Your Procrastination Toolkit For Exam Season
Why Study When You Can Binge These Great Recommendations?!
M. D. Kwak
WE’RE ALL TOO FAMILIAR WITH THE DOWNWARDS SPIRAL of procrastination and cramming that comes to dominate our lives circa exam season. To facilitate such a wonderful and organic school experience, I’ve decided to share the sources of my own woeful procrastination: movies, books and other pastimes that have ruthlessly captured hours of my time. But seriously – take a break from the study or the Instagram Reels spiral. If you’re going to procrastinate or stress or be exceptionally unproductive all at once – you might as well have fun in the process.
Movies: The Big Short
Ryan Gosling. Christian Bale. Brad Pitt. Did I mention the suit-clad Wall Street bankers shorting mortgage-backed securities to make stacks of money?
If that combo doesn’t get every Shore boy running to get a taste, I don’t know what will. The Big Short is a mockumentary-style film about the years leading up to the Global Financial Crisis, delivering some fascinating insights on the American financial system at large whilst never failing to keep you entertained (in that horrifying, sickening, vertiginous way). This film really hits home, the fraudulent absurdity that is Wall Street and doesn’t shy away from humanising the consequences of a financial system subsumed by the monstrosity of mercantile greed.
Extra bonus points for watching this with your financial consultant/investment banker parent(s) and asking them pointedly what they were doing at the time of the GFC…
Honourable Mentions: Whiplash, Ex Machina
T.V. Series: Beef
Everyone is neurotic in this show. And I mean everyone. There’s not a single likeable character on screen, which is deeply unsettling in a way. Perhaps it’s because, for all their personality deficiencies and mental instability, these characters are portrayed in a way that is brutally realistic and profoundly human.
There’s something compelling about two extremely angry people making choices that tear their lives apart – something existential and deeply resonating to the modern condition. But the show makes clear that these individuals aren’t just angry without a reason but rather are the byproducts of intergenerational trauma and a Sisyphean existence that inhibits their desires to be genuinely good people. The beef in the show isn’t really between the two main characters, but rather an internal conflict within themselves. As hinted from the beginning and glaringly obvious by the final, psychedelically-induced, soul-swapping catharsis, Amy and Danny suffer from a similar self-hatred and shame that has fuelled their self-destructive tendencies. The show’s thrillingly subversive solution to such metaphysical suffering isn’t necessarily Western therapy (or as Danny puts it: “Western therapy doesn’t work on Eastern minds.”)
Honourable Mentions: Black Mirror, Death Note, The Wire (according to Graphics Editor Jamie D’Arcy, this show might even be better than Breaking Bad!)
Books: The Kite Runner
“There is a way to be good again”. Hosseini’s novel is a tale of conflict – a multi-dimensional conflict that transcends borders, time, and memories. It tells the history of an Afghanistan in crisis. It captures the tenuity and insecurity of a son’s relationship with his father. It resonates deeply in its captivating portrayal of guilt and torment, and eventually redemption. I found its writing to be elegant and effortlessly lyrical, capable of evoking emotions that were simultaneously hopeful and devastating.
Honourable Mentions: Things Fall Apart, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Music: Rage Against The Machine, Self Titled
A Note: To make up for my uncultured and embarrassing ignorance concerning the current music scene, this section has been written by our glorious Graphics Editor, Jamie D’Arcy.
Rage Against the Machine’s (RATM) eponymous debut is a belligerent fistful of disparate sounds; fusing funk, rock, metal and rap. The album’s first song is Bombtrack, opening with a tantalizing baseline before de la Rocha launches into verse.
From start to finish, RATM is in your face – both musically and politically. RATM (proudly) assert that “No samples, keyboards or synthesisers used in the making of this record” on the sleeve of the album cover. This doesn’t stop guitarist Morello from crafting some seriously funky sounds – see 1:15 of Bombtrack.
Politically, the album speaks for itself, fiercely critiquing U.S. war-driven nationalism and patriotism (Bullet In The Head), ‘eurocentric’ education and ‘Uncle Sam’ (Take The Power Back) and police brutality (Killing In The Name). RATM’s political arguments are, of course, far broader than this – I would recommend Guerrilla Radio off The Battle of Los Angeles as their best critique of American institutions. Honourable Mentions: Baby Baby Baby by Penguins on Safari – A tantalising indie pop banger; guitar & backing vocals really take this song to a new level.