31 Days of Halloween 2021

I finally decided to edit this and put what I was originally going to post. The night of Halloween I was just too tired to elaborate. So here it goes:

My Halloween video

I took a rather simple approach to my 31 Days of Halloween this year and it honestly went the best it ever has. I started off doing strictly TV shows but Halloween Kills kind of spurred some more movie watching. I dove into the Leprechaun series for the first time (I had only ever seen the first one). I still have two more left to go there, but I'm sure I'll finish it off shortly, it just didn't make it this month. And I didn't manage to see Last Night in Soho. It's just damn near impossible to get my ass to a theater these days.

My list:

1. Midnight Mass - Proverbs

2. Midnight Mass - Lamentations

3. Midnight Mass - Gospel

4. Midnight Mass - Acts of the Apostles

5. Midnight Mass - Revelation

6. Squid Game - Red Light, Green Light

7. Squid Game - Hell

8. Squid Game - The Man With The Umbrella

9. Squid Game - Stick to the Team

10. Squid Game - A Fair World

11. Squid Game - Gganbu

12. Squid Game - VIPs

13. Squid Game - Front Man

14. Squid Game - One Lucky Day

15. Halloween Kills

16. Jujutsu Kaisen - Curse Womb Must Die

17. Chucky - Death By Misadventure

18. Batman: The Long Halloween (part two)

19. Videodrome 

20. Raising Cain

21. Chucky - Give Me Something Good To Eat

22. Titane

23. Green Knight

24. Leprechaun 2

25. Leprechaun 3

26. Leprechaun 4: In Space

27. Chucky - I Like To Be Hugged

28. Leprechaun in the Hood

29. Squid Game - Red Light, Green Light (again, with parents)

30. Candyman

31. Halloween (annual tradition)

Random Thoughts for October 2021

It’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these. I’ve neglected this due to my massive switch towards video editing. But that doesn’t mean I’m not writing. My scripts are between 2000 and 3000 words and I write multiple a month for Joblo. So it’s just a bit different writing than usual, but it’s still similar to what you would be seeing on this site: analysis of movies. Still, I had the urge to get back to this.

2021 has been my year of Manga. It all started with “Blame!” I quickly finished the 6 volumes and realized just how much I enjoyed the style. I had always been thrown off by the lack of color (felt it meant the drawings would be less dynamic—boy, how wrong was I?) but “Blame!” was just so damn fascinating. I moved onto the works of Junji Ito but still wanted to try something out that was even more part of the public consciousness so I thought it’d be a good idea to try out “Attack on Titan.” And that’s when I “got it.” These sprawling stories provided the social commentary I loved from horror movies. So, while working on AoT, I read through the complete runs of “Tokyo Ghoul” and “Chainsaw Man.” They’re unique and different and reinvigorate my love for the printed word. With October, I have paused my reading of “One Piece” in order to focus on Junji Ito and AoT. It’s been terror-ifically great.

AEW is what I’ve always wanted out of wrestling. I’m a lifelong fan of professional wrestling and that’s tough. It’s not exactly something you can tell everyone because it brings some truly awful comparisons. And I get it. Because the product that’s usually presented by WWE is ridiculously mediocre. But it's been such a breath of fresh air to get excited for Wednesday nights and all the originality it will entail. Because usually weekly wrestling also means weekly frustrations yet everything smells of roses at this point. Eventually some stink will creep in, but I'm really enjoying it as is.

I am doing a 31 Days of Halloween this year. I just won't be posting what I watched until Halloween. I'm mostly doing this because it makes more sense to do it this way, this year. I decided to watch an episode of a show a day, with some movies sprinkled throughout. "Halloween Kills" and "Last Night in Soho" are included but otherwise, it'll be a lot of Horror TV that I've missed over the years. I can spoil it only by saying that "Midnight Mass" belongs on all of your lists, and I hope you watch it this October.

I genuinely don’t understand Hollywood’s love for Ted Lasso. I’ve now seen both seasons and think it’s fine but everyone else seems to be watching this incredible show. But it honestly just feels like another BBC show. They didn't really earn many of their big moments.

“Halloween Kills” was a bit of a mixed bag. I loved it yet can definitely see the flaws. With the 2018 film, I legitimately could only see one criticism: the new Loomis. Everything else was perfect and I will fight you to the death if you disagree (heh). But I can definitely see the problems people would have with "Kills." The dialogue can be a little on nose. There are a ton of unlikeable characters (though I think that's the intent, going for the mob outrage angle). And it definitely seems to be going for a high body count for the sake of living up to the namesake. But I really loved how fun it was. I'd still rank it as the best in the series behind the original and 2018, so really, can I say I'm that disappointed?