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Talkhouse

Baltasar Kormákur is an Icelandic actor and filmmaker whose work spans theater, movies and television. His latest film, Apex, starring Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton and Eric Bana, is now streaming on Netflix. He is the director of Icelandic films including 101 Reykjavik, The Sea, Jar City, The Oath and The Deep, the latter of which was shortlisted for the foreign language Academy Award. Since 2008, Kormákur has directed and produced several non-Icelandic features, such as Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster and Kate Beckinsale; 2 Guns, with Denzel Washington and Wahlberg; the epic adventure movie Everest, with an ensemble cast featuring Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Sam Worthington, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Robin Wright and Jake Gyllenhaal; the ocean survival tale Adrift, starring Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin; and the survival movie Beast, starring Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley.

Baltasar Kormákur

Film

Three Great Things: Baltasar Kormákur

Through the exhaustion, it persists. Gnaw’s glowing power-pop draws deep from a tired tension: a perpetually shifting negotiation between ‘90s alt-rock romanticism, fuzzed out upon machine-gun drumming; pummeling riffs mangled through digital processing and noise; tales traversing lingering memory and motion, mesmerized by hypergaze-influenced joy rushes. Brandishing a heavy palette of power pop immediacy — equally indebted to indie rock contemporaries like Momma and Slow Pulp and ‘90s grit a la Hole and Smashing Pumpkins — the EP’s four serrated songs thrill through life’s pushes and pulls. 
On their debut EP, Inside a Machine That’s Glistening, the three-piece draws from that weighty palette to weave four songs that glow amidst the grit. There’s a curious, yet never overbearing darkness to them: confessionals channeled through Daniel Lim’s serrated guitar work, dancing between Tara Tan’s cautious, whispery vocals. Navigating a spectrum from sheer wonder (“Star”) to fear (“Gash”) and fatigue (“This Is My Life”), Tan’s personal stories shift from dreamy to dramatic. Meanwhile, drummer Zakhran Khan’s fine-tuned rhythms rip into these sincere questions, at times accelerating to torrents of catharsis, while at others simply adding to moments triumphant.

Gnaw

Music

Mood Board: Gnaw’s Inside a Machine That’s Glistening

Podcast

Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” with Amelia Heath (Sylvan Esso)

765: Inside Steak Zine, Cake Zine’s Medium-Rare New Issue

935. – Jago Rackham

Christian Stadsgaard, also known as his solo moniker Vanity Productions, has become a crucial figure in the contemporary Nordic electronic and experimental music scenes in the past decade.
Standing at the helm of the label Posh Isolation with Loke Rahbek, Stadsgaard is responsible for one of the most consistent and compelling labels to both define and elaborate the many productive sides of the underground in the last decade. As a performing and recording artist his work with Rahbek as Damien Dubrovnik was a critical project in the contemporary noise milieu throughout the 2010s. More recently his collaborative work with Jonas Rönnberg (Varg2™) and Isak Hansen as The Empire Line has gained significant notoriety.
However, it&#8217;s in Vanity Productions that the full breadth of the emotive intensity of Stadsgaard&#8217;s work is expressed. His collaboration with the seminal artist Merzbow in 2019 led to his Coastal Erosion album for iDEAL Recordings, prefacing a recent series of works that take their cues from minimalist composition.
The latest Vanity Productions record, The Vanity Project, is out now on Northern Electronics.

Vanity Productions

Vanity Productions and Varg2™ Want Real Anti-Culture to Come Back

David Dastmalchian’s latest film <a href="http://www.samuelgoldwynfilms.com/all-creatures-here-below/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">All Creatures Here Below</a>, which he both wrote and stars in with Karen Gillan, is in theaters from May 17 through Samuel Goldwyn Films. The film is his second collaboration with director Collin Schiffli; Dastmalchian won a Special Jury Prize for Courage in Storytelling at SXSW 2014 for their previous film, Animals, which he also wrote and acted in. Dastmalchian made his feature acting debut in Christopher Nolan&#8217;s The Dark Knight and has been a regular in Denis Villeneuve&#8217;s films, including Prisoners, Blade Runner 2049 and the upcoming Dune. He played Kurt in Marvel Studios&#8217; Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and on TV appeared as Murdoc in MacGyver and Pit Boss Warrack in Twin Peaks: The Return.

David Dastmalchian

Nick Dawson talks with filmmakers, musicians and comedians whose work he loves, avoiding the mundane, predictable questions they&#8217;ve heard numerous times and instead asking substantive, thoughtful questions that get to the heart of who they are.

Nobody’s Ever Asked Me That

Nobody’s Ever Asked Me That: David Dastmalchian

295 | What Are The Elements Of A Good Scene? SUPERCUT

John Magaro is currently starring in the family drama <a href="https://omaha.film/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Omaha</a>, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and is in theaters from April 24. His other recent films include September 5, also starring Peter Sarsgaard, and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride, starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, with Josh O’Connor. On the small screen, he starred in the CIA series The Agency, with Michael Fassbender and Jodie Turner-Smith. His previous notable film credits include Celine Song’s Past Lives, Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow and Showing Up, David Chase’s The Many Saints of Newark and Not Fade Away, Adam McKay’s Oscar-winning The Big Short and Todd Haynes’ Carol. His other TV credits include The Umbrella Academy, Jack Ryan, Orange is the New Black and The Good Wife.

All Articles

Three Great Things: Baltasar Kormákur

Mood Board: Gnaw’s Inside a Machine That’s Glistening

Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” with Amelia Heath (Sylvan Esso)

765: Inside Steak Zine, Cake Zine’s Medium-Rare New Issue

935. – Jago Rackham

Vanity Productions and Varg2™ Want Real Anti-Culture to Come Back

Nobody’s Ever Asked Me That: David Dastmalchian

295 | What Are The Elements Of A Good Scene? SUPERCUT

Three Great Things: John Magaro

Folk Bitch Trio

All Song Song :: Scott Bunn on “Boom Boom Boom”

764: Halal Pastures Is Your Favorite NYC Chef’s Favorite Farm

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