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Rural Entertainment Roundup: What To Watch This Summer [1]
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Date: 2024-05-30
Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, a newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, retrospectives, recommendations, and more. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.
With the Memorial Day weekend behind us, we’ve now entered the season of blockbuster movies, music festivals, and summer anthems. In that spirit, it seems like a good time for another rural entertainment roundup. Below you’ll find a smattering of media our staff have been enjoying in recent days. We’d love to hear what’s got you buzzing these days too, whether you’re digging into a new page turner to accompany your vacation travels or finally catching up on your TV backlog.
Scavengers Reign
The genre “adult animation” almost always refers to irreverent fare, from “Family Guy” to “South Park,” but the animated series “Scavengers Reign” represents something much different. It foregoes explicit humor in favor of a serious science fiction story about survival on an unforgiving alien planet. It uses the animated medium to its fullest, conjuring up utterly unique and fantastical flora, fauna, and ecosystems.
It’s impressive how these natural systems are entirely alien and unrecognizable but also fully-formed, holistic, and tied into the storytelling in thoughtful and creative ways. Its art is reminiscent of the works of the French cartoonist Moebius, and as one user on the social network Letterboxd aptly put it: “’Interstellar’ is sci-fi for physics buffs, ‘Blade Runner’ is for philosophy, ‘Arrival’ is for linguistics, I could keep going but THIS is for biology nerds and it’s phenomenal.”
“Scavengers Reign” originally premiered on the streaming platform Max, and reports are the show will not continue there. But the first season is coming to Netflix on May 31 and its fans (myself included) hope the show may survive and find a future there.
Scavengers Reign is currently streaming on Max and will be available on Netflix starting on May 31.
The Avett Brothers – Country Kid
I’m no expert, but Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” appears to be the current front runner for song of the summer. If you’re looking for an alternative, here’s a dark horse candidate for all the rural folks out there.
This track, from the Avetts’ new self-titled album, struck quite a chord among the Daily Yonder team. Here’s a sample that stood out to Daily Yonder editor Tim Marema:
Six feet of air on a plywood ramp
Dad’s welding machine parked where I would land
All I could taste was blood
All I could feel was the rocks in the palms of my hands
“Bonfire parties in the woods, basketball in the dirt, riding the school bus, trailer parks, pickups. It’s funny how a song like this has a lot of the same words as ‘Bro Country’ but none of the sentimentality and tropes,” Tim shares. “The song also mentions hiding cigarettes from your parents, schoolyard fights, and learning more on the bus than in school.”
Thinking back to my own small-town youth, I’d say it captures the vibes pretty well. Give it a listen and see if you agree.
The Avett Brothers released on May 17, 2024 and is available for purchase or streaming wherever you get your music.
First Cow and Frybread Face and Me
“There’s no denying that deep fried dough is delicious. Everyone agrees and every culture has their version of a fried bread.”
These words, from Indigenous chef Nico Albert Williams, come from the first episode of our newest Rural Remix podcast series, “Rural Food Traditions.”
Listening to Nico talk about the complex history of fry bread brought to mind two recent films. My recommendation: 2019’s “First Cow,” based on the 2004 novel “The Half-Life” by Jonathan Raymond. It follows two men struggling to survive in the rugged frontier of the American Northwest circa 1820. They find success — and hopes for a better life — by selling fried “sweet oily cakes” at a local trading post, but it all depends upon milk stolen in secret from a rich landowner’s prized cow.
The film’s storytelling is simple and spare, but it sits at a compelling intersection of food, class, power, and possibility. Just like the story Nico tells, it showcases a complex history while capturing the deep sense of comfort and contentment that food can offer, even or especially in a hard world.
My colleague Marty Newell, meanwhile, recommends, “Frybread Face and Me,” a 2023 film about an Indigenous youth from the city who spends a summer on the Navajo reservation with his grandmother. He calls it a “sweet film” and critics concurred, calling it a heartfelt and engaging coming-of-age story that thrives in getting the details right. IndieWire described it as a “winning summertime companion” to “Reservation Dogs,” writing in its review, “there’s both specificity and universality to this story, something for everyone who was ever a kid, Native or not, to connect with.”
You can listen to Rural Remix wherever you get your podcasts. First Cow is available for rental or purchase on various digital video platforms. Frybread Face and Me is currently streaming on Netflix.
Dune: Part Two
There’s plenty 2024 yet to go, but “Dune: Part Two” has been my favorite moviegoing experience of the year so far. I had aspirations of writing more about it in this space upon its release, but whatever could have come of that would have been matched or exceeded by this wonderful piece in The Conversation: How ‘Dune’ became a beacon for the fledgling environmental movement − and a rallying cry for the new science of ecology.
With “Dune: Part Two” now available on streaming, it seemed like a great time to give it a fresh plug. If you haven’t yet watched the new “Dune” films, consider this your latest nudge to check them out. And if you have seen them, this is a great way to learn more about the origins and inspirations of the story, rooted in the natural environments of coastal Oregon and Washington and the traditions of the Indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest.
Dune: Part Two is now streaming on Max.
Outer Range: Season 2
When we covered the first season of “Outer Range,” I came away with mixed feelings. I was intrigued by the setup, something like “Yellowstone” meets “The Twilight Zone,” but I was let down by the show’s fixation with its own secrets and puzzles. It felt akin to the impulses of shows like “LOST” or “Westworld” at their worst moments, propelled forward by peddling constant mysteries rather than crafting a satisfying plot or emotional journey for its characters. That was exemplified in a finale that generated far more new questions rather than offering any answers or resolutions, even partial ones.
Yet here we are two years later, with the second season of “Outer Range” released and ready to continue to the story. The relative lack of conversation about the new season, compared to the buzz I recall surrounding the first, may prove my point about leaving viewers hanging on the cliff for such a long time. Still, if you haven’t jumped into “Outer Range” perhaps you’ll find a more complete and satisfying story waiting for you now, worthy of its promising premise.
This article first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, recommendations, retrospectives, and more. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered straight to your inbox.
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