CONTRARIAN SUMMER

If the world is really as awful as everybody says it is, maybe the most useful thing you can do is try to sniff out whatever joy it has left to offer. The Reasons to Be Cheerful Issue is the new issue of Vice magazine, a juicy summer spectacular inspired by a deep fatigue of people whining all the time. In its 120 pages, you will find a new upper that might go on to become the next ecstasy, just with none of the crashing lows. You will find photos from a macabre yet cathartic Indian death party that will etch themselves upon your psyche indelibly. You will find a potential solution for climate change that involves nuking the Earth’s crust. 

Who would dare say these are dull times to live in? Subscribe to Vice magazine by Friday, August 29 to make sure you receive The Reasons to Be Cheerful Issue as the first in your package. If it turns out to be a little too buoyant for your tastes, you can always roll the magazine up into a tube, and cry into it.

DEFUND HOLLYWOOD

For all that punchy fighting talk about going against the grain, there is one consensus opinion that’s near impossible to deny: Hollywood is drowning in an effluent slop of big money reboots, remakes, sequels, prequels, and those absurd live-action re-renderings that make you feel like you have travel sickness. However, while basically everyone agrees with the diagnosis, no one can seem to come up with a cure.

Enter Vice debutante Rafael Holmberg, armed with an intriguing new idea: What if Hollywood were seized by the U.S. government and forced to abide by a set of strict state regulations? The only reason many of these bloated franchise films exist is because of money. If you slashed budgets and took away the profit motive, maybe you’d get less awful art?

Read Rafael’s argument in full here.

See you in the next world,

Kevin Lee Kharas
Editor, VICE magazine

To get past the paywall, sign up for Vice membership. A Digital Only subscription is $2 a month, while $70 a year gets you the full digital package plus 4 issues of Vice magazine delivered straight to your door.