Covid Watching Diary (December 13-18)

Monday is about movies. And/or TV. I watched a heap - of both - over the last week. And it felt, mostly, like a Fever Dream.

I am at the very end of the journey with this round of Covid. I wrote to you, last week from within the brain fog. I was able to keep up with my newsletters, but it was wobbly. And took some time each day trying to focus. I read precisely no pages of anything. Could barely even read anything on my phone. It was all Instagram reels for a while there. Brain-rot. Wonderful brain-rot.

Everyone is different, and this round of Covid hit me harder than my first. I was wiped out completely for a few days. But I couldn’t sleep. So I turned to the TV. It’s always been easy to do that, was even easier given I was isolating within the house by living/sleeping in the one (TV) room.

We remember the novelty of lockdown. We remember how everyone had a take on The Tiger King. And everyone was watching the same thing and sharing thoughts on it all.

Well, I spent half a week just now in various shakes, sweats and hot/cold calamities, drifting in and out of focus. Lucky I have the Tubi app! One could argue that the Tubi app could be what evokes that very feeling.

Come with me on a tour, now of all the mad, bad, and truly wonderful things I watched over the last week. The good, the bad, and the cinematograpically fugly.

Zed’s Dead:

Some sort of indie/bootleg “unofficial prequel” that tells the backstory of the “Gimp Scene” characters in Pulp Fiction. No expense was spent here whatsoever. This trim 70-minute film effortlessly feels like a three-hour slog, and makes The Room look like Raging Bull. I loved it of course. It’s terrible. (watched on Tubi).

Firestarter:

Having finally read the book this year, I decided I did need to get around to watching this. Perfect in the fog of Covid. Since it’s a very bad movie. A pointless remake. Horror, as a genre, knows an awful lot about pointless remakes. And isn’t super interested in correcting that. The original film might not be perfect, but I love it. As with the original film, the very best thing here is the score. This time, not by Tangerine Dream, but by John Carpenter. (Watched on Netflix).

John Lennon - Murder Without A Trial:

Much has been made about how they got to everyone that hasn’t talked before. Doormen, and police investigators, and Mark David Chapman’s high school crush, and, well, yes they did. A researcher or producer might want to have checked that the subjects actually had anything worth hearing first. Classic three-part formula, to remind you they had more than they needed but not enough to make anything really compelling. The first episode is pretty wonderful - for painting the picture, great footage of the New York streets, and the tension and mood is palpable. But the second and third episodes crawl with no meaning, no direction, no real revelations, just riding on the thin promise that we get to hear from people that were there. Keifer Sutherland as narrator though? Inspired! He should voice every crime dramatisation. (Watched on Apple+).

The Curse:

Just as I was, er, cursing the fact that Nathan For You seems to have disappeared from Neon, right as I was in the perfect state for a rewatch, The Curse appears to have dropped. So all is forgiven. The awkward-af scripted deadpan comedy-satire is halfway through its run, a new episode dropping weekly, and should wrap very early into 2024. I decided I couldn’t wait, and wasn’t disappointed. The five episodes so far are cringe-inducingly glorious. And I’ll be watching them again from the top - possibly even before the final five drop. (Watched on Neon).

Sly:

I’m a huge fan of ol Sly. Love the stories about him, too. Just so driven to get Rocky made. And yes, both the Rocky and Rambo franchises got a little silly (Rambo especially), but in both cases the first films are top tier movies for me. And very rewatchable. So I was always going to enjoy this Stallone doco. It’s nothing I didn’t know already, but it’s a nice wee portrait. (Watched on Netflix).

Stamped From The Beginning:

I have the book this documentary is based on, I’ve yet to read it. But I’m glad I saw the doco - a brilliant, confronting watch. One I’d recommend to anyone and everyone. And I’ll be digging out the book now. (Watched on Netflix).

Leave The World Behind:

A lot of hype about this one. And it mostly delivered. It felt like good fun, escapist thriller stuff. Simultaneously a bit trashy and thought provoking. Perfect, then. Until the end. Which petered out a little. Great final frame. And then, I thought about it after and wondered if the ending is actually perfect. So, there’s a good film in there. But maybe a little long. (Watched on Netflix).

Weird Al - Never Off Beat:

Big “Weird Al” fan. Also big fan of semi-unauthorised-type docos that flood Youtube, Tubi, AmazonPrime, places like that. I’ll eventually hoover them all up I’m sure. So this was a nice find. A new one. And actually a really great summary of Al’s career. I was into this way more than I probably needed to be. (Watched on AmazonPrime).

Ringo Starr All Starr Band Live 2006:

Big fan of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band. And, as you’ll know, I’ve been on a big Beatles kick. So this was a fun gig to connect with, a bit of documentary-type interview footage but basically a full live show. Sheila E. shines. Edgar Winter is pretty cool. Richard Marx is way better than you remember. And I am always in full support of Ringo smiling behind those shades and throwing up a peace sign. Let the man do whatever he wants. (Watched on YouTube).

Kill Zone:

David Carradine is an American colonel who will pay any price to defeat the Viet Cong. When his unauthorized fighting force in Cambodia is discovered, he becomes a one-man army, fighting a war of his own for a cause he knows is just. Not a documentary. (Watched on AmazonPrime).

Beckham:

Easily the revelation of my week of watching whatever got in my way. I was always planning on seeing this, but I wasn’t expecting to really love it. I guess I figured I’d get 50-60% solid/ish content and 40-50% fluff. But this was 100% great. Posh (Victoria), who I really had no read on at all, comes out of this well. As does David. Made me confront what I had assimilated from half-baked news stories of the time and just run with; made me re-evaluate how I see (some) famous people. And beyond that, the story in here is compelling and the archival footage totally makes it. One of the gems of the year. And completely unexpected. (Watched on Netflix).

A Moody Christmas:

This is ten years old, and I finally caught up with it. A very funny mini-series that shows the same Australian family catching up over several Christmas days, all of them botched in some way. It felt perfect for many reasons and ‘Tis The Season after all. (Watched on Netflix).

Joe Strummer - Cut The Clash:

Joe Strummer was never my hero. I don’t get the worship, nor understand the fuss. This didn’t change that, only made my mood against him grow stronger, if anything. But it did make me want to listen to The Clash again. (Go figure?) That hasn’t happened in some time. So that’s something. (Watched on AmazonPrime).

Stan Helsing:

At this point, Katy nearly called for an ambulance. It wasn’t that my symtoms were getting worse, just my movie taste…(Watched on Netflix).

Wonderwall:

Weird British comedy of manners from the psychedelic sixties. Best known really for its George Harrison sitar-driven soundtrack. (Which I adore). Had never seen this film. Actually pretty good…certainly watchable. (Watched on YouTube).

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Perculiar Children:

Oscar’s been reading the books (and loving them). And he wants me to read at least the first one, but instead we decided to sit down with this first. I was into it because it’s Tim Burton. And I always like to give him a chance. This was in his awkward stage of making so many films that no one really cared about. I liked this though. Not normally my thing. But I found it charming and decent.

Sons of Steel:

One of my weird, sideline hyper-focuses for right now is the trash side of Australian cinema. And this is a hit-paydirt holy grail really. “You do watch some hot fucking garbage”, my wife called out lovingly and in support from the other room. (Watched on Shudder).

And finally:

The Concert For Bangladesh:

BIG Beatles kick right now… (Watched on DVD)

*

Look, there was also a LOT of YouTube stuff in there. Interviews with Isaac Asimov, and Nathan Fielder, and Henry Winkler, and Adam Sandler, and so on…a bunch of Tiny Desk gigs, even some old Daft Punk DJ sets…

And then, a couple of days ago I turned off the TV in disgust. And turned back to my stereo for a new kind of warmth.

I’m almost able to be out of the house on the regular now. I reckon I can read again. And looking forward to cutting right back on TV! But it got me through those sleep-deprived nights and the early hours. When the work needs to be done, I can dig down deep and consume some pop-culture!

See anything there you’d likely run a mile from? Anything you want to watch or also loved? And if not, what is on your list of current movie/tv recommendations?