Having watched Fire Walk With Me , Lost Highway , and Muholland Drive over the course of the last week, I felt like I needed a bit of a break before taking on Inland Empire.
We signed up for a month’s worth of Peacock to watch some Olympics stuff (I could not care less but the rest of the family is interested), so I was scrolling through their horror movie offerings. I was pleasantly surprised to find they have a pretty decent catalog.
The annual music festival that happens in my town kicks off this evening. It has been running for 30ish years and we have been attending it for the last nine or ten years.
It is relatively small as these big summer music festivals go and has always been quite family-friendly. We go with a bunch of friends, set up all of our beach umbrellas and chairs, and everyone comes and goes as they please. The one time one of my kids got lost at the festival a few years ago, he made his way to the EMT tent, gave them my cellphone number, and they called me to come get him. It’s just a super-chill event.
I watched the 2013 remake (reboot? sequel? reimagining? I don’t even know what we’re calling these things anymore) of Evil Dead. I figured I should at least check out some of Fede Álvarez’s stuff before completely dismissing the new Alien movie sight unseen.
It was not as terrible as I had been expecting but it is not good.
The story and plot are contrived and I can’t say as I really cared about any of the characters, although I did feel kind of bad for main character Mia, who seems to have gotten dragged into this whole thing by her rather shitty friends.
🔗 [A Tale of Judgment and Grace](https://www.jamesreeves.co/a-tale-of- judgment-and-grace/):
I thanked something I don’t quite believe in for saving me from myself and sparing that child from a scene of me haranguing her dad about civility. I made a promise to do my best to treat everyone as if they’re dealing with something heavy. Because they are.
But it’s hard. Hating that man was easy. I enjoyed it. I could have turned up the volume on my music and focused on my work. Instead, I removed my headphones to be more fully annoyed. Why?
At a random gathering I attended last night, someone mentioned Criterion’s 24/7 channel, which I was aware of but had completely forgotten about.
I turned it on this morning and—as is the entire idea of the channel—a random movie was playing. The stream does not say what the movie is, how long it has been going, or how much time is left. There is no way to start over from the beginning or even to go backward or forward. You just watch whatever is currently playing.