10.) Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time

 – It’s about time we received the final installment of the new Evangelion mini-series. That’s all I ‘ll say. Go see them.

9.) Brand New Cherry Flavor
 – An underrated mini-series on NETFLIX  based on the novel of the same name by Todd Grimson. The cast includes Rosa Salazar, Catherine Keener, Eric Lange, Manny Jacinto and Jeff Ward. The series premiered on Netflix on August 14, 2021. A mix of Clive Barker, Gregg Araki and David Cronenberg. Plenty of Body Horror and pyschological suspense and gore. It’s LA at night and drenched in neon candy. I was surprised by this a lot. A great throwback to 80’s horror when creators threw everything they could afford into the pot and unknowingly strike gold. I kind of wish there was a season 2.

8.) Midnight Mass (mini-series)
– Created and directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Zach Gilford, Kate Siegel, Hamish Linklater, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli and Henry Thomas. The plot centers on an isolated island community that experiences supernatural events after the arrival of a mysterious priest. It was released on Netflix on September 24, 2021. The best Stephen King mini-series not written or made by Stephen King. Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, Oculus, Haunting of Hill House) is one of the best Horror directors we have here in the United States. The perfect alternative to all the trash coming out of blumhouse and such an homage of Classic Stephen King tropes. I highly recommend this. For fans of Salems Lot, Fright Night and 30 Days of Night.

7.) Godzilla vs Kong
 – directed by Adam Wingard. A sequel to Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), it is the fourth film in Legendary’s MonsterVerse. One of the highlights of the year. Basically, Kong is your protagonist and Godzilla your anti-hero. They are Kaiju beasts with motivations and conflicts. The humans are there only to progress the storyline. The fights are great and what you expect, a Godzilla movie with creature battles and destruction. I loved it.

6. )Blade Runner: Black Lotus 
 – If you want to explore the Cyber Noir world of Blade Runner then I suggest you watch this bridge between the original film by Ridley Scott and its sequel Blade Runner 2049. Animation is similar to REBOOT but, the environments and and lighting make up for the limitations of the animation choice. It is a co-production between Crunchyroll and Adult Swim. Black Lotus takes place in Los Angeles in 2032, 10 years into the aftermath of the Black Out, and centers on a female replicant protagonist.

5.) KATE
 – A marvelous modern cyberpunk action film filmed in Japan. A good time. Better action scenes than MATRIX 4. Yes, I said it.
directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan and written by Umair Aleem (Atomic Blonde). The film stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim, Death Proof), Miku Martineau, Woody Harrelson, Tadanobu Asano, Michiel Huisman, Miyavi, and Jun Kunimura. The film follows Kate (Winstead), an assassin, whose mentor and handler (Harrelson) assigns her to kill a high-ranking yakuza boss. During Kate’s final mission, she finds out that she has been poisoned and has at most a day to live, so she uses her last hours to get revenge and find out who set her up. SO CYBERPUNK.

4.)You’re Watching Video Music Box (documentary) 
 – A documentary directed by NAS and showcases the greatest HIPHOP tv show that still exists. The untold story of the world’s longest running video show, Video Music Box. A hip hop mainstay since 1983, VMB gave a platform to artists like Jay-Z, Nas and Mary J. Blige before they hit it big. Host Ralph McDaniels’ archives — amassed over 40 nearly years — reveal the show’s importance to numerous big-name musicians, as well as to the kids that grew up watching.Now streaming on SHOWTIME.

3.) Tokyo Revengers 
 – A mix of BACK TO THE FUTURE, and The Warriors. A young man with no motivation and no ambition goes back to 1990s Japan to save the people he loves by joining a juvenile delinquent Bōsōzoku gang in the past before they evolve into a major criminal syndicate. Lots of fighting, lots of delinquency and lots of heart.  I love it.

2.) DUNE
 – Although only 1/3 of a complete story. The scale and world building combined with exceptional acting and cinematography is out of this world. So far the best adaptation of FRANK HERBERTs vision and proof that director Denis Villeneuve is a master of cinema. I ‘m impatient and eager for them to complete PART 2.
For an in-depth assessment of DUNE go read my Movie Review here on New Retro Wave. directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, and Eric Roth. It is the first of a planned two-part adaptation of the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert, primarily covering the first half of the book. Set in the far future, it follows Paul Atreides as his family, the noble House Atreides, is thrust into a war for the deadly and inhospitable desert planet Arrakis. The ensemble cast includes Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem.

1.) VERZUZ: THE LOX vs DIPSET
 – The number one nostalgic event that happened this year was the Verzuz between THE LOX vs DIPSET. Nothing was talked about and hyped after the fact than this. Local radio stations across the country started playing LOX and Jadakiss songs in their rotation. More people actually started looking at bars and what it really means to be an MC after the dust was settled. And Nothing recaptured the feeling of being young in the late 80’s -90’s & 2000’s like this battle. At first glance it seemed mismatched when it was announced however, worthy of a viewing.
It was hosted in Madison Square Garden the mecca of HipHop with a packed house and streamed online for thousands. Dipset being the expected winners were easily dissected by The Lox; each member of D-block playing their parts like pieces on a chess board with no lip syncing with hit after hit after hit and the presence and energy that embodied NYC. The Lox and more importantly JADAKISS reminded the world who they were and what HIP HOP, especially NY Hiphop, is as a culture and artform.
A FLAWLESS victory and truly better than any movie, show, concert or event that happened in 2021.  

“Late night coming home from a temp job for some automotive corporation.

I was expecting the usual greeting and shaking of the hands with every graveyard shift hustler and loiterer that happened to be outside earning cash or just hanging out into the weekend. But, it was oddly quiet for mid August. Probably because there were three black & white patrol cars parked in front of my building. 

“Great, what now?”

The lobby of building 545 had smelled foul for almost a week. A really shitty smell; like dead rats behind a bodega wall. That stench reached a new level when I left for work, this morning. A Rancid, sweet, wet scent, almost inedible. A dozen pussy plugs in a sweaty soiled toilet kind of smell. And the summer humidity only exasperated that aroma. But, that was this morning?  It’s after midnight. What’s going on?

My cross-eyed superintendent had the front door and the side entrance to the dumpsters open.  The smell was so bad you could smell it from the lobby entrance.

I walked in and was like, “Shit?!?”. The Super told me that someone subletting apartment 1B couldn’t take the odor any longer and knocked on a roommates bedroom door to confront them about the smell. Knocking and knocking before opening the door to find the corpse of said roommate.

The people on the lease never bothered to complain bout the smell beforehand because, they were illegally renting out rooms for a profit. So discreet, they were about things, that even the people renting in the apartment barely knew anything about or bothered each other. 

Shit tends to break the fan when you find the naked bloated body of your housemate in bed still watching infomercials; slowly decomposing on his sheets during a hot August heatwave with high humidity in the nineties. 

I’m not sure if I knew the deceased but my hunch is – it was this forty year old guy that rented there for years. If it was, he was a pervert. I knew this because he at one time offered a kid I once knew a few dollars for “Favors” once. …The kid said No. However, the youngbol and his older brother did grift the guy by luring him to our rooftop promising some “handoverfist” with “happy-endings”, and robbed the vic for whatever money they could shake from him. Then extorted him for a few weeks after that with threats of bodily harm and criminal charges.

If it was him rotting in the building, Good Riddance. 

I sat on the staircase listening to Gang Starr’s Mass Appeal album, smoking a few cigarettes, and watching the PIGS and EMT’s rub ointment under their noses and burn some incense to weaken the stench of rot in the air. I even watched our simpleminded super almost kill us all by mopping our hallway with a strong mixture of bleach n water. The chemicals were the worst. I could stomach dead body odor. After all it wasn’t my first time being near a dead body before tonight. 

I stayed there and just watched. I watched neighbors walk into the building and cover their noses in repulsion. I watched a few of them almost vomit where they stood. I listened in on the police taking statements from the roommates and the Super. I always liked recording witness statements when I worked for a private investigator a few years ago. So, I was kind of imagining myself interview all of them. 

The whole thing went on for a few hours. I saw the crime scene detectives arrive on the scene and the meat wagon pickup the body. But, all I kept thinking was –
What was he watching on television.?”

FISH SCALE PART 1 : https://newretrowave.com/2018/11/20/fishscale-a-retro-flash-of-fiction-part-1/

Natural City, the album is still available only at www.samhaine.bandcamp.com
A collection of short monologues and flash fictions highlighting some of the individuals that call Hainesville “Home”. These are stories about people who live outside the margins that define civility and exist in the moment on the edge of a razor-blade. This is a pulp future-present inspired by neo-noir, retro nostalgia and some cyberpunk aesthetics.