Skip to main content

Picks: September

Theme: Masks


 It's that time of year! Things are getting spooky, I'm still very behind on YOC, and it's time for another month of picks. This month, the theme is Masks, physical and conceptual. Masks are something I have been irrationally terrified of for a very long time ever since first visiting my Nana's house and seeing them covering her wall. I'm hoping this theme will deliver some spooks in accordance with the approach of Halloween, and will lead a nice transition into a broader spooky theme in October. With that said, here are my picks for September!

Album: Vol 3: (The Subliminal Verses)

Artist: Slipknot


Why I chose this Album: Slipknot! Well that's a name I haven't heard in a minute. Yes my album for this month is in fact from middle school metal artist Slipknot, the band that wears jumpsuits and masks on stage and plays spooky stuff. I think on top of their wearing of masks, the type of music they play will really fit in nicely with all of my other pieces of media for this month. It's seemingly a bit more artsy and provocative than their other stuff, honestly I'm just in it to see if my friends in middle school were on to anything (and for some spooks).

Film: The Face of Another

Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara

Why I chose this film: From just a quick google search one can see that there is an endless sea of films dealing with masks as a horror trope. Horror movies are super popular, and thus it's to be expected that they would use and abuse one of the most terrifying items ever conceived by man. Unfortunately however, all of them pretty much stick to using masks purely as a spooky element, rather than engaging with the psychological element of the mask. That isn't the case for Teshigahara's 1966 film "The Face of Another", and is the main reason I decided on it for this month's theme. Dark, eerie, and psychologically twisting, this film is exactly what I was looking to watch for this month.

Book: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

 Why I chose this Book: Pretty undeniably one of the most famous and frequently referenced horror books of all time, "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" is a cultural touchstone of modern society - and in case you've been living under a rock your whole life and somehow do not know what this book is about, pick up the book yourself and read it along with me. As a side note, this will also be the first book I've read by RLS, somebody who has had a surprisingly large impact on pop culture, so it's two birds with one stone!

Video Game: Majora's Mask

Director: Eiji Aonuma 


Why I chose this Video Game: Yes to the surprise of nobody my game for this month is "The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask". After I finished Ocarina of Time earlier this year, I knew I would have to play it's direct sequel as well at some point. I needed to give the series a bit of a break though so as not to come off as picking favorites. It's been nine months since then, (damn how time flies), so now I think it's apt to make a return to such an impactful series with the dark horse of the bunch. It's a game everyone has been telling me to play and is one that everyone says I will adore so I'm excited to finally, finally, get around to it. It's weird, it's creepy, it's totally different than any other game in existence, and it's going to make me write the word "atmospheric" a million more times.

PS: I will be playing the N64 version, this cover art just looks nicer.

...

And those are my picks for September! A long time coming, I certainly have a lot of catching up to do. Hoping I can release all of my September and October reviews in the month of October for a particularly spooky month! Next up will be my review of "Kid A".

Until then!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Picks: June

Hello everyone! We are well into June which means it is time to divulge into my picks for June. The Lord of the Rings season is over which means everything is back to normal and the themes are no longer going to be centered around any series in general. The theme I have chosen for this month is  Space , let's get into the picks! Album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust Why I chose this Album: An incredibly famous album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust is what launched David Bowie into stardom. I have never listened to any David Bowie album in its entirety before, and as he is one of the most culturally relevant figures in modern society it is a stain on my back to say the least. Therefore, I wanted to listen to one of David Bowie's albums this year and the theme of space was the perfect month to do so. Many of David Bowie's albums could have worked fine as his central character Ziggy Stardust acts as a messenger for extraterrestrials - but I chose this one ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review/Critique: The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde "If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that - for that - I would give everything!" - Dorian Gray Expectations: I had already read the first two chapters before choosing this book for the month of February. I liked what I had read a lot and my girlfriend Allie gives this book praises for days so I expected to really like this book. Needless to say, I absolutely adored "The Picture of Dorian Gray ". It fully lived up to my expectations of it, and has become a book that after more pondering could easily end up a 6/6 for me. If you want to go into this book without any knowledge (something I do recommend) then hopefully that is enough of a blurb to convince you to check this novel out, but if you need more convincing let me attempt to do so below. Review/Critique: To summarize a book like "The Picture of Dorian Gray " is not an easy task I am findin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Revenant

The Revenant Alejandro González Iñárritu Review: I absolutely adore Leonardo DiCaprio. Inception, Django Unchained and The Wolf of Wall Street are among some of my favorite movies and Leo's performance in all of them, in my opinion, is top notch. This movie though, this movie right here is the one that won Leo an Oscar. I've been dying to see it for a while now, but a lack of funds kept me from seeing it in theaters, and a dwindling interest in film as a whole kept me from getting around to it entirely. Now that I've seen it though, I feel safe in saying that this is Leonardo DiCaprio's best performance to date.          Does that mean it's my favorite movie I've seen with Leonardo DiCaprio in it? No, not really. In fact I would say that I like it less than all of the movies I listed above, but of stand alone performances, this is Leo's best. Don't get me wrong, this is a quality film, but it wasn't totally up my alley. The Revenant i...
Post a Comment
Read more