Rogge Report | August #2

Thank You for reading the first article! I thought it went well! I’ve fixed some formatting mistakes, added two new categories, and gotten a new color scheme.

Sorry I’m coming in a week late. I’m releasing this one now so I can get some more momentum. Let me know any feedback if you read this one. I feel like the next will be even better. Thanks.

On August 11th, I had an interview at Subway. I left around two hours early, walking aside the freeway for maybe thirty minutes, hoping to reach my usual bus stop.

Once I completed 99% of the walk, a peculiar thing happened. The highway’s crosswalk, for maybe twenty minutes, would not allow me to cross. Because of this, I had missed my bus. But determined regardless, I decided to walk beside the highway for around four miles, in hopes to reach the Subway.

It was too hot, and quite irritating. There was no sidewalk, so I walked through whatever was there. I traced carefully on the side of a bridge; and waded through long stretches of grass, disturbing all kinds of bugs that like to jump, and fly.

I was mostly oblivious to my surroundings (locked in and listening to The Avalanches), until I started to pass this larger, more affluent neighborhood. As I walked past I felt childishly annoyed by the scope. Empty rooms just begging to let someone stay in. Greedy people living houses too unwieldy to be homes, denying the building of budget housing surrounding theirs.

As I’m about 3/4ths of my way past this neighborhood, I start to find a spread out ensemble of trash in-front of me. A pair of brown nylon pants, snacks, alcohol, many pieces of plastic, things that resemble torn up packaging, and eight pages ripped out of a diary.

I read through the pages I found. This person’s journaling habit is only sometimes preformed for therapy, and they continued for a long time. The back of the page pictured above, dated as their second day of therapy, reads “Realities I need to face, I’ve been living in this little bubble of foggy depression for a very long time. I’m not out of the bubble yet, but as the fog begins to clear I am looking around at my life. I have always live under the guise, we’re messy but we’re not dirty. I realized yesterday, our house is disgusting.”

I looked through the ripped pages and it scared me. “The fog was beginning to clear.” Eight years later, you end up on the side of the highway. I guess for them it hadn’t worked out.

When I got to Subway, the interviewer asked me no questions. He said hat all of his employees were teenagers who had gone back to school, and the only requirement was that I could work mornings.

Over the past two weeks, Subway has not gotten back to me. I have called and emailed but he has not gotten back to me.

I wish I felt a little more easy about any of it, but here I am writing pages of my own. Eight years from now will I have been ok.

Giant Claw is a member of game-changing vapeorwave band death’s dynamic shroud (shout out the Ohio readers). This new electronic project is incredible! It’s very good, It’s the brain melter! Pulled Me In Dark is my favorite track off of it and it samples the ringtone of the old flip phone I used to have.

No I don’t think so. It’s very difficult for me to work within these kinds of hypotheticals (I’m annoying SORRY,) because the human mind is what leads to agriculture, so it’s hard for me to separate the two.

I can understand the idea that we may innovate to our own demise via warfare or global warming; but I feel that if this is the case there was never any hope to begin with. I don’t think sticking to hunting/gathering would lead us to a better situation than one we can achieve now, but I’m no anthropologist or wizard type. Thank you for the question Carter.

Submit a Question

I’ve not yet extensively researched Sembène Ousmane, I’ve only seen the beautiful short film The Wagoner (1963), but I plan to watch all his films of as well as read at least one of his book. I know his work, specifically Black Girl (1966), predates Med Hondo’s Soleil O (1970) a little bit and covers similar themes of the African immigrant experience in France. So I won’t leave an in depth analysis quite yet, but Soleil O has made me very exited to learn more about French-African cinema.

Soliel O I would very much recommend, as a film that does many things exceptionally. Every scene is a treat. From the intro animation, to the beautiful character introduction that introduces the names of all of the characters and perfectly establishes the overarching theme at the same time, into the incredible sword scene that is just bursting with personality. It keeps this constant rhythm of masterful film making throughout, without a drop.

Thematically, it is an exploration of Med Hondo’s relationship with France. It poses a horrific reality, of not only surviving marginalized as most popular racism based films do, but of what trying to give up your identity and assimilate with whiteness, being tricked into trying whitewash yourself leads to. A man learning that despite how the French treat him for being African, he should never wish to be French.

Its also covers much more than this, its an endless stream of ideas relating to this specific experience at this specific time, that deserves to be discussed thoroughly by a reviewer wiser than I.

As for me, its hard to say there’s a movie I liked more.

First and foremost I’d like to thank my brother in arms, the titular “Rogge,” for allowing me this section each and every other week. With the release of “Highest 2 Lowest,” Spike Lee’s remake of the Kurosawa classic crime-thriller “High and Low,” I find myself thinking, what other films should be reimagined as Spike Lee joints? Through this write-up I intend to provide a definitive list of movies Spike Lee should remake, as soon as possible.

Spike Lee famously once said someone should “shoot [NRA President Charlton Heston] with a .44 Bull Dog.” I think Lee could provide a genuinely unique take on Bong Joon Ho’s incredible crime thriller “Memories of Murder,” especially if he were to reimagine it in a more modern setting, similar to “Highest 2 Lowest.” Lee’s ability to provide a cutting perspective on American culture with very authentic characters could bring a new light to this gripping story.

Lee is no stranger to remakes of comic book adaptations, with his remake of Oldboy, released in 2013, proving to be one of his most poorly received films. To provide him a chance at redemption, the world should get to see Lee’s take on Zack Snyder’s similarly divisive “Batman v Superman.” Snyder’s film is a semi-adaptation of the incredible and revered “Dark Knight Returns,” by acclaimed writer Frank Miller, but with all of the nuanced and timely yet persevering themes replaced with aura farming. Lee’s take on Miller’s themes could provide a genuinely great movie, with the bonus of it being so funny to remake “Batman v Superman.”

As an apology to lesbians, and queer people in general, for his 2004 Comedy “She Hate Me,” I believe Spike Lee should remake Toshio Matsumoto’s revolutionary 1970 drama “Funeral Parade of Roses.” If it is good, I feel the LGBTQ community can forgive Spike Lee. If it is bad, he should be banned from making any more movies with queer themes. I think this is a tough but fair trial for the director.

In what may be my most controversial pick, I think Spike Lee should get another chance at remaking Park Chan-wook’s “Oldboy.” I think he could figure it out this time. Never let it be said he’s not a man who learns from his mistakes.

Spike Lee has proven himself to be one of America’s most capable filmmakers working today. Somebody please let him remake specifically the Godzilla film from the ‘90s when Godzilla is in New York. But don’t put in the part with the baby Godzillas because nobody wants to see that.

Be a Guest

Catfishing is a daily trivia game where you get all of the categories a Wikipedia article appears in and you have to guess what article it is. I do it every day and I am terrible at it.

I’ve learned a lot about various different things playing. I learned that Chinese Checkers comes from Germany, and I learned that ants can pass the mirror test.

Today I got 2/10

catfishing.net #428 - 2/10 🐟🐟🐟🐈🐟 🐟🐟🐟🐈🐟

Thank you for reading! Have a good fortnight!

Here is a Humble Bundle Steam code for whoever reads here first:

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