two things I’m changing in my life right now

1. I am going to start watching movie previews, trailers, whatever you want to call them. For years I have avoided them because I feel they often just show the most exciting or outrageous parts of the film so when I go to actually watch the thing, it’s underwhelming because I just end up sitting through an hour and a half of preamble before re-watching a few moments that are cool but I’ve already seen. I still feel that way but on the other hand, over the last several years I have ended up sitting through too many piece of shit films that weren’t worth my time — if I had just watched even a few minutes of a preview, most of the time I would have realized the film was a piece of crap before committing to it. It happened again last night with a film called Deadgirl which I had seen on some ‘most disturbing films’ lists. Almost as soon as the thing started, I realized it was junk. I’ve gotten better at giving up earlier on these things so within 5 minutes I started skipping through it and confirmed my suspicions, and also confirmed it wasn’t even remotely shocking. I’m happy I didn’t waste much time on it but I’d rather have wasted even less time. So now I’m going to watch previews of every film on my ‘to watch’ list and probably remove about half of them from the list.
2. At age 42, I’m finally going to start dusting the house on a regular basis. I always hated dusting, and it’s the primary reason we hired a housekeeper several years ago. But they usually did shit jobs, charged way too much for it, and were notoriously unreliable so we recently gave up on the housekeeper thing. I just dusted the house myself this morning and it only took about 30 minutes and was really fucking easy. I don’t know why I was so dang reluctant to do this job in the past. It wasn’t bad at all. It was actually pretty enjoyable because it was so easy and makes such a difference — I love low effort/high reward activities.

That’s all for this morning.

letterboxd in

I made a new friend the other night, and we’ve been chatting about movies a lot since then via email. It’s been fun because we have similar but not identical tastes, and they work in the industry so they have a very different perspective from me. They suggested I check out a website that is basically a social media thing for people to rate movies, make lists of films, see what their friends are watching, etc. At first I thought, “neat.” I love a good flick and enjoy digging into it with esteemed colleagues.

Then I thought, wait a minute. Why do I need a social media account to do any of those things?

I already have a list of flicks I want to see. It’s in my email. I’d be fine with friends seeing that and giving me a heads up on some stuff, like “loved it” or “don’t bother,” but then again, I’ve learned that there’s just no accounting for taste. Even the people in my life I love and respect most can watch a movie and feel completely different about from me, so if I have a strong inclination to watch or not watch something, I go with that regardless of what my peeps tell me. So it doesn’t really matter to me how anyone else feels about a flick that’s on my list.

And besides, the internet is already saturated with every dumbass’s movie review, most of which I completely disagree with. Do you know how many people think The Avengers is a good film? Do you know that Under the Skin had a piss poor rating on Netflix when I watched it, but then it turned out to be utterly fucking sublime? This is the kind of nonsense that average schlubs think. I have no doubt the climate is similar on social media sites dedicated to films, and even less interest in being constantly made aware that such asinine opinions exist.

Furthermore, you know what? I’d rather just fucking talk about movies with my friends without some stupid social media site facilitating it. You know, hang out in real life around a campfire and chat horror movies, email back and forth, text a pal after watching something great — what’s wrong with those options? Nothing. I, and everyone else in the developed world, spend way too much time online as it is. No need to sign up for more shit that will keep me tethered to this fucking machine.

It sounded fun for a minute but fuck it. I’ll continue to pass on social media.

^{Fuck em.}

Typical horror movies just aren’t enough for a truly miserable fella

I keep hearing recommendations for new horror films and at least 9/10 times, I’m totally unimpressed when I check them out. The Witch, The Ritual, Hereditary, Mandy, A Quiet Place, Get Out, It Follows, Kill List, etc — consistent disappointment. Never scary. Silly, stupid, tired old stories. Stories that seem to take themselves too seriously. Stories that are weird for the sake of being weird, without any substance or merit or purpose.

I’m particularly tired of the ‘weird shit is happening and then we learn it’s because everyone is in a cult’ story. Of course this isn’t a new idea, but it’s been especially popular for the last three or tour years, and I’m sick of it. It’s such a convenient, easy, predictable, lazy explanation.

Boring, Sidney.

What’s the problem here? Is it me? I certainly seem to be the common denominator since most other people are raving about these flicks. Are my expectations too high? Is it the fact that the films were recommended to me, ie, if I watched them without anyone having told me “you should see this,” would I feel differently? I don’t know. I can’t help but feel that the films I listed above and countless others I’m forgetting now just aren’t that good.

There have been a few good ones, of course — I liked I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House, Beyond the Black Rainbow, The House That Jack Built, Under the Skin, Serbian Film, and a few others. I think those films were all surprising, different, interesting, more challenging and satisfying to watch…but none of those were recommended to me and I hadn’t heard any buzz (or anything at all) about them before I checked them out. Why are the films I like generally so underappreciated?

You know, I think I might be on to something there. I think I like horror movies that are challenging, that make me think, that make me feel things I’m afraid of or uncomfortable with, and I don’t think most movie goers are looking for that stuff — most people just want something fun and easy, something disposable, sort of like ‘horror lite.’ Most people don’t want to feel sick and horrified for weeks after watching a film. Most people don’t want to confront man’s humanity to man alone on a Saturday night. But I do, and I think this is why I can’t dig on the majority of popular horror movies.

Lord, it’s hard to find a flick that a misanthrope can really dig on. There should be a section on Netflix for me and my ilk. Or maybe I should just bite the bullet and start watching snuff films.