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Rick's b.log - entry 2020/05/23 |
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You are not reading my b.log using HTTPS. You can switch to HTTPS by clicking here. AmaryllisFirst, I want to share with you a photo of the rather astonishing Amaryllis. I had no idea it looked like this, and I'm glad it tried a second time after something ate the first attempt at flowering because... damn!You can get an idea of the size of this monster by looking at the pansies cowering in its shadow... 
Phone patchWent up to the top of the lane, and I did see what I thought I saw - the phone line is tied to the tree! And taped to the side of the pole...  A little higher up the pole is a yellow band saying that the problem has been notified to Orange who will be fixing it. When, who knows. But given that it's not a simple patch job and COVID... just have to be patient now. Having said that, Netflix is coping with the lower bandwidth, so that's okay. If Prime Video has issues... I'll just watch Netflix. CONTROL Z looks like it might be interesting, though I'm trying to get my head around why a Spanish series with Spanish audio (there's an English dub) opens with all of the on-screen visualisations of the feeds and messages that people watch on their phones in English. Speaking of which...
Some Netflix suggestionsIt's a shame I can't grab screenshots from Netflix, but the app won't allow it. Probably an attempt to thwart the use of screen recorder apps, though I feel obliged to point out that what got me to subscribe to Netflix in the first place (other than boredom) was downloading episodes of Stranger Things and wondering why I was going to all the trouble of finding links to download when I could pay about eight euros a month (that's less than my weekly lottery allocation) to watch what I wanted when I wanted. So, the blocking of screenshots means that what follows is a wall of text instead of having some pictures to illustrate...but does sod all against piracy... ☺We shall begin with things I liked. In this case, I'm only going to give an overview of what is going on to avoid spoiling.
The Half Of ItThe only Asian girl in small town America, she has a business writing essays for other students (and one of the teachers is in on this, saying she'd rather read Ellie's essays (eight different takes on Plato!) than the rubbish they'd write themselves). A guy asks Ellie to write him... a letter. A love letter. To a girl he likes (but has never met). To a girl she likes. This letter quickly becomes a back and forth series of messages, each more philosophical and loaded with obscure film references than the one before. However the scenario is more complicated than that, leading to a really sweet and enjoyable take on Cyrano de Bergerac.
Magic For Humans (series)Presented as a series of short episodes (~24 minutes), each one tackles a theme (Home, Self-Care, Guilt...) and has a bloke walk around performing "magic" in a rather hammy way, in front of random people (especially those called Susan).The cynical part of me thinks that it is an elaborate hoax, because if not, it's pretty astonishing. This is worth watching for the reactions from people when he does ridiculous and impossible things, especially when he is trolling children. There's no series arc, and not much relation between one episode and the next, so it's pretty much a guilty pleasure to watch when there's a half hour spare, or when you'e just not up for watching anything longer or that requires thinking about.
Ash vs. Evil Dead (series)Based upon the Evil Dead films, Bruce Campbell returns for a series where the evil dead want to come back for Ash one last time. Comically gory, somewhat stupid, and with Campbell coming across somewhat like a failed Elvis impersonator, I'm not sure quite where this series is going (haven't finished it yet) but it's an amusing ride with plenty of ham...and Xena!
Seuls (French)This one is in French. I don't know if there's a dub or subs available elsewhere (I'm watching in France). A group of teenagers wake up to find a deserted world. Well, Paris, and they're trapped in this empty city. Eventually they find each other and try to piece together what is going on.Some rather impressive scenes of an empty city, and a character driven plot.
Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045 (series; Japanese)GitS is, this time, rendered in a computer rather than being a traditional style animation. And, like with the recent Appleseed film (also by the same studio, I believe), it offers gorgeous scenery and rich detail (the battered metal on the truck in the first episode is amazing), it is - as in the case of most CGI productions - let down by the 'human' characters being close enough to human that it is really obvious that it isn't quite right. This is less prevalent in traditional animation as the characters are two dimensional representations, but with 3D worlds... there's just something a little off.As is usual with GitS, it's a many-stranded plot catching up with where they are now, and what they're been up to since we last saw them. The character designs are mostly the same, although evolved somewhat from the animation. The main difference here is The Major who looks like a teenager. But, then, she did tend to use her synthetic body as a weapon (even if it was sometimes in danger of crossing the line). It is good to have some more time with the guys from Section 9, the Tachikomas, and a new member who behaves like every animé schoolgirl ever. Batou gets in a subtle but hysterical dig that she seems to miss - he was astonished to find out that she's a real person, he thought she was a bad AI... If I could level one criticism at this series, it's that we're right in the middle of a complicated story when.... the series ends. I can imagine there will be a follow up series, but still, so many threads left dangling and so long to wait... especially if you're a GitS fan who binged the entire series over the course of a weekend!
The Warning (Spanish)A complicated adventure following a pattern of deaths at a location (currently a service station). I say complicated as it takes place at various points over the last century (though mostly present day and some time in the '80s). A man, in the '80s time, discovers that there is actually a pattern to the people that get killed there (his friend has just been shot and is in a coma in hospital). How can he warn the next potential victim (in the present day)? Indeed, how can he hope to convince anybody that he isn't just completely crazy?
The Letter For The King (series)A short (six episode) series that is trying to be a young adult version of Game of Thrones, only without the confusingly massive cast and many plot points that mean GoT is best with a notebook handy so you can try to figure it all out.The Letter For The King is a simpler affair. A group of knights are sent to deliver letters to a king. If they succeed, peace. If they fail, war and catastrophe. Of course, there's a brother who is insane that relishes the idea of war. Some knights-in-training (a comically out-of-their-depth bunch of bickering teenagers) end up with one of these letters, and have to find a way to deliver it when a large faction of the kingdom is against them, and they might even be against each other. Oh, and did I mention, this is a world where magic exists? I quite liked this series, it was an enjoyable way to pass a rainy weekend.
Ragnarok (series; Norwegian)A teenager at a high school... in modern day...is Thor. That's basically the plot in one sentence. To flesh it out a little, he doesn't know he is Thor. He starts to get a clue when he gets angry and lobs a hammer a kilometre and a half, not that anybody believes such a thing.It's an interesting retelling of classical Norse mythology set in the modern day, interestingly with classical Norse mythology being discussed at school! This series, rather heavy handed with the "we're ruining our planet" message, not to mention a large dollop of teenage angst, features a lot of beautiful scenery from the town of Edda which is actually Odda (great name change!) with some added CGI buildings. A second series has been commissioned, so I look forward to seeing how this story goes and hope they'll tone down the ecological message (we get it, we really do...). Aside note - this series set in Norway was made by a Danish production company. This didn't go down particularly well in Norway as some commented that its format felt more like a Danish series than a Norwegian one, and many pointing out that the dialect of Norwegian spoken was completely wrong for its western locale. Not that somebody from elsewhere in the world would be aware of these nuances....
ColossalAnne Hathaway plays a party girl coming home because her life is a mess. Meanwhile there's a mega-monster rampaging in Seoul. And, as expected, there's a connection. A freaky one, but one none-the-less.Don't expect a sci-fi movie. This one sets up a sci-fi premise, and then takes a sharp swerve into psychological horror. I won't spoil the ending, I'll just say that you probably won't expect it but you will think it to be very satisfying.
AnnihilationSome alien... whatever... creates a 'zone' around a lighthouse in which the regular laws of nature don't apply. A biologist signs up to join a rag-tag team on an expedition into this mysterious zone.The result? Utterly beautiful weirdness, a haunting score, and something so very trippy; with an ending that is an intellectual climax rather than some big action sequence. It's damn near impossible to categorise this, except to put it in a neat little box marked "Annihilation". Maybe that's by Paramount had no idea what to do with this film (they barely promoted it at all, and sold it to Netflix for international release). Which is a shame in a way as those sci-fi lovers who have functioning brains will likely enjoy this film and appreciate its levels of disorientation, and that ending. Oh my god that ending. Really needs to be watched at least twice, so the second time you can catch all the details you may have missed like the soundtrack. At any rate, it's a difficult film to talk about. I would imagine fifty viewers will watch this and have fifty different interpretations. However, if you don't add you're own interpretation to the many that have already seen it (and no doubt some of whom have engaged in long discussions), then you're missing out.
Now for things that were "okay".
Go KartsA fairly by-the-numbers production from Australia where "new kid in town" tries to prove it on a go kart track, ruffling more than a few feathers along the way. You've probably seen this a dozen times in other films. This one is worth watching partially for the photography (moreso for the kart racing), and partially because of the girl. Yeah, she's the obligatory love interest, but given that she's probably the best mechanic out of the entire lot of them (including the adult professionals), she can hold her own. She's not just there to look pretty and set up the conflict for the protagonist while melting his heart.Oh, and her relationship to the other main characters? Guess... Really, go and guess. This is so by-the-numbers that you'll already know. But even with the utterly predictable plot, it's still an enjoyable film.
BushwickA strange militia starts taking over chunks of America, and this film concentrates on New York. A grad student wanders around in the expected panic until bumping into an ex marine, and together they decide to work out how to get the hell out of this mess where everybody is shooting at everybody else.It's a somewhat unbelievable premise, I can imagine the American military stamping down on internal militia incursions long before it gets to this state, but on the whole it does a pretty good job of a weird plot. Just, let me warn you in advance - major downer ending.
Spectros (series; Brazilian Portuguese)A very strange drama series from Brazil where, basically, the dead come back to life. Full of hammy acting, effects failures, and plot developments that make no sense at all, this short series that plays like a telenovela is an interesting look at the culture of a faraway country. Given this is a Netflix production, they probably ought to throw in a little more exposition for those who aren't that familiar with Brazilian supernatural mythology mixed with Japanese ghost stories. It's set in Liberdade in Sâo Paulo, a place home to the largest group of ethnic Japanese outside of Japan, hence the mixing of cultural stories.
Daybreak (series)Sadly cancelled before it was even released this side of the ocean, Daybreak is a high-school action/adventure/comedy/drama/horror that is a blend of Ferris Beuller's Day Off, Mad Max, and anything with zombies. It is extremely medium aware, breaks the fourth wall frequently (to the point of telling off characters in a flashback that they weren't even in that scene!). As somebody who got the gags and the references, I found it a weird but funny way of dealing with The Apocalypse with some great characters - particularly Angelica and Ms. Crumble.This was pretty much the first series I binged on Netflix and it, along with a box (or two <cough>or three...</cough>) of Celebrations pretty much got me through the winter holiday.
6 UndergroundThe nutshell version is that it's a group of vigilante ghosts (as in people who faked their deaths and now live unknown to the world) sorting out really bad people in a way that simply cannot be done by normal means. Being a Michael Bay production, expect lots of stuff to blow up, over the top action sequences, tits, and more than a few cars getting wrecked.However, it is interesting to note that there's a pretty heavy dose of "reality ensues" in this as well. A high speed car chase and shootout in Florence (this is all backstory, not a spoiler) has a rather high death toll of innocent bystanders; something that is lampshaded when they manage to avoid a woman with a baby, and then crosses the line when in the same scene they employ the exact same degree of "oh no!" to avoid a dog. What about the fifty-odd innocent people that got slaughtered along the way? The action pieces are, as to be expected from Bay, really spectacular. Really seriously over the top. And just keep on going to the point of being utterly preposterous. Enjoy this if you're in the mood for something where stuff gets blown up and a French actress who gets to have no emotions whatsoever for the entire movie. Avoid of you're hoping for anything that even remotely makes sense. Please allow me to refer you to the hilariously sarcastic (and accurate) review on Rolling Stone.
Shanghai Fortress (Mandarin)The Wandering Earth (Mandarin)China seems to have a good line in CGI-heavy action flicks that take sci-fi to the next level while extolling virtues such as leadership and honour. Somewhat as expected.Expect lots of stuff to be blown up, carefully choreographed action sequences, a suspension of disbelief of epic levels (the entire premise of The Wandering Earth is WTF, but the ending actually manages to take it up to twelve (no, not eleven, we're way past eleven)), and bucketloads of melodrama. Oh, and they're pretty long too (Wandering Earth topping two hours) so if you have a rainy weekend and nothing at all planned, kick back with a bag of Maltesers and let your eyes feast on sci-fi with a budget.
And now for ones I really didn't like. Expect spoilers as I discuss why they sucked. If you don't want spoilers, there's nothing more following this, so either stop reading here, or jump down to the comments...
The Bad BatchThis starts off with a woman "exiled" from the United States into a desert wasteland. That's how criminals are dealt with, they're tossed out.In the first few minutes of the film, she is caught by cannibals who amputate a leg and an arm to eat for dinner. And... and then it just gets weird. She manages to escape and, I dunno. It's like this wanted to be a somewhat trippy arthouse rumination on the state of the human spirit or something, and just failed miserably leading to an overly long film with long passages of nothing much happening, and an ending that will have you thinking "what the hell?". This film opens with a strong fifteen minutes. It had potential, and even a plot. And then? Then it is two hours of utterly lacking substance, in a way that almost feels as if this film sabotages itself. The characters... the situations... just... really... don't waste your time on this mess.
JeruzalemI really wanted to include this in the "it's okay" section, but... Here's the deal. It's pretty much told through the perspective of a Google Glass clone (so it feels like a found footage movie), and being an Israeli production, it is set in Jerusalem which manages to look amazing even with the filming style employed. Basically, some Americans go to Tel Aviv but upon arriving in Israel, they detour to Jerusalem instead and, well, then the end of the world or something. This probably makes more sense to Jews. Christians have the book of Revelations but that's a New Testament thing. Anyway, stuff goes south really quickly and... and...And the protagonist is the single most annoying character I've seen in a horror movie in a long time. What happens in the final moments is not "oh my god, noooo!" but "serves you right, you dozy cow". Watch for the photography of a city that doesn't often appear on film. Even watch to try to understand a little bit of Judaism. But be prepared to facepalm repeatedly for all the whining and dumb mistakes of the protagonist. Heck, why not make a game out of it? Fill up a large wine glass and take a sip every time she's dumb. How far do you get before needing the first refill?
LifeJust don't.I had a sinking feeling when the rocket engines were audible in space. It's a common mistake, but you'd hope that any competent film these days might try to avoid it. So, a bunch of people on the ISS catch a sample brought back from Mars. It turns out to contain a single-celled organism that quickly becomes a sort of jelly-like-octopus-thing. Apparently each cell is a muscle, a tactile sensor, and an eye. Oh, and possibly a brain. Which is impossible, but that's the least of this film's problems. An accident with a cooling system leads the organism to enter a stasis. Or maybe just died. So the scientist bloke decides to give it an electric shock. It doesn't respond to the first, but there's some response to the second. So he then lovingly caresses it back to life and they all live happily ever after... No, the idiot shocks it again. Which, in the mind of a sentient lifeform, cements humans as being dangerous. It escapes, and very quickly the crew realise that it exists on a diet of water and human inards - which is very convenient for an organism from Mars, a planet mostly devoid of either. And, of course, it grows with each consumed. From this point on (well, let's be honest, from the opening credits onwards), let's just say that this film might as well be called a million ways to FAIL in space. The twist ending isn't. The implications aren't. All one can say is that if humanity decides that having these dipshits up into space to deal with the first encounter with life from another planet is a good idea, than humanity gets all it deserves.
StatisA hammy time travel drama where two agents travel back from 2067 (where most of Earth's population have been wiped out by a nuclear war) to 2017 to try to work out what happened and how to stop it. They are basically a bunch of rebels fighting an omnipotent evil government to stop this war from happening (now where have we heard that before?). It's not an homage, it's just yanking concepts from good movies in order to make a really bad one. In fact, this whole thing plays out like an extended pilot for a TV series that was never commissioned.And as for the technicality of the movie... oh for the love of god I don't even know where to begin. The very first scene is a nuclear explosion in a city that doesn't touch the skyscrapers in the foreground (doesn't even affect their obvious night time lighting). The "supposedly meaningful" opening dialogue lifted directly from Terminator. The ridiculous dystopic outfits (because of radiation, face masks and bare skin?), the opening shots of the wasteland featuring heavy traffic in the background, raiding TVTropes to find every possible bad cliché and then including them, the memory recordings seen from the exact same perspective as the previous camera shots (meaning that a person sees out of their own eyes...themselves!), a fifteen year old failing to act like the adult she was supposed to be (her body had been taken over by the older agent - shades of Trancers thrown in just to be sure no cliché was left untouched), and as for the plot holes it's probably better to consider it a giant hole with smatterings of plot stuck to the walls, like shit on the inside of a sewer. Which is, let's face it, about the level of filmmaking we're talking here. It is possible to make a good film with practically no budget (The Blair Witch Project, Cube, Clerks, El Mariachi, Night Of The Living Dead....) but when it comes to sci-fi, the lack of budget usually shows painfully. As in this film. It's not the worst I've seen (it's neither Troma Team nor The Asylum), but this... really needed about a dozen more script rewrites before committing it to film.
The Matrix [Revolutions | Reloaded]Following up The Matrix was alway going to be difficult. And so it is. Best to consider the brilliant first film to be definitive, and simply ignore the zen-salad-nonsense that are the two sequels.
Battle for SkyArkEarth is filled with monsters. People live in a floating city called SkyArk. A teenager is exiled and sent down to Earth where he meets some other children (also exiled; there don't appear to be exiled adults). The CGI and prosthetics weren't bad, and the acting was okay (they're doing the best that can with the poor plot and direction) - what let it down was a rather rubbish script leading to characterisations that basically changed attitude and decisions from one scene to the next. It's like somebody tried to make a live action version of a Japanese video game, and didn't really get the underlying elements. Throw in a bit of Mad Max, have a cast of children, add a touch of The Tribe and... this is the result.SkyArk itself looked great, but there was a huge disconnect in whether it was actually in orbit or floating mystically in the atmosphere at about the sort of height a plane flies at. And as for the battle for SkyArk... what battle? And while I'm thinking of it, what age demographic is this film aimed at anyway? It could have been a lot better, but then, it could have been worse. At least for all its faults, it didn't annoy me as much as Stasis or Life.
BokehNamed after the quality of intentional background blurring in photography, this film features an American couple on holiday in Iceland. One day they wake up and.... everybody has gone. Possibly everybody on planet earth, but they only have a lack of broadcasting and empty social media feeds to support this. Certainly, Iceland looks completely deserted.The guy comes to like the idea. The aloneness is a big challenge, where he can make stuff, shop without bothering to pay for things, and swipe a car when a car is needed. His girlfriend points out that he needs to be more careful, it isn't as if he can call an ambulance if he hurts himself. And here, they start to drift. He's getting on with things. She's going into an anxiety meltdown over the lack of people. She wants understanding. Were they somehow chosen? Or were they left behind? Either way, their lives aren't really compelling enough to carry an hour and a half of film (thank god for the Icelandic scenery porn), and unlike the aloneness in The Quiet Earth, these two are so utterly boring that any philosophical ruminations are merely empty. I mean, if you were alone on an apparently deserted planet, wouldn't you have a shot at dressing up as the other gender? Not bothering to dress at all (jiggle jiggle)? Joyride a JCB? Pretend you're the President of the world? Break into a police station, find a big-ass gun, and learn how to use it? Steal a load of fireworks and put on a show for yourself? Attempt to make a hundred egg omelette? Fill a microwave full of eggs to see if it really does blow up like those videos on YouTube? Attempt to drift an Audi? Drive around the inside of a shopping centre? Hijack the TV station to play all the stuff you like (even if it would be in Icelandic, still, I'm sure it would be easy to make an endless Björk playlist)? But these two... Oh my God. They play Monopoly. That's their idea of going wild in an empty world. They aren't even capable of having a proper existential breakdown. Ultimately, the title is correct. These two are basically nothing more than a nice looking blur that is, ultimately, meaningless. It's just a shame there's nothing in-focus that they are the background of. The entire movie... meh. Whatever. Now how do I start up a JCB.....?
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Last read at 18:26 on 2024/04/23.
 
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