October 2021 Update

Happy Halloween! Put on your witch's hat, vampire bat leggings and black-cat-and-orange-pumpkin jumper (or is that just me when at home on All Hallows Eve?).

It's been one of the better months. I finally got my driving test booked for early next year (considering the waiting list nowadays, I got lucky). Surprisingly, I read and really liked some comics and books: perhaps finally breaking me out of my 2021 reading slump?

Again I watched a lot of films and TV. Here is a list of them:

(Pink is for films I really liked. Purple is for films I loved. Bright Red is for films I absolutely hated.)

Films:

Okko's Inn, Little Manhattan, Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Princess Switch, A Christmas Prince, The Knight Before Christmas (don't ask about the last three), Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Paprika, The Little Norse Prince, White Snake, Grave of the Fireflies, Charlie's Angels (2000), Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, The Witch, Mary and the Witch's Flower, Patti Cake$, Nim's Island, Lady in the Water, Carmilla (2020), Ratchet & Clank, Meet the Parents, Girl Most Likely, Welcome To Me, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Fun with Dick and Jane, Love Actually (words will never be able to describe how much I loathe this movie), Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, The Bookshop, Nanny McPhee, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Akira, Miss Potter, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Flushed Away, Tomb Raider, I Kill Giants, The Tale of Despereaux, Last Christmas, Tangerine, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, Police Academy, Panic Room, Arrival, and documentaries about Aardman, Marsha P. Johnson, Brené Brown, and US immigration.

As you can see, I haven't had much luck with movies in October, but the few that are worth it, are worth it.

TV:

Batwoman Season 2 - It is very good. The presence of a Black queer Batwoman as the protag is enough to elevate and transcend this series towards the revolutionary. But its stories are good, too, as is its biting social commentary. The acting is superb. It's also the best anti-Bury Your Gays anything I've ever seen. However, as much I liked it, I don't think I'll continue on to season 3. By season 2's ending, I can just tell when it'll go too far for me; when it'll jump the shark and get really ridiculous. I've learned the hard way too many times to quit while you're ahead when watching TV shows. And it's a superhero show at that, so... yeah.

Good Girls Season 1 - It starts off strong and entertaining, but loses me quickly along the way. It might have been better as a movie instead of a long-running TV series. I don't think there's enough material to draw out with this premise to make it last as inexplicably long as it has. And as "feminist" as Good Girls is, it contains some abhorrent male characters who you are still supposed to like and find funny and endearing. Example: an attempted rapist is regulated to a bumbling comic side character. Nuff said. Another thing: anything that contains a character (in this case male) who fakes having cancer in order to manipulate a female character into staying with them, and this is immediately forgiven and forgotten about by everyone once the lie is revealed, is crossing the line for me, and so I happily quit Good Girls.

Maya and the Three - The animation, fight scenes, and voice acting are fantastic. Sadly, this is another show which gets many things right, but just as many things so, so wrong, adding up to a frustrating viewing experience. Some characters, and character arcs, development and relationships, are in fact hardly developed. Like, certain villains are not redeemed so much as they just decide not to be evil one episode later on, and that's that. It feels sudden, poorly earned, with little to no explanations. There're nine episodes, which are 25-40 minutes long; you'd think that'd leave plenty of time for development for characters and their relationships with each other. Also I must make a public announcement, a shout to the rooftops: I really hate the liar-revealed trope, and Maya and the Three has the worst example of this I've ever seen in anything ever, and that's saying a fucking lot. The lie itself, supposedly told by the title character, comes out of nowhere in the middle of the series, and it is so poorly established, and what it even is doesn't matter. It is never mentioned again the episode after it's revealed to the rest of the cast; just the very act of lying is treated like it's the worst thing imaginable committed by the lead. It is that bad. The liar-revealed element is so arbitrary, so clumsily established and executed in the story, that it is never mentioned again after the "forgiveness" episode. WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT?! THERE REALLY WAS NO OTHER WAY TO INCITE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE GOOD GUYS BEFORE THE FINAL THREE EPISODES?! Another public announcement: I really, really fucking hate it when a female lead is punished by the narrative for not being 100% perfect all the time. Having her friends and loved ones turn against her for petty and stupid reasons - and her pathetically saying sorry billions of times as a result - is cringey, cruel, horrible, and is simply bad writing. Some writers seem to be afraid of making their female characters Mary Sues (an old, overused, and definitely sexist and too often misinterpreted term now), and so they give them flaws... but then in turn they punish them for having those flaws; for being human. It's a vicious cycle, and rather than combatting sexism and misogyny in the media it only feeds it. STOP HAVING FEMALE CHARACTERS APOLOGISE SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!! Male heroes are almost never treated so terribly, and are almost always excused and forgiven easily for whatever they do, which will be glossed over. Overall, Maya and the Three, while entertaining and cool for the most part, is like a half-baked version of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which it obviously was inspired by. Oh yeah, one more thing: everyone in the show is so aggressively heterosexual. When Netflix has had success with kids' cartoons such as Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power in recent years, there is no excuse. A love triangle is resolved by one person in it dying, too. Easy, and lazy!

Since it's Halloween, I've been watching some of my favourite not-so-scary films for the season (several of which are included here on my Top 20 Halloween Movies list.)

Continue to stay safe and loving and caring, everyone.