Allow Me This, 11/08/2025
Films, Friends, and Filler.
The majority of writing (this is most evident with novels) is far too long, or, in very rare instances, far too short. 350-600 page books are suspicious. This is to say, I’m starting a ‘journal’ of sorts, for all those ideas and thoughts that just don’t make the ‘full post’ cut, but still are deserving of some spilt digital ink.
I’ve tried to start journals in real life many times. I would wager I have, over the course of my life, filled the first three pages of over 50 different notepads and diaries, usually with the first page attesting to my inability to keep them up. This time, this time!
It won’t be weekly, or in any sense, rhythmically regular, but, please, enjoy all the same, or don’t.
Modern Films
Most modern films don’t just leave me dry, they don’t leave me at all, because I leave them. Seriously (seriously), I would say that 19 times out of 20, I turn a contemporary film off before the end of the first act. No, not because I have some attention issue, or there’s something else I want to be doing (if there was, I’d be doing it). But simply because they’re not interesting. They don’t imbue one with any felt sense, and you get the impression, much like looking at Tracey Emin’s My Bed, that you’re being rapidly told what to think and feel about a certain movie. Or, as the case often is, the film is just mindbogglingly dull, has nothing to say, and is just filler.
Most of the characters, shots, and stories aren’t natural, but are faux-natural. Let me explain. We all know what an epic, romantic, thrilling, suspenseful, or awkward shot/scene looks like. We can’t explain it or detail it, but we know it when we see it. Yet, herein is the difference between natural and faux-natural. Natural cinema, as per its name, is created as per the pre-established world, characters, and style. Shots, dialogue, and progression stem from the given world. Faux-natural, however, is just that. It’s a false naturality, wherein the world of the film has clearly (intuitively) not been established, and therein is held up by shoe-horned dialogue and shots. Marvel films would be easy examples of this (an ocean wide and inch deep), or Woody Allen films for dialogue (this is so smart, see?!), or HBO epics for character (he is the crafty one). I can’t do this difference justice in writing, largely because it’s intuitive, and takes a patient eye. I first came across it, however, when watching the new (eye-wateringly boring) Dune remake. A film (and I assume as much regarding the sequel) that is sequence after sequence, line after line, shot after shot, of forced epicness. The film isn’t epic, but it’s made in such a way as if to say that it is. It’s like the meek kid at school giving himself the nickname ‘Razor Death’, it just doesn’t work.
Everyone once in a while, however, a modern film catches you offguard…
28 Years Later
(Spoilers ahead)
Initially, I called this a masterpiece, a statement I’m still on the fence about, because it becomes a touch more difficult to discern whether something is truly great amidst a sea of shit; is it good, or is it just not shit?
With 28 Years Later, however, I would firmly state it is great, and is emphatically Danny Boyle’s magnum opus. I won’t bother detailing the plot here; that’s what film sites (and viewings) are for.
It is a tribute and expansion of the original, imbued with a mythological, post-traumatic British madness, overflowing with a darkly Blakean love of Albion. Throw in sublime sound design, a child who isn't needlessly stupid, authentic levels of competency and realism, a visceral aesthetic appreciation of Britain both natural and Ballardian, and tie all of this together with an underlying Freudian view of the island's history that is completely out of joint, and the result is, strangely, an overwhelming feeling of (non-Hallmark) hope and love.
It creates a world that, for modern eyes, ears, and hearts, should be objectively terrifying, repellent, and just plain wrong. And yet, here we find nature sing, death frolic, humans dissolve, and culture fragment in some of the most beautiful ways put to screen. It is unapologetic in its appreciation of a form of primitivism born from loss and pain, where a subtle delight is derived from the remaining madness of man, that in itself reveals what has been lost by our contemporary condition of hyper-domesticity.
Like it or not, one gets a certain feeling of nostalgia bordering on jealousy witnessing a UK filled with authentic freedom, inclusive of the true costs of freedom: pain, loss, and responsibility. I found myself not wanting to leave that world, perhaps not despite, but because of its minute-by-minute trepidation; as it erodes, the unalive sheds its ironically zombified skin and becomes, again, alive!
The film’s appreciation of impermanence and death, emphasized sublimely by a tight 6-10 minute scene near the end amidst the Bone Temple, had me quite literally transfixed. Both by its aesthetic ability to suspend multiple, gothic absurdities as entirely fine, pleasant, even, and its stark—arguably transgressive—appreciation and love of death, tied into a neat bow by our young protagonist’s journey of maturation coming to a close by…saying farewell to his Mum by kissing her skull and placing it atop a pile of beautiful death.
I’m sure, as is often the case, popular culture will be quick to, in this instance, make an attempt to signal the scene (and the surrounding narrative of the Dr and the Bone Temple) as ‘messed up’, ‘weird’, or even ‘head-fucked’. Yet, as far as I’m concerned, the gentleness of the scene—and the film in general—makes any such statements appear crass, almost offensive.
As Joseph de Maistre said, “Every country has the government it deserves.”, and as such, we viewers get the ending we deserve, and of that, I shall say no more.
Is this it? - I
A Netflix binge, ending with a true crime docco,
Golden retriever energy and bottomless brunch.
Speed eating videos and pupcakes for the doggo
Having children now, during this credit crunch?
Oh my god, you simply have to go!
They serve deep-fried chorizo in an old sailor’s shoe,
Battered nostalgia bites, covered in tangy dough,
And walls, walls, lined with retro pay-per-view!
She’s into astrology and loves crossfit,
City breaks, travel, and rural hiking,
With the latter, however, being complete bullshit,
Trying for cuteness, she looks like a Viking.
He’s into MMA, a tough, tough guy,
He boasts a 6-figure net income,
But the former shout is a fucking lie,
For he looks stretched, plump, like a sore thumb.
In truth, such people would say
They enjoy scrolling on their phones
And sitting inside all day,
A smorgasbord, a lump, of brain-dead clones.
Friendships:
Remember when - A lot of modern friendships, especially around one’s early twenties, devolve into a drawn-out game of remember when. Entire groups of people, meeting up under the pretence of socializing, only for the entire evening to revolve around things that had previously happened. Friendships of quantification and the past. This is a very distinct type of energy; it drags you down by way of not dealing with reality, yet simultaneously veils itself in a pleasant feeling of nostalgia, making the whole thing feel productive.
The issue with remember when is that if the person or people in question are genuinely interested in stuff that happened, say, when they were a child or (more likely) when they were a teenager, the case is that they just haven’t matured beyond that point. Remember when, is, most of the time, I wish we were then.
Listening - Alongside this, another trait of these so-called friendships is an inability to actually listen to one another. One person says X, another person ‘replies’ Y, and another person ‘replies’ Z. Each reply has enough of a gossamer-thin connection to the previous statement that no one really questions whether or not a conversation is happening. People come locked and loaded with things they want to say, opinions they want to state, and takes they want to blurt; modern conversations, little more than a bunch of people all talking to themselves in the company of others.
Addendum:
Bad friends drag you back and down, unload their guilt and worries onto you, they defend problems, look to you to justify or agree, or make okay their judgment. You feel drained after seeing them, and wouldn’t actively desire to see them again for some time.
Good friends bring you up, discuss your concerns and difficulties, look to help dissolve your problems, and investigate the full spectrum of ideas and opinions. You feel neutral after seeing them, you wouldn’t mind planning the next visit.
Great friends simply are. They demand nothing. They want nothing. In this, they aren’t even friends, and if you are equal, you won’t even think of seeing them again.
When’s it going to be enough?
When’s it going to be enough?
When you get that car?
When you get that house?
Hot tub? Holiday? New kitchen?
Maybe a dog or a cat will do it,
Whatever it is.
When’s it really going to be enough?
Another book?
This one,
This one
will finally scratch it.
Another film? Another genre?
Maybe the problem wasn’t philosophy or
Science, religion, chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology, or physics
Maybe mathematics will do it.
Whatever it is.
Is it going to be enough?
When you’re married,
Had kids
Kids off to school
Oh, they’re graduating, smile, sweetheart
Grandma’s dead
Grandad’s dead
Dog’s dead
Hot tub is fucked
Kitchen needs a redo
Plane was delayed
Ungrateful shits
Car’s on the fritz again
Have to take that in on Monday
Maybe we need a break
Need a getaway
Me and the Mrs
The ol’ ball and-
They want to stay this weekend?
We need some time,
Just me and you,
That’ll do it.
When is it going to ever be enough?
Tomorrow?
Next year?
Once you’ve retired?
Once you’ve both retired?
What then?
And what is it, what will it be?
I wonder.
When is it going to be enough?
All the other things never did it,
But this might.
All the other books never did it,
But this might.
All the other talks never did it,
But this might.
All the other events never did it,
But this might.
All the other times never did it,
But this might.
All the other deaths never did it,
But this might.
All the other loves never did it,
But she might.
When is it going to be enough?
When you wake at 3am
Needing a piss
Fuck sake.
Trip over her shoes,
Bloody hell, light on,
Light down.
You feel light.
There’s no one to remember this,
And it might just be enough.
Hey love,
Turn that light out, I’m trying to sleep.
Okay.
What works:
All those complex systems. Convoluted systems. Theologies, practices, exercises, therapies, retreats, group sessions, philosophies, and theories. And yet, none of that works. Another book, so it is. The first thing is to accept that nothing you have done so far has worked. What it is for something ‘to work’ is intuitive, you know it, and you already know you’ll know it, and so you have it, and know it, no?
What works must be so simple, mustn’t it?
Notes:
Drill, that is, the musical genre, is so unfathomably bad, tasteless, and crass, that not only would I state that calling it ‘music’ is an insult to every 5 year old who has successfully played Chopsticks, but that I can only assume it is some form of psychological warfare, intent on grinding down the masses.
~
Have you digested your childhood yet? (Oasis fans certainly haven’t)
~
Asked a worker in the supermarket where the tomatoes were, and even described them to him (red, round). He looked at me, at me. Then sort of through me. Then into nothing, like a look backed upon itself. He wasn’t there, he was not there. God knows where he was.
There is a lot of talk of spiritual evolution, but our concern should be spiritual devolution; regression to an animal, or perhaps even vegetable, state
~
There really isn’t anything wrong.
There are no problems.
How many dreams indeed they even now Invent,
to upset the principles of life - Lucretius
Il mondo sta bene come sta - Giordano Bruno
Q&A:
Got a question for me, ask it in the comments and I’ll reply, if it’s good enough, I’ll answer it in the next Allow Me This.