Weekend Reads (March 1): The Cure, Wu-Tang Clan, Gene Hackman (RIP), Best Movie Stunts
Recommended weekend reading material for March 1, 2025.
Every week, I compile a list of articles in order to give subscribers like you something interesting and thought-provoking to read over the weekend.
If someone posts a list of The Cure’s 40 greatest songs, then I am going to read and share it. I was pleasantly surprised by the choices here, and I’m glad to see Disintegration’s “Last Dance” — a lesser known gem that’s one of my all-time favorite Cure songs — crack the top ten.
“Last Dance” is the first Cure song I ever fell in love with. For someone who spent a lot of time alone growing up, the verse “I’m so glad you came, I’m so glad you remembered / To see how we’re ending our last dance together / Reluctantly, cautiously, but prettier than ever / I really believe that this time it’s forever” really captured how I felt when I’d have those fleeting moments of bliss with my friends. The effortless guitar slide paired with the airy synth in the intro is so gorgeously done. It creates a nostalgic ache in my chest whenever I hear it. Another reason I love this song is for its hidden connection to “Cold,” another track I adore. Before the last verse, Smith quietly whispers, “Your name like ice into my heart”—a lyric cribbed straight from the Pornography standout. “Last Dance” really captures the sting of connections that leave you at a loss when they are no longer around.
Note: This article was apparently written before The Cure released last year’s Songs of a Lost World, hence some of the outdated references.
Celebrated soul singer Roberta Flack, known for such hits as “Killing Me Softly with His Song” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” died earlier this week from cardiac arrest. She was 88 years old.
“She sang reveries as much as exclamations, and yet her stillness electrified the soul. In time, the style she created became known as ‘quiet storm,’” journalist Mikal Gilmore wrote in a tribute accompanying the announcement of her death. “If Roberta Flack was unlike singers who came before her, there were many who would emulate her in her wake. In fact, her influence has never stopped reverberating. She was a woman who sang in a measured voice, but her measurements moved times and events as much as they moved hearts.”
Steve Albini died last year at the age of 61. Nevertheless, Paul Lukas recently received a gift from Albini, albeit one that was nearly 30 years late.
Futurist was not made available for retail sale. It was produced in a limited edition of about 800, so that each of the 779 friends listed on the front cover could receive their own copy, plus a few extra copies were made for friends who fell into the “Oops, we forgot to include them!” category. (If you scroll up to the photo at the top of the page, the blank box at the bottom of the cover design is for these “Oops” people, whose names were written into that box.)
I remember hearing about all of this when the LP came out, but it never occurred to me that I might be one of those 779 friends listed on the cover. Yet apparently I was, at least according to that email I received five months after Steve’s death. I had no idea!
Related: I still think about this 2023 article in which Albini addressed his controversial and offensive behavior in the past. “For years, Albini had always believed himself to have airtight artistic and political motivations behind his offensive music and public statements. But as he observed others in the scene who seemed to luxuriate in being crass and offensive, who seemed to really believe the stuff they were saying, he began to reconsider.”
Rap collective Wu-Tang Clan have announced their final tour.
Fresh off their completion of the first-ever hip-hop residency in Las Vegas, RZA and his bandmates will kick off the Final Chamber Tour on June 6, in Baltimore, Maryland. Wu-Tang Clan plan on stopping in major cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New York, and Toronto, before concluding this run on July 18 in Philadelphia.
According to The New York Times, the Wu-Tang Forever: The Final Chamber Tour will feature all of the surviving members of Wu-Tang Clan—RZA, GZA, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and Cappadonna—along with Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s son Young Dirty Bastard.
Over a thousand British musicians are releasing a silent album to protest the British government’s proposed approach to AI and copyright.
With contributions from British artists including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Cat Stevens and Damon Albarn, the album was released Tuesday to protest proposed British changes to artificial intelligence laws that artists fear will erode their creative control.
The U.K. government is consulting on whether to let tech firms use copyrighted material to help train AI models unless the creators explicitly opt out.
Critics of the idea fear that will make it harder for artists to retain control of their work and will undermine Britain’s creative industries. Elton John and Paul McCartney are among those who have spoken out against the plan.
Via 1440.
Related: Several UK newspapers, including The Guardian and The Sun, used their front covers to protest the government’s AI proposal. The BBC also released a statement about the government’s proposal, calling it “currently unworkable.”
Pitchfork, which transformed online music journalism (for better or worse), has announced a new quarterly print zine.
Because I’m stubbornly opposed to calling something a “cover” while keeping it purely digital, we made a very limited-run zine to go with this Bladee story. It highlights Meaghan’s writing and some truly wonderful photos by Jason Nocito, and was designed by Chris Panicker, Keir Novesky, and Michael Houtz. If you’re in New York, you can buy one for $25 at our free zine launch event at Printed Matter on March 4. And this isn’t just a one-off. Every quarter, when we drop another cover story, expect some physical media to come with it. Nothing feels real anymore, so we need these things to hold onto.
Legendary actor Gene Hackman died earlier this week along with his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa. No cause has been identified yet. He was 95, she was 63.
Considered one of the great screen performers of the latter part of the 20th century, the tall, likable Hackman had an amiable grace, easy humor and a surprisingly wide range that made him equally believable in roles as lower-class losers and high-powered executives. Indeed, he played the president of the United States, albeit a homicidal one, in 1997’s Absolute Power and a former president in his final feature, Welcome to Mooseport.
Like the great character movie stars of an earlier era, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, Hackman transcended any limitations by the sheer force of his presence, becoming as identifiable and admired as some of his higher-paid contemporaries such as Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman.
Hackman was nominated for multiple Oscars throughout his life, and won two: “Best Actor” for 1971’s The French Connection and “Best Supporting Actor” for 1992’s Unforgiven.
Hackman’s filmography is second to none, with appearances in some of the greatest films of all time. If I had to pick a favorite Hackman performance, though, it’d be his performance as the rascally Royal Tenenbaum in 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums, arguably my favorite Wes Anderson movie.
Related: Brian Phillips considers Hackman’s “everyman” status. “Hackman gets called an everyman, I suspect, partly because he didn’t have classic movie star looks, but also because his charisma, as intense as it was, was essentially the opposite of what you normally get from movie stars.”
The Oscars have never been about simply celebrating the most deserving films of the year, writes NPR’s Bob Mondello.
Real-world politics, a movie’s subject matter, genre, release date, perceived momentum, and perversely, what won the previous year, can all affect a film’s chances at the Oscars. 1952’s Singin’ In The Rain, arguably the greatest movie musical ever, wasn’t even nominated for best picture, largely because another Gene Kelly musical, An American In Paris, had triumphed a year earlier. Apocalypse Now had the bad luck to immediately follow another Vietnam War film, The Deer Hunter.
The Vulture staff hands out their 2025 Stunt Award winners.
For decades, the rise of action movies as Hollywood’s dominant genre was perceived (not entirely incorrectly) as something that ran counter to the idea of cinema as a means of human expression. What happens to nuance, subtlety, complexity when everything is reduced to good guys and bad guys fighting to the death? But just as the action genre was reaching its fantastical peak, a countervailing effort emerged to highlight the truly physical onscreen. Filmmakers and audiences alike grew more aware of the fact that when we witness (“Witness!”) a great, real stunt performed on camera, we are reminded all over again that we are watching actual people doing actual things.
Their selections include so many great movies and great stunt professionals. I’m particularly happy to see Hundreds of Beavers win “Best Stunt in a Non-Action Film.”
Ford’s logo is arguably one of the most iconic logos around, especially in the automotive world. Even so, a recent TikTok video reveals that people don’t know the logo as well as they think they do.
Side by side and to the untrained eye, the real Ford logo looks fake next to its dupe. In the age of corporate blanding, the curlicue flourish reads as fake, but it’s been there as far back as the 1910s, according to a vintage advertising sign in the Henry Ford Museum. Some commenters — including a former Ford mechanic and another who worked at a Ford dealership — got it right, but the rest of us should know better too. Ford’s F-150 truck has been the long-running best-selling vehicle in the U.S., and over multiple rebrands, Ford has kept the script styling of its logo intact.
Via TLDR Design.
Karen Swallow Prior is concerned by the juvenile behavior exhibited by those who have some of the greatest power and responsibility in our society.
Grown adults take on the personas of comic book, video game and anime villains. World leaders hurl playground insults and cruel taunts across international platforms. Women sport hats designed to look like sex organs. The world’s wealthiest and perhaps most powerful man wields a chainsaw on a national stage. The person in charge of homeland security plays with a flamethrower for clicks and kicks and giggles. One of Elon Musk’s young DOGE administrators has a nickname right out of a middle school locker room. A pastor tries to portray “manliness” by puffing a cigar while throwing gas around a dry field before sitting down in the middle of it while it burns. (Straight out of Beavis and Butthead, that one.) A Christian college recruits students by using the middle finger. Closer to home, a local school board member has been recently reprimanded after defacing the portrait of the outgoing superintendent but refuses to resign because it was all just a “joke.”
Finally, there was a time when Skype was one of the primary ways to keep in touch with friends and family. Microsoft announced that they’re shutting down the service in May, so The Verge staff reflects on Skype and its impact on their lives.
Skype was my lifeline back home. All of my high school friends were on it, and it was cheaper than calling my family with expensive international minutes. The call quality wasn’t always great, and the time difference between Tokyo and New York City was tough. But in those early days, it was comforting to set up Skype dates with people who I knew loved me. That distinctive Skype ringtone was a reminder that I could always go home if I wanted to. Nearly a decade later, when my dad had to leave the US to receive more affordable medical treatment in Korea, Skype was the only video chat software he knew how to use. It became the main way I could see him for several months before his health declined.
Related: Back in 2015, Adi Robertson wrote an in-depth analysis of Skype’s distinctive ringtone and sound effects.
From the Blog
Shortly after I shared my post about the Trump Administration’s cruelty, Meta removed it from Facebook and Threads, claiming that it violated their spam guidelines. And yet, reading through those guidelines, it was clear that my post had done no such thing. Which highlights a fundamental issue with social media platforms, especially for online publishers.
Taking a step back from my site and my content, and looking at online publishing more broadly, what I’ve described above should only reinforce the importance of owning your own platform — even if you’re just a nerdy pop culture blogger like me. Post anything on Facebook or Threads, and you’re subjecting yourself to their shadowy content moderation processes.
Related: If you think your Facebook experience is bad right now, it’s about to get even worse. “But now in 2025, Zuckerberg and Facebook stand poised to reward and legitimize the very same kind of sensational and misleading content they once condemned.”
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