Pop Culture Diary: This Week's Reviews, Reads and Roundups

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What I’ve been watching, reading, hearing...


"No Other Choice" (2026) Park Chan-wook's brilliantly dark comedy explores the world of work and what happens when it evaporates. Looming in the subtext, of course, is A.I., which may one day soon displace us all. What happens when we lose the jobs that define us? Lee Byung-hun's Man-su, who gets laid off from his job at a paper company, goes nuts and starts killing off his competitors. Hopefully, the rest of us wouldn't follow the same path. But the film leaves us asking what would we do, and what will our word be like if there's no work left to do? (An interesting thing I didn't know: Chan-wook's film is based on "The Ax," a 1997 novel about corporate downsizing by Donald E. Westlake, author of the "Parker" series of gritty crime novels.)


"Wings of Desire (1987)" This film is as beautful — and much funnier — as I remember. It's embrace of human experience in all of its weird wonder still resounds,  as does "How awesome is Peter Falk?!" He's so great in this. And everything.

"The Pitt" (HBO) Wow, way to screw up a show, guys. Season 1 came on like a freight train, putting us in the middle of a slammed E.R. on a disastrous day, surrounded by fun, fascinating and well-written characters everywhere. But it seems the creators read the good reviews and freaked themselves out. Now it all seems self-conscious, predictable, less original and just... not as good. The worst thing they did was take Katherine LaNasa's nurse Dana Evans, who was a very fun and likable member of the ensemble in Season 1, and put her in Every Dang Scene. It's way too much of a good thing and, as a result, this person we liked a lot has become insufferable. The fact that LaNasa's adopted "Yinzer" Pittsburgh accent seems to wander all over the place doesn't help matters, either.


"Asterix in Lusitania" I found album 41 in the series funnier than the last couple, but still mainly an exercise in nostalgia. Facing facts: Asterix was a product of his time. No, not the Roman Empire, but of the mid- to late 20th century, when the world was bigger, Western Civ was more myriad and everyone was more willing to laugh at themselves. Still, it's nice to see old friends, even if things can never be quite the same. Didier Conrad's art is detailed, flowing and gorgeous in the best Uderzo tradition, and Fabcaro's script (his second of the series) is funny and imaginative. As with the original books, there are lots of running jokes and poking-of-fun-at the culture/country where the action is set. Here. the punchlines involve stoic dispositions, sad songs and herring (herring is always funny). If you like Asterix, you may like this, but you'll likely still feel that there's something missing. Spoilers: It's your youth, Goscinny, Uderzo and the world in which we once lived.


Chapter 1 by Sault As usual, the latest LP by this mysterious soul collective came out of nowhere without any promo heads up and is great. The title single, with its funky bass, 60s organ and snotty lyrics is a grabber and may stand as my favorite single of the year unless something else really, really good comes along. Check it out:

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