Nineteen hundred and twenty dollars and ten weeks into a post-concussion treatment, you begin to lose your mind.

The worst part about existing in a constant state of confusion and pain is not that my brain is swollen, but rather that the American healthcare system is so much worse than my hand-eye-brain coordination that I do not have access to a doctor. Even without health insurance, every part of my body unanimously agrees that it wants to heal, whereas our nation further divides itself amongst “alt-rights” and “alt-lefts.”

When I received my first concussion within the same month that my health insurance terminated, I was unconcerned. Concussions heal within three to seven days. But after five consecutive doctor visits and 14 days of bedrest in a dark room without any access to a phone or laptop, I was scared. At first, STAMPS referred me to a neurologist, which seems basic enough.

Simple instructions — go to a professional. Except I couldn’t. Medicaid, the government-funded health insurance provided for children from low-income families, terminates at the age of 19. My birthday had just happened two weeks ago. For the first time in my life, I held an overwhelming uncertainty about tomorrow. I couldn’t drive, work or read at the time. How was I going to pull enough money together to get coverage? My family was out of the country and I couldn’t call anyone. I was alone. How did I get this screwed over this fast? How was I thrust into a world of pure and utter independence when I had started college a year ago?

And suddenly, the dehumanized statistics and mildly detached debates by Democrats and Republicans became relevant. They were more than far-off disagreements that I pretended to understand and talk about with my liberal friends. For the first time in my life, politics directly affected me and my today. I was one of the 28.2 million. And it sucked. Everyone else had an opinion on what to do with my life and no one could agree what was best. I just wanted to be able to see a doctor. Trump wanted to “Repeal and Replace.” The Republicans wanted to just repeal. Democrats were struggling for control in Congress and throwing tantrums across the nation. No one was willing to compromise to create a solution, and 28.2 million lives were at risk.

Thanks to years and years of brewing conflicts and an evergrowing divide, I — and 28,199,999 others — do not have basic access to a doctor or dentist.

The United States healthcare system is more confusing than my relationship with my ex. It is more unstable than Francium and more convoluted than registering for Two-Factor Authentication.

We need to get our sh*t together on health insurance. I don’t care what political party or view you identify with. The only enemy I see is ourselves. We need stability. We, as a nation, need a healthcare system that isn’t in a constant state of dilapidation. According to Google, the United States healthcare system is a privatized one. Except, most people who need health insurance rely on government-provided care. So why are we the ones getting the most cuts? Why are we denied basic access to healthcare and then blamed for it? At this rate, using a balloon as a condom is more reliable than the United States healthcare system.

The Good

Justin who? Looks like the Jackets might be just fine under center.
TaQuon Marshall shone in his first game starting as quarterback, setting the Tech record for rushing touchdowns, making an incredible 44 carries, and rushing for 249 yards – one of the finest offensive performances by a Tech QB arguably ever. The rest of the offense, despite being hampered by the loss of BB Dedrick Mills and an injury to AB Clinton Lynch, was superb, providing 635 total yards of offense, impressive even against a porous Vols stop unit.

Paul Johnson’s vision of the triple-option death march was on full display, as Tech ate up the clock (41:18 time of possession) and steadily outgained Tennessee 635-369. Despite having all summer to prepare for the triple option, Tennessee’s defense looked completely helpless against it all game.

The offense continues its trend of unsung B-backs bursting onto the scene. Two years ago, it was Marcus Marshall against Alcorn State. Last year, it was Dedrick Mills’ entire freshman campaign. With Marshall and Mills’ careers in white and gold finished, it was redshirt sophomore KirVonte Benson’s turn. Benson rushed for more than 100 yards and a touchdown, but more importantly, only eight of his carries (including a one-yard score) earned less than four yards. That consistency will help the Jackets grind out games as the season goes on.

The Bad

With the game on the line, the Tech defense repeatedly folded. As Head Coach Paul Johnson noted in his post-game press conference, a defense that is offered long spells of rest as Tech’s was, thanks in large part to methodical offensive drives, should have no issues with
fatigue late in the game. Yet by the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Jackets’ defense was showing weakness.

The game began well for Ted Roof’s group, which forced four punts and a turnover on downs in six first half drives. It would only go downhill from there. The Volunteers scored touchdowns on five of their last seven drives (including a two-for-two performance in overtime.) The pass rush flagged, tackling form declined and the players who looked so dominant a few hours before were painfully mortal.

Special teams are off to a rough start. The obvious concern is redshirt kicker Shawn Davis, who missed both field goal attempts, including a 36-yard chip at the end of regulation. Davis’s difficulties, especially in high pressure spots, likely factored into Johnson’s decision to go for the two point conversion in the second overtime rather than attempting another point-after try.

Johnson suggested after the game that he would try another kicker. Changes may also be made to the kickoff coverage team, which allowed multiple long returns and afforded the Volunteers a critical advantage in field positions, even when they did not capitalize.

The Rest

A game in Atlanta could not be complete without a traffic jam.
Immediately following the game, Tech and Tennessee fans alike were stuck at Mercedes Benz Stadium as MBS staff faced difficulties funneling fan traffic effectively. Reportedly, fans were funneled to dead-ends and forced into already crowded areas, and it took much longer for fans to leave than expected from the 100-level sections. Such issues must be worked out before the Atlanta Falcons open their home schedule in two weeks.

The Jackets now own an ignonimous
piece of history. Tech’s 535 rushing yards were the most in the past 10 years in a loss, courtesy of ESPN Stats. The 535 rushing yards were also the most Tennessee had ever allowed.

Tech’s failure on the two-point conversion was less about playcalling and more about execution. A frustrated Paul Johnson described the play as a “walk-in” if run correctly. The option allowed Marshall to take it himself (foiled by blocking failures) or toss it to KirVonte Benson (foiled by a late toss). Instead, Marshall was stuffed and a desperate heave to Benson was of no avail. The Volunteers and their fans celebrated, and somehow, the Jackets walked off the field without a win despite controlling the clock for the majority of the game.

The team will have to shake off the result in time for a quick turnaround.

Another year of sports is starting and Tech fans have already let me down. In what was supposed to be one of the biggest matchups of the early season, Tech fans failed to turn out.

Not just few and far between, but bunches, easily seen from the vantage point granted to me. Sure, there were people who never reached their seats, instead opting to watch the game from one of the balconies or the field-level restaurants. However, for a game that sets the tone for the season, the turnout was lackluster.

For a neutral site game that was only one in name, the fan turnout was disappointing. Should I expect anything different at this point though? The athletic department announced that all of the seats offered for Tech were sold out, but the only people selling out so far this season are Tech fans.

On any given day, one can walk into Tech Rec and instantly forget about the stresses of the outside world. Located inside the Student Center and open Monday through Saturday, the Tech Rec provides a place in the center of campus where students can unplug and become immersed in an entirely different, exciting and social environment.

“Tech Rec has a hugely positive impact on the community,” said Matt Jones, a Tech Rec student manager. “It’s a place where you can come and do something not school related. You forget you’re on campus, and you can just relax and become part of the community atmosphere.”

As a student manager, Jones gets a first-hand look at how Tech Rec is evolving and how the space can affect individuals and the whole community.

The launching of new initiatives and programs to make Tech Rec more accessible and enjoyable for students has been part of the evolution Jones observes.

“This past spring, we started free play Monday,” Jones said. “If you have a Buzzcard, everything is free until 5 p.m., and what we’ve seen is that there’s been a huge increase in the number of people who come in to use the space, a huge uptick in rentals.”

Moreover, events such as the upcoming Billiards Class and Bowling Class will be key to helping continue this trend of success and in making sure people can enjoy all that Tech Rec offers.

“Before, people didn’t really know Tech Rec was here,” Jones continued. “Now, we see groups of people that had never been here before coming in and playing a game of bowling between classes, or just sitting down to eat lunch.”

This change in pace at Tech Rec, however, has not been without plenty of work by the staff. Since its opening in the 1970s, Tech Rec has been constantly evolving to meet the needs of the Tech community.

Whether it is new games, renovations or activities, Tech Rec has needed to stay on its toes to ensure that the space is useful and exciting for students.

“We have new paint, we just finished installing new TVs and we plan on upgrading our gaming systems in the near future,” Jones said of the recent changes to Tech Rec. “All of these things help to engage the students and make Tech Rec more inviting.”

Central to keeping Tech Rec up-to-date is feedback from students and other patrons.

“People really like bowling and they really like billiards, while video games, for instance aren’t as popular,” said Jones. “When we see that, we either make changes that will hopefully make more people interested, or evaluate if better use could be made of the space.”

Actively working to make Tech Rec better has been key to maintaining Tech Rec’s positive impact and is reflected in the feedback given by students.

“We’ve been getting a ton of awesome feedback from our surveys, and they show that Tech Rec has been improving year after year,” Jones said. “It’s great to see our impact increasing as we continue to add more features and as people continue to find what interests them at Tech Rec.”

The diversity of opportunities and the uniqueness offered by Tech Rec are what make it so special and a place to be visited, according to Jones.

“Not that many schools have something like this to offer right on campus that is so accessible for everyone,” Jones added. “Our programs, our events and our activities are catered for students and make Tech Rec an exciting and dynamic place to be.”

Be sure to check out Tech Rec on social media to stay up to date on upcoming events, and stop in to enjoy a quick break from work and forget about the stress outside.

For Josh Pastner, there is no offseason. When the buzzer sounded in the NIT Championship Game on March 30, his season was not over. It was just beginning. While a large portion of his job is coaching during the season, an equally important part occurs when no basketball is being played: recruiting.

This year’s recruiting class consists of four incoming freshmen, a graduate transfer and a transfer from the University of Tennessee, a pleasant surprise after losing three seniors who had significant roles during the 2016-17 season.

“I’ve said this all along that we’re going to be our best in the [Class of 2018-19] recruiting,” Pastner said. “We’re going to have the chance to make deeper
relationships, [and] they’re going to be able to see us play and have data points on us.”

Despite their own admission that the timeline will be long-term, Pastner and his coaching staff were able to pick up what look like solid replacements on paper. Additionally, Pastner is not necessarily expecting to rise to the top immediately.

“We have to be perfect in our evaluations,” he said, “so maybe we don’t get the kid that’s ranked the 10th best player in the country, maybe he’s the 110th, but through our evaluation and development he ends up being better than the 10th ranked player in the country through time.”

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the pickup of freshman Moses Wright. The Raleigh native flew completely under the radar of most recruiters. The late bloomer did not appear on the scene until too late to really draw the attention of larger schools; however, he is the type of the recruit that Pastner and staff can foster and develop, a chance to make up for the five-star recruits who routinely attend ACC rivals like Duke.

Pastner’s experience with evaluations can be traced back to before he even started college. In high school, he was writing scouting reports and began coaching his father’s AAU team at the age of 16, a prime opportunity to learn talent development.

“I have great relationships in the grassroots world,” he said, “I’ve understood the grass roots coaches because I’ve sat in their chair, I’ve been there, I get it.” However, despite this connection, he still feels recruiting is a whole different game. “One, it’s an
extremely inexact science. Two, it is as competitive and cutthroat as anything because three,
everyone’s going for a small amount of fish in a large pond.”

Based on that toughness, and the class of 2017 he brought in, Pastner is cautiously optimistic.

“We could be better but not have as many wins,” he said. “There’s a realistic chance of that happening.” The toughest job for Tech will be replacing the three seniors — Quinton Stephens, Josh Heath and Corey Heyward — who saw the most playing time last year. The biggest thing these seniors brought to the team was stability, through good times and trying ones.

“They played steady and they were just sound and solid,” Pastner had to say of them. “While they were not the highest scoring bunch, they brought experience that the team will be lacking in this season.”

The biggest gap that is not clear in the stat sheet is the loss of Heath. Last year, sophomore Justin Moore saw a lot of playing time at point guard early season; however, his playing time dropped off as conference play rolled around. Tech’s season turned around under the control of Heath and his steady hand. If Moore or freshman Jose Alvarado can step up into the vacancy, Tech may continue to find success.

The biggest thing separating Tech from the upper echelon of the ACC last year was a third consistent scorer. Besides Ben Lammers and Josh Okogie, the third leading scorer varied from game to game. Pastner did not sugarcoat who he thinks needs to step up to fill that spot.

“It’s very simple: Tadric Jackon’s got to be an all-league type of player,” he said, “He’s shown it where he’s done it at different games, it’s gotta be the consistent part where he [performs at a high level] night in night out — where we can depend on him to do it night in and night out.”

If Jackson can step up in that role, Pastner and the Jackets can look to continue the success they saw last season. However, the team is still a work in progress and results are far from guaranteed. Their season starts in China, a game against UCLA, and at this point all Pastner can do is develop the players he currently has.   

The popular saying is “next man up.” Football is a game of attrition; players inevitably get hurt over the course of a grueling season, and the team must be ready to replace them.

Yet, starting B-back Dedrick Mills’s dismissal from the team a few weeks ago leaves a hole larger than any other player’s might. Tech was ready to count on Mills as a significant contributor in a year when the team debuts a new starting quarterback. Deadspin projected Mills as “one of the conference’s premier running backs” in its season preview of the Jackets. Indeed, his 12 rushing touchdowns as a true freshman were a truly impressive contribution for a player just learning the ropes against ACC defenses.

With Mills transferring to Garden City Community College in Kansas, a program that produced former NFL running back Corey Dillon, Tech coaches can no longer entertain visions of Mills trucking over hapless defenders en route to an ACC Champion-ship berth.

Attention must now turn to who will shoulder the load left behind by Mills. The easy answer is redshirt sophomore KirVonte Benson, who was promoted to starter in anticipation of the season opener against Tennessee. Benson brings a different aspect to the offensive backfield than Mills; he is about 15 pounds lighter and as a former high school track star, likely quicker, a key quality with A-back Clinton Lynch banged up.

There is also the question of Benson’s fit into a chemistry-based offense. Successful execution of the option requires a quarterback to not only trust his blockers but also the A-backs and B-backs. Without an extended period of time to build a rapport with Benson, it would not be surprising to see early offensive foibles during the season opener.

Fortunately for the Jackets, much of the offense remains untouched from last year — the offensive line and receiving corps return intact, save for dependable center Freddie Burden. While quarterback and potential starter Matthew Jordan looked shaky as a passer during his start against Virginia Tech last season, the only extended action of his Tech career so far, he will likely be more potent on that front after a full offseason to work with receivers Ricky Jeune and Brad Stewart. The same can be expected for left tackle Jahaziel Lee and left guard Parker Braun; both played well in their freshman campaigns but have a golden opportunity to demonstrate meaningful improvement.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Jordan will not take the first snap under center for Tech on Monday night. While he is the most senior member of the quarterback room and acquitted himself well last season, the Jackets have yet to name a starter, placing Jordan along junior TaQuon Marshall and redshirt freshmen Lucas Johnson and Jay Jones. Regardless, it will likely take a few weeks for real stability in the Tech offensive huddle.

Somewhat ironically, the player who might be most affected by this recent turn of events no longer plays for the Jackets. Junior B-back Marcus Marshall transferred to James Madison over concerns that he would not receive playing time. That was an understandable worry with the ascendance of Mills, but if not for that decision, Marshall may well have started his season in the starting lineup at Tech.

It is worthwhile to remember that Mills’ ascendance as an excellent running back was almost as surprising as his dismissal. It is entirely possible that Benson impresses and the void of offensive production left behind by his predecessor is filled. Yet no team can count on such an improbable rise.

Paul Johnson mentioned that in Mills’ absence, he “expect[s] the other guy to have a great year, whether it’s KirVonte (Benson) or Quaide (Weimerskirch) or Jerry (Howard) or (Jordan Ponchez-Mason) or whoever it is,” courtesy of AJC.com. Whether his expectations are grounded in reality will soon be clear.

The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. This classic Chinese adage found weight in the seventh season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” clocking in with just seven action-filled episodes instead of the usual ten.

Sunday’s 80-minute finale capped off the highest viewed season yet, and the episode ramped up the tension as the show prepares for its final six episodes next year. But now that the dust has settled, the million-dollar question can finally be answered: were seven episodes enough?

The shorter run brought with it a major financial advantage. Per-episode budgets skyrocketed, allowing for feature-quality fight scenes, an extended finale and the best CGI dragons to ever grace the small screen. Every episode brought with it at least one major set piece, leaving viewers excited and engrossed in a show where typically the majority of the drama is political and psychological, rather than physical.

The fourth episode of the season, which was director Matt Shakman’s first credit on the show, included one of the most visually intense sequences in the show to date. This scene, a CGI-heavy battle between an army and the show’s iconic dragons, drew comparison to the season five climax “Hardhome,” which was wildly expensive at the time. With an increased per-episode budget, moments of this caliber were delivered on a weekly basis.

Unfortunately, the show’s pacing did not benefit from the increased budget. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had a lot of ground to cover this season, and squeezing all of that development into seven hours left many of the show’s several plotlines underserved.

The single episode excursion beyond the Wall, for example, had little buildup and exposition. Ultimately, the episode did not achieve nearly the impact it could have if it had been given a more in-depth treatment.

Another painful feature of this season was the pacing of the Winterfell plot, despite its ultimately satisfying conclusion. What could have been an interesting story of treachery and espionage turned into a mess that was both confusing and rushed.

Overall, the grandiose set pieces served as a double edged sword.  Every episode included at least one white-knuckle, heart-pounding action sequence rife with high-end CGI and borderline gratuitous killings. This kind of scene is what viewers expect from a season finale or, at the very least, an episode that has been built up to contain a major battle.

While these sequences made every episode feel intense and engaging, the stumbling plotlines underneath kept the season from being everything it could have been. The writers were playing Tetris with the plot and just barely managed to pull it off.

On the other hand, even a ten-episode run may have been plagued by the same pacing issues. This season had the task of uniting several unrelated storylines, and by the end of episode seven, only a handful of main “factions” remained. Several characters missing from seasons past made a return as well, giving Benioff and Weiss even more ground to cover.

In the end this reviving of old plotlines was necessary, as viewers now have no questions about the state of any given character going into the final season.

The Greyjoys, for example, have finally returned to the Game and add some much-needed depth to the fight for the Iron Throne. Alfie Allen’s (“John Wick”) ever poignant performance as
Theon Greyjoy finally holds some weight, and his larger role heading into the final season gives a reason to finally become invested in his character once again.

The show’s ensemble cast was as its best, making the clunky pacing all the more bearable. Sophie Turner (“X-Men: Apocalypse”) and Maisie Williams (“Cyberbully”) have grown into their roles as the wise-beyond-her-years matriarch and jaded supernatural killer.

Isaac Hempstead Wright (“The Awakening”) brought the appropriate cold numbness to his role as the now-omniscient Bran Stark. The often-lauded performances by Peter Dinklage (“X-Men: Days of Future Past”), Emilia Clarke  (“Me Before You”) and Kit Harington (“Pompeii”) held up to the Emmy-calibre standard set in the previous six seasons.

This season marked an important shift in the creative direction of the series: creators Benioff and Weiss are no longer adapting their show from concrete source material. Since George R.R. Martin’s sixth novel in the series is still unfinished, Benioff and Weiss were tasked with moving the story forward themselves.

The result, though poorly paced at times, is one of the most engrossing seasons of TV in
recent memory.

Mainstream rock fans lead tough lives these days. While there are still major tours from classic bands, like The Rolling Stones and The Who, and an endless stream of re-releases of classic rock albums to look forward to, no one is truly releasing new rock.

While there is a major release every few years by bands like the Foo Fighters, these albums are few and far between. To find a large scene with plenty of creative minds making new and unique music, one must resort to alternatives. Luckily for the rock purists, the Queens of the Stone Age exist.

On Aug. 25, the now 21-year-old band released a new studio album full of riff-centered, hard-driving rock songs. On the album, titled “Villains,” lead vocalist and songwriter Josh Homme attempted to revive a traditional metal sound that has largely been dead since the ‘80s.

The sound of the album becomes quite surprising when one considers that it was produced by Mark Ronson, the British DJ responsible for “Uptown Funk.” Fans may have been concerned that Ronson would bring a more poppy feel to the band’s music, but he has had the opposite effect.

The album is more stripped and simplified than the Queens’ other recent works, so it feels more natural than just about anything else produced nowadays. While “Villains” is hardly garage rock, the rawness of the music reminds of the Foo Fighters’ 2011 album “Wasting Light,” which was recorded in Dave Grohl’s garage on analogue equipment.

While “Villains” draws most of its influence from the proto-metal riff-rock bands of the ‘70s, it is not simply a cover album full of aimless nostalgia and denial. Rather than trying to stall or halt the inevitable evolution of music, Josh Homme combined a classic style with modern synthetic sounds to adapt old music for a new world.

The track “Un-Reborn Again,” which could serve as the thesis for the whole album, is a defiant refusal to ever stop changing. In the song, Homme admits that returning to one’s past is a temptation, but drinking from the fountain of youth eternally freezes a person in time. Homme sums this idea up with the powerful repeated declaration that “everybody was drowning in the fountain of youth.”

“The Evil has Landed,” perhaps the most traditional of the songs on the album, features a heavy metal riff straight out of 1971, married perfectly to drum licks from 1972 and a synthesizer from 1973. The only departure from the ‘70s Led Zeppelin style is the constant variation in structure; the track does not just drone on for six and a half minutes, as it would have 45 years ago. Instead, the song employs tempo shifts to reinvent itself constantly for six and a half minutes, resulting in a piece that is both nostalgic and refreshing.

This unique combination of early metal sounds with the kinds of shifts and variations in structure that only became common with the introduction of modern electronic music makes this album a unique and exciting listen.

For a listener unfamiliar with the music of Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, “Villains” may sound completely new and fresh, a listening experience that is both rare and pleasant. For a lover of proto-metal, however, this album will feel like both a revisitation and a reinvention of a long lost and much beloved genre, an experience that is even more rare and even more pleasant.

Hollywood loves to romanticize the criminal: the good man doing bad things. The thug with a heart of gold, forced into crime, is left with no options but to hustle his way out of a predicament. In their newest film, “Good Time,” the indie filmmakers Josh and Ben Safdie attempted to subvert this prevalent archetype.

The film takes place over one day in the lives of low-life New York hustler, Constantine “Connie” Nikas (Robert Pattinson, “Twilight”), and his mentally disabled brother, Nick (Ben Safdie, “Daddy Longlegs”), as they deal with the consequences of a robbery gone pathetically wrong. Pattinson’s Connie is impulsive and manipulative. While he is not that bright, he establishes early in the film that he views himself as his brother’s protector.

After forcibly ejecting the impressionable Nick from an uncomfortable therapy session in the movie’s opening scene, Connie leads the duo into a poorly planned bank robbery where Nick is arrested. The remainder of the film follows Connie as he improvises his way through the underbelly of New York to scrounge up $10,000 for his brother’s release.

Connie is fashioned as the film’s protagonist, and the Safdies toy with viewers’ expectations of his behavior to further their commentary. As Connie scrambles across Brooklyn, he picks up various companions: his histrionic girlfriend, a teenage girl, a drug dealer and a recidivist with less common sense than Connie.

He consistently manages to abuse, manipulate and abandon all of them as he wings his way from place to place, trying to enact some farfetched plan to save his brother and evade incarceration himself. Yet, the audience still manages to root for him: viewers believe him to be better than his victims. He is fighting for a “noble” cause — for his brother — and that must excuse all of his misdeeds.

Much of the performance’s appeal falls on the talented shoulders of Pattinson, who has, over the past few years, cemented himself as one of the most capable actors in indie cinema right now. Transformed by a scruffy goatee and unkempt bleached hair, he humanizes the foolish Connie, portraying him at once as both sincere and irredeemably corrupted by a life of crime that he cannot seem to escape.

However, most of the film’s power and emotional heft stems from its phenomenal soundtrack and direction. The camera is anxious and restless; it bobs and weaves, shakes and shivers. A significant portion of the shots in the movie are close-ups, further cementing the heightened sense of awareness and desperation that both Nick and Connie experience.

Simultaneously, the prevalence of close shots also highlights how oblivious Connie can sometimes be to the impacts of his impulses on himself and others. He is driven only by rabid desperation to evade arrest and free his brother, unaware of the ultimate futility of his actions.

This anxiety is only heightened by the color palette that the Safdies chose. The film, taking place largely at night, is awash with neon hues and half-shadows. Pale reds and greens trace the characters, and police sirens
illuminate the night. Much of the movie’s light sources are police sirens, exemplifying how Connie and criminals like him truly have no place even in the underworld they used to call home. Adorned in neon frenzy, Connie’s desperation translates into constant thrills for the audience.

The soundtrack, produced by Oneotrix Point Never, is a haunting, frenetic electronic composition. As the music drones and swells, it tracks Connie through each twist and turn of the plot, overwhelming both viewers and characters with sensation until there are no more twists to take. These technical aspects of the film are exhilarating. The soundtrack burrows under one’s skin and into one’s bones.

The film stresses viewers and makes them jitter because, as much as they desperately hope that there may be a way out for Connie and his kind of romantic criminal, there is none. By the film’s ending, viewers realize that, for all his delusions of nobility and self-sacrifice, Connie is a selfish man whose life of crime harms all he touches, especially his brother. There is nothing romantic about Connie’s actions.

While the Safdies made this point clear by the end of the film, the plot occasionally meanders, jumping on distractions that add unnecessary levity to an otherwise somber film. Occasionally, the plot twists simply for the sake of twisting, and these diversions occlude a narrative that otherwise could have been very powerful.

These gaps in the overall commentary could have been avoided if the Safdies had produced a slightly stronger and tighter script that better focused on Connie’s flawed character. Nonetheless, “Good Time” is thrilling ride that all cinephiles should watch at Landmark Midtown Art Cinema or Regal Atlantic Station.