October 2024 recap
Since I make a point to discover new things here and there, I figured I could take the effort to write a quick review and not just, like, "consume" a piece of media and file it in the watched/read/etc pile without doing much more with it. At the very least, this will be fun to reread in a year or so!
These recaps will be monthly and might contain everything except for video games, which have their own posts. I don't read a lot of books these days (cough fanfics tho cough) but I think I'll also add articles I find interesting. We'll see!
Movies
I'm someone who loves watching movies but hardly ever do, so I decided some time ago to try and watch one movie every weekend. It's working pretty well! And I finally get to watch some that I know I will enjoy.
My reviews of those will be pretty superficial, I don't really want to spoil much.
Annihilation (2018)
I absolutely loved this movie, the characters were interesting, the visuals striking and the overall themes well presented. The climax scene was great and the end was perfect. I might get the books at some point, even if I know the themes are a little different between them and the movie.
I do wonder how I would have felt about this movie if I watched it before the whole GenAI shit going on, I couldn't help myself making some analogies with it. I haven't thought too much about it but I guess I could reduce them to something along the lines of "mutations without the core understanding of how systems work/live"? Something like that.
Diamonds are Forever (1971)
One or two years ago, I started watching James Bond movies in a chronological order and stopped at some point because I was too busy. Decided to get back to it and oh boy, what a film to start that "marathon" again!
Even if you can feel Sean Connery's tiredness in his role, the whole story is funny and entertaining to watch, narm moments (the cassette tapes!) and all. I had a good time watching this movie, despite its old sexism, but then again, it's a James Bond movie.
The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), Army of Darkness (1992)
(I love horror tropes and essays about horror but I am a fucking pussy when it comes to watching (or worse, playing) horror stuff. It's mostly because I utterly hate jumpscares - one or two is fine, but more is just tiring. This is all to say that I don't watch horror very often, not that these movies have too many jumpscares, they absolutely don't, and the few of them are good ones.)
I loved watching all three movies, and the change from "simple" horror to comedy horror didn't change that. The only thing I found jarring was the first 20min or so of the second movie, I didn't know it was kind of a soft reboot/summary and almost imagined Ash was stupid enough to bring back another girlfriend to the cabin. I wasn't ready for the end of that movie, even though it was foreshadowed earlier, and what a good cliffhanger it was!
I thoroughly enjoyed the third movie as well, the scene with the mini-Ash guys was pure gold. The big battles went a bit too long here and there tho. The end was predictable but it was still pretty funny.
Music
Finally took the time to listen to Sleep Token and their album Take Me To Eden. Aqua Regia and Granite might be my favorite tracks, but the whole album is really good.
Creature Feature released their annual spooky song, this time a cover of Ghostbusters, which is very good and is as always in line with what they do.
Back in June I subscribed to https://1001albumsgenerator.com/: every day it randomly picks an album from the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and you get to listen to it and rate/review it. It's a pretty cool idea, though I would say so far the picks depict quite a bias toward western stuff, without much surprise. Anyway, here were my faves from this month :
- Django Django by Django Django
- The Seldom Seen Kid by Elbow
- At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash
- Miriam Makeba by Miriam Makeba
- The Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett
Not much to say, Elbow's album is a staple for me ever since I discovered them through a Left 4 Dead trailer back in the days. Miriam Makeba was lovely to listen to, as well as Keith Jarrett's long piano tracks.
Youtube
I spent a whole week-end watching Billiam's THE LOST RETROSPECTIVE. It was quite the journey but well worth it. I loved Lost when I was a teenager - well, mostly the first 2 seasons, lost a bit of interest waiting for the next one and then waited until the series was done to watch it all - so it was a nice dive into nostalgia to have that retrospective going in the background.