Welcome to Sep's Weird Movie Blog by me, Sep.
A year ago, I started a Whatsapp group for my friends called Sep's Weird Movie Blog, where I posted a rant every week about some movie I saw to people who have babies and work and couldn’t care less about movies. I felt it was my duty to report back on all the weird that was out there to the normies living comfortably rational lives. A couple months in, this ironic non-blog somehow turned into an actual movie blog anyway. Turns out I had things to say and a lot of time to say them. This newsletter is so I can stop clogging up everybody's messages with giant anti-robot tirades and love letters to Sofia Coppola, and start clogging up their mailboxes instead.
What you can expect: mock recaps of weird movies I watched by myself in the middle of the night, real reviews of the one new movie I can afford to see in the cinema a month, TV show recommendations, reflections on the latest Hollywood trends, (Madonna) music video analysis, fun trivia, thirsty tweets, and LOTS and LOTS of spoilers.
Before we move on to more practical information, a note on the word “weird": There really is no baseline for this kind of thing, so I'm going to have to be the arbiter of odd here. Since my tastes are pretty mainstream, this means a movie doesn't need to have been released in 1930s Russia or feature an eyeball-slashing dream sequence to count. You can obviously expect frequent plunges into the baffling oeuvres of the High Priests of "Huh?" - think the Lynches, Aranofskis, and early Cronenbergs of the world, but there's also going to be a lot of 70s sci-fi, your standard cult hit and the odd experimental thing from the early 20th century. I'm open to suggestions if you know something I need to watch, or really like me to write about a certain film or music video or whatever, even if it doesn't strictly qualify as weird, or a movie. The only genre you won't see me dive into much is horror. I know this eliminates about half of all weird movies, but the sad truth is that I'm a total wuss who already has enough trouble sleeping without all the nightmares, thank you.
Final note: I don't claim to be an authority on cinema by any means. I was trained as a political theorist and am actually much more at home with the written word than visual media. However, years ago I had an accident that messed up my spine and created additional physical problems that prevent me from doing a lot of intense reading. So most of the writing I get to consume these days is the kind meant for the screen. And now you all have to suffer with me. Limited reading also means limited research, alas. If any research goes into my writing at all, it will be from Wikipedia, IMDb or YouTube channel Screenjunkies News, so don't expect this newsletter to teach you too many new things. It's mostly just an excuse for me to practice my Dadaist word collages.
I’m going to try and release a kind of mini-magazine once a month, with a a Weird Movie recap and some other video-related things that have been on my mind and fit the theme. Those of you who know me well know I'm too disabled to be able to keep to a strict schedule, so there are months that you may get nothing and months you may get multiple things. What I can promise is that the quality of the writing will be constant. Low, but constant. What do you care, it’s free.
I'm going to send out new material by the end of October. Until then, I'll be re-posting stuff from the old blog below. Sign up now so you don’t miss the first issue!
In the meantime, tell your friends!