Diva Village Queen Gabee (YouTube channel Diva Gabee Girl)
Yoon Haein: As American celebrity Queen Gabee,  who is hounded by paparazzi and swarmed by her 572 different managers, makes the rounds on her stay in Korea. Diva Village Queen Gabee, a mockumentary on Korean dancer Gabee’s YouTube channel, takes cues from US reality shows of the early 2000s that followed real American celebrities and runs with the idea. The pastiche comes complete with realistic touches like B-roll footage shot on drones, public airing of celebrities’ dirty laundry, interviews rife with petty backstabbing, and an all-too-familiar way about which the celebs talk to their producers on camera. If you look at the comments below the videos, you’ll find people talking about how they almost forgot what it was like watching the real shows back when they were on cable.

But there’s more to love about the show than just flattery through imitation. Viewers can’t get over how the “famous” Queen Gabee, dressed in borderline provocative outfits, hopelessly contrasts against uber-Korean backdrops like Sinchon’s “wedding street,” the office of a matchmaking service, and Lafesta mall in the city of Ilsan. Add to that the director’s ridiculously lethargic, timid way of talking, the intricate fact-dropping captions, and the ever-present, deathly serious music, and the Queen Gabee universe will have you in stitches on every frame. But the shining center is no doubt Gabee herself, with her pitch-perfect portrayal of the celeb who goes overboard on the word “like” every time she speaks and walks around in flashy clothes and makeup—right down to the looks she shoots others and even the hand gestures she makes. If you’re having trouble picturing it, start with “The Arrival of the Apex Predator.” The insane verbal volleyball between Gabee and guest star Lee Eunji makes it impossible to tell what’s scripted and what’s improvised. The episode’s also a perfect encapsulation of the whole show’s underlying concept in a nutshell and has a surprisingly(?) solid plot.

Deadpool & Wolverine
Jeong Seohui (Cinema Journalist): “F**k you, Fox! I’m going to Disneyland!” With its acquisition of Fox complete, Disney’s first order of business was to find a clever way of merging the X-Men and Marvel Cinematic Universes. The best approach turned out to be the most straightforward one, and thus was born Marvel’s first R-rated movie, Deadpool & Wolverine. Used car dealer and former superhero Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) gets roped into the inner workings of the TVA (Time Variance Authority) and learns his universe is on the brink of collapse due to the death of its key anchoring figure, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). This sets the backdrop against which Deadpool’s fate becomes interlinked with Wolverine—a version of him entirely different from the one who died in the 2017 film Logan—through the magic of the multiverse, and acts as a pretext to bring the two cinematic universes together. As a rite of passage for the X-Men coming under Deadpool’s wing, Marvel doesn’t hold the crude-as-ever, constantly fourth-wall-breaking Deadpool back from dishing out a heaping helping of self-critical meta-commentary about “the whole multiverse thing” being “miss after miss” while keeping itself cushioned in the series’ signature self-awareness. From the refreshing but bloody opening involving digging up a corpse to all the action sequences you’d expect from a blockbuster, plus the proper reverence it pays to the X-Men franchise, the film makes sure to meet fan expectations along the way. Viewers will need to have a pretty solid foundation of knowledge surrounding the inner workings of the fictional universe to fully appreciate Deadpool & Wolverine, giving it something of a high barrier to entry, but everyone can relate to superheroes when they’re just trying to live a safe, happy life with their loved ones. As Deadpool says, “sometimes the people we save, save us right back.” What the movie ultimately gives us is a mash-up between the heroism Deadpool tries to put up a front against and Wolverine’s unwavering courageousness.

Official HIGE DANdism - Rejoice
Hwang Sunup (Music Critic): After the long challenge that was the pandemic, when concertgoers everywhere were finally able to attend shows mask-free, they learned what it means to regain something that you once took for granted. The band Official HIGE DANdism no doubt got a taste of that same kind of delight once they were able to get back in the artist’s saddle and work on their fourth studio album. After frontman Satoshi Fujihara discovered he had polyps on his vocal cords, the band was forced to put touring on pause, laboring in the recording studio a year and a half to give birth to a new album. Their new music shows a renewed appreciation for the desire to make music that’s been with them since their debut, as well as for their loyal fans, who patiently supported the group in tough times, and you can practically hear them smiling, even more so than usual, as they perform every track.

The band announces this new chapter with the album opener, “Finder,” which picks up where their previous release, Editorial, left off on its final track, “Lost In My Room,” with strikingly filtered vocals. Despite having a massive 16 tracks, the way they so fully enjoy pushing boundaries makes the new album enticing from start to finish. The album moves onto “Get Back To Jinsei,” an undulating city pop revival with a HIGEDAN twist, which is followed immediately by “Mixed Nuts,” a track that perfectly captures the essence of the band with its tight drumming—a rare find in mainstream rock. There’s also “Nichijo,” which feels like a cross between a Noriyuki Makihara pop song and the heartfelt Mr.Children single “innocent world.” And those all come before you even get to the album’s halfway point.

One of the most standout tracks here that wasn’t issued as a single is “Urami Tsurami Kiwami.” With its combination of retro synths, uplifting message, and somewhat disorienting outro, the song feels like the band’s putting on a weary smile after successfully coming out the other side of a particularly tough time. Although there’s no discounting the band’s amazing vocals and obvious talent on their respective instruments, what’s given them the power to put out hit after hit without chasing trends likely comes down to their deep musical knowledge rooted in music by Black artists. The pure enjoyment they’ve found after a long slog through dark times becomes for us, the listeners, a collection of songs we can relish to our hearts’ content.