The ChangeLog – July 2025
Reflecting on my wavering July, the three books I read, the new Messa's album and, of course, KPop Demon Hunters.
My aunt died in July. This alone makes July a black stain in the tapestry of passing time. Yet, as I often repeat, there is a profound difference between happiness and eudaimonia, between a joyful emotion and the sensation of meaning, and the sense that you are living a life worth living.
Sadness, grief, reflection on mortality, the precariousness of loved ones, and the mixed feelings that come from reflecting on our short path so far are all unpleasant sensations, but I claim they are an important part of life. The way we react to these things is what matters.
I always feel deeply about the chain of human life. This, I think, is one of the reasons why I obsessively keep my family tree and genealogical data. It is a way to reflect on those who came before, to appreciate the time I've had with my family so far, and to be mindful of those who will come after. I'd be lying if I said that this always brings me joy, though. But it makes some small contribution to the feeling of meaning.
Anyway, life events aside, this has been quite the month, so we have a lot to talk about.
Housekeeping
I have nothing to say. I keep adding drafts to my writing folder and never completing them. I need to suffocate my perfectionism and just publish something, I suppose. We will see.
I really want to make my blog theme a bit more original and quirky—a new color palette, some new graphical elements. The problem is that I don't know where to start (and that I keep moving between different styles). I have so many small side tasks!
Reading
- Star Trek: Destiny: Lost Souls by David Mack. As I anticipated last month, I read this book in two days at the end of June. This is the third and final book of the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy. The entire trilogy is worth reading if you are into Star Trek novelizations. David Mack provides, as usual, fun but dark storytelling in which, among other things, we discover the origin of the Borg. I actually enjoyed that the Borg here are that inscrutable, dreadful, overpowered menace (instead of the watered-down version we see in later movies and series). I am not completely satisfied with the ending, but overall it is a recommendation.
- Old Man's War by John Scalzi. I like John Scalzi, but unfortunately, I really didn't like this one. I found the story bland, the characters unlikeable, and after a while, I didn't care anymore about anything. It is not even funny, even though it tries. Sadly, I have to give this the worst comment I can give to a book: I regret the time spent reading it.
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. As I said months ago, I was in a slow re-reading of The Lord of the Rings. This one took a bit more time because, as you probably know, the book ends around the 50% mark. Then there is a pointless "epilogue" that I have always hated, and a bunch of appendices (that are interesting, but whatever). In any case, I am done with it! Time to go for The Hobbit.
Watchlist
KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
When KPop Demon Hunters first started appearing in my information sources, I passed over it. The name was a bit of a put-down. I know almost nothing about the K-pop scene, and it looked a bit childish, so I thought I was outside its target audience.
I was wrong.
After a recommendation from an account I trust, I watched it. Twice.
This movie was produced by Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix and was conceived and directed by the Korean-Canadian Maggie Kang. The plot is simple: a trio of demon hunters disguised as a K-pop group (the Huntr/x) are close to defeating the demons for good, until a group of demons starts their own K-pop group, the Saja Boys, and start messing with their plans.
Behind this simple concept, there is masterful animation work and five or six really catchy songs that all climbed to the top 10 in the Spotify Global Chart.
In the end, you don't need me to recommend it: the entire Internet is doing it.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Lawrence of Arabia is unanimously considered one of the greatest movies of all time. If you look around, it's easy to find videos of modern directors (such as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Denis Villeneuve) talking about it as a watershed moment in their artistic development.
This movie is not easy. In an era of shortened attention spans, a slow-paced, four-hour movie is a challenging watch. Yet no scene looks superfluous. Every frame, every cut, is a thing of beauty or an award-winning photo. The production of this movie, with its challenging lighting and scenes in the desert, is a testament to David Lean’s directorial ability.
I will not spend too many words on it because it is a movie already discussed extensively. You can go on YouTube and find a billion video essays on the topic. I will only add that if you find parallels between it and Dune, you are right, as Frank Herbert, Dune’s author, took inspiration from the autobiographical book written by the historical Lawrence of Arabia.
Queen of Katwe (2016)
In my quest for the best movie about chess, I ended up finding this not-particularly-promoted Disney movie from 2016. It is the story of Phiona Mutesi, the first female titled chess player from Uganda.
I'll be honest and say the story has some problems, mostly regarding the character of Phiona, who seems too passive in the overall narrative. This is not her fault, of course, as it is hard to tell the life of a chess player when this chess player is still little more than a child (Phiona was born in 1996).
But the movie is still worth watching. For one, it has a pretty realistic representation of African life in Uganda in the 2000s (according to informed people I trust). It also has good visuals and highlights the power of chess (and sport in general) and education as ways to escape poverty. Here in the "First World," we often take a lot for granted.
All the rest
And now, all the other movies I watched in July!
- The Five Venoms (1978). Kung-fu movies are weird. This one is weird, but enchantingly so. The fun fact is that this is more of a police drama than a kung-fu movie, and that's cool.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024). A good addition to the Sonic Cinematic Universe, but I found it too similar to the previous chapter.
- Days of Thunder (1990). Top Gun, but more boring.
- Gladiator II (2024). I could write an article about how bad it was. I'll only say that it opens with a battle that actually happened THREE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE the story setting, there is a gladiator riding a rhino, and white sharks eating gladiators in the Colosseum. What a stupid movie.
- Top Gun: Maverick (2022). I am not a fan of Top Gun, but I liked this one quite a bit.
- La città proibita (2025) (The Forbidden City). It is not perfect, but we need more Italian movies with this level of action boldness.
- Witness (1985). Harrison Ford goes to an Amish village to solve a crime, and there is a scene about building a barn that goes on way too long. Weirdly, though, it is not bad.
- The Amateur (2025). A movie that teaches people not to mess with computer nerds. Kinda average, though.
- Air Force One (1997). Meh. A classic, average action movie from the 90s. It wasn't particularly interesting.
I also need to give you an update on the series of July. I watched season 3 of The Bear and, while it is definitely better than the second one, I still have no idea where all this is going. Maybe nowhere.
I was puzzled by Ironheart, but I have to say that I am glad I stuck it out to the end. It is interesting that the ending went in an uncomfortable direction.
I also started season 3 of Strange New Worlds, and I am excited for the wackiness of it.
Music
You know what I should do: I should recommend the soundtrack of KPop Demon Hunters, but that feels a bit lazy.
While you listen to that on your own, I will once again suggest an album from Messa, the Italian doom metal band from Cittadella (near Padua). Some years ago, I recommended Close (2022), an album I burned into my brain for an entire autumn.
In 2025, they came back with The Spin. It is still a doom metal album, but this time, you can hear a shift toward a more gothic rock sound. Not only that! There is a distinctly jazz element scattered throughout the album. The track The Dress was my favorite song in July, and it is already in my top five for 2025.
Gaming
I had Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in my backlog since 2024. I really like Indiana Jones, and I love adventure games set in ancient temples (see Uncharted and Tomb Raider, two of my favorite series). So, how does it fare?
I'd say that it is warmly approved. The game plays like a movie, and it fits perfectly among the movie series. The story is clearly Indiana Jones-y, the voice acting is great, and the setting is a bit stereotypical, but that's what I expect.
The game itself is quite average. It has some dumb stealth sections with really dumb NPCs, the action is standard, and the puzzles are cool but not mind-blowing. All the extra stuff, such as the mandatory collect-a-thon of random crap around the map, is there, and it is, as usual, disappointing (but, as you know, I don't like gathering quests).
But if you stick to the main story, it is an enjoyable <20h game that really shows its love for the original movies.
Other Interesting Things
- 📝 I'm Done With Social Media by Caroline Crampton. – This is a great personal essay on why a writer decided to stop contributing to the grinding machine that is Social Media.
Conclusions
With its dark and light shades, July has been eventful. It has been a month of unbearably hot days and mild, rainy ones. A month of lazy days, but also active ones (for instance, when I had to go to Rome to the Greek Embassy). A month marked by death but also celebration of life (Gioia and I celebrated 17 years together). For better or for worse, it has been a memorable one.
But now it is over; August is upon us. August is usually the slowest and most sluggish month. I will have two weeks of vacation, and I intend to spend one of them at my shared family mountain house (I have no money for anything else).
I hope you'll have a nice vacation as well. We can all see each other, once everything's done, in September.
See you next month.