Movie Watching: I am Mother, The Nice Guys and Drive

Title: I am Mother

Director: Grant Sputore

Writers: Michael Lloyd Green

Network: Netflix

This is definitely one of the better Netflix originals, after the disappointment of both Titan and Mute. It's kind of a reverse Ex Machina, in which the humans have to convince a robot of their humanity. 

An android calling itself ‘Mother’ raises a lone girl (Clara Rugaard) in an underground bunker after an apocalypse wipes out the rest of humanity. Their relationship is tested when a woman (Hilary Swank) appears at the bunker door, with her own version of what is happening.

The first 2/3 were pretty tight, a bit like Cloverfield Lane, where the two main characters are shut in a box and you don’t know what’s going on in the outside world or who is telling the truth. The movie makes great use of its claustrophobic sets and the revelations unfold in interesting ways, especially once Swank’s character makes an appearance. The last 1/3 are kind of opaque though—the Daughter’s thinking in particular needed to be clearer, or better explained. As it is, her motivations appear to change two or three times without giving us a sense of why.

It’s an exercise in ethics, where in an early scene we see Mother giving the Daughter a class on morality, asking whether it is more ethical to save one healthy patient, or let them die so their organs might be used to save a number of others. This hypothetical scenario then plays out in real life, with the Daughter asked to choose between selfishness and utilitarianism.

Only ... the ‘selfish’ choice presented to the Daughter is fairly awful, and once the reality of the situation becomes clear, then there’s really no dilemma at all.

Still, a well-made and thought-provoking little film, and a step in the right direction for Netflix’s SF offerings.

Title: The Nice Guys

Director: Shane Black

Writers: Shan Black and Anthony Bagarozzi

This movie is sporadically hilarious, but tonally all over the fucking map, flipping from slapstick farce to buddy comedy to heartwarming family drama to black comedy and back to farce again. The plot is overly complex and, frankly, kind of beside the point, but anyway two private investigators in 1970s Hollywood try to track down a missing girl who has become embroiled in a conspiracy involving catalytic converters. Yeah, it’s a little odd. But really it’s just an excuse for the two stars to have some gonzo fun.

Ryan Gosling is fantastic as bumbling private eye Holland March, and Russell Crowe looks like he got real comfortable to play muscle-for-hire Jackson Healy, and you get the feeling these two had a blast performing together, but nothing really sticks with you because the movie changes gears every five minutes and kind of throws you around in your seat. 

Fun to watch, but really nothing more than that.

Title: Drive

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Writer: Hossein Amini (based on a book by James Sallis)

I’d watched Refn’s “Valhalla Rising” (the world's only 9-hour Viking movie with no dialog) and was expecting something slow-moving and arty, but this movie still managed to surprise me.

Like a piece of orchestral music, it’s got these quiet, idyllic parts that suddenly explode into action—the nameless Driver (Ryan Gosling) sits idly on a motel bed, before a window shatters in a slow-mo shotgun blast, and then we leap into furious violence—later the Driver and his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) share a lingering, golden-lit kiss in an elevator, before the Driver turns around and stomps the head of another man into the ground, killing him.

Gosling is a bit one-note in this movie, essentially playing a preview of his character from Blade Runner 2049: monosyllabic, vulnerable yet tough superman. The bit part characters are more interesting: Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston as a shady garage owner, Ron Perlman as a brutal gangster, Oscar Isaac as an ex-con.

My only complaint with this movie is the sound mix—the soundtrack is blaringly loud, the conversations mumbled and muted.

Liveblogging The Addams Family

Here we are again. At first, I thought this might seem a little mean-spirited, making fun of a comedy (it's SUPPOSED to be daft), but let's see how well this 1991 movie has aged...

1:00 carolers? This movie already as creepy af
Wait if they are caroling, why the hell they facing AWAY from the house? Literally unwatchable.
5/7

1:35 *snap snap*
The old boiling oil on the besiegers gag. Just like we used to do ... In the Crusades!
I hope the fuck-off huge scary-looking dude was not typecast as a huge scary-looking dude
(checks IMDb) Well, better luck in the next incarnation, my physically terrifying friend.

2:00 Ooh Christina Ricci.
Oh right she's like 40 now.
And was 12 then.
But in the middle there guys, mmmhmm.
 
3:11 Credits finally over ... Are long credits at the start a 90s thing? Have we as a species evolved beyond that?
Phoned-in credits too, font doing all the heavy lifting. Blow a bit of dry ice smoke, good enough, it's the 90s, these idiots will watch anything.
They can't even beat Saddam Hussein properly ffs
 
3:24 Motorboating grandfather clock. Now that's class.
 
4:22 Ah, disembodied hand, allow me to stand here and explain the backstory, even though you'd already know it.
The only story I know about Raul Julia, the only story I NEED to know is that he would later appear in a Street Fighter movie while dying of cancer, simply because his son loved SF and he wanted to go out on a movie his son would love.
He's like an early Keanu Reeves, only mortal
 
4:27 Christina Ricci! Rawr!
No wait she's still 12 here. Delete, delete
 
5:57 Despite their oddness, they're quite relatable characters really. He seeks to blot out the sun forever, just as I do
 
9:55 I feel like the movie keeps pausing you let you laugh. Only I don't.
I haven't laughed since mother died.
Shit was hilarious.
 
11:54 Pedophilia jokes, ho ho. You couldn't do that in this economy.
"Fine lunge, but your riposte, tut tut."
Dude just stabbed your chair and fell down Addams, WHAT RIPOSTE?
Literally unwatchable. 6/8
 
16:26 One liner. Indifferent action. One liner. Sight gag. One liner.
 
24:47 Keep waiting for Christopher Lloyd to shout "1.21 gigawatts!"
 
27:12 I don't want to know why the disembodied hand was in his room all night, or why he's got such a big smile on his face
 
36:20 Okay the electric chair bit was funny. Even I can appreciate a bit of cruelty to children.
 
54:48 Pyhyonesque combat sequence. It's like if Tarantino did a kid's movie. And how the hell is there still 40 minutes of movie.
 
57:00 Why'd the movie stop for a softcore sex scene? Because 90s G.
 
1:00:32 And now a Bollywood dance number. Movie is treading water.
 
1:04:00 Kenny from South Park puts in an appearance. Think It just said "I'm an admirer of Hitler".
Strong stuff for a PG movie.
 
1:08:00 Ok 'nother dance number, this time a cossack dance. It ain't treading water, it's drowning.
 
1:10:16 One minute he's chasing the daughter, then just like forgets and gets his sovietski groove on.
THIS ISN'T S8 OF GAME OF THRONES WE DEMAND CONTINUITY
 
1:20:40 He got a hand job. GET IT, A HAND JOB. AHAHAHAHA. Also he just rammed a stack of FedEx boxes up some lady's skirt.
 
1:34:12 1.21 Gigawatts!!!
Necromancy is a perfectly valid school of magic.
 
1:35:25 Hmm, overly long, reliant on sight gags and one liners. Would've worked better as some sort of visual medium, such as a prewar comic strip
 
8/11

Exhalation: Stories, by Ted Chiang

Title: Exhalation: Stories

Author: Ted Chiang

Publisher: Knopf

This is the second collection of short stories and novellas by American author Ted Chiang, probably best known for his short story "Story of Your Life", which the movie "Arrival" was based on. 

"Story of Your Life" was breathtakingly good, one of those rare stories that just powers straight through your eyeballs and blows apart your brain even as it puts your heart back together again. A linguist learns an alien language, and forcing herself to think like them enables her to perceive time the way they do--which leads/will lead/has always led to her realizing the trajectory of her life, and of her daughter's.

That's a pretty good taste of what Chiang is like. In the first collection, “Stories of Your Life and Others”, Chiang's stories often featured people's ideals or beliefs—especially religious beliefs—getting challenged or thrown out of whack by scientific discoveries or new technologies. For example, in “Acts of God” a recently-bereaved widower struggles with the meaning of devotion and faith in a world where the existence of God is an observable fact. In another story, the builders of the Tower of Babel discover their cosmology is all wrong—but not in the way you’d expect.

The collision of humanity and science continues to be a strong theme in this new collection, "Exhalation: Stories". The title story, for example, is about a race of automatons dealing with the knowledge of the inevitable destruction of their world. How do you go on living when you know nothing will last? In another, on an alternate Earth where humanity has found objective scientific proof that the universe was created by a god (nothing older than 8,000 years old exists) they then have to confront the fact that their planet is moving with respect to background radiation—meaning their planet is not the center of creation.

Generally, the collection is up there with his previous work, if not quite as good, but remaining both touching and thought-provoking. There aren’t any space battles or marauding aliens or killer viruses, it’s all low-key, very internal stuff, featuring people struggling to come to terms with what it means to be human (or automaton) in a complex, technologically-mediated world.

At the same time, Chiang remains an author much better at concepts and ideas than characterization and dialog, but maybe with the popularity of books like “Three Body Problem” or “Ancillary Justice” stories long on ideas and short on, er, story, are what’s in at the moment.

In particular the longest story in the collection, "The Lifecycle of Software Objects," is also the dullest and most meandering and could probably have delivered the same punch in a quarter of the length.

I must confess my main gripe with this collection is economic rather than stylistic, though. I'd already read many of the stories as they're available online from various sites, including both "Exhalation" and "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" and a couple of other stories, so the $20+ price tag for the Kindle edition felt a bit steep. I think only two out of the nine stories in the collection are actually original, with the others all published sometime between 2005 and 2015. They're good stories, but maybe wait for this one to go on sale?

In the meantime, here’s where you can read some of the stories in this collection:

The Lifecycle of Software Objects

Exhalation

What’s Expected of Us

 

The Great Silence

The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling

Driving in Tokyo One Night

Sitting in a car, wrapped in aluminum and plastic and glass, on an elevated highway that itself sits below yet another highway, the middle slice of a sandwich of concrete and asphalt, canyoned on either side by monolith office towers of steel and glass, vacant floors awash in incandescent light.

Little driver of flesh and bone, warm and dry despite the evening rain. Shielded, swaddled. Cocooned.

Liveblogging Krull

My unsolicited commentary on Conan was such a roaring success* that I've decided to follow it up by bringing to you, for the first time ever in history, my real-time reactions to the 1983 blockbuster "Krull"! Watch along above, read along below.

*One guy commented on it. 

0:47 The score is Jon Williamsing for all its worth, but it's spoiled by the silly murder fidget spinner they got flying all over the screen. 

1:03 LIAM NEESON
Is the only recognizable name. 

1:31 Reusing not only the score but also the sets. The movie appears to be set on Tatooine.

1:59 Krull has the exact same opening sequence as Star Wars, minus all that boring spaceship-battle pyew pyewing but with extra flying-mountain-thingy going on.

OK intro, but needed more faceless people galloping aimlessly about the countryside. 

4:13 Even by the outlandish standards of the 80s the princess has a truly tremendous mass of hair. I would like to see her wield it, Medusa-like, as a weapon. Possibly by smothering her enemies within her bounteous locks.

Also the castle gate appears to be secured with a giant aluminum boomerang.
That's going to COME BACK to haunt them later. Ahaha. Ho ho. Moving on.

5:38 The prince appears to be a wimpier Star Lord. A creepier Chris Pratt.

Ah, time for the space nazis to attack. They appear to have laser guns built into the hilts of their swords. 'Why not skip the sword and just have a far easier-to-use laser gun,' you ask, BECAUSE YOU ARE A FOOL.

I'm guessing there's a reason rifles put the bayonet on the end facing away from you and toward the enemy but oh if I could only think why...
Commit inadvertent seppuku from the recoil every time you fire. That might be it.

12:06 Whoops, prince Pratt is dead. The end. Directed by George Lucas, etc.

BUT WAIT. He's not dead, merely shirtless. Sideburns Gandalf is here to save him, and ogle his voluminous chest hair.
Seriously, this guy and the princess's kids are going to be the most hirsute people in the galaxy. 

14:30 THERE IS NO TIME OR ACTING ABILITY FOR GRIEF!
Sidewhiskers Gandy is giving him shit for not getting over the death of his father in under 20 seconds. 

If I had an ultimate weapon, I'd keep it somewhere a little more accessible than the top of the highest mountain in the country. You know?

The music SWELLS as our hero ... does a bit of not very difficult free climbing. Trumpets BLARE as he ... avoids a rockslide by not moving at all. Epic stuff.

He does stick his hand right into a pool of magma, I'll give him that though. 

22:08  Traveling by glowing red firework leaves a little to be desired if you ask me. 

OK, the wizard is basically Jar Jar Binks. Got it. I hate it, but I got it. 

25:25 So does the bad guy's castle (Castle Black, how original) fly or teleport? Seems like one would be redundant if you can do both. 

27:13 L I A M  N E E S O N

Prince Pratt is trying to brazen his way out, but the bandits aren't having it. Liam doesn't know who you are. Or what you want. What he does have is a set of skills. 
And an axe, and a stylin' chin beard.  

34:41 For help, they've gone to speak with Irish Dumbledore. We get it dude, you're into green. 

39:00 Bad guys just conveniently chillin' in the swamp ambush our heroes. 

Quick suggestion bad guys: If you have ranged weapons and your opponents don't, how about NOT charging them? Just a thought. 

And why do they explode like R2D2 and slugs come out of their heads when hit? Oh right, because it's fantasy and they don't gotta explain shit.

41:23 Quicksand starts sucking one dude under. "It is the power of the Beast!" 

No, you drunken Irish tit, it's a SWAMP.  

Honestly, if it wasn't for Cyclops dude, these heroes would be forked. 

43:16 This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them. 

Cyclops to the rescue again. Pretty good aim, despite the whole lack of depth perception thing.

59:42 Sideburndalf keeps pulling McGuffins out of his arse. Here's a superweapon, here's a seer, here's a wise woman in a web. 

The Beast is shown able to blow someone literally off the screen via Skype chat so, um, why not just do that to the good guys? Save yourself some trouble, hey. 

65:04 Ah, and now the McGuffin Stallions. Of course. 

67:01 Not an equestrian expert or anything, but those horses look pretty damn average to me. Think they blew the budget on R2D2 sound effects. 

69:01 "Imma stay here and die," says the Cyclops. Of what, boredom? You're in the middle of a peaceful, idyllic valley mate. 

So THAT's what it looks like* when you fast travel in a video game. More budget blown on Fire even more disappointing than an island party for influencers. Ha. Topical joke already out of date. Ah then they ET it. Why not, at this stage.

*Painfully obvious blue screen and the frame rate slightly sped up. 

73:55 Invest in some freaking bows, guys. 

Ah, but here comes the one-eyed Leeroy Jenkins.

Leroy Jenkins.

Oh no, wait, that'd be one-eed instead of one-eyed. Ahaha.

Thank you, I'll be here ... forever, really.

76:03 Noooooo. Not Neeson! There must be some mistake. THIS ISN'T SEAN BEAN YOU IDIOTS. Let him live to the end. So sad, he was only 66. 

More budget blown on dodgy architecture. Honestly, what is it with fantasy architects and potentially lethal bridges? 'Oh sure I'll build you a castle, evil overlord. Gonna stick a bunch of murder-bridges in it tho.'

That explains it though. No money left for bows.

84:49 Aha! Good ol' magma hand. Knew that would come in handy (har!) some day. Just as well, as the magic superweapon turned out to be super good at nearly getting everyone killed.

Though I don't quite get how the prince is able to do this. 'We kissed once, so now your hand is a flamethrower.' 

... and we end with burning a hole through solid stone and anti-gravity explosions. Sure. Why the fuck not.

'Their children will rule the galaxy' sounds waaay more threatening than they intended. I mean, I didn't vote for them. Maybe this is the Star Wars prequel we deserved.

Uhhh.

Mishmash of genre cliches and tropes/10

Gets several billion bonus points for a young Liam Neeson, but blew them all on shoddy special effects and backwards-pointing bayonets. Not recommended.

Rocketeer next?

A Day at the River

Luke goes down to the river. There are many others there, splashing in the water, swimming, paddling about in boats. They call to him, but he smiles and makes no answer. Luke dips his toes in but the water is cold, and so he sits instead upon the bank. 

The sun rises and warms him and he drowsily watches the others play. They no longer call to him. He's missed his window. Ah well. He'll go in later, he promises himself. No rush. He has a nap instead and lets the waters pass him by. 

When he wakes the sun is low and the wind is cool. The others have gone, and only Luke and the endlessly flowing waters remain. Flowing, flowing, taking away the morning and the people, never to return. 

He stands, stretches, feeling the stiffness set in his bones. He plunges in as darkness sets, strikes for the river bottom, and there finds the largest stone he can. 

He wraps both arms around it and waits, watching the line of bubbles float from his mouth to the surface.

The Bubble

Hello and welcome to The Bubble. Thank you for choosing The Bubble for your extradomular excursion to the surface world. Remember, choose The Bubble or die horribly. "The Bubble! It's what all your still-living friends are using!" 

Please fasten your restraints and do not stand while The Bubble is in motion. Attempting to leave The Bubble while outside the dome will result in immediate TERMINATION ... of your insurance policy. 

Ahaha. 

No but seriously, everything out there will kill you. 

Here we can see the flowering cherry tree. Note the delicate pink flowers, which bloom only for a week or two each year. Inhaling the pollen is like snorting ground glass directly up your nose. So don't do that. Remain in the comfort and safety of The Bubble. 

Underneath the tree you can see a feral example of an animal once known as felis catus. Aww. How cute! An estimated 90% of surviving specimens are infected with an RNA lyssavirus invariably fatal to humans. Do not worry. The Bubble will protect you. Nice kitty. Say bye-bye! 

Is there any other safe method of exploring the surface? Good question, I'm glad you asked. No, there is not. Other companies may claim their products provide protection, but they are lying. Any evidence provided by your own eyes cannot be trusted. Only The Bubble guarantees safety. Do not leave The Bubble. 

Please remain in your seat. Trust The Bubble. Return to your seat. The Bubble is your friend. The Bubble loves you. Do not open The Bubble. Lethal force authorized. Haha, just kidding. 

...

Passenger sanitized. Returning with biomass for recycling. Thank you for choosing The Bubble.

Madness

Madness lies at either end of the spectrum of popularity, where one is so hated, so ignored, or else so well loved, that nothing you think, say or do can make your life worse or better. Madness is freedom from consequences.

LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS

Title: LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS
Created by: Tim Miller (Deadpool)
Network: Netflix

LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS is Netflix's newest adult-oriented animated anthology series, a kind of modern-day Animatrix or Halo Legends compilations, for those old enough to remember, or else Heavy Metal, for those even older.

Like all anthology series, LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS has its ups and downs, but overall most of the episodes are at least solid if not spectacular. At around 15 minutes a pop I found the length of episodes just right for visual snacking. 

Each episode has different writers, directors and animation studios, so thematically and tonally the series is all over the map. There's a hefty dose of military SF if that's your bag. I really like when they tried to be innovative either artistically or with the story, though sometimes it felt like nudity was shoehorned in for the sake of appearing more 'adult'. This is really apparent if you watch the series in order--I feel they front-loaded all the T&A (and PP) into the first few episodes, as the rest are actually a lot more mainstream in their appeal.

5-second episode reviews:

1. Sonnie's Edge: Cyberpunky. Human-controlled monsters fight in gladiatorial battles. Hoo boy, lots of weird rape imagery and Polar Express grade nudity in this one, which could put you off the series--but like I said, it's not really representative of the series as a whole. Felt a bit like when comic books try too hard, to be honest. Neato twist at the end.

2. Three Robots: Humorous post-apoc. A little cornball ("tell us what the humans were like") but the back and forth between the three robots of the title is pretty funny. Silly ending.

3. The Witness: Genre =??? Kinda cyberpunk I guess. Whoooooaaaah. This one is a trip and a half. More gratuitous nudity, but that ain't even the point. Very artsy, I really liked the way they played against it being CG, with "shaky" camera work, the "actors'" breath fogging the camera lens in closeups, visible sound effects, etc. etc. Easily the most visually innovative of the episodes.

4. Suits: MECHA! Yay! MECHA! A team of heavily-armed AgroMechs fight off an alien assault on their farms. In contrast to the first three eps, this one plays its story very, very, almost predictably straight. Like, almost cliche straight, which I think was the objective. You know exactly what's going to happen with these characters, and there's a kind of cozy comfortability with the way the story is handled.

5. Sucker of Souls: Horror. A team of mercenaries protect an archaeologist from the evil he has unleashed. Art style reminded me of the old Star Wars: Clone Wars animated shorts. Very simple premise and plot, but the banter among the characters elevates the experience and makes this a retro gem. Would shoot in the dick with a shotgun/10

6. When the Yogurt: Humor. Yogurt becomes intelligent. Eh, didn't think it was that funny to be honest. Just kind of goofy.

7. Beyond the Aquila Rift: Space Opera. This one was also very cool, with fantastic art direction/CG. Has a real Mass Effect/Alien/Serenity vibe to it, with space truckers stuck when something goes wrong with their ship. I thought the story (by Alastair Reynolds) was something we've seen before in SF (Star Trek sprang to mind), but the visuals make up for it. Zero Gravity banger/10

8. Good Hunting: Steampunk/Retro-future. The son of a spirit-hunter befriends a fox spirit in steampunk Hong Kong. Could have been a lot more fun but I felt the main story was a bit dull. Would not turn into a robotic sex doll/10

9. The Dump: Humor. Aside from "Three Robots", I thought the episodes that tried to be humorous were the weakest in the series. A lot of the jokes just don't land for me.

10. Shape-Shifters: Military SF. Werewolves in Afghanistan is an interesting idea. Pretty animation, but a bloody chewed-up mess thematically. Not really sure what it was trying to say.

11. Helping Hand: Hard SF. Kind of like a gross-out version of the movie Gravity. No, really. There's a sequence that can be a little stomach-churning even in CG. Still, once you get to this point in the series, something that moves slower, takes its time, builds the tension comes as a welcome relief.

12. Fish Night: Magic realism. A pair of traveling salesmen get stuck in the middle of the badlands and have to spend the night in their car. Loved the Through A Scanner Darkly style rotoscoping animation. Very pretty to look at. A bit "ah huh?" in terms of what actually happens, but it's more about the visuals than the story.

13. Lucky 13: Military SF. Again, great visuals save what is otherwise a fairly predictable story about a pilot and her notoriously "unlucky" gunship/dropship.

14. Zima Blue: Artsy. A far-future robot artist reveals the source of his inspiration. Color used to great effect.

15. Blindspot: Action. Vaguely Mad Max style road-warrior battle between a team of cyborgs trying to steal a microchip from a heavily defended transport truck. Okay I guess.

16. Ice Age: Humor. Couple discovers tiny, advanced civilization in their refrigerator ice box. Humor comes from their nonchalant attitude towards what's happening in their fridge. Charming, but not all that funny. But nice.

17. Alternate Histories: Humor. One of the better humor episodes, investigating possible histories based around increasingly improbably and unlikely scenarios of Hitler's death (e.g. killed by secret Russian gelatin gun, dies after marathon orgy with Viennese prostitutes etc.). The bizarro setups are pretty funny, but man o man, I can tell the two-second clip of Hitler's sex orgy is all anyone is going to remember about this one.

18. Secret War: Horror/Military SF. WW2 Russian soldiers on a mission to hunt down a pack of ghouls. Isn't Overlord based on much the same premise? Anyway, great CG work again, riveting and visceral battles set to stirring music. Very fun!

Cities Are Snares

Cities are snares for potential. It’s a wonder they don’t collapse under the weight of all that wasted energy, or snarl themselves into immobility.

Picture all those missed encounters, lost opportunities, wasted moments, bound around and tangled between the people like thick and heavy black strands, sticky spider webbing that grows denser and denser with each glance the wrong way, each misplaced word, each hesitation and retreat. 

That person, there, that best friend or partner who might have been, will walk on, never knowing you exist. Their vision slowly occluded by the mass of habit and anomie, until there is only tomorrow, which will be much like today.

And I.

I peer down at my phone, earphones in my ears. Happy little insect, tangled in the web.