November: A month of loss and resistance

This month has been a struggle. My grandfather passed away and my cat got hit by a car and died. My grandfather had been sick for quite some time and it had been a long and steady decline before he finally left us. He had a massive influence on my life and I’m going to miss him greatly. I’m not sure I’ve encountered a person with more integrity than him, nor someone as curious. He’s the first grandparent I’ve lost and it certainly changes your perspective on life.

Strangely enough my cat dying was more traumatic. The sudden loss of something that is a part of your day to day life hits you in ways you don’t expect. Simple tasks completed throughout the day serve as reminders that she is gone. Not to mention the trauma of finding something you love dead on the side of a road. I will also miss her greatly.

It would be easy to use these two happenings as excuses for the fact I have not really written any reviews so far this month, and they would be exactly that, excuses. The truth is I have watched four movies I could have reviewed. So why haven’t I? The reason is that horror movies are somewhat easy to review. They are about tension and scares and genre innovation. They don’t really have too much to say. Halloween doesn’t really have some big hidden message. The Purge attempts social commentary but it isn’t overly nuanced. Scream and Cabin in the Woods are more commentaries on the genre itself than deep texts about complicated issues that need deciphering.

So why did I start a blog about movies if I didn’t want to tackle difficult movies and form opinions on them? Well I do. The problem is it’s hard. If you’ve read Steven Pressfield’s brilliant book “The War of Art” you’ll understand what I’m saying. How do I say something original or insightful about Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” that hasn’t already been said? Yeah I’ve watched a lot of movies over the years but have I really ever drilled down and tried to think deeply about what they’re about? What’s even the point of having a movie blog in 2022?

These are all questions I have asked myself, and they are all “Resistance” trying to mess me up. The truth is I’m probably not that good at writing reviews yet, and I probably don’t have that much original stuff to say about these movies. But does that matter? How does one get better at something without continuous practice? I don’t have to be perfect. I’ve written four movie reviews in my life. How could I expect them to be amazing?

I know I’m in conversation with myself here, nobody is reading this blog, so I guess what I’m saying to myself is just do it. Don’t try and be perfect. In fact the more I write the better I’ll get. So November is nearly gone, and I certainly won’t miss this month of my life. I’ll try and crank out a couple of reviews before the end of the month. The month of December I’m planning on reviewing Christmas movies, so that should be fun.

R.I.P Peter John McCarthy and Billie the cat