John Cox

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Tagged indie · everything

5 More Great Recent Sci-Fi Movies Nobody Talks About

Ranking of five underappreciated modern sci-fi films worth revisiting: Life, Colossal, James vs. His Future Self, Totally Killer, and The Endless, topping the list. It argues these titles deserve far more recognition than they get, having been overshadowed either by genre oversaturation, limited studio backing, or straight-to-streaming releases rather than any lack of quality. Each entry gets a short case for why it excels—from Life's effective horror execution to Colossal's blend of kaiju spectacle and personal drama to The Endless's unsettling low-budget craft—making the piece a handy watchlist for genre fans wanting picks beyond the usual 80s/90s nostalgia.

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Shameika by Fiona Apple on Apple Music

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Fiona Apple's fifth album, recorded alone in her Los Angeles home over eight years, channels anxiety and claustrophobia through a deliberately lo-fi sound dominated by live drums and minimal production that somehow feels perfectly timed for pandemic isolation. The album strips away the lush arrangements of her previous work, replacing them with raw percussion and Apple's characteristically sharp, unflinching lyrics that blend personal rage with societal anger without sacrificing wit or playfulness.

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Kick Stones (The Boys) by Westside Cowboy on Apple Music

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Westside Cowboy's debut album *It Goes On* is built around an emergent thematic concern with time and motion that the Manchester quartet discovered only after completing the record, though this pattern manifests across the 11 tracks as a balance between youthful exuberance and compositional depth. Produced by Geese collaborator Loren Humphrey, the album spans emotive guitar pop, dusty Americana, and euphoric builds, with the band deliberately aiming for it to sound young and energetic rather than overly polished or mature. In a track-by-track breakdown, the band discuss how many songs nearly didn't make the cut due to internal doubts, how they drew inspiration from LCD Soundsystem and Future Islands, and how the final two tracks were preserved from pre-production demos specifically to end the album on a note of quiet uplift rather than grand emotional catharsis.

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