August Roundup

I've been crashing out.

August was… odd. Dizzying highs and then things kind of fell apart. Yesterday things got even stranger, even more complicated. The course of the heart is unknowable etc etc etc.

I tried to be part of a reading challenge, which I failed fairly miserably. Well, maybe you can’t call reading books a failure. I read some truly wonderful books through the month, even if I became too distracted by life near the end to keep up my pace. I also saw some great films, and (tried) to watch television. So it’s not all bad, is it?

Watched:

• The true lowlight of August was Eddington, which was only just released in the UK. I’ve previously thought of Ari Aster as a true artist with a real handle on theme and tone. Others sniffed at Beau is Afraid, but that is - still - one of my favourite films of this decade. So it was to my dismay that Eddington was facile and unexamined, interested only in surface-level provocation. There’s some obvious skill on display, but, especially in the final third, I was stuck thinking: what is all of this in aid of? Is it worth taking those passionate, BLM-march teenagers down a peg? I don’t want to sound like a satirerequiresaclarityofpurpose person, but…

• I enjoyed Weapons, though I had my problems with it, which you can read about on the previous post here.

• Materialists was awful.

• Together was boring.

• I liked Spike Lee’s new joint, Highest 2 Lowest, with some caveats about the very ending being a little silly. Much like in Da 5 Bloods, he takes his time - perhaps too long - putting everything in motion, but then there’s a sudden scene about halfway through where it clicks into place and you remember that you’re in the hands of a true master. Basically everything after the start of that subway scene is some of the most exciting filmmaking of the year… until the last scene, anyway.

• I watched Kpop Demon Hunters with my housemates and I’m sorry to say I really enjoyed it.

Read:

• I read some great books this month, if less than I wanted to. The Foghorn’s Lament by Jennifer Lucy Allen is a wonderful nonfiction work about foghorns, a true “never knew I needed this” book. Allen is a music writer, so her approach to foghorns is through an deep understanding of all things sonic, but the book expands out from just the sound (and attempts at using it in dub music) to look at its history, its effects on communities and more.

• Also enjoyed: Mother Naked by Glen James Brown, The Bird’s Nest by Shirley Jackson - underrated! -, and…

• Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat. Anne Rice is sometimes clowned on. I’m sure some of her later work is as weak as people say, but this book was absolutely terrific (it turns into bit too much of a lore-dump at the end, though the lore is interesting). I’m obsessed with Gabrielle de Lioncourt. She might be an all-time character.

I’m sorry for not updating enough over the last few weeks. I have to finish off a novella, so I can’t promise how present I’ll be here, but I’ll try my best.