Cool news - I no longer have covid

Hi everyone!

Well that sucked but, after a week of rest and more lateral flow tests than I care to mention, I am finally back on my feet.

I'll be streaming again from this Thursday and then Press any Chiodini will pick up again for Patrons on Saturday (God of War Ragnarok ep1 will premiere on YouTube next Saturday for scheduling reasons)

Anyway, I watched a whole lot of stuff on my tablet while convalescing so I may as well turn that into Content and tell you what I thought of it

- I finished Delicious in Dungeon season 1 after rationing the episodes to make them last longer. I think its my favourite anime of all time, it's playful and clever and it has so much heart. Senshi speaks to me on a fundamental level

- I watched the first three episodes of House of Ninjas on Netflix and was initially really enjoying it. I haven't pushed on because I feel like they've made a bit too much comic relief out of the mum? I dunno. I'll see about pushing on

- I am incredibly far behind on watching All The Star Wars Stuff because quite frankly I've still got Star Wars fatigue from Rise of Skywalker. I've seen a season and a half of The Mandalorian but apart from that, I haven't been arsed with any of the Disney plus stuff. HOWEVER, I really like Amandla Stenberg (Bodies Bodies Bodies is a really fun movie if you haven't seen it) and Lee Jung-Jae was brilliant in Squid Game and I thought it might be nice to see him play a character who wasn't always deathly afraid. SO, I watched The Acolyte all in one go. I thought it was great! The storytelling is a bit slapdash at points: a lot of it revolves around Something That Happened in the Past and while piecing together the truth is satisfying, they focus on it a bit more than I'd like while also keeping things back for a big reveal. A bit more of the cat and mouse stuff from the early episodes would have been welcome. All the same it's highly watchable, light on toe-curling fan service and Stenberg in particular is excellent. Also, Manny Jacinto's arms are spectacular.

- Initially I'd avoided watching The Black Phone as American-made horror films involving ghosts tend to put me off a bit (sorry about it, America). I'm pleased to say Black Phone exceeded my every expectation. There are some fantastic performances, the cinematography really hammers home the time 70s setting and the paranormal stuff is very well done, ACTUALLY JOHNNY.

- Eight for Silver is also known as The Cursed and it's a beautifully shot bit of folk horror that's all about pride and cruelty and trying to control everything by sheer force alone. The cgi is a bit ropey which kind of pulls the rug at a few crucial moments and Boyd Holbrook's English accent is WILDLY inconsistent - swinging from upper class English gent to quietly livid cockney several times per sentence - but all in all this was a good romp. I really like Alistair Petrie so it's always fun to see him do his thing

- Megalomaniac is a Belgian film that is going to be under my skin for a long, long time. I'd actually recommend most of you don't watch this one, or at least search the trigger warnings beforehand. There are some commanding performances and it's stunningly well produced but, being a film about cycles of violence and how they're perpetuated by a patriarchal structure, it's not what I'd call a comfortable watch

- I was surprised to learn that Haunt was written and directed by the same duo who wrote A Quiet Place, because the script is shite. Cheap backstory stuff and two-dimensional characters nearly got me to turn off in the first ten minutes. I stuck at it though and had quite a bit of fun because the rest of the film is really well made. It's set in an 'extreme' haunted house (spoilers: it's, like, more extreme than our unsuspecting protagonists realise, Scoob) and frankly the set builders did a bang up job. The whole thing looks great and is, quite frankly, more interesting than any of the characters. Shout out to some good prosthetics, too. One to chuckle over with some friends

- Lord of Misrule is on Shudder, and I was very unsure going in. I bloody love folk horror and I'm delighted that it's Having a Moment with films like Midsommar and Kill List. Of course, any genre getting remotely close to Churning Them Out is at risk of dropping a few clangers - films can be obvious, derivative or just plain shit. Suffice it to say, when I discovered that Lord of Misrule is a film about a religious person trying to find a missing girl in a parochial, paganistic village, I thought we were in for a lazy rehashing of The Wicker Man (the one with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee, before anyone starts yelping about bees.)

I was extremely glad to be wrong! I sincerely hope this film finds its audience cause you know what, it's really very good. It's beautifully shot and there's an oppressive atmosphere that never lets up but never lays it on too thick, either. It asks some intriguing questions and isn't afraid to Go Places in order to answer them. Also, Ralph Ineson is in it and he's great. All in all it felt more like a four-part British TV drama than a movie, and I mean that in a very positive way. A couple of momentary wobbles aside, it's a great watch.

- I tried to watch Catacombs last night. It's got Pink in it. I turned it off after ten minutes because it was bad. If you want a good film involving the Catacombs, try As Above, So Below.

- Finally, I've been reading Warlock by Oakley Hall, which is a Western novel in which the people of a small town worry a lot about whether or not certain people in that town are going to get shot and then some of those people do get shot and some don't. So that's been nice.

Anyway, that's everything I watched while I was sick. Well, that and a lot of tiktok but I'm not describing all those because we'd be here all day. I have since uninstalled tiktok for my own good.

As I say, I'll be back to making videos for you to watch very soon - I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for being patient with me while I recuperated.