I’ve missed, erm, quite a lot of “monthly updates”, so here’s me catching you up on everything i’ve watched, listened to, and otherwise done since February.

(I should note that from here on out i’ll be using numeric ratings instead of letters — i find it much easier to figure out whether something’s a 7 or an 8 than whether it’s an A or a B.)

🎥 Films on the big screen

• There are few films i would recommend unconditionally to anyone and everyone, but by Gods, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) is one of them. It’s belly-laugh funny, has brilliant action, and features some of the most truly ridiculous scenes ever put to film, but all without ever losing its sincere, heartfelt core. Just go watch it.^a (9)
• The Northman (2021) is Robert Eggers’ first attempt at a big blockbuster film — and probably his last, looking at the box office. Which is a shame — this weird, grim, beautiful, gory Pagan epic just tickled me in all of the right places, and very well might be in my top 3 films ever made. I loved how it struck the balance of “maybe it’s magic, maybe it’s mundane”; Björk and Willem Dafoe absolutely steal the show in their brief appearances. (10-)
• Top Gun: Maverick is everything a blockbuster should be. It’s so, so refreshing to watch something so grounded in the real world after what feels like decades of fantastical superhero CGI fluff dominating the box office. Yes, it’s a recruitment ad for the US Navy and probably the Sea Org, but who gives a shit? It had me glued to my seat start to finish.^b (8)
• The same, alas, cannot be said of its predecessor, which i tried to watch to bring me up to speed. Tried is the operative word there: homoerotic beach volleyball and extreme Dad Movie energy can only go so far to prop up flat characters and stakeless action; i ended up turning it off halfway through. I can’t recommend it to anyone who’s not a Dad Who Likes Planes. (2)
• Sam Raimi takes the wheel at the newest Marvel theme park ride, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Mr Raimi’s hectic style shines through in some glorious, fleeting moments, but most of it is just another by-the-numbers intellectual property orgy which left me sorely disappointed. I considered walking out of the screen several times. (5-)
• The Batman is a very good adaptation of a story we all know by now. I loved, loved, loved Paul Dano’s weird incel version of the Riddler, the Pat-man’s eyeshadow, and that one part where he flubs the landing with his cool flying squirrel suit. (7+)
• I watched Morbius in the cinema. Dear god, why did i watch Morbius in the cinema? Why did i do that to myself? Don’t believe the memes. Excepting one truly glorious scene with Matt Smith, this isn’t the funny kind of bad. It’s just plain bad. (2+)
• Moonfall, on the other hand… now that’s a good bad movie. I swear my IQ dropped several points after walking out of the cinema. (5) Here are some things that actually happen in this actual movie that was actually released into actual cinemas across several actual countries and made millions of actual dollars:
  • The government successfully covers up the fact that the moon is falling, and not a single person notices except for a crazed conspiracy theorist.
  • Said conspiracy theorist is inexplicably British.
  • The characters take the Space Shuttle out of a museum because their other rocket broke, and it still works just as well as the day it was put in there. Also, someone graffiti’d it with the words “fuck the moon”.
  • The day is saved by superior Chinese technology, because of course it is.
  • On that note — there is a character in here whose sole purpose, i’m pretty sure, is to just stand there, say some lines now and then, and be Chinese for the Chinese audience. You could cut her out of the film and literally nothing would change.
  • You can guess what the department of defence wants to do to the moon. That’s right, they try to nuke it!
  • But they don’t because a five-star general knows his ex-wife is up there.
  • There is a shot of the moon falling on New York City in which, i shit you not, every building except the World Trade Centre gets absolutely blown to smithereens.
  • Someone’s brain is uploaded to the moon.
  • One of the main characters’ friends owns a Lexus™ dealership. All of the characters drive Lexus™ cars, and they escape oxygen thieves(??) by activating Turbo Mode on their Lexus™ automobile.
  • The Space Shuttle is vaguely “secured” by the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, who, just weeks after my screening, got sanctioned by the EU in the wake of the special peacekeeping operation™.
  • A main character gets trapped underneath a log and he escapes because the moon’s gravity pulls it off of the ground! This really happens! I am not making this up! Someone says “Sonny, the moon will help us!”
  • “I know; that’s why we lost the house.” — a seven-year-old

💿 Music

• Sigur Rós’ () — I may now have a new favourite album. At the very least, it’s my favourite album where none of the tracks have titles and my favourite album where every song is sung in asemic gibberish. Check out the opening track. (9)
• John Grant’s Queen of Denmark — A surprise gift from my papa. A really lovely piano record — check out the title track. (7+)
• Spinvis’ Spinvis — Hallelujah, Dutch-language music that doesn’t suck donkey dick! Check uit „Voor ik vergeet”. (7-)
• After acquiring it on black plastic, i thought i’d give Green Day’s American Idiot a spin — last time around i gave it a C+, but it’s much better when you’re able to properly appreciate each track on its own merits. You know the hits, so check out “Letterbomb”. (8)
• Charli XCX’s Crash is pretty good, but anchored too firmly in the mainstream for my liking. Check out the hyperpop-inflected “Lightning”. (7)
• Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s new side gig, The Smile, released their debut album A Light for Attracting Attention, and it could easily pass for a tenth Radiohead album. Check out Pablo Honey 2 “You Will Never Work in Television Again” and “Skrting on the Surface”. (8)

🌍 Everything else!

• 📺 Apple TV+’s Severance is some of the best bloody television i’ve ever seen. I pray to the heavens above that they don’t fuck up that cliffhanger. (9+)
• 📺 Netflix’s animated Inside Job has a wonky start, with an abundance of forced pop-cultural references, but really finds its footing by the end of the season. Here’s hoping they don’t cancel it — i can’t wait to see where it goes next! (7)
• 🖥️ On the Youtube side of things, Captain KRB is a fantastic and underrated (only 40 thousand subs) videomaker who you should consider giving a shot. Check out his video about The Stairway to Stardom, an obscure public access show. (6+)
• 🖥️ Kane Parsons continues to breathe new life into a worn-out e-horror setting with his Backrooms series. (7)
• ⛰️ I am, as of last month, an official sponsor of the otters at Northumberland Country Zoo. My only regret is that i’m not allowed to hug them. (cute/10)

• ⛰️ Finally, as ever, i can highly recommend going outside and touching grass. Really, one of the most fulfilling things you can ever do. (10+)

Hello. I’ve done some things in the past month and a half. They were alright.

Films watched

• Miranda July’s Kajillionaire: watched on a whim as part of my local art-house cinema’s “best of 2020” programme. A soppy gay kiss and a solitary touching scene can’t save this film from its own worst tendencies, with irritatingly quirky characters, jokes so dry they don’t deserve to be called “humour”, and a flat, unemotional lead. (D)
• Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003): Man sure does like his feet. (A)
• Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021): I can’t be a cynic about this — it’s just plain fun from start to finish. Willem Dafoe and Andrew Garfield absolutely steal the show, almost making up for the former’s goofy mask and the latter’s abysmal Spider-flicks. Some of that CGI was a bit dodgy, though, wasn’t it? (B+)
• The Wachowskis’ The Matrix Reloaded (2003): I’m going to say it: i enjoyed it more than the first one! Is it a better film? I don’t know about that. But it takes itself so seriously while being so unabashedly goofy that i can’t help but fall in love with it. Where else can you find PS2 Keanu fighting hundreds of Hugo Weavings in the same film as a monologue about the meaning of free will? (A-)
• The Wachowskis’ The Matrix Revolutions (2003): This one, on the other hand, did the worst thing a film can do. It bored me — which you’d think wouldn’t be possible given its massive scale. (D+)
• Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix Resurrections (2021): Finally, the film i binge-watched the other three to see. I appreciate what it was trying to do, and some of the worldbuilding was fascinating, but as much as i want to like it, it just falls flat on its face everywhere else. Hugo Weaving’s tech-bro replacement is a poor fit for the job. The action is just plain awful, and the dialogue isn’t much better (Lana, please log off). The best part about it was the cut-ins from the original film. Sorry, Ms Wachowski, but i think i’ll be taking the blue pill. (C-)
• Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021): It’s a cynical cash-grab any way you slice it, sure. It’s less of a sequel to the original film and more a sequel to a parallel, schmaltzier Spielbergian version of it which never existed. There’s a character called “Podcast.” But… i enjoyed it! It recaptures the spark of those classic eighties kids’ films — The Goonies, E.T., &c. — in a way that’s been sorely missing for the last decade. (B)
  Spoilers

  Not sure how i feel about the ethics of CGI Harold Ramis, mind…

Things which are not films

• 📺 Adult Swim’s Smiling Friends (2021): I have no idea what this absolutely deranged cartoon is, but i would like three more seasons and a movie greenlit immediately, thank you very much. (A)
• 📺 The BBC’s Around the World in 80 Days (2021): Just not my thing, i’m afraid. (E)
• 🎮 Josh Wardle’s Wordle (2021): A nice way to unpick my brain at the start of the day. (C+)
• 📚 Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003): I was very much enjoying my copy, which i had received as a Christmas gift, until i misplaced it… somewhere? It is, one presumes, now in the same dimension where all the socks and pens go.
• 💿 Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues (1983): Picked this classic up at Beatdown. “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” may just be the greatest song ever written. (A)
• 🏞️ Gæa’s Ouseburn (4.5 billion BCE), with assistance from Lord Armstrong and T. Dan Smith: The finest place for a walk in Newcastle, if i do say so myself. I’ve been working on a post for ages about all the nuances of it, but, alas, the heavy writer’s block sits unmoving on my keyboard. (A+)

Other recent minutiæ

• Your author’s pinky finger was recently intimately acquainted with the inside of an antiseptic wipe dispenser, and she had to go to A&E to get it fixed.ⁱ Not my proudest moment.
• Home-made flatbread. Need i say more?
• Gods bless whoever’s been sticking up all those anti-anti-vax stickers. They’re fighting the good fight! “It’s not Covid-1984.”

Hi, all. Sorry for the wait. Here’s some things i’ve watched and (mostly) enjoyed since August. Hope you enjoy.

Films watched

• Michael Sarnoski’s Pig (2021): Nicolas Cage. (B-)
• Cary Joji Fukunaga’s No Time to Die (2021): Having never seen a James Bond film before, i have to say i enjoyed it, even if the artsy-fartsy cinema i saw it at wasn’t the ideal venue for a massive blockbuster. A racist gets kicked into a vat of acid; what more do you want? (C+)
• Lana and Lily Wachowski’s The Matrix (1999): The most 1999 movie to ever 1999 its way onto the screen. It suffers somewhat from its own success; i’d heard so much good about it that, even though by technical standards i could of course tell it was a good film, i still found myself somewhat underwhelmed by the ending. (B)
• Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: _{Part One} (2021): I got the immersive experience by really needing to go to the toilet about halfway through and having no idea when the film was going to end. Amazing visuals, amazing scope, amazing score, i did not feel a single emotion. (B)
• Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch (2021): Part two of an unexpectedly Timothée Chalamet-filled day at the pictures. It’s another Wes Anderson film! If you like Wes Anderson, you’ll like this. If you don’t, you won’t! There is nothing more i can say about this except that the projector was slightly broken and cut off the top 10% of the frame. (B)
• Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000): Me and a group of friends watched this over Discord for laughs and generally memed our way through it — and yet, even among our decidedly unserious, Scorcese-killing atmosphere, we were all genuinely fucking terrified at the chainsaw scene. A masterclass in tension and subtle comedy. (A+)
• Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002): Watched with friends over Discord. It feels like i’m throwing an axe at someone’s altar here, but good fucking heavens, this movie was laaaame. It ticks off basically every cliché on the list, with seemingly no self-awareness… i’ll admit, though, i did have fun on a purely campy level. (C-)
• John McTiernan’s Die Hard (1988): An absolute thrill-ride from start to finish. Every time you think it can’t get any more extreme, it does. “No shit, lady, do i sound like i’m ordering a fucking pizza‽” (A)
• Brian Henson’s The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992): Greatest Christmas film ever made. (B-)

Music listened to

• Sam Fender’s Seventeen Going Under: I’m naturally biased as a Geordie boygirl myself, but the second i heard this, it went straight to the top of my album-of-the-year rankings — and it’s not even a contest. (A+. Best track: “Seventeen Going Under”)
• Lucy Dacus’s Home Video: No spoilers, but the closing track? Ye Gods, did the closing track give me a teary eye. (A. Best track: “Triple Dog Dare”)
• Underscores’ Fishmonger: A fascinating fusion of hyperpop and pop-punk. It’s patchy in a few places, and the repeated samples got on my nerves, but i’m excited to see what this band(?) does next! (B-. Best track: “Spoiled Little Brat”)
• Sigur Rós’s Takk…: I love it. I really do — but i found myself having to take breaks every so often because lead singer Jónsi’s falsetto came dangerously close to giving me a migraine. (B. Best track: „Hoppípolla”, natch)
• Some interesting stuff from the Isle of Wight-based band Wet Leg, dripping with wit and sardonic vocals. Can’t wait for the album!
• I went to my first concert since, you know, the thing. All glory to Elbow.

Other recent minutiæ

• I’ve been taking up sketching in my journal to ease the brain. I’m not anywhere near good enough to be posting anything on here — trust me — but it’s just nice to have a creative outlet. :)
• I went on a brief jaunt out to the old Roman temple at Benwell, but to tell the truth, there wasn’t enough interesting about it to turn it into a full post. I did, funnily enough, pass about five different religious denominations on the bus there — a church, a mosque, a gurdwara, a Hindu temple, and a Hare Krishna society.
• Storm Arwen absolutely fucked parts of Northumberland. My neck of the woods was largely unscathed, but the next town over didn’t fare so well — they didn’t have power for about a week.
• There were a couple of Barbadians interviewed on Radio 4 about the country’s transition to a republic, and it rather struck me how similar their dialect is to our West Country accent.
• You simply must listen to this poor woman’s Aspidistra getting absolutely roasted on Gardeners’ Question Time. It’s at about 10 minutes in.
• Now that the nights are getting longer again, it’s getting to be good weather for stargazing. I really must get myself out to that observatory in Wark again at some point…

Relevant pictures (and one audio file) from jaunts out

As the month winds up and summer draws to a close, it's time again for the menstrual (not that kind!) look back on the month that was.

Films watched

• Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) — I want to live inside of this film, and if that is not possible, i will somehow find a way to hang the entire thing on my wall. A strong contender for my second favourite film ever. (A+)
• Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009) — You do have to wonder if their German and French was actually any good. (A)
• Ilya Naishuller’s Nobody (2021) — A good action film with fun setpieces which i’ll probably forget i ever watched. (C)
• James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (2021) — I went to the cinema for the first time since the pandemic began to watch this — I think i would have taken just about anything! (B)

Albums listened to

• The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band — I am not entirely sure i could give this album an objective ranking after all these years of it being talked up, so, uh, (Classic/10) [Best track: A Day in the Life]
• Chvrches’ Screen Violence — It’s.... fine, i guess? Not their best, not their worst. (C) [Best track: Better If You Don’t]
• Lucy Dacus’s Home Video — Beautiful. Just beautiful. (B+) [Best track: Triple Dog Dare]
• Green Day’s American Idiot — By the end of it it all starts sounding a bit same-y. (C+) [Best track: American Idiot]
• Will Wood’s The Normal Album — Chaotic good. (A-) [Best track: I / Me / Myself]

Miscellaneous photos and videos

My apologies for the delay. I knew i’d forgotten something!

Music listened to and TV watched

• Bo Burnham’s Inside: A strong candidate for my favourite Thing of 2021. It is, frankly, unfair that one man can make me feel so many emotions in the span of an hour and a half — loved almost every minute of it! (That song about sexting does drag on a bit, though…) (A+)
• Wolf Alice’s Blue Weekend: Bloody brilliant. (A)
• Beabadoobee’s Our Extended Play: Yeah, this’ll do for new music from The 1975 while we wait for that Drive Like I Do compilation album. (B+)
• Haim’s Days Are Gone: Didn’t really do much for me. Some alright singles, though! (C-)
• Porter Robinson’s Nurture: After months of promising i’d listen to it in full when i got my hands on the vinyl, i finally admitted to myself that it was out of stock and i’d have to wait until August otherwise. It’s a pretty good album, but part of me wonders how i’d feel about it if i hadn’t worn the singles to death already… (B)
• Euro 2020: I’d never really thought myself the football fan type. Nevertheless… come on England!!

Most viewed pages on the site last month

1. Index page: 256 views
2. Linkroll: 136 views
3. The Garden (index page): 65 views
4. About the author: 46 views
5. Things to do before i die: 28 views
6. Music i like: 26 views
7. What i believe: 25 views
8. Toaster shade generator: 24 views
9. Songs i have cried my silly little heart out to: 20 views
10. There Are Two Continents: 20 views

Most read posts on The Garden (in no particular order)

• Men, women, ha’men?
• Bog trotters, heart attacks, and a paranoid Auntie
• Our Christmas tradition
• Backslashes aren’t real (and other Ascii weirdness)
• Links for the 4^th of June

So this is June
and what have you done?
Another month over
a new one just begun

Films watched

• Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000) (A-)
• Barry Sonnenfeld’s Men in Black (1999): Ruthlessly efficient. Gets in and out in 90 minutes. (A-)
• Dreamworks’ Shrek (2001): Watched as it was meant to be seen, in the original Polish (C+)
• Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998): While sailing across the internet, i happened across a copy of the original draft of the script. It is so much darker, and so much weirder.
  • It’s set in a constructed version of New York City instead of a small town in Florida
  • He finds his own name in a dictionary
  • Truman threatens to kill a baby and it is played completely straight
  • Instead of ending when he disappears out the door it continues and he hijacks a tram and has a shoot-out on the roof of the studio????
  • He hires a prostitute to recreate his encounter with the girl who told him it was all a TV show
• Anyway, the cut that got released is a very good film to show to your friends who haven’t seen it before and watch their reactions. It’s also — for me personally — one of those Back to the Future-type films, where it’s all so immaculately put together that you can watch it over and over and there’s always something new to enjoy (A+)

Top 10 most viewed pages on the site this May

1. Index page: 219 views
2. Linkroll: 82 views
3. The Garden (front page): 59 views
4. Toaster shade generator: 46 views
5. About the author: 35 views
6. The log of changes: 26 views
7. Music i like: 21 views
8. Things i would like to add to my site: 20 views
9. What i believe: 16 views
10. Toaster: 15 views

The rest of the “primary” pages on my site (that is, those which aren’t part of any kind of regular series) are, in decreasing order of views, The foreſt of ſhrines, My coat of arms, Discord funny moments, the Marijn van Hoorn style guide, my bucket list, ‘There Are Two Continents’, the Gender Tetrahedron, interesting Wikipedia articles, yelling into the void, Heximal, the NEOcharts (RIP), Quotes and other assorted aphorisms, a calendrical table, My vinyl record collection, s → ſ, the log of dreams, my conlangs, noughts and crosses, ‘this’ll be on my videotape’, Kunstgalerie van Hoorn, A nicer ƿaȝ of ƿriting Engliſh, the Compendium of Good Words, country counting, and songs i have cried my silly little heart out to. Zero views were received by copypastables and holocene history, which… you know, fair enough, they’re both indescribably boring pages.

Top 5 most read entries on The Garden

1. Welcome to the new Garden
2. 7AM puzzles
3. Site statistics for April 2021
4. ‘Testing, testing… If this goes through, this should be my first successful blog post made from my phone.’
5. Links for the 22^nd of May

Top 10 countries where most people are reading from

1. The United States
2. The United Kingdom
3. Canada
4. France
5. India
6. New Zealand
7. Sweden
8. Germany
9. Hong Kong
10. Brazil