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Last Updated: December 22nd

A good conspiracy theory gets the blood running. It should be equal measures absurd and just-believable-enough — meaning that you’re definitely entertained, even if you don’t take the ideas espoused seriously. Or maybe you do take them seriously. Maybe you get hooked on a cascade of increasingly batsh*t ideas until you reach “holy-Jesus-this-is-ALL-real” levels of lunacy. Then you ascend to the next level of conspiracy doc watching, spending hours with videos that are only found deep at the bottom of YouTube rabbit holes.

And then… You could end up being a central architect in a presidential campaign! Or the soon-to-be-former president!

Hopefully, it won’t come to that. You’re better than to fall for that extremist drivel. The docs presented here are a little more reasonable. Many of them have some undeniable truth at their core. They get you saying, “You know, that makes a lot of sense.” You might even corner someone at your next cocktail party and bounce a few fresh ideas off them. God knows people are tired of hearing about your sourdough starter.

The docs below are sensational and fun, but we’re not here to speak to their veracity. That’s for you to decide. And Snopes. Unroll the tin foil and enjoy!

Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers (2018)

Run Time: 96 min | IMDb: 5.6/10

Bob Lazar is a legend in the UFO community. The former scientist (now pyrotechnician) actually worked at Area 51’s S-4 facility. A military installation where, allegedly, Lazar and other “top men” were reverse-engineering extraterrestrial tech. What stands out most in this whole story (and doc) is that over time — as some documents have become unclassified — some of Lazar’s claims have been proven. Most notably that element 151 (a specific nuclear isotope) exists.

That doesn’t mean Lazar’s decades-long claim to extraterrestrial technology isn’t an Andy Kaufman-level performance artist bit, but it’s certainly enough to get you hooked on the movie.

A Gray State (2017)

Run Time: 93 min | IMDb: 6.2/10

Erik Nelson and Werner Herzog first teamed up to make the much-lauded documentary Grizzly Man with Nelson producing and Herzog directing. In A Gray State, those roles were reversed to tell the story of aspiring filmmaker David Crowley’s untimely death by apparent suicide in his Minnesota home. That’s the easy part of this documentary. But the story gets wilder in a hurry.

Crowley was a libertarian filmmaker working on a feature film about America being a police state and getting overrun by a foreign authoritarian regime. He was spending his time raising cash for his film by touring the far-right and libertarian circuits with the likes of Alex Jones and Ron Paul. He had gotten far enough in the filmmaking process to produce three trailers for his film and raise $60,000 for the budget. Then, Crowley along with his wife and young daughter were all found murdered in their home. From then on, right-wing conspiracy theorists latched onto the deaths with wild ideas about what “really” happened to the Crowleys — something no one can know for sure.

The film explores all of the conspiracy-making and the actual filmmaking by Crowley, in a head-scratching documentary about an event that provides fertile ground for conspiracy theorists to seed their wildest ideas.

The Family (2019)

1 season, 5 episodes | IMDb: 6.4/10

The Family is a limited-run series that’s easily bingeable over five, 45-minute episodes. The docuseries outlines the conspiracy conducted by The Fellowship, originally led by Doug Coe, who set out to turn American politics towards fundamentalist evangelicalism through the backdoors of Washington, DC. The Fellowship eschews any teachings or the actual words of Jesus Christ in the pursuit of power, domination, and pure greed on the national stage to make America into their version of a fundamentalist Christian nation.

It’s a chilling portrayal of how a religious power-conspiracy reached the highest echelons for decades. It’s even more chilling that the quest for Christian domination of America hasn’t seemed to slow down.

Behind the Curve (2018)

Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 6.5/10

This is perhaps the most frustrating entry on the list. There’s little fun to be had here and a lot more grimacing. Luckily, the doc takes a very tongue in cheek approach to the rise of flat earth conspiracy by showing those who believe the lie and fail over and over again to prove themselves right.

So where do the grimaces come in?

No matter who much evidence and failed tests the flat earthers seem to find or run into, they remain unwavering in their belief. If anything, the documentary is a testament to the current age of social media bubbles and YouTube echo chambers people can fall into.

America’s Book of Secrets (2012)

1 Season, 10 Episodes | IMDb: 6.8/10

This docu-series from the History Channel is conspiracy theory-lite. Each episode covers a mainstream conspiracy theory in a very introductory way. They hit on the main talking points from “experts” but rarely draw any conclusions, which is kind of the point of conspiracy theories as entertainment. The difference here is that each episode is based around a place like Fort Knox, Area 51, the White House, and so on. There are three exceptions with episodes about Free Masons (naturally), the FBI, and Black Ops.

In the end, this can be a mild way to scratch that conspiracy theory itch without too much investment.

The Great Hack (2019)

Run Time: 114 min | IMDb: 7/10

This is the sort of documentary that you wish was a batshit crazy conspiracy theory. But, no, it actually happened as a conspiracy to steal our data and sell it to the highest bidder and then let them at us personally, emotionally, and politically. The results have not been ideal.

The Great Hack is the sort of viewing that feels mandatory to understand what’s going on with our social media accounts and the companies behind them. On the flip side, it’s harrowing to watch how easily the conspiracy to manipulate the masses was carried out and how little has been done in the wake of these revelations.

Unacknowledged (2017)

Run Time: 103 min | IMDb: 7/10

There are so, so many docs about the existence of extraterrestrials out there. What’s interesting about Unacknowledged is that it’s less about the existence or contact with otherworldly beings and more about how governments — the U.S. in particular here — are able to manipulate the masses and create their own realities/narratives. The film lays out with evidence from the government, newspapers, and very high-level sources that we have contact and technology from extraterrestrial life.

Where Unacknowledged really gets deep is how the government allegedly operates with the information they have about aliens. This is the sort of film that leaves you saying, “hum…” at the end.

Wormwood (2017)

1 Season, 6 Episodes | IMDb: 7/10

Speaking of rabbit holes, MKUltra is a deep one. Fake hippy communes and brothels, Charles Manson, the CIA dosing people randomly for decades, a massive institution-spanning coverup in the highest offices of the land, MKUltra has it all.

Wormwood — from acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris — dives into the very dodgy 1953 “suicide” of CIA employee Frank Olson who was part of the LSD-dosing experiments under the umbrella of MKUltra. The docuseries uses dramatic reenactments to fairly decent effect with Peter Sarsgaard and Tim Blake Nelson turning in believable performances. Those flashbacks are inter-spliced with a present-day investigation that looks into CIA handbooks on assassination and how deeply MKUltra seeped its way into American society.

Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (2020)

1 Season, 4 Episodes | IMDb: 7.1/10

The case of Jeffrey Epstein might be the most insidious and deep-reaching conspiracy of our time. While this doc-series doesn’t dive too deeply into the conspiracy bullet points beyond the scant evidence we have, it leaves the door open for so, so many questions about what the hell was going on with this person, his underage sex trafficking ring, and the elite group of people he provided underage girls for.

The most damning episode is the third, when Epstein brokers a deal for his first round of sex crimes with some high-ranking officials that current president, Donald Trump (a close friend of Epstein), would later appoint to his White House and the U.S. justice system. If that’s not conspiracy fodder, we don’t know what is. And that’s before the series even gets to his “suicide” in jail while awaiting trial.

A Perfect Crime (2020)

1 Season, 4 Episodes | IMDb: 7.3/10

Sometimes someone can be shot in broad daylight (see: JFK) and there’ll still be decades of confusion as to what really happened. This four-part series dives into the assassination of a German businessman and politician, Detlev Rohwedder, who was tasked with privatizing former-Communist East Germany’s industry after German Reunification, which started in 1990.

The series looks at the role of Germany’s far-left terrorist organization, RAF, in the assassination. But there’s much, much more going on with this seemingly straightforward murder. The doc is full of political jostling, backdoor rapacious capitalism, and conspiracies that place blame on easy scapegoats. All of this makes for a fascinating watch and an easy binge.

Hangar 1: The UFO Files (2014)

1 season, 8 episodes | IMDb: 7.3/10

Given the admissions of the Pentagon this year, conspiracy shows like this one seem woefully out of date. Still, this docu-series is so full of fun fluff, it’s hard to not enjoy it.

No, there’s no proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life in this series. But it is a fun recap of UFO and E.T. stories all backed up with exactly zero evidence (other than the story being told to the camera). There’s no real malice here like, say, in Ancient Aliens where they want to make all of humankind’s advancements the work of Nordic white men. This is more the light side of UFO seeking — where people who are maybe a little too deep into the culture try their damnedest to convince you that we are not alone.

Cowspiracy (2014)

Run Time: 90 min | IMDb: 8.3/10

It’s not necessarily a conspiracy that the cattle industry is a very bad thing for the planet. Yet the film treats the whole industry like one huge conspiracy that goes all the way to the top, man! You can perhaps get some interesting information from a lot of the posturing about secrets and lies, but it’s still a very sensational doc.

This look into the cattle industry from a very skeptical point of view is an easy 90-minute watch.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a dessert of a movie, and we all deserve dessert right now, but I’ll admit that my enthusiasm is tempered slightly by one thing: there hasn’t been a single mention of Wonder Woman fighting a gorilla in any of the (mostly positive) reviews that I’ve read. Maybe it’s embargoed, but more likely, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, sadly, does not fight a gorilla in Wonder Woman 1984. Luckily, the Wonder Woman series, in which Lynda Carter fights a gorilla named Gargantua (yes), is streaming on HBO Max.

The show ran for three seasons on ABC (season one) and CBS (seasons two and three) between 1975 and 1979. All 60 episodes are available now:

The nostalgia trip is designed to get fans geared up for the Christmas Day premiere of Wonder Woman 1984, starring Gal Gadot, being released in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously… In the first season, originally aired on ABC, Wonder Woman travels to 1940s America disguised as Diana Prince, assistant to the handsome but trouble-prone Major Steve Trevor (Lyle Waggoner). CBS picked up seasons 2-3, which are set in the ’70s, under the title The New Adventures of Wonder Woman.

If you want to watch the gorilla fight, which I strongly suggest you do, it’s episode seven of season one. The plot description is something else: “The Nazis try to get back an agent who turned on them. To help them in their efforts, they brainwash a gorilla named Gargantua to hate Wonder Woman.” Not even Pedro Pascal can compete with that.

(Via Variety)

It looks like you can add Lil Wayne to the growing list of rappers giving away gifts for the holiday season. The New Orleans rapper will return to his hometown later today for a toy and coat drive at Phase III Bodyshop after posting the flyer on his Instagram. In the caption, he writes that he wants to “ensure that the children of Hollygrove and surrounding areas have a Merry Christmas no matter their circumstances at home this year,” acknowledging that “2020 has been a rough year for most.”

However, he tells fans he’s “praying tomorrow will at least put a smile on the faces of some of the local youth in New Orleans.” The Drive is cosponsored by Phase III and Young Money, giving away toys, coats, and blankets for the upcoming winter months, when many unhoused Americans will need to keep warm without the benefit of indoor shelter. With a feared rent crisis already well underway thanks to the pandemic and the apathy of the federal government, there will be even more people without a place to stay this year.

Several of Weezy’s contemporaries have also stepped up to fill the gap. In Houston, Travis Scott hosted a similar campaign, while Chance The Rapper and Twista held one in Chicago. In Atlanta, Gunna and Mulatto also gave back, with the latter using the footage for her “Spend It” video.

Katy Perry ended her 2020 in basically the best way possible: She referenced the years of comparisons she and Zooey Deschanel have faced by casting her in a new video for “Not The End Of The World.” In the clip, aliens mistake Deschanel is Perry, as many humans before them have done. The video was well-received, and among the clip’s fans is Taylor Swift, who gave the visual a co-sign yesterday.

Swift responded to a Perry tweet about the video by sharing a GIF of Deschanel looking up and shaking her fists in the air in a celebratory way, captioning her post, “THIS IS GENIUS.”

Perry and Deschanel famously squashed a years-long feud last year. In the summer of 2019, Perry made a cameo in Swift’s “You Need To Calm Down” video, and Swift said of their relationship, “She sent this beautiful note and olive branch to the opening night of the Reputation stadium tour, a while ago, and from then on, we’ve been on good terms. We hadn’t seen each other, though. So the first time we saw each other was at this party, and when we saw each other, it was just very clear to both of us that everything was different, that we had grown up, that we had grown past allowing ourselves to be pitted against each other.”

Check out the “Not The End Of The World” video here.

Netflix’s The Witcher keeps unloading a sleigh full of Christmas presents for fans. This week, a smiling Geralt video and Jaskier glamor shots surfaced, among other treasures. And now the streaming service is getting real by handing out a gift that might also be punishment. Yes, I’m talking about something related to the “Toss A Coin” earworm that has already transformed into a monster of our own making. It’s a terrible song, but oh so catchy, and it has transcended the whole of its parts and its performer, Joey Batey, who portrays Jasker. Now, the song has spread around the globe, and Netflix gathered up the evidence for all to hear.

And hear it, we shall. Over and over again. In English, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, German, Portuguese, you name it. People won’t be able to stop themselves from singing this during the holidays whilst hunkering down at home, especially since the show’s audience is eager for Season 2, which will hopefully arrive in early 2021. It’s a mood, as people say these days, and Netflix is doing a marvelous job of keeping momentum for the series going while not actually being able to air new episodes yet. Fingers are duly crossed that at least the anime movie, Nightmare of the Wolf, shall arrive soon. And there are always those Jason Momoa casting rumors to keep one warm at night.

Geralt may not be into this Christmas thing, but Jaskier loves it, and the guy’s spunk and tenacity (“That’s my epic tale / Our champion prevailed / Defeated the villain / Now pour him some ale”) are admirable. Merry Witchmas, everyone.

As much as she’s known for her diamond-precise flow, Megan Thee Stallion has also earned a well-deserved reputation for having “iron knees” thanks to her habit of squatting down for extended twerk breaks during her live performances. Her booty-popping skills are so revered, reigning New Orleans Bounce monarch Big Freedia dubbed her a twerk hall-of-famer. Now, Megan is passing on that approval to another young, up-and-coming rapper after Atlanta’s Mulatto put on an impressive display to Megan’s Good News album cut “Cry Baby.”

Mulatto, who celebrated her 22nd birthday yesterday, posted the lighthearted video as part of the festivities. It’s an unadorned performance, likely taken at a casual get-together with close friends as Latto seems much more dressed-down than usual. She drops all the way down as “Cry Baby” blasts in the background while getting cheered on by her girls, a feat that earned Megan’s co-sign once Latto posted it to Twitter. Meg quote-tweeted the video with her trademark tongue-out emojis — which should be adopted as an international standard rating for twerk performances from here on out.

Both Meg and Mulatto have had stellar 2020s, but not without their hiccups. While Meg overcame being shot to earn accolades as rapper of the year and/or woman of the year in multiple publications, as well as a Grammy nomination, Mulatto released her well-received debut album. However, she also took some flak for her stage name, prompting her to begin the process of updating it, which is taking a while. However, she remains focused on doing her part to help others, using a gift giveaway as the basis for her “Spend It” video.

One of the greatest measures of time is pop culture. Years are meted out in franchise releases, months are marked by the beginnings and endings of beloved TV shows. Even societal change – be it global pandemics that reimagine the modern workplace or civil rights protests that usher in needed structural reform – are often filtered through the lens of entertainment; through memes and social media trends, through mini-series and documentaries.

If we’re the moving hands, pop culture is the numbered tics we oscillate between, collective moments that bring connection or shared escapism. Despite the singularity of this year and the strange lives we all lead now — face-masked and isolated and virtually-present — 2020 didn’t devalue pop culture’s ability to gauge and qualify the passage of time. If anything, it made it more vital.

After all, it’s tough to remember what you were doing 11 months ago or where you were when the lockdowns began in March. It’s easier to orient your memory by referencing Parasite’s historic Oscar win, or Netflix’s surprise Tiger King hit. And in a year that gave us chaos – impeachments and elections, wildfires, the deaths of Kobe Bryant and George Floyd – it seemed pop culture would follow suit; that we’d be destined to remember 2020 with the help of Carole Baskin Tik-Tok dances and Baby Yoda’s flirtation with genocide.

And yet, the show that became something of a phenomenon this year had nary a frog egg or Joe Exotic in sight. In fact, compared to the rest of the TV landscape – from anti-superhero romps like The Boys to genre-bending sci-fi blasts like Umbrella Academy and dizzyingly-layered prestige dramas like I May Destroy You – Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit was comparatively boring. At least, on paper.

The period drama from Godless creator Scott Frank (adapted from a Walter Tevis best-selling novel), is a fairly straight-forward underdog story. Anya Taylor-Joy plays a chess prodigy named Beth Harmon who loses her mother to suicide and spends her childhood in an orphanage for young girls. It’s there that she’s introduced to the two greatest influencers in her life: a chessboard and a crippling addiction. The first is a steadying presence, a neatly-defined place of belonging for a girl whose life is constantly in flux – she is eventually adopted by an unhappily-married couple before being orphaned once more later in the series.

The second takes the form of tranquilizers first, fed to her by orderlies at her all-girls school, before quickly growing to include booze and stimulants to keep her gameplay sharp and her mind quiet. Beth is presented as uncommonly special, with an ability so rare and exceptional, she’s schooling men three times her age before she even fully grasps the mechanics of the game she’s playing. When she greets sleep with green pills she’s stashed in her toothbrush holder, she drifts off to giant gameboards hosting a flurry of pawns and queens and rooks on the ceiling above her. But as gifted as Beth is, she’s also severely emotionally stunted, incapable of making connections that last longer than the few minutes it takes her to checkmate her opponents. She struggles with companionship – from her childhood friend Jolene to her adoptive mother Mrs. Wheatley – preferring to confine herself to the checkered boxes she can control.

She’s a compelling heroine – flawed and self-centered and yearning to be better – which no doubt contributes to the show’s success. Netflix recently labeled The Queen’s Gambit as its most-watched scripted limited-series to date with 62 million views in the show’s first week. But there’s more to the story’s winning formula than just Taylor-Joy’s hypnotic stare and Beth’s intelligent command of a classic board game.

You wouldn’t have described chess as “sexy” before watching this series. Now, people are streaming games on Twitch and buying up boards faster than manufacturers can make them. You wouldn’t have labeled the 1960s, with its blunt micro-fringes and over-lined cat-eyes, as particularly revolutionary in terms of fashion. Yet now, people are restocking their wardrobes with Mod patterns and A-line shapes and head scarfs. The Queen’s Gambit, a period piece about a boardgame that conjures up old men in public parks, has somehow become the mecca of the pop culture zeitgeist.

Like its lead, the show defies convention at every turn, refusing to be neatly summarized by modernizing classic tropes and playing to the strengths of its traditionalist story format. The Queen’s Gambit knows we love an underdog story, but we also romanticize the notion of genius, of possessing exceptional qualities that elevates someone to something more God-like than human. (We’ve written about this form of binge-watching capital with The Last Dance.) We like to be reminded of the potential for greatness, and Beth, with all of her quirks, her oddities, her traits that make her both other and other-worldly, fits that bill. That she’s misunderstood because of her brilliance only makes her more interesting and easily idolized.

And Frank, who’s immersed us in lush landscapes and bygone eras before with his criminally underrated feminist Western Godless, has a sixth sense for mining tension from the most ordinary wells. With the help of former world champion Garry Kasparov and New York City chess coach Bruce Pandolfini as consultants, Frank has managed to craft the show’s gameplay by channeling the same element of suspense that makes some of the most nail-biting sporting events so mesmerizingly watchable. His camera flits between Taylor-Joy’s penetrating stare and a burst of lightly-defined moves on the board. A knight jumps a pawn and she smirks. A Sicilian countermove comes with closed hands and a pensive gaze. A bishop’s mistake is met with a glower and a clenched jaw. Each measured route is accentuated with the kind of wordless acting Joy has mastered in her short career, adding an element of storytelling that convinces us we understand the game and how it’s going for Beth.

But it’s not just the refreshing realization that chess can be exciting that makes this show so addictive – though the fact that we’ve all be forced to pick up odd hobbies during self-isolation probably shouldn’t be overlooked.

No, there’s a form of escapism that The Queen’s Gambit trades in that feels especially tempting right now. The show’s not asking us to imagine magic-infused alternate realities or intricate planetary systems in deep space, but it is gently nudging us to exist in a different time. A more simple time, some might say. Admittedly, it does this quite deceptively. The 60s were a time of upheaval, one that signaled revolution, especially in the light of the Civil Rights Movement, but the show foregoes any critical look at the time period and what it meant for society as a whole in favor of focusing on Beth’s absorbing quest for greatness. She’s able to block out the world, and so are we, focusing instead on the slick, stylish portrait of a bygone era. Sure, Cold War subplots are teased – at one point Beth is even recruited to spy when competing in a tournament in Russia – but Frank doesn’t treat any of the political implications of his heroine’s talent as anything more than dramatic fodder for her greater destiny.

She is a woman dominating a traditionally male field during a time when her gender was unfairly marginalized. She is young and beautiful, obtusely apathetic to how desired her talent is by the men around her. She is troubled and traumatized, happy to drink herself into oblivion rather than confront the hurts she’s suffered and she often is remorseless when she inflicts those same pains on others. It’s rare, in any series much less one that’s set in a period filled with rampant sexism, centered around a sport that was historically barred to women, that a character like Beth is allowed to exist, to struggle, to fail, and to triumph. We’d like to think that it’s this element of Frank’s story – not just his attention to detail, the glossed-over reimagining of the past, the adrenaline-packed embellishments he’s added to an old board game – that’s catapulted The Queen’s Gambit to the top of every “Best Of” list this year.

Maybe the success of this show and others like it – Hulu’s The Great, Netflix’s The Crown, – signals a new era for period dramas, one that inventively tackles a decade or comedically narrates the fall of an empire or affords the spotlight to people who wouldn’t normally warrant a seven-episode series. One that takes risks and approaches history from refreshing new angles and teaches us something while gifting us the kind of escapism we so clearly crave right now.

Whatever amalgam made The Queen’s Gambit a pop culture phenomenon this year, here’s hoping other shows can replicate its magic.

Minari is one of the year’s most-acclaimed movies, with a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score (out of 64 reviews) and plenty of awards season buzz. But according to Variety, the A24 film, about a Korean-American family that moves to a farm in Arkansas farm in search of the so-called American Dream, “will follow the precedent set by Lulu Wang’s The Farewell last year and will not be competing in the best picture categories, instead it will be considered in foreign language film because it is primarily in Korean.”

This decision has sparked a backlash because, as The Farewell director Lulu Wang pointed out, “I have not seen a more American film than #Minari this year. It’s a story about an immigrant family, IN America, pursuing the American dream. We really need to change these antiquated rules that characterizes American as only English-speaking.”

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu agreed with Wang, tweeting, “Minari is an American movie written and directed by an American filmmaker set in America with an American lead actor and produced by an American production company,” while Pachinko author Min Jin Lee added, “#Minari is an American film about new Americans. Everyone in America except for indigenous people came from somewhere else by choice or force. The English language is not an indigenous language. Enough of this nonsense about Asian-Americans being permanently foreign. I’m done.” Parasite won Best Picture at the Oscars all of 10 months ago (even if it feels like 10 years), but that wasn’t enough to convince the Globes to let Minari — a movie literally about the American Dream — to compete for Best Motion Picture — Drama.

Other reactions:

Minari opens on February 12, 2021.

(Via Variety)

On Kid Cudi’s new album Man On The Moon III: The Chosen, it seems like the track “Beautiful Trip” would be considered something of an afterthought. The album-opener is only 37 seconds long, it’s an abstract tune that serves as a quick introduction to the record, and it doesn’t seem like it’s primarily meant to be consumed as an individual work. However, the song has actually made history, as it is officially the shortest song to ever place on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

On the Hot 100 chart dated December 26, “Beautiful Trip” (which is shorter than the amount of time it probably takes to read this post) squeaked in at No. 100, presumably because it was the first track of a popular album that many people took the time to listen to when playing the full album through. “Beautiful Trip” is eight seconds shorter than the previous record-holder, which was Piko-Taro’s “PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen),” a 45-second track that reached No. 77 in October 2016. Those two songs are the only sub-minute songs to ever make the chart.

(Finneas has a writing and production credit on “Beautiful Trip,” so congratulations are in order for him as well.)

The past couple years have been active as far as chart records related to song length. Last year, Tool’s song “Fear Inoculum” became the longest one to ever appear on the Hot 100 and the only one over 10 minutes. Also last year, Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” became the shortest No. 1 song since 1965.

If you have under a minute to spare, listen to “Beautiful Trip” below. If you have more than a minute, also read our review of Man On The Moon III: The Chosen here.

In January, no one could have predicted that one of the year’s biggest comeback stories would belong to drive-in theaters. It would be a bit like predicting a resurgence of rotary phones or cassette tapes. Sure, they used to be everywhere and if you look hard enough you can still find them, but who uses them anymore? In a pandemic, however, it turns out that most anyone who wanted to see a film projected took a new interest in going to the drive-in. And why not? Watching a movie under the stars is a pleasure we gave up too soon, thanks to changing tastes, trends in real estate, and the introduction of the VCR. But they used to thrive. And for a couple of decades after World War II, they served as a natural home for stories of alien visitors and otherworldly happenings.

They did the same for a few days this summer, too.

Ahead of its Prime Video release, the film The Vast of Night played a few select drive-ins. The promotion was a bit of a gimmick, but an apt gimmick. The first feature by Oklahoma-based director Andrew Patterson, The Vast of Night is deeply influenced by ’50s and ’60s science fiction movies and TV, even using a Twilight Zone-like show as a framing device. But though the homages don’t stop there, there’s no mistaking the film for a product of another time. Scrappily made but breathtakingly original, it’s the confident vision of a filmmaker drawing a variety of influences and using the tools at his disposal — a modest, self-financed budget powered by income from directing commercials in Oklahoma — to make the movie in his head.

Nobody else was going to make it, after all. Patterson co-wrote the screenplay (under another name) with Craig W. Sanger, whose research allowed him to recreate a night in the life of a small New Mexico border town that serves as the unexpected site of some weird occurrences. (Patterson also refrains from giving himself a directing credit.)

It’s not the sort of script that follows the Robert McKee or Syd Field playbook. It begins as a long, bantery walk-and-talk between its teen protagonists, a fast-talking, small-town DJ named Everett (Jake Horowitz), and a switchboard operator with a passion for science named Fay (Sierra McCormick). It ends — well, it’s best not to say how it ends. In fact, it’s a little hard to describe even if you try.

Along the way, Patterson keeps redefining what sort of film we’re watching. There are flashes of bravura, how-did-they-do-that filmmaking, including a long, unbroken shot that moves from one side of town to another (then keeps going) accomplished partly via Go-Kart. In other scenes Patterson relies entirely on words, even dropping out the images entirely during one monologue from a never-seen radio listener named Billy (Bruce Davis) who captivates Fay and Everett with stories of mysterious covert missions performed during his time in the military. This and another, later monologue from veteran Texas actor Gail Cronauer, who plays an older woman named Mabel who remembers the town’s past, help tweak the idealized image of small-town ’50s by acknowledging the era’s racism and sexism. Billy and others like him were given top-secret assignments because no one would believe the stories of a Black man. A single mother raising an unusual child, Mabel ran into problems of her own.

Patterson shot the film in 2016 then spent the succeeding years editing it, again under another name. (Cast photos from its premiere feature a visibly older cast.) “I definitely was too close to the film,” Patterson told Indiewire’s Anne Thompson. “I thought I hadn’t gotten what I needed, I didn’t have enough coverage because of the budget. I got so close I could no longer see the magic in it.” In the end, however, he brought it all together, creating a strange, mysterious, science fiction gem whose champions came to include Steven Soderbergh.

Soderbergh knows something about starting small and working outside the system. His 1989 film Sex, Lies, and Videotape turned festival praise into commercial success, helping to kick the American independent film scene into a new gear. That scene becoming a vibrant, thriving movement that helped reshape the movie business in the 1990s. We’ll never see its’ like again. The conditions that created it no longer exist and the industry’s interest in independent films seldom extends beyond seeing it as a pipeline to the franchise world.

There are worse fates. If anyone can redefine blockbusters for the ’20s it’s Chloe Zhao and Barry Jenkins. And maybe that’s Patterson’s destiny as well. But what’s most heartening about The Vast of Night, isn’t the potential it suggests for bigger films. It’s remarkable on its own scale.

Patterson’s story of self-financing isn’t quite Robert Townshend financing Hollywood Shuffle by maxing out credit cards or Kevin Smith selling his comics to make Clerks. But he undoubtedly still had to stretch every dollar and cut as many corners as could be cut. In the end, he made a movie that no one else could have made. What’s more, that movie made it into the world, premiering at Slamdance after multiple rejections and ultimately landing just a click away (if only for subscribers to a particular streaming service, but that’s another issue).

The world Sex, Lies and Videotape helped create may have disappeared but the possibilities it suggested haven’t entirely vanished. There’s still room for small, weird movies to get made and an audience eager to embrace the best of them when they do. After all, if the drive-in can make a comeback, surely anything is possible.