, but I hope you get my point.

I get that he made Brazil which was an absolute massive global megahit, but it seems like while that song has no shortage of fans, Declan Mckenna the artist himself deserves so many more.
What Do You Think About the Car is a phenomenal album with some absolutely phenomenal and unbelievably catchy songs, my favorites being The Kids Don’t want to Come Home, Isombard, Why Do You feel so Down, and Paracetamol. These songs are relevant, catchy, and fun, but none of them came even close to the success of Brazil.

Zeros, his second album is arguably even better. Almost every song on that album I‘d consider a masterpiece. Declan does what he did on his previous album but times a hundred.

His third album, What Happened to the Beach is far less consistent or accessible but still has some great, easy to love tracks like Sympathy, Nothing Works, and Mulholland’s Dinner and Wine.

Tl:dr Declan Mckenna has an extremely great discography full of phenomenal songs but doesn’t seem to get enough recognition for it

Or just recommend the best Ween songs in general.

I’ve watched Punch Drunk Love twice in my life, first a few years ago, and again just last week. On my first watch I was in a very low place. I had no friends, had never had a romantic partner, and overall felt like an absolute loser to the point where the concepts of friends or a girlfriend felt so out of reach and unobtainable for someone like me. Every day I drowned myself in movies to drown out my emotions and convinced myself that I was okay with this lifestyle.

When I ended up watching Punch Drunk Love, I saw a lot of myself in the character of Barry Egan. He is a sometimes self loathing, avoidant, awkward guy who thinks he is unable to connect with anybody meaningfully and so he chooses not to even try.

In the movie, there are two major plotlines that clash with each other: 1. The love story between Barry and Lena, and 2. The crime story with the phone sex hotline. The inciting incidents for either plotline both happen on the same day. First, Barry’s sister introduces him to Lena. Lena, as a character represents everything Barry can be. She loves Barry for who he is, something he has never been able to do. Later that night though, Barry has the call with the phone sex hotline which represents Barry‘s own, self loathing. Its something he just can’t put out of his mind but also something he can’t bring himself to confront, represented by their constant pursuit of him and his constant fleeing.

The Hawaii sequence is a transformative moment for Barry. Its a brief escape from his figurative demons and the literal phone sex people and he finds the confidence to be with Lena. The sequences culminates in the scene where Barry and Lena are in bed together and he says some things that many people would find very off putting like “I’d like to crack his head open. You are fucking beautiful you dumb fucker. Fuck you.” An odd, disturbing love language he’s picked up from growing up with his abusive sisters. Lena isn’t disturbed though, and instead “matches his freak” so to speak.

In a lot of romance movies, the story would end there. They had sex, they’re both in love with eachother, what else is there to do? But the romance in Punch Drunk Love isn’t just between Barry and Lena, it’s also between Barry and himself.

When Barry and Lena get into a car accident and Barry leaves Lena alone at the hospital, it is because Barry still feels inadequate, he still doesn’t feel like someone worth loving. Barry realizes that before he can be loved he needs to first love himself and confront his demons, which he does in the true climax of the movie where he fights his way up to the mattress man and confronts him. In this scene the mattress man clearly represents Barry’s own self deprecating mind, telling him that he’s a pervert and that he deserves to pay. But Barry stands his ground, and tells the mattress man that he’s is a nice man and that he has a love in his life which makes him stronger than anything he could imagine. This line and scene is my favorite part of the movie. Its when Barry learns to love himself and finds a sense confidence he’s never had before.

In the final scene, Barry and Lena are finally together at peace As Barry plays the harmonium perfectly. In my opinion, the harmonium represents love. As the movie progresses and as he grows closer to Lena and as he learns to love himself, he slowly learns to play the harmonium.

Now, looking back to my own life, on my second watch of the movie, I am in a much better place than I was on my first watch. I have a lot of friends who care about me deeply and vice versa and an amazing, beautiful partner who I love and loves me back. When I think about how I got here I realize that it stems from me becoming just a little more confident in myself, learning to love myself even if it feels like nobody else does. And when I really think about it, what spurred that change on was in fact Punch Drunk Love. I don’t think a movie has ever changed my life as much as this one has.

I understand that The Strokes experiment a lot and its not always everybody’s cup of tea. I see why Fioe and Angles are divisive despite the fact that I adore those albums, but I’ve just never understood how anybody could listen to Comedown Machine and consider it anything less than a masterpiece and yet up until Reality Awaits, it was considered by many to be their absolute worst yet (except for maybe fioe).

I just don’t understand how you listen to Tap Out, One Way Trigger, Welcome to Japan, 80s Comedown Machine, 50/50, Slow Animals, or Call it Fate Call it Karma and not be absolutely blown away. Its not like the other songs bring it down either, they’re all at the very least really good.

Could somebody, preferably somebody who initially disliked the album help me understand?

A very large amount of the Obsession discourse revolves around the character of Bear and how, despite being the protagonist, he is clearly the most evil character in the story. Any half intelligent person who watched Obsession can agree that Bear does some pretty terrible things, and is overall a pathetic, bad person, but at the same time, the film portrays him with a level of complexity that a lot of people like to ignore. Bear does not start out as a clearly bad person. His first few nights with possessed Nikki, he is as respectful as he possibly could be in that situation and is clearly very uncomfortable. Only as the movie progresses do we see his true colors and that his morals very easily go away in favor of his lust and need for validation.
But a lot of the discussion of Obsession has stopped treating Bear like a somewhat complex character and instead has become a contest on how much you can condemn Bear. Bear isn’t treated like the somewhat complex character je is, and is instead treated like an irredeemable monster. If you show any sympathy to this character, people will hound you for defending a rapist. Bear is meant to be sympathized with. The point of the film is that we all have a bit of Bear in us. Bear isn’t a scary, terrible villain, he’s your friend, your relative, even potentially you. The scariest part of Bear is that he’s kind of relatable at times. But because saying you relate to Bear makes you look bad, people try to do the opposite and when discussing Obsession, make sure to dwell on how terrible Bear is as if to say “I could never be like him, he’s so evil, I could never be evil I’m just a normal guy.”

I think something comparable is the discourse of The Zone of Interest. A good amount of people criticized this movie for humanizing Nazis but the whole point of that movie was that nazis are human and that, in the right circumstances we could all potentially be nazis. Nazis weren’t monsters, they were people. Bear is Obsessions Nazis. He is meant to show us that anybody could do terrible things, but instead of looking inward, people look for a moral high ground and refuse to identify with Bear.

I honestly thought Muse’s horniness peaked with Showbiz with lyrics about coming in my cave and being young and aroused but then this album came and arguably topped Showbiz with its horniness. In Nightshift Superstar Matt sings about a girl “feeling you just right” we also have The Sickness in You and I in which the chorus is literally Matt yelling “Freak! Freak! Freak! Freak!” And how he craves your touch. Truly, we have reached new levels of horniness.

“I like the name Muse but it doesn’t really fit their style”

”it’s actually called Muse because the lead singer’s name is Robert Muse”

”No shit? Robert Muse? I mean, I guess with that name you’ve gotta”

This was a real exchange I heard