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I mean, it being unresolved is kind of the point. It appears at the end of the movie the family has found some closure, but did they really? We’re not even sure who drowned Alice, it could’ve been anyone. It’s just kind of what grief feels like.

I guess, but that's only one of the plot points that goes nowhere. And what about my closure, as a viewer. I can appreciate a movie that leaves some unanswered questions, or something like Skinamarink. Not to throw shade on the actors, but it also didn't feel like they were grieving much, they moved on pretty easily, idk I guess I haven't experienced enough loss so it seemed a bit weird how chill they are, smiling even from time to time while talking about it. To me the whole movie was like a joke with no punchline, or even much of a middle, all set up

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Lake Mun go watch something else

So I've finally watched Lake Mungo. What a dissappointment it is. I was intrigued at first, one of the early found footage horror movies, it could be good, right? Nope, the whole movie is literally multiple plot twists and ghost hunting in the artifacts of shitty compressed 2000's camera footage. I was going to give credit to the sound, but the ambient music is way louder than people and multiple times they just make it louder to pump up the creepiness, and at some point to do a jumpscare. Only thing I thought at the end was "that's it?", the movie set up multiple things and never properly resolved any of them.

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Summer heat

After a few cold days it’s warming up again and I think it’s fair to say the summer has officially started. Now I could elaborate on my dislike of this particular time of the year, but let’s just say I’m not thrilled that it’s here, what I was thrilled by is Michael Mann’s “Heat”. I’ve only ever seen one other movie by this director, which is “Collateral”, and whenever anyone talks about him they always mention one of the two films. So after years of hearing how good the shootout scene is, and how accurate the gunfights are and it’s one of the best action movies, I’ve decided to finally watch it. It was on my list for a long time, I thought it’s summer, the heat is coming, seems appropriate.

This movie doesn’t waste any time huh, not even 10 minutes in and the action is ramping up. I have to say the guns are loud, properly loud. I’m guessing this is a directorial decision to not tone it down in post production. I thought the whole movie was about the heist, it’s not, much more of a good guy vs. bad guy type deal. I won’t write out praises to camera work and actor performances, it’s all good, not much to say there. Instead what I want to talk about is how strange some of the plot points are.

This one bit could work as comedic irony, here we are in an almost empty apartment of the leader of the crew who professes he’s not lonely despite being alone and doesn’t get attached to anything he’s not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds. Later on this same lone wolf gets approached by a woman and falls in love after realizing how he actually is very lonely sitting there amid his colleagues who each have a partner. Presumably his crew have been doing robberies for a while now, they trust each other, they know each others families. But it’s not until he has a one night stand with a woman who approached him first, and then sees all his mates sitting with their partners while dining out together that he realizes he doesn’t want to be alone any more? Is that all it took for him to so suddenly change his outlook on life? Buddy, you look old enough to have grandkids, how starved for attention were you this whole time?

Let’s ignore that though, just like the movie ignores some of the characters. I think Danny Trejos character has not had more than 5 minutes of screen time in the entire two and a half hour run time. He doesn’t even have a name beyond “Trejo”. And his last scene where he lays dying, whispering about how he’s got nothing left any more because Anna is gone. Anna who? Was Trejos whole plotline cut out?? How about Lauren? Angsty teenager played by Natalie Portman, the stepdaughter of the main character. She appears 3 times. Her last scene is also of her dying, in this case after attempting to commit suicide. What is the point of having her character in the movie? As far as I can tell she only exists to show how Vincent, our main good guy policeman, really cares about his family even though he’s never around to be with them. Should’ve cut her out along with Trejo.

I also want to make a note of Chris’s escape. He’s headed for a trap, his wife warns him, he heads out. A squad of SWAT guys stop him and let him go because after looking at his I.D. it checks out as valid. They’re not gonna investigate further. A valid I.D. is all they need. Because it’s not like this guy is a professional criminal and could have had a really good forgery, or a real I.D. but under a fake name. They don’t even know what Chris looks like! I don’t know if this is a plothole or they’re meant to look incompetent, or outsmarted, I don’t know. He gets away with it. You know who doesn’t get away with it? The “mastermind”, the leader, the lone wolf who suddenly fell in love at the ripe age of pushing 50. And why? Oh, revenge of course. Because he can’t let go. Despite his life-changing romance he has to do this one final thing that will most definitely not only cost him his beloved but also his freedom. Well hey, at least he’s going after Waingro, the guy who committed serial killings against teenage prostitutes, that guy, the guy who before that left DNA evidence after a killing, the guy the police put in protective custody to catch the mastermind but didn’t connect to the serial killings. Tied off that loose end I guess.

I still enjoyed the movie quite a lot. Even if the story was a bit cliché. I think the most interesting part though was realizing how much this film inspired the making of PayDay(specifically the first and best one). The shooutout scenes, the way the robbers dress in suits and hockey masks, the music during the second heist. Really made me want to redownload that game. Maybe I will.

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So I've been reading

So I've been reading Orbital. First issue starts off with showing us two kids in a unnamed but clearly european city. They're trying to get a sneak peek of the talks before the human race joins an intergalactic confederation and gains the gift of interstellar travel technology. They're on a rooftop covered in snow, the air looks clean and the architecture is predominantly in what I assume is 18th century styles with huge lit up towers occasionally looming on the horizon. Which reminds me of the game "Remember Me", ironically enough it was forgotten by most people, it has a similar aesthetic. A vision of the future that is not as grim as cyberpunk, and not as idyllic as solarpunk.

And here some bad guys, the xenophobic terrorists.

To show that they're very evil they killed the previous residents of the apartment. It's notable that there's no signs of struggle, so it's jsut cold-blooded murder, didn't even try tying those people up or incapacitating them in other ways.

Time skip some years and it seems the terrorist attack didn't deter the alien confederation from accepting the human race. After which there was more trouble from our side. Nevertheless our hero Caleb Swany joins IDO(Interworld Diplomatic Office) and gets paired with Mezoke Izzua, an alien belonging to a race that previously suffered huge losses in conflict with the human isolationists who have now taken to the stars to colonize and pillage. We'll get more information on the conflict later, but I have to question the ideals of those same xenophobes and isolationists when they take alien technology, and then use it to travel to other planets for collonization. I would think they'd stay away from anything non-human, much less try to settle among aliens.

After Caleb is accepted into his position, he heads to a bar for celebration. We get a scene where a human bartender remarks about "hot alien babes" and asks our hero how he feels about his alien partner. Caleb lectures the bartender about sandjarr(Mezoke's race) culture and gender specifics, which are apparently "too random". Now you tell me if Mezoke(portrayed on the left) looks androgynous to you. I'll refer to Mezoke as her, because to me that does not look like a twink or femboy.

After the celebration is training. Because while they are diplomats they still will face danger and need to know how to use grappling hooks and guns. Caleb tries chatting up his partner.

The training consists of swinging from one end to the other in a huge chamber with floating mines. Racial tensions ensue.

Now I guess this kind of training would be at least somewhat useful, but couldn't they have done all this in some kind of danger room like in X-Men?? How many missions are they going to have where they need to swing around and among floating mines? They don't even get to use guns, or practice aim. The training is over, Caleb is blamed for the other guy getting hit by a mine and Mezoke stands up for him explaining the situation.

Moving on, our duo gets their first assignment and they board a ship along with a human commando unit under command of a colonel Karlus Domann. Onboard Caleb notices the ship is made of living tissue, and here's the pilot with a fun fact about living ships also called neuronomes.

I really like the concept of living technology. It's a bit of an underused concepty imo. Off the top of my head I can name only two more or less popular pieces of fiction exploring this idea: Prophet and All Tomorrows. If you haven't read All Tomorrows fair warning it can easily be considered body horror, nonetheless a very fun read.

While on board the crew get debriefed on their mission and we get backstory for the human-sandjarr conflict and the aftermath where human colonists land on a satellite of a larger inhabited planet. The colonists chose the planet for its trelium, which is some kind of fuel. How is it that humans with our primitive tech have detected it while the javlods inhabiting the bigger planet haven't is not explained. The javlods do not like this turn of events and want the humans gone. That's what the diplomats are here for, figure this mess out. And look at that, political meddling and this guy again.

Back to our diplomatic duo, they land on Senestam where the human mining colony is established. They head to talk with the local government - the council which is comprised of miners and soldiers previously involved in the human-sandjarr conflict. Of course the colonists don't want to leave and as the "negotiations" heat up over one of the diplomats being a sandjarr the local fauna attacks.

That is a stilvull, apparently a bunch of them have been disturbed by all the digging. And by a bunch I mean a lot, a lot a lot. As they loom over the mining settlements it's the end of issue 1 of Orbital. Can't help but think of those medusa robots from the Matrix, the ones flying around in tunnels hunting humans. Except these guys don't seem to be as smart.