The Magic of Making 🛠️

Plus: We sold out of Issue Six!

blog.ninety // Exciting news to share from the studio: We sold out of Creator Mag: Issue Six!

Not only that, we actually oversold. For those who recently signed up for memberships, fair warning—it might be a couple weeks until we restock and ship your copies.

Wait…did you say restock? Yup, you read that correctly. We print our magazine in limited runs, though given the recent demand, we’ve decided to reprint a new, small batch of Issue Six.

But here’s the thing: This time around, once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Available here!

The good news: You still have one week left to take advantage of our Subathon deals, including…

• 20% off all orders in the Powder Blue store with code LABORDAY20

• 10% of an Annual Creator Mag membership with code SUBATHON

We say it time and time again, but we’re building this thing right alongside you, and we couldn’t be more grateful for your support. All of our proceeds go directly into funding future editions of Creator Mag, helping us host events and grow our writers’ room—bringing a wide variety of talented voices into the fold.

Can’t support us financially at this time? That’s okay! You still have one week left to win exclusive Subathon prizes, such as a sticker pack, framed poster…or even a flight to our next Block Party in Los Angeles.

All you have to do is refer friends and family to this here newsletter, using the link above (:

We’ll have more updates to share soon as we wrap up the final days of the Subathon. In the meantime, scroll down for a new edition of Neighborhood Watch—written by yours truly.

And if you’d like to write a review in the coming weeks, you can pitch us here.

— NGL

P.S. Last blog, we re-introduced ourselves. You can read it here.

Video: ‘I Built a FOLDABLE Go-Kart’ (2024)

Creator: Colt Kirwan

Runtime: 23m 42s

Review by: Nathan Graber-Lipperman

Over the last couple of years, there’s been a movement to make more cinematic content on YouTube and beyond. Though the word “content” itself feels degrading—let’s call these videos cinematic “short films.”

Nevertheless, when our work is compacted and commoditized into something platforms can sell ads on, the final product is “content,” isn’t it? No matter what we do, we can’t escape the packaging.

And packaging can make even the cinematic feel synthetic. Grabby thumbnail designs. Dreamy LUTs. Sweeping nature shots, depicting twenty-somethings running through the tall grass with their back to the camera (bonus points if a mountain emerges in the distance).

There’s a good chance you’re familiar with the aesthetic I’m referring to—an aesthetic that doesn't necessarily move a story forward, or engender character development. But dang, does it look really pretty.

At the wizened age of twenty-six, I may soon succumb to the fact that, yes, I’ve entered the Old Man Yells At Cloud stage of curmudgeony. Yet I think Colt Kirwan succeeds where others might falter due to the fact that watching his videos makes me feel like a kid again, living vicariously through his low-stakes adventure of the week.

This is Colt, for reference / Colt Kirwan

If a Colt video was a movie, it’d be The Sandlot.

I’ve never had a particular interest in welding, and yet I still watched all twenty minutes of Colt’s journey to building a go-kart. “Close your eyes, and imagine this: it’s the ‘90s,” he kicks off, explaining the “feat of engineering” known as the Mazda Suitcase Car.

Colt (right) employs some help while building his go-kart / Colt Kirwan

Within thirty seconds, the stakes are set. Mazda only ever made three Suitcase Cars as a marketing stunt back in 1990. Tracking one down is nearly impossible. So while Colt may not have the requisite engineering background, why not try to build the thing himself?   

“As long as you don’t give up, you’re bound to do something right,” he quips.

Shout-out to Colt for bringing back good ’ol childhood whimsy / Colt Kirwan

Not only does Colt blend natural, vlog-based storytelling with professional Insta360 shots and timely jolts of techno music—you can also just feel the joy emanating through the screen, as he takes us through the entire process from start to finish.

Some creators need a fancy airplane seat and exotic location to hook us into their world. All Colt needs is a garage and some scrap metal.*

Nate’s Score: 4 / 5 🏎️

A new section of Neighborhood Watch, dedicated to the books, music, movies, and physical media that played a meaningful role in stopping our scroll.

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Film: ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ (2025)

Director: Spike Lee

Runtime: 2hr 13m

Amid Timothee Chalamet’s quest to unseat Spike Lee as the New York Knicks’ number one superfan, it’s easy to forget that Lee still ranks among our greatest living filmmakers. Do the Right Thing (1989) kicked off a new decade with prescient commentary on race and urbanism; Inside Man (2006) showcased Lee’s ability to craft a mainstream crime thriller; and BlacKkKlansman (2018) arrived in the middle of Trump’s (first) presidential term, culminating with a powerful, he’s-still-got-it final scene.

Suffice it to say, Highest 2 Lowest does not reach the highs of other entrants in Lee’s vaunted filmography. The first half is quite slow; the message, and dialogue, ring hollow at points**; and A$AP Rocky (the film’s antagonist) should probably focus less on wooing the A24 crowd and more on finally dropping his album.***

Yet, as always, Denzel Washington puts the movie on his back, given his sheer charisma and gravitational pull cannot be denied. Additionally, about halfway through the movie, Denzel finds himself riding the subway to Yankee Stadium, a backpack full of cash in tow. The pure electricity coursing through this sequence (featuring a chase scene through the Puerto Rican Day Parade) could only be corralled by a filmmaker who loves New York City as much as Lee.

That scene, and a couple Denzel monologues, makes the film worth the prize of admission—or an Apple TV+ subscription. 

Nate’s Score: 3.5 / 5 🌉

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Film: ‘Eddington’ (2025)

Director: Ari Aster

Runtime: 2hr 25m

At the beginning of Eddington, we see an eyesore. It’s the site of a data center, located just outside the small, fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico.

That data center—and the debate around its construction, which critics say will harm the local environment—quickly fades to the background. Because Aster’s follow-up to beloved titles such as Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) taps into a new strain of horror: the COVID-19 pandemic, and a local political race that quickly turns violent.

Even with a stacked cast—featuring A-listers like Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Emma Stone—Eddington bombed at the box office. Label it pandemic fatigue if you’d like; Aster also received criticism for not planting much of a political flag, opting instead to take the South Park route of poking fun at everyone.

But what the film so masterfully captures (past its truly shocking twists) is the real winners of our culture wars. Because it’s not the soldiers, or even the generals. No, it’s the puppet masters who bide their time, quietly waiting to flip sides and strike as soon as an optimal flag-bearer presents themselves.

Light spoilers: By the end of the film, the data center does, in fact, get built. Call Aster a nihilist if you’d like. Nevertheless, due to the current AI boom, tech companies will spend trillions of dollars on new data centers by 2030—and these facilities are already harming the environment, even depleting drinking water sources right here in Illinois.

The best art offers a mirror to the real world. Eddington may ground its plot around events five years ago, but five years from now, Aster’s film will have felt ahead of its time.

Nate’s Score: 4 / 5 🌵

Thanks for reading! Shoot us a reply, comment, or DM if anything resonated with you in particular—we respond to them all.

* Cue the Tony Stark memes.

** Commentary on the commercialization of art as Denzel’s character (a music producer) visibly dons Beats, a company owned by Apple (the film’s distributor)? Rough.

*** No shade to Rocky! While his acting left a lot to be desired here, he was great in Dope (2015), and the upcoming If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is receiving rave reviews.