The Weekender #35: Lost Weekend

New records, old books, great films, and several excellent ways to lose a weekend.

Greetings from The Wax Museum, and welcome to The Weekender, where I gather up the records, movies, shows, books, and assorted internet detours I think are worth carrying into the next couple of days.

For this week’s roundup, I’ve got:

• the long-awaited return of one of our greatest songwriters

• three more favorites from the most stacked new release day of the summer

• one of the best farewell concert films I’ve ever seen

• The Wax Museum Film Canon: every five star movie, concert film, documentary, and miniseries I’ve recommended, in one private Letterboxd list

• a video essay on why movies don’t look good anymore

• an addicting 1944 novel about five days of very bad decisions

• a list of the 100 best sophomore albums, plus five glaring omissions

• and a fascinating look at the ridiculous amount of work required to put 100,000 people in the palm of your hand.

From now on, The Weekender is exclusively for paid subscribers. Your $5 a month or $50 a year gets you one of these delivered every Friday, plus the full back archive, and $10 off in the Gift Shop. More importantly, it gives me an excuse to spend an unreasonable amount of time digging around for things worth recommending for you.

Thanks for supporting human curation. Now let’s get lost.