Chris Cornell died tonight at the age of 52. It was an unexpected death and one that hits particularly hard for me. That music, those lyrics, that voice. You’ll never know much they helped me see the light through the dark times. My dude ain’t ever gonna be pigeon-holed. Grunge, alt-metal, whatever. It ain’t happening. He was larger than life. He was an icon. I knew it from the first time my high-strung adolescent ass clicked that play button on my lime-green first-generation iPod mini and blasted “Black Hole Sun” through those janky, beat-up ear buds and forgot about the world. All those confused nights at 3 AM listening to “I Am The Highway,” trying to talk myself off the figurative ledge and baring my soul into words. The religion that was that ethereal live performance of “One.” How that stuck with me for literally entire weeks worth of long walks through campus. Soundgarden, Audioslave, Temple. It was all real to me, dammit. Greatest vocalist of my lifetime. And not just a vocalist. A poet. Harrowing imagery elevated to greater heights, mountaintop heights through unmatched vocal delivery. Yeah, that’s more like it. An artist’s artist. A legend. Maybe you call him the voice of a generation, maybe you don’t. I just know he was often times my voice. He spoke to me. Directly to me. Still get chills thinking about all those high notes, all that symbolism, all those verses. Every last one. And here I was thinking that Weiland’s death had affected me the most. Damn, damn, damn. We ain’t ever gonna forget what you blessed us with, brother. Raising two fingers to the sky tonight and bumping “Say Hello 2 Heaven” as the evening fades into oblivion. Rest in power, Chris. Say hello.

As perplexing as it is compelling, Jude Law’s portrayal of Lenny Belardo, the titular character, takes a deep dive into profoundly uncharted waters for both television and culture as a whole. Here we have a chainsmoking, unapologetically domineering Yankee who uproots the Vatican establishment to become the youngest Holy Father in the history of modern Roman Catholicism at the spry age of just 47. In the process, Belardo rebukes classic dogma, emasculates senior members of the clergy, and stops at nothing to affirm his own independence and authority, perhaps to mask the fact that he is still very much in the process of his own self-discovery.

Stylistically and visually, The Young Pope, a brainchild of famed Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, is a stunning display. Its overall spatial conception is quite clever in that every room, every garden, every painting comes across as large and grandiose, perhaps as a metaphor for the awesome responsiblities of the papacy, especially for somebody as naive and untried as Belardo. The contrast in lighting is also brilliantly unsettling as it goes from the vibrant images of St. Peter’s Square and the Sistine Chapel by the day to sinister visions of the dark political underbelly and ulterior motives of the Catholic Church (albeit, in fictionalized form) by night. But that’s not what makes it such a fascinating production. Nor is it even all the dank meme content that it blessed our TLs with in recent weeks.

Rather, what makes this show so riveting is that it is somehow both perversion and reflection of the times. On the one hand, Belardo is the complete antithesis of our current pontiff Pope Francis, a humble, forward-thinking leader who seeks to tend to our least advantaged brethren rather than to exploit them, to show mercy rather than to show vanity, to serve rather than to be served. It’s also downright absurd to suggest that a figure like Belardo could rise to the top of an institution where the 1978 election of a soft-spoken 58-year-old Pole named Karol Wojtyła (better known these days as Saint John Paul II) was unprecedented enough.

But at the same time, The Young Pope might not be all that far off from our current reality. We’re living in an era where brash demagogues with a dangerous lack of experience can ascend to the highest duties in the land. Where big egos forcibly attempt to command our respect and attention at every turn imaginable. Where up is down, down is up, and not sorry is the new sorry. Where sometimes the bad guys win and win and win and win.

One particular scene from the pilot episode of the show comes to mind. In it, the newly-elected Belardo sits in his office consulting with Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Voiello, an old school conservative who finds himself butting heads with Belardo on many occassions. As Voiello goes on exalting the policies and the practices of his predecessors, Belardo interjects with an ominous declaration:

“The past is an enormous place with all sorts of things inside… Not so with the present. The present is merely a narrow opening with room for only one pair of eyes… Mine.”

Well, this right here is our present. And in this present, there is room for only one single question: does art imitiate life or does life imitate art? Together with Lenny Belardo, we’re about to find out.

Abel Tesfaye is a fascinating man. And that’s largely because he continues to redefine and reimagine who Abel Tesfaye actually is.

As Tesfaye, better known by his stage name The Weeknd, dives headfirst into his third studio album Starboy, it’s clear that a radical identity shift is underway for him. This time a year ago, the Canadian phenom was on top of the universe. “Can’t Feel My Face” was still in the midst of its scorched-earth crusade through the record charts, teaming up with its jagged, bass-stuffed counterpart “The Hills” to carry Beauty Behind the Madness to Spotify supremacy and give Tesfaye his first number-one album. Meanwhile, Tesfaye rode the ensuing wave of mega-popularity to award show performances left and right, collaborations with some of the biggest artists in the industry, and a gig swapping saliva with Bella Hadid, one of the most sought-after supermodels on the planet.

But with last week’s release of his new album’s eponymous lead single last week, times have changed for Tesfaye. Gone is the big hair, the grapevine curls that had become his trademark look. A figment of the past is the poppy, funk-inspired sound that propelled him to the mountaintop. In its stead, a more mature, dystopian vibe that puts an evolutionary twist on his dark R&B roots. The message Tesfaye appears to be conveying? I’m still a got damn star, but I’m sure as hell not gonna conform to the labels you put on my music or the expectations/limitations you place on me as an artist. Another pop star washout quickly nearing the end of his 15 minutes of fame? Think again.

Oh, and if Tesfaye’s rebrand campaign wasn’t obvious enough already, the music video literally opens with him killing the past version of himself and proceeding to destroy all of the gold and platinum albums in his house with a blunt object that’s probably best described as a Jesus lightsaber.

It’s one part Kylo Ren, one part Orwellian performance art, one part Fast and the Furious, and all parts badass. Such a display will do no favors towards assuaging the modern-day Michael Jackson comparisons that have followed Tesfaye throughout his career either, especially given its stark resemblance to themes touched on by Jackson in the extended version of the “Black or White” music video back in 1991, a time when the King of Pop was going through a similar reevaluation of his place in society. Facing growing scrutiny/intrusion from the tabloids thanks to his changing physical appearance and his increasingly bizarre personal life, Jackson got away from it all by using “Black or White” and the ensuing album Dangerous as an opportunity to reinvent himself as a musician, one who was infinitely more socially-conscious but who also embraced an edgier, post-pop sound to broaden his appeal to younger audiences and to affirm his transcendent greatness to the masses. Simply put, it was Starboy before Starboy was Starboy. Raw, destructive energy? Check. Smashing things cathartically? Check. Dancing up a cloud of smoke and broken glass? Check. Hell, the panther sitting in the passenger seat of the luxury sports car with Tesfaye may very well be the same CGI panther that Jackson morphed into some two-and-a-half decades earlier.

Tesfaye has always had an intriguing sort of MJ-on-cocaine appeal about him. But even the Herculean task of carrying Jackson’s spirit animal with him into the 2010s might be selling Tesfaye’s talents short. The stratosphere’s the limit for the 26-year-old sensation, who is just entering the prime of his artistic career. We see it through his vibrant neo-noir promotional images for Starboy, which very soon may have Quentin Taratino knocking on Tesfaye’s door arm-in-arm with his copyright lawyer. We hear it through the gritty, chaotic essence of “False Alarm” (the second and only other track off the album to be released so far), a song featuring coarse alt-rock samples so captivating that you briefly forget you’re not listening to something by post-1996 Radiohead. And we’re about to taste it through the crow Tesfaye will be having us eat once the album drops in its entirety on November 25 for having the nerve to write him off as a one-and-done.

No ceiling, no labels, no stopping him. All weekends may come to an end, but this one is coming for the throne. Hold onto your Grammys, folks.

Three more years of Jeff?

“Seven and nine, fam”

Officially, laziness/sloth is one of the seven deadly sins in the Christian tradition and, unofficially, is THE deadly sin of the entertainment industry. But these days, Hollywood might as well just curl its slow-moving tail around a tree branch and audition for a part in the new “Ice Age” film.

News broke earlier this week that a reboot of the 1994 cult classic “The Crow” is in the works and is expected to begin production in January 2017. Jason Momoa of “Game of Thrones” fame is slated to play the title character of Eric Draven, and it will be directed by one Colin Hardy (whose IMDB page isn’t exactly “War and Peace”).

Perhaps this is particularly offensive to me as somebody who was born in 1994 and has always romanticized “The Crow” as one of the five must-see movies of that magnificent year in which I came into existence (along with “Forrest Gump,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Speed,” and “Pulp Fiction”). But seeing as we’ve already been punished in the last seven months alone with a contemptible “Zoolander 2” sequel, an indefensible-at-best “Ghostbusters” remake, an uninspired and poorly-executed “Ben-Hur” reboot that probably had Charlton Heston rolling over in the grave, and a summer box office season even more lethargic than a James Harden defensive sequence, my guess is that I’m not the only one who’s fed up.

We’re not even just talking about respect for the dead here, the original movie being the final cinematic appearance of Brandon Lee, whose life was cut tragically short by an accidental shooting while on set of the film. But we’re talking about respect for a work of art, for a film whose themes of revenge and gothic escapism spoke to angsty teens and disillusioned elders alike in the chaotic backdrop of the grungy mid-90s (and would later go on to help inspire Heath Ledger’s unforgettable performance as The Joker in “The Dark Knight” nearly a decade-and-a-half later).

Simply put, “The Crow” is an ageless microcosm of a bygone era that is better off being remembered for what it was instead of trying to be redone into something that it’s not. While there’s definitely a time and a place for reboots of classic films (Marvel appears to have nailed this down pretty well in recent years) because everybody tires by the umpteenth Melissa McCarthy slapstick and the kajillionth Kevin Hart buddy comedy, if Hollywood were to have a canonical “Do Not Remake” list to go off of, “The Crow” would likely be right up there in the same breath as “Back To The Future,” “The Breakfast Club,” and every Stanley Kubrick film ever.

Apparently, this project has been in the works for many years now, so I guess we should be thanking our lucky stars for making it this far without having to be exposed to that grand malarkey (shoutout Joe Biden). But now that it finally appears to be happening, I think back to Draven’s most famous line from the film:

Well my friends, it looks like this reboot is going to truly put that quote of his to the test.