The October home stretch
and also The Pope's Exorcist (2023)
I’ve been having Wi-Fi issues all week, particularly during the weekday. It seems to be fine in the evenings. I get Wi-Fi through a company called Vision Systems—this is not by choice. It came “free” with the apartment I live in with the stipulation that I can’t get my own Wi-Fi here. I wouldn’t feel the need to complain about my free Wi-Fi if they also allowed me to get better Wi-Fi, but since they don’t, I’m stuck with this terrible local company.
I have no evidence that human beings intentionally purchase internet plans from this company. They have atrocious reviews online, which gives me the sneaking suspicion that they sell primarily to landlords who want to boast about having free Wi-Fi. If that’s the case, I’m not technically their customer—the landlord is. Meaning they don’t really have to worry about losing customers due to abrupt and random outages or impossible service.
If you try to find their number online, you will get confused because they have been listed as an optometrist office on Google. A conspiratorial side of me believes this is intentional.
I just needed to get that off my chest. And now, welcome to Josiah’s media round-up where I discuss the media I’m producing, watching, listening to, and reading.
Producing
We are in the home stretch of October. As I’ve discussed in previous round-ups, Fruitless scheduling got away from me this month and I’ve been stuck trying to meet my 4-5 episode a month goal within the last week and a half of the month. And I think I’m gonna pull it off!
On top of that, I am in the home stretch with editing the zombie video essay, and I believe I’ll be able to get it out before Halloween. It might end up the first week of November, but it’s coming very soon. You can find the Fruitless YouTube channel here. It’s empty now, but if you subscribe, you’ll be first to know when the video is out.
This last week, I’ve released two more episodes of Fruitless, one free and one exclusive to Patreon.
The free episode is the next installment in the Fruitless Bookclub. Chris Barker, Jake i.e. Jake the Lawyer, and I discussed Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis. You can listen to that here. We also announced the next book, Jake’s pick, which is How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney.
On the Patreon, Josh Christianson returned to discuss The Last Exorcism (2010) and The Last Exorcism Part II (2013). You can find that here.
Coming in the next few days: a free episode with good friend and co-host on numerous podcasts, Jackal, about J Horror, Noroi: the Curse (2005), and Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi! File 01 - Operation Capture the Slit-Mouthed Woman (2012). On the Patreon, Jackal and I will hang out for an episode deemed the “Fruitless Halloween Special” (we’ll probably just talk about movies for an hour or two). On top of that, a new episode of The Good Apples, the second half of our Boston Strangler discussion, will be coming this Monday.
Films
As for films I’ve watched over the last week, most of them were for the above podcasts. Outside of stuff for the podcast, I watched Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) which is a fun followup to the original and very much a classic, predictable late 80s slasher in the best way possible.
I also watched The Pope’s Exorcist (2023) last night. This film is baffling. On the whole, it’s a pretty typical exorcism film. On top of that, however, it has some bizarre throw away intrigue about the Vatican like the Spanish Inquisition being done by demons, actually, and also the protagonist seemingly mentioning that he was aware of the sex abuse cover-up. The film’s attempts at little epic Whedonisms end up accidentally being weirdly reactionary. For example, the super awesome greatest exorcist in the world protagonist, Father Amorth, played by Russell Crowe, mentions that prayers are more powerful in Latin. This is fun and all in an exorcism movie, but also, in light of it choosing to be set in the 80s, and the general traditionalist reaction against Vatican II, this comment has some weird political baggage I’m not sure those involved with the film seemed to realize. There’s a lot of throwaway stuff like that which will make you pause and go “wait, what?” if you have any knowledge of Catholic politics or religious history.
Music & reading
I’m going to do what I usually do when I’m feeling lazy in the music section and just resort to statsforspotify.com. Here are my ten most listened to artists of the last four weeks.
Home is Where
Turnstile
Los Campesinos!
SPY
Traitrs
Talking Heads
She Wants Revenge
Gulch
Cloud Nothings
Tokyo Police Club
As for reading, I’ve been making some progress on Age of Revolutions by Eric Hobsbawm. I don’t have much to say about it: Hobsbawm is a good historian, and I like his shit.
Alright, I think that’s it. This one was a bit half-assed, but I’m honestly burnt out from all the podcast production over the last week, on top of my actual real full-time job. See you all next week!