Apps Wrapped: Blurbing For The Weekend 12/5/25

Looks like I may be getting Netflix again after all, depending on whether the President allows it. Kind of impressive we’re still able to have silly-ass corporate merger drama like this, isn’t it? Remember AOL Time Warner? It's 2025, and we’re still not too busy running and screaming to ponder who will have the rights to show Casablanca. At least, I’m not. I’m also intrigued whether current Paramount papa Larry Ellison will ask Donald Trump to pretend anti-monopoly regulation isn’t something for him to poop on. Has Trump ever stood in the way of Big Business like that, though? Will multinationals tolerate him trying? Tech giants and oligarchs debating who gets to make Batman movies for us serfs, while a demented game show host is forced to decide if it’s worth risking his neck to get his ring kissed. The theatrical experience and film history also up for grabs. Gets me thinking about the Mekons thinking about Marx.

Capitalism’s Favorite Boychild: The Mekons ’85-’89

Keep on hoppin’ in the free platforms with the bestish rock band of the late ’80s

Anthony Is WritingAnthony Cougar Miccio

I wrote a post named Damn It, Netflix! in June ’23, about realizing just how important Netflix is to the financial health of the entertainment industry. While the company seemed a failing proposition even back when the arc of history was bending towards justice, their name is too central to the digital present for Wall Street to give up on it. What I didn’t expect was that, instead of Netflix being consumed by a rival, Netflix would do the consuming. Maybe. We still gotta see what the leader posts at 3am about it.

While my Spotify mea culpa remains valid, I’m not going to post any of my Wrapped business on here. At least not directly. Instead, here’s a list of the Top 5 Musical Acts Happily Taking My Micropennies. I’ve bought physical copies of albums by all, just so you know. You can too!

Brian Eno

The Pearl apparently doesn’t count towards Bri-guy’s tally, because it’s Harold Budd’s pic that’s been at the top of my Spotify montage every December for a couple years. I may do a longer piece about that 1984 album, investigating what makes it so unique and enduring compared to Budd and Eno’s independently created works, or even their previous collaboration, The Plateaux Of Mirror. But my most played 2025 album in 2025 was easily Lateral, an instrumental piece by Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe that’s almost as gorgeous a nap aide as The Pearl (more on Lateral another day). And I sure play Here Come The Warm Jets more than any of Budd’s post-Eno treacle with Robin Guthrie (at least until I find an album of theirs that actually sounds like The Pearl meets The Pink Opaque rather than Hallmark music). I don’t know how much of his discography he controls, but if Eno decides it’s too beautiful for the most pathetically nefarious of music streamers, I’ll respect that. Especially if they finally make it easy to buy a physical copy of The Pearl. I’ve looked!

Miles Davis

While In A Silent Way has long been my meditative go-to when I’m up for something a little busier than the Brian-esque, I occasionally indulge other artifacts from Miles Davis’ electric era, like Dark Magus, and even investigate the earlier bop. Maybe in 2026, I’ll finally listen to Bitches’ Brew! Though it’s fun leaving a striking gap in your knowledge of a mammoth discography you couldn’t possibly consume in full. I doubt this stuff is ever leaving Spotify, though. Not unless Amazon buys Sony and makes The Boss, Miles, and Bobby D exclusive to their platform. Hey, stranger things happen!

Talk Talk

I used to say my favorite Talk Talk album was 1986’s The Colour Of Spring, the dead center of the band’s five-album drift from new wave also-rans to post-rock pioneers. But the erosive qualities of time have moved my enthusiasm over to 1988’s Spirit Of Eden, where Mark Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene truly got their Davis/Macero on, improvising for months with a rhythm section in a dimly lit studio until this forty minute, amorphously edited platter of wax and wane floated out. J.D. Considine gave it one star in the ’92 Rolling Stone Album Guide I memorized as a tween, and I get why Considine, a true jazzbo also assigning stars to Pat Metheny at the time, said “let’s not” to Duran Duran openers sleepily spreading their esoteric wings. But as a new wave enthusiast edging into the abstract myself? Sweet stuff.

Killing Joke
I love the coincidence that my favorite heavy rock act to binge was on Editions EG in England, labelmates with not just Eno/Budd, but King Crimson - a group I’m fascinated by and investigate regularly, even if I can only really celebrate Red and Lark’s Tongue In Aspic. I play Killing Joke: 21st Century Masters when I want to hear Jaz & company as elders, the section of my KROQ Classic mega-playlist that goes “Killing Joke/What’s THIS For…/Night Time/other '80s songs” when I want to indulge their youth (with or without Youth). This preachy BFTW post from August gets across why.

Television/Tom Verlaine

It’s a sentiment I’ll explicate further someday, but the reason I rank Adventure slightly above understandably canonical classic Marquee Moon is its morning after the Cadillac pulled out of the graveyard. It’s realizing you have nothing to prove beyond staying weird and cool, remaining in touch with the beauty and revelations past, an ear out for more. It's about living with the "Glory," not seeking it. Perhaps fittingly, my favorite of leader Tom Verlaine’s solo albums might be 1992’s Warm & Cool, an instrumental album released the same year as Television’s reunion (1987’s Flash Light would be my pick if you don’t fuck with “instrumental”). Cool was reportedly inspired by a desire to keep playing with TV’s drummer Billy Ficca, which might be the best reason Verlaine ever had to put down the book he was reading.

Now that we’ve established the Dad After Dark musical canon, here’s the Top Ten Songs From My Kid-Commute Playlist. Stuff we apparently played more than others, whether independently by choice, or due to the algorithm on shuffle.

1. Sparks, “Do Things My Own Way”
2. The B-52’s, “Mesopotamia”
3. Love & Rockets, “Kundalini Express”
4. George Clinton, “Atomic Dog” (officially his favorite song ever at the moment)
5. Illuminati Hotties, “MMMOOOAAAAYAYA”
6. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, “CYHSY, 2005”
7. Steve Miller Band, “The Joker”
8. Wire, “Kidney Bingos”
9. Hot Hot Heat, “Bandages”
10. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Give It Away”

I’m not paying for it, but I do have access to Paramount Plus, and recently watched all three seasons of Penny Dreadful. It’s mostly a delightful bit of goth prestige sexploitation, with a bunch of sensitively portrayed old horror characters understandably enraptured by Eva Green, as she debates whether to be the queen of the damned or just a smart, sympathetic, smoking hot lady. There’s one dull flashback episode with Patti LuPone, and the series finale is shameful: all rushed, dubious choices followed by prolonged, unearned reflection. Oddly enough, Evil - also available on Paramount - similarly landed weakly and unduly proud about it after several spooky, fun seasons. My most sympathetic assumption is that these shows were told to wrap up after most of the episodes were already mapped out, allowing them a denouement, but an ungraceful one. Still, if you like shadows, corsets, ancient runes, brooding dudes in vests, the unexpected baring of fangs, and getting to stare at Eva Green as she runs the emotional gamut in varying states of dress, Penny Dreadful’s got it all. Fun fact: the effectively alien guy playing Dorian Gray was Julie Taymor’s Spider-Man on Broadway!  

You don’t need me to tell you Poker Face is worth seeing. But I’m happy to confirm that Natasha Lyonne, Rian Johnson and pals do the Columbo tradition charming, inspired justice over both seasons. No disagreement with the conventional wisdom here.

While I use Apple+ to rent movies (I even “bought” Commando for another dollar - see my euphoric revisit on Bluesky), I am trying to hold off on subscribing for as long as possible. If Severance, Pluribus or anything else dramatically lets you down, please remember to bitch and recap in excruciating detail. When you do, it’s like I’m the emperor, and you’re my royal tasters, foaming at the mouth from poison while I clap in amusement and gratitude.

And we’ve gone full circle. If you have any shows, albums or apps you’d like me to know about, send such pleas and possibilities to anthonyisright at gmail dot com. No promises, but I am polite.