Thirdly, that my tastes had \u2013 I hope temporarily \u2013 changed. Even at home, I was avoiding challenging or possibly depressing material in favour of more easily consumed fare. Life outside was difficult enough for so many people near and far from me that when faced with an after-dinner choice of viewing, more often than not we chose comfort food.<\/p>\n
This meant that we would choose new seasons of shows we liked (See<\/em>, Apple TV+;\u00a0For All Mankind<\/em>, Apple TV+,\u00a0The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel<\/em>, Amazon Prime) or we could be confident would be entertaining (Loki<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Hawkeye<\/em>, Disney+). In one eye and out the other \u2013 none of those needed any boosting from me in these pages and I barely had the brainspace to write about them insightfully in any case.<\/p>\n Photo:\u00a0Apple<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Looking at the wasteland that is\u00a0my Letterboxd diary<\/a>\u00a0for the last year or so is sobering: if I wasn\u2019t reviewing something for\u00a0At the Movies<\/a><\/em>, I was re-watching old favourites, the comfort food of Japanese anime, superhero films that were landing on streaming services much faster than ever before. Not much protein.<\/p>\n As I just alluded to, every so often during the last couple of years, the call has come out from RNZ National to help fill a gap on At the Movies: either Simon is on leave or stuck at home for some reason. These opportunities were welcome but tiring \u2013 a fun challenge but draining. In times of restricted access to RNZ premises, I write, record, and edit those shows by myself \u2013 always worried about meeting the kind of audio standards set by the magicians who operate the boards at RNZ when I\u2019m working in my own little home studio, let alone making actual sense in the reviews. Meeting those deadlines is always pretty stressful.<\/p>\n But at least,\u00a0At the Movies<\/em>\u00a0got me back out to the cinema (highlights this summer were Spielberg\u2019s\u00a0West Side Story<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and Weerasethakul\u2019s incredible\u00a0Memoria<\/em><\/a>) but I still found myself wondering whether this gig was a thing I could still do. Many of\u00a0my contemporaries<\/a>\u00a0are doing some of their best work<\/a>\u00a0in this environment that I find so challenging. Maybe it\u2019s quitting time.<\/p>\n TildaSwinton in Memoria\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Madman<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But, for better or worse, those contemporaries are my community and I love being a part of it. Writing about Bill Gosden on the publication of\u00a0The Gosden Years<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reminded me that I have some history and that perspective is worth something.<\/p>\n The other day I was tending my other little digital garden,\u00a0Funerals & Snakes<\/a>, a collection of all my film writing prior to RNZ, and was astonished to discover that it still gets over 3,000 hits a month. For a site that hasn\u2019t had an update in nearly 30 months! Maybe, there\u2019s some value in what I have been doing after all?<\/p>\n![\"No](\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/assets\/news\/213579\/eight_col_news-060319a-lg.jpg?1572819124\")
<\/p>\n![\"TildaSwinton](\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/assets\/news\/291828\/eight_col_MEMORIA_STILL_TIFF_4K-F_201126_2.12.1-1024x554.jpg?1650339172\")
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