Citation Needed

Welcome, weary traveler! Stay awhile, and listen? Please disregard whatever the hell that is at the top of this email. Sometimes things get away from me.

I continue to wrestle with this show idea, to the point that I’m not sure I should even keep trying anymore. With all other writing projects, I’ve always just sat down and done it. But this one is taking so long, and I’ve been having such difficulty with it, I wonder if it’s just not the right time. So instead I’m going to shift to writing something different. I have, at all times, at least two or three ideas for projects going simultaneously. Ideas for short stories, comics, animation… I’ll just pick one and work on that, and hopefully that’ll free my mind up to subconsciously work on the tv show idea. PRAY FOR MOJO

There are a few people in my life whose opinions on media I can trust. People whose tastes match mine closely enough that when they say ‘hey, watch/read this’, I’m likely to give it a shot. So it was with ‘Godzilla Minus One’, which I saw in the theater a few nights ago. My best friend liked it so much he’s seen it three times now and might see it again. Given that, I was so excited to watch it!

Then I did watch it, and thought it was… good. I didn’t love it. As a kind of reboot, I thought it was very good. I kept to the theme of the original Godzilla pretty well while kind of updating the context around the big guy. What this movie has going for it is that Godzilla himself has never been scarier. Truly, he was a terrifying presence in a way I’ve never seen. I’ve always loved the Big G and thought he was cool, but this was the first time I was frightened and intimidated by him. Good job, movie!

But the human interest stuff I could’ve done without. It’s the same with the American Godzilla films. I just don’t care about what the people are doing. I just want kaiju action from beginning to end. But this was fine. It didn’t re-endear me to the theater-going process, so I might actually be done with that aspect of movie watching. We’ll see.

Coming up next, in ‘UNEARTHED’

I’m excited for this week’s ‘UNEARTHED’, as it tackles the classic Chris Claremont X-Men story ‘God Loves, Man Kills’. It’s pretty much the definitive X-Men story. If you wanted to boil Claremont’s mutant ethos down to one tale, it’d be this one. But there’s a huge moment at the end of the first installment that I won’t spoil, but remains controversial to this day among the fans. Can’t wait! Here’s a quick peek:

What I’m reading

A couple of nights ago I watched ‘30 Days of Night’, a film adapted from the comic of the same name. I’d heard good things, but I really wasn’t expecting it to be as great as it was. It’s always nice to be rewarded! Honestly, a great script, really solid acting all around, and a fantastic action man turn from Josh Hartnett. And most of it practical effects, too, which is lovely. Go rent it if you’re interested in vampire horror films, but beware: it’s vicious and bloody. It’s made my Best Vampire Movies list, alongside ‘The Lost Boys’, ‘Innocent Blood’, and ‘Near Dark’.

I’ve also been limping through ‘Suzume’, a feature-length anime that promised more from the trailer I saw. It’s fine. It just seems really formulaic of other such anime fare. But it is beautiful. I’ll finish it over the next few nights, probably.

And that’s about it for this week’s update. I hope the coming week brings more productivity, as I could really use it. Stay tuned for the first installment of ‘UNEARTHED: God Loves, Man Kills’. Eat yummy things. Be kind to each other. I’ll see you next week. Here’s your reality check: Matt’s scary worm trill sound thing