The Bookshelf

Some short reviews of media I felt like yapping about, including (but not
limited to) some of my all time favorite books, films, tv shows and games.

The Doom Generation 🎬 The Doom Generation
My favorite gregg Araki movie and might be my favorite film rn. It's fun, it's stylish, it's campy, it's real violent and real horny, with impeccable set and costume design. It's the road trip from hell with your dream blunt rotation.
David Lynch 📺 Twin Peaks
I love David Lynch, what an artist. Twin peaks is so stylish, and fun and weird. The whole thing feels like a dream, or a nightmare, or both really, like a lot of his work.
Cemetery Man 🎬 Cemetery Man
It's beautiful and absolutely bonkers. Had me actually laughing out loud, at several points you just have to go "wait, what the fuck, did that just happen?" it's involuntary. The cinematography goes hard, the practical effect go hard, it's a great time.
Nowhere 🎬 Nowhere
Another great film by Gregg Araki. I can't praise the set design, costume design and overall aesthetic sensibility enough in this (and The Doom Generation). Felt like being along for the ride in this one long, weird, weird day in LA.
Rocky Horror Picture Show 🎬 The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Saw it again recently with a dear friend and reignited my love for this film. Sometimes it IS easy having a good time.
The Love Witch 🎬 The Love Witch
What a beautiful movie by Anna Biller, who not only directed it but made many of the props, costumes etc. The result is a dreamy, witchy and heartbreaking. I've seen it a bunch of times and will see it a bunch more.
Alice in Wonderland 🎬 Alice in Wonderland
This was probably my first favorite movie.
Orphan Black 📺 Orphan Black
Tatiana Maslany is incredible in this. Especially given that she plays every other character and she does it so well, even when playing one character pretending to be another, she really embodies every single one.
🎬 Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
Gorgeous animation, this one was a childhood favorite.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer 📺 Buffy the Vampire Slayer
This was a formative one, watched and re-watched so many times since I was a tween.
Psych 📺 Psych
Been re-watching it lately for the nth time and even though I remember most of the culprits and storylines already it still hits, I will always love the silly jokes and the dynamics between the characters, especially Shawn and Gus.
Cloudpunk 🎮 Cloudpunk
Had a great time unraveling the story of this cyberpunk world with Rania and her dogcar Camus as I crash into everything in my poor attempts to pilot around the city. The port for the switch really is ass though and to be honest I thought the ending was kinda meh.
🎬 Death Becomes Her
Pure, delicious camp. Incredible cast, perfect performances. Excellent add to a fun, spooky halloween movie marathon.
🎬 Mulholland Drive
I'll probably just stick the David Lynch notes on their own page otherwise it'll take up half of this bookshelf. This one really embodies and exposes the dizzying, dreamy nightmare of the hollywood machine.
🎬 Saltburn
This one was pretty divisive when it came out I guess but I really liked it. I'm a sucker for a movie with gorgeous cinematography, and movies that aren't afraid to get weird and horny and campy.
🎬 The People Under the Stairs
Fun, smart, campy, wacky, anticapitalist. A bloody good time.
Amadeus 🎬 Amadeus
Need to re-watch it soon. What a way to tell his story, and what a beautifully crafted film, full of raw emotion, flamboyant artistry and quite funny too.
Heated Rivalry 📺 Heated Rivalry
Who would've guessed us girlies would get so into um... hockey. Jokes aside tho, damn is the acting from the leads incredible in this.
Bottoms 🎬 Bottoms
Caught it in theaters when it came out and had a great time. It's laugh out loud funny, completely unhinged and has some unexpectedly solid world building to sell this weird high school heightened reality.
Ouran 📺 Ouran High School Host Club
Was a favorite of mine when I was a teen and I've been re-watching it a bit the last few days. It's such a comfy, sweet, funny show that I still love as much as I did back then.
The Goes Wrong Show 📺 The Goes Wrong Show
Love this mess. Catch me in tears laughing anytime I re-watch '90 degrees'. Also Most episodes are up for free on youtube which is always a huge plus.
Fallout 📺 Fallout
Watching it makes me want to play the game so bad, it has me desperately trying to track down some haldheld or mini pc so I can play new vegas (with no luck so far) since I only have a switch rn and my laptop runs macOS. The show is so fun though, and I keep getting caught by surprise by the guest stars since I came in blind and late to the party.
Rocky Horror Picture Show 📖 Choke
Another Palahniuk book I've really enjoyed, it also has an adaptation staring Sam Rockell and Angelica Huston. Wild story with lot's of twists and turns, not quite as dark as some of his other stuff, but that's not saying much.
Yellowjackets 📺 Yellowjackets
Love this show, really had you glued to the screen, waiting impatiently week after week when new episodes are coming out. While the later seasons don't really compare to the first one, I still find it incredibly gripping and am waiting for the new season to drop.
📖 Be Here Now
I've read it a couple times now, I always take something away when I revisit it.
📖 Fight Club
There was a point there in the 2010s where I read so many Palahniuk books, starting with Fight Club, of course. His books are quite bingeble, if that's a thing for books.
🎬 Paprika
My dad picked this out at the library for me on day cause he taught I'd enjoy it. He was right, very interesting movie. I love different filmmakers approaches to creating a dream-like, dream-logic type of feeling through film and Satoshi Kon did it beautifully.
🎬 The Ugly Stepsister
The way they managed to make this movie so beautiful and fairytale-like and so grotesque at the same time is just artful, as is the way they pulled off an ending that is both brutal and somehow kinda sweet where the characters don't escape the consequences of her actions and no one gets what they want, but the main character still gets to be rescued, in a way.
Crazy Ex-girlfriend 📺 Crazy Ex-girlfriend
More people need to watch this show. It's funny, it's heartfelt, has some great songs and it talks about things most shows wouldn't touch.
📺 The X-Files
Obligatory viewing for lovers of all things mysterious, weird, and spooky.
🎬 Secretary
'Look at my lawyer dawgggggg
I'm going to jail'
🎬 The Holy Mountain
This one... it's not for everyone. But for those who like the occult and esoteric, who like tarot, magick, and films that aren't necessarily plot-driven, it's got a lot to chew on. Maybe look up trigger warnings though.
🎬 Nosferatu
I'm still sad I didn't get to see this one at the theater. I love this movie, the cinematography is outstanding, the whole sequence at the castle is so dreamlike, the whole movie just pulls you in.
📖 One Hundred Years of Solitude
Probably my favorite book, read it for the 3rd of 4th time this year around the time the netflix series dropped. I definitely can't fit my notes of the book here so I'll hold off for now and write them down somewhere.
Rant 📖 Rant
One of my favorites by Chuck Palahniuk. What a twisty, dark, mind bending story, and what a fun, interesting way of telling it. The chapters are short, the concepts are great and the story unfolds in such a way that makes the book really hard to put down.
📖 Grouch and Me
I've only ever seen one or two of the Marx Brothers' movies and I can't quite remember why I bought this book but it's great, his childhood anecdotes and the way he tells them are hilarious, and it was so interesting learning about vaudeville and the entertainment industry in those days. It's basically a collection of short stories so it's a quick read too.
🎬 But I'm a Cheerleader
Funny, stylish and heartwarming, I just love this movie.
🎬 Kpop Demon Hunters
I don't really know much about kpop tbh, but it's no wonder this movie is so popular, great animation, great catchy songs, and just a real fun time all the way through.
🎬 Stitches
Incredibly fun and elaborate practical effects, clowns performing a witchy resurrection ritual, the absurdity of the story and the jokes, what's not to love? This one made me actually laugh out loud, my brother and I were giddy, screaming with joy and cracking up the whole time.
🎬 Salome's Last Dance
I don't even remember how I found this movie and I have yet to recommend this one to anyone, despite how much I liked it when I saw it. You know those movies that feel like they were made in a lab specifically for you? This one is one of mine. The premise is, basically, Oscar Wilde attends a performance of his banned play, 'Salome', as put on for him by his lover and the owner and prostitutes of his favorite brothel.
Valerie 🎬 Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
It's hard to describe but a beautiful movie, a coming of age story by way of an Alice in wonderland style dream plot with a dark magic twist that really captures the emotional reality of how confusing and mystical it feels as a young girl to start to interact with the world of adulthood and all it entails, and to start to be seen by the world as a woman before you can come to terms with what that means.
🎬 I saw the tv glow
It's one of those movies you feel in your bones or not at all. Doesn't hurt that it pulls inspiration and references from other media I love like Buffy and Twin Peaks. That suffocating feeling of going through the motions of a cookie-cutter life for "safety" when everything inside you is screaming with desire to be your true self is captured here in such a expert and stylish way.
📺 Avatar
Still one of the best animated series out there. Has me in stitches laughing and devastated crying.
📺 Gravity Falls
Fun, charming and smart with some really good twists. Very re-watchable as it's full of easter eggs and clever foreshadowing.
📺 Over the Garden Wall
There's no other animated show like ths one out there, great cozy fall/halloween watch.
📺 The Bravest Warriors
Fun and wacky, very bingeable.
🎮 Neopets
Played this so much as a kid and it's the place where I first started playing around with making webpages.
📺 The Midnight Gospel
Very different type of show, super interesting conversations about magick, maditation, death. The last episode ties everything together in a really beautiful way.
🎮 King's Quest VII
I hear fans of the series don't like this one all that much but I never actually got to play the rest of the series, my dad just happened to have this one and we played together. I think I probably played this one all the way through at least 3 times, lots of fond memories and I found the art and writing charming.
🎮 Grim Fandango
Played it with my dad when I was a kid and a few times since then. One of the best of the genre, I got the remastered version for my switch and have been playing it again recently.
🎮 The Longest Journey
Another classic point-and-click adventure game I played with my dad growing up and a couple times since, excellent game and very nostalgic to me.
🎮 Journey
Such a beautiful, meditative game that says so much without using a single word.
🎮 Zelda: Breath of the Wild
I didn't get to play a lot of zelda games when I was younger, but love the new zelda games, roaming around an open world Hyrule for the first time felt so cool. Unfortunately I don't own a copy of this game but I do have Tears of the Kingdom sitting at permanent near-completion so I can keep exploring and playing before I decide to finally go into the final boss battle.
🎮 Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood
The tarot designing and reading mechanics in this game are so cool, it's such an interesting concept executed with really nice pixel art. But I wish the focus had been on that rather than coven elections.
🃏 Thoth Tarot
My first and most used tarot deck, by Lady Frieda Harris for Aleister Crowley. I love the art work and I'm really attached to my copy. It's the one I use for myself only since the imagery tends to spook people who aren't into tarot.
🃏 Golden Nouveau Tarot
Gorgeous deck, with artwork that is the closest to a Rider-Waite-Smith style deck out of my collection, by Giulia Francesca Massaglia. This is the one I usually reach for if I'm reading for a friend.
🃏 The Wild Unknown
Another one of my faves from my tarot deck collection, by Kim Krans, this one was a gift from my brother.
🃏 Star Spinner
Very adorable deck by Trungles.
🃏 Modern Witch Tarot
Another one with really cute art by Lisa Sterle.