Jan 2022 (What I watched/read)

This is just a quick rundown on what I took in Jan 2022.

Jan 2022

This isn’t extensive, thought I would do a log on what I consumed. Best to start with Jan 2022 If it feels like it was written like a stream of consciousness because it is, I have let the blog slide and I gotta get back to building the habit. 

Movies Watched Jan 2022

Scream 5

This was fine. The main girl was not a good actress. The younger sister was much better. To be honest, there was something about the trailer “I’m Sydney Prescott, of course, I have a gun” that made me think that there was going to be something about concealed carry.

There were moments that were tense, it was more because nothing happened for extended periods. If I were to watch it again (I won’t) it would come across as dull. A lot of long takes does not make something tense.

It was easy to guess the killers, if the characters were paying attention they’d have figured it out faster. This film was average. 

New Nightmare

Decided to watch this after Scream as it was said that this was the start of the meta-horror films by Wes Craven. It is not great.

It’s lit like a soap opera.

There are some funny bits like when the main character abuses medical staff. Wes Craven makes himself come across as a weirdo in it, he only writes his screenplay when he has nightmares.

The film breaks the rules of having extended dream sequences. I understand this is a Nightmare on Elm Street film but it’s clear that they’re not in danger of being invaded by Freddy.

Not great, it was fun to see people playing versions of themselves and I appreciate what they were trying to do but overall not great. 

Carrie 

It’s funny how this film is considered a classic. It’s still very good but there are some ropey aspects to this. One thing you notice on repeat viewings is how little is going on.

Every scene appears to be a version of “What do you think of Carrie White?” and then you have different combinations of characters discussing this.

Sissy Spacek is great and Piper Laurie is good as well. Nancy Allen speaks a little too clear for someone with a dick in their mouth. What was the “nice” girls plan exactly when sending Carrie to the prom with her boyfriend? She actually comes across as a worse person when you think about what she’s doing.

There are parts that feel like padding in places like the pig’s blood pay off takes forever and it drags on to infinity.

DePalma gets a lot of props for using split-screen but really it’s his use of split diopter that is fantastic.

The use of the string stabs from Psycho is downright distracting at times. I can understand how some people felt like they could remake it.

At the same time, this is still a classic. 

Society 

Yikes.

This is nowhere near as good as I remember it was. When I first saw it it was always the ending that I loved. I love when a horror film can justify being gross. Society does that in spades and the makeup effects are fantastic. It feels like the make-up and effects are up there with The Thing.

The rest of the film on the other hand is something else entirely. The acting, writing and music is for the most part not great.

It feels like they wanted Michael J Fox for the main part but could not afford him. There was so much they could have done with the film.

It feels like everything was in service of the final section.

Even though the film is about 90 minutes it feels like they are playing for time to get to the last section. There was a lot of potential with the script.

A young man thinks he has discovered incest in his family only to find out that he is adopted. It has it’s charm and that last section is fantastic. 

Books read Jan 2022

The Sovereign Citizen 

This was great. Even though it was written before the turn of the millennium it has a lot of prescience. It feels like a road map of where nations are going.

There were a few concepts that I don’t feel like I’ve heard the phrase as well as they were here. Governments holding the monopoly on violence over their people was a good one.

I also like how it explains that the political class today are the equivalent of the Catholic church when the printing press was invented.

The Church used to be the ones who held control of access to information, the printing press took that away. Now the internet is doing that to the political class.

One thing that was funny/annoying was how much they used the word cyber and how silly it got. “Imagine you wake up in your cyber-bed beside your cyber-wife and go down to your cyber-kitchen and pour some cyber-coffee…” it was never that bad but it got taxing at points, I felt like Chief Wiggum “Quit saying Hawaii in there”.

One funny part was in the last chapter they stop the book just to point out how corrupt and crooked the Clintons are. They even bring up Vince Foster which I just thought was Norm Macdonald trolling Barbara Walters that time on The View.

They even stop to say how the First Lady was complicit in Bill’s corruption. It’s funny we think that no one liking Hilary Clinton is a recent thing but it turned that no one liked Hillary ever. 

Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race 

This was one that I had a morbid curiosity for. I started off not liking then it grew on me, then it got monotonous. The first section of the book can be summed up as “Things did not improve for people of colour quick enough in England”.

Now they were never interred like the people of Northern Ireland where but it is interesting how things were and the authors perspective.

The big part of the book was when she spoke to Nick Griffin, it should have been good but instead, it felt like a missed opportunity.

Nick Griffin seems pretty nihilistic on the state of England but instead, she just keeps asking him about being racist. It reminded me of that moment from that Louis Theroux doc when he met the head of the Westboro Baptist Church. Instead of trying to talk to the guy, he was adamant about getting in his “Gotcha’” questions and he ends up kind of blowing his chance. That’s what that moment felt like.

One of the bits I like was that she spends a whole two chapters talking about how much she hates white female feminists like she goes in hard on them. She doesn’t even go as hard on the racists as she does on the white feminists. It’s good to know that no matter what your race, religion, creed, orientation (asiantation?) we can all agree on one thing; white feminists are the fucking worst. 

Breath 

This was great. It can be summed up into, close your mouth, breath through your nose, chew more when you eat, tape your mouth shut. As someone who definitely has sleep apnea, this was a breath of fresh air. Since reading this I tape my mouth shut when I sleep and there has been a marked improvement in sleep quality. Will probably do a longer separate post on this. 

Conclusion

That was my Jan 2022 when it comes to intake of media or whatever you want to call it. I want to keep of track of all the things I watch and take in. So much stuff goes in one ear, eye, orifice and out the other with me I want to be aware. Writing things down helps, a little. My memory used to be so good but they’ve started to pile up and the system is getting clogged. At least writing them down will, with some hope, free up the space, I hope.