🧟♂️ Sunday Shuffle #19
TV/Movies/Books recommendations reviews, and more...
Greetings from Newcastle.
Welcome to the Sunday Shuffle.
🎬 Mandy - Prime: Nicolas Cage seems to have made a few decent horror/dark movies over the last couple of years, among all the shite he’s been making for years and years. Mandy reminds me of those 70s and 80s giallo movies by the likes of Fulci and Argento - but I must admit I haven’t watched many of those, and don’t claim to be any sort of expert. It’s very trippy, and plenty horrifying. Incredibly dark, but also garish and sort of tongue-in-cheek as well. Try it out.
📖 The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I was hooked from very early on. The stripped-back prose. The spartan punctuation. At the end of civilisation, even the central constructs of written language have collapsed. This could have descended into an exploitative gore-fest, but what we get instead is a much more delicate treading over the ashes of an annihilated world. One that sort of feels not too far away. The novel tapped into some real primal paternal fears. I’m not your survivalist-type. I’ve no military training, nor really much experience camping, so I can’t identify with the skills of the man in this book. I can identify with the love he has for his child, his son, the boy. It was very easy for me to imagine one of my sons and I trudging through the death-rattle of the world, knowing it was a doomed enterprise with nothing but pain along the way, and nothing but nothing at the end. A man who knows he could die at any moment, and he would leave behind a pre-teen child to face untold horrors and brutality alone. You’d think the unthinkable. You’d consider the impossible, the most horrific action you could take, that would fly against all natural instinct to protect. And when the end did come, I cried. No book has made me cry before, and only one other has made me come remotely close. It’s not a happy read, but a fucking brilliant one. Also…
🎬 The Road - ITVX: capturing the essence of the novel about as well as you can, really. It misses some of the dialogue that really brought to life the difference between the world the Man remembers, and the only world the Boy has ever known. Still, a pretty good rendering of the book.
📺 RoboDoc - Prime: I love the original RoboCop, so this four-part documentary, forensically examining the making of that classic, was made for me. There are some really funny parts, revealing the tensions and dynamics on set. Even if you’re not so much a RoboCop fan, as just a fan of film, and learning how these big projects somehow come together, there’s lots to enjoy here.
📺 Currently Watching: Beef - Netflix. Very much enjoying this quirky, insane show about escalating violence emerging from a fairly common sort of road rage incident. I’m onto the last episode, so unless they completely fuck the ending up, I recommend this one.
📺 Currently Re-watching: Stranger Things: Season 1-3 - Netflix. It’s been a while, and I’ve forgotten so much about the early episodes of this truly brilliant show. Can’t believe how little the actors were when it all started out - they look like babies, bless ‘em! Going to enjoy this repeat viewing in advance of the final season’s release this year.
📖 Currently Reading: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. I found Wharton’s The Custom of the Country deeply affecting when I read it at university (when I told you about The Road above, I mentioned one other book that upset me - it was this one). Once I realised Martin Scorsese directed an adaptation of The Age of Innocence, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder—one of only a couple of Scorsese movies I haven’t watched yet—I knew I had to make some time to read the book, so that I can watch the film afterwards.
🎮 Currently Playing: Red Dead Redemption 2 - Xbox Series S.
If you have recommendations or comments, and you’re reading this in your inbox, you can reply just like any other email, and if you’re reading this via the Substack app or on my website through a browser, remember to hit like and drop a comment - and feel free to forward this and share with friends you think might like it.
Best wishes and bad dreams,
Jack
All platforms mentioned above are the UK version, unless indicated otherwise.
Amazon links may be affiliate links and Amazon may (at no extra cost to you) give me a small commission from any qualifying purchases made, which will helpfully contribute toward my writerly running costs.
Oops I forgot to update the introduction 😂