Reading/Watching Log #68

Well, August was certainly a strange month. I was sick off work for a full two weeks (definitely a record, as whenever I get sick, it’s seldom for very long) and then all of New Zealand went back into another lockdown when the Delta variant reared its ugly head.

So for the first time in what feels like ages, I’ve had the time to do some serious, absorbing reading. And man, that felt good. Seven books! Being so immersed in other people’s imagination has also had a follow-on effect on my writing, and I’ve made lots of headway on the story I’m trying to pull together. It certainly helps fight back against cabin fever.

I rewatched a few films that I won’t go into in any great detail, since I’ve done so on other posts already: Raya and the Last Dragon (liked it better the second time around, though they still botched the trust theme), Enola Holmes (I watched it during the last lockdown, and it makes for deeply relaxing quarantine viewing), Birds of Prey (having watched James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, I had to return to Harley Quinn’s solo movie) and Song of the Sea (still the most perfect film of all time).

I’m keeping stress and anxiety at bay, though I’m disappointed at missing out on The Firebird at the Isaac Theatre Royal. Thankfully it’s been postponed as opposed to getting outright cancelled, but apparently the theatre’s funding is in dire straits. Hopefully a patron of some kind will step in soon to save the place from closure, as I can’t count the number of memorable productions I’ve seen there.

But despite everything, I feel energized about reading again, and enthusiastic about my own creative writing endeavours. I’m going to chase that feeling.

Legend of the Seeker: Deception

The one with the good D’Haran...

So in my last review I said that we were heading into a comedic episode on the heels of the darker Bloodlines and Conversion... which isn’t exactly true. That’s the next episode. This one keeps the tone consistent with its predecessors, by starting off with a massacred village and continuing into a genuinely complex moral conundrum.

It begins with some adorable little munchkins playing hide and seek, with one of them finding a strange capsule of some kind, making ominous ticking noises as one half of it revolves atop the other. Kids being kids, they gather around to look at it more closely, though we’re spared the inevitable explosion.

Quick Update

It's been rather quiet on this blog lately, and that's because... well, I have a new house that I have to get fixed up. Tends to be a bit time consuming. The good news is that the settlement day went smoothly, the bad is that now I have an actual mortgage (and in order to get a handle on it, I'm going to have to rent the place out for a year or so before moving in myself).

But still, it's a huge milestone that's been met and conquered, and I'm currently in the far more fun position of getting to chose colour schemes and patterns.

I've also been laid low with illness for a while. I had to take two weeks off work which is a new record for me, and though it wasn't debilitating it just wasn't going away, and I'm still trying to shake it off three weeks later. I'm sure that unconscious stress over the house played a part in this, but there are plenty of non-Covid bugs going around too. I can't wait for spring at this point. 

And today was the first day of a brand new lockdown for New Zealand. The Delta variant has landed in the North Island and no one is taking any chances. So that alone is the reason why I've found enough time to write this post! It's only going to last three days here in the South Island, and though it's disruptive to businesses and schools... honestly, I can't say I don't appreciate a quick breather. 

The other plus side of having more free time (even while sick) is that suddenly I have more opportunities to read. And man... I miss reading. Like concentrated reading. Plowing through books like there's no tomorrow, absorbing ideas and themes and well-crafted sentences, feeling immersed in creativity and imaginative force... whew, it's been a trip. 

I think I may make some amendments to my New Years' Resolution going forward and considerably cut down on ALL films and television shows. There's clearly something draining about statically watching things instead of engaging in the mental exercise required to process words on a page. I just need to read more.

Which is ironic, since I made August the month that I FINALLY caught up with DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, which requires me to watch what feels like a dozen or so shows to get the proper context for the crossover. And let's face it, if you're after something intellectually stimulating, then superhero shows on the CW is the last thing you should be watching.

I don't have much more to say! Honestly, this post is just a way of keeping my blog consistent and passing the time in lockdown. Hope you're all keeping well, and with luck I'll have another Legend of the Seeker review up soon. Oh, and I have to write about the Toy Story Toons at some stage. And I keep meaning to get back to Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre...

Woman of the Month: Deena Johnson

Deena Johnson from the Fear Street trilogy

SPOILERS

The best stories are the ones that take you by surprise and the Fear Street trilogy certainly achieved that. Although horror isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, there is something to be said for the genre’s Final Girl trope and how she’s evolved throughout the years, from the virginal distressed damsel who survives long enough for the police to rescue her, to the girl-next-door who grabs the nearest weapon, comes up with an on-the-fly plan of attack, and takes out the serial killer by herself.

Deena falls into the latter category, but along the way the trilogy also has something to say about the old Bury Your Gays trope. We’re now reaching a point where genre-savvy writers are aware of the unpleasant and wearying implications of any LGBTQIA+ characters biting the dust during the course of their respective story, but still not close enough to feel assured of their safety when they appear in horror/slashers films.

So when Deena’s ex, a character initially referred to ambiguously as “Sam”, turns out to be another girl, you’ll be forgiven for assuming that one or the other would be dead by the time the credits roll. And the trilogy certainly takes Deena through the ringer. Believing that Sam is being targeted by a range of supernatural serial killers on account of her disturbing the grave of Sarah Fier, a long-dead witch said to have cursed the town of Shadyside, Deena puts her own life on the line to protect her ex from a grisly end.

Then when Sam is possessed by the witch and attacks Deena, she seeks out answers from the sole survivor of another mass-murder, gaining the tools she needs to disappear into a movie-length flashback sequence to the year 1666 in order to find out the truth of how the curse that plagues their community started in the first place. In an ingenious touch, the actresses for Deena and Sam are also used for their ancestral/spiritual counterparts Sarah and Hannah, in which the Sapphic lovers meet the very fate that their modern equivalents are so desperate to avoid.  

Armed with the truth and some righteous anger, Deena uses the knowledge she’s accumulated to save her love and end the curse once and for all. Talk about a Determinator!

Ultimately it’s a story about how an indomitable teenage lesbian takes on the white male classist patriarchy in order to save her girlfriend’s life... and wins. And obviously, when I put it that way it sounds like the whole thing is going to be a heavy-handed tract on contemporary social issues, in which the message gets in the way of the story – but trust me, if you haven’t seen it already, this trilogy deftly integrates its plot-points across the action in a way I really didn’t expect from a trashy slasher based on pulp horror for teenagers from the nineties.