stuffgetswatched

[stuffgetswatched]

Antz

Hey remember Antz? No? Anyone? Spoilers below for this ancient film.

Yeah so... Antz. I watched it when I was a kid and watched it again recently because of a few tracks sticking in my head and a quiet reminder that it was uh... political.

How political is Antz?

It’s a fucking socialist work. It’s full of allegory and layered commentary and is entirely politically driven. Unlike a Bugs Life, Antz doesn’t let it’s enemies be monsters from beyond, praying on the innocent ants and their friendly other bugs. It’s not so goddamn black and white.

Antz opens with the protagonist saying very protagonist things. He is dissatisfied with his life, with his job, he wants to do more, anything else, even, standard fare for this kind of story. Antz doesn’t just let him know he means nothing, it slaps him in the face with it. Over and over and over. Therapists, fellow workers, bosses, even the upper class all tell him over the course of the film that he is *just* a worker. And the film is almost a journey of him learning the language of wanting to live his life his own way.

It’s fascinating how the film goes through so many messages and allegories to real social issues.

The villain is a fascist general angling for a coup, and determined to create a perfect future with his army, leaving the workers to die in a flood. He thrives in the 'this is how things are’ social climate, able to abuse the system himself and prevent others from doing so. They deliberately have him use some very fashy language, even down to a mild discomfort with seeing a soldier and a worker holding hands.

The ants work literally all the time, they are a working caste which does basically nothing but work and drink. They don’t even get the drinks for free, as a quip late in the film reveals “that guys owes me money”. They are literally an underclass, placed there by the system of the hive.

Z’s brief tour of duty in a pointless war in which good people die does so much with so little time. This way of life isn’t just pointless toil for workers, it’s also dying for no reason by soldiers. Soldiers are in theory the enemy, but they are just workers too. They even touch on this with the princess. They meet without knowing each other and get along. They learn their social statuses and end up arguing.

They commiserate over their respective injustices.

They work together to give a shot at a brighter future.

That’s overcoming class differences right there. This film knows exactly what it’s doing, and we’re not even talking about the obvious lines that wink at the audience, like: "The workers control the means of production." 

"Boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy changes underlying social order" and the fantastic exchange halfway through the film: "Get back to work" "Why?"

He never got back to them with an answer.

Well aside from that topic, of which I could say a lot more but probably shouldn’t, what else is there? Well theres a few jokes which stretch PG to it’s very limits, scenes which would be leaning into gore territory if they were depicting humans (an ant is literally burnt to ashes instantly), and some interesting uses of humans as environmental catastrophes. The predator bugs are portrayed visually as monstrous, but interestingly earlier in the film the termites for example are said to have a treaty with the ants? So I guess they are people too, as far as the film is concerned.

The music is largely forgettable, nothing really stood out either in a “wow bombastic” or a “fits the tone perfectly” sort of way. The music of the war and the theme that plays in the credits are the better tracks, and I want to point out that the sneaky filmmakers put a goddamn Pete Seegler composition of a cuban revolutionary folk song in as the love track. They know exactly what they are doing.

I like that they had some faith in the viewer to understand the bugs plan without ever having to say it, points for that. I love that they found ways to deal with torture in a pg film. I love that they sidelined the predictable plot and the bumbling protag in order to get some real dialogue in.

I guess all that’s left to say is that the film put something in a very succinct way? Nothing stellar but it really summarises the whole fucking political conversation.

The Workers break the ground, desperate to reach the surface, the general grabs his spear and runs over. As the soldiers watch on in shock, he tries to justify the massacre:

"Don't you understand, it's for the good of the colony!”  As the general raises his weapon, the protag incredulously replies: "What are you saying, we are the colony!"

[stuffgetswatched]

Bit different than normal but I played this and kinda really want to talk about it now that 24 hours have passed. If you don’t know what this is, go play Undertale then visit here and play it as soon as you can without looking at any discussions. FULL SPOILERS BELOW

It’s halloween, and I hate horror shit. But I had to play this. There might be two paths, I don’t know I played fully nice and will try the opposite later. This game feels like a love letter to Undertale. It feels like a synthesis of the old style and an exploration of some new ideas, all in a… four hour package? Was that how long I was there? I noticed a lot of tiny details that made the game flow better, and the actual combat was mercifully improved for me, with a full party system and some really fun playing around with it. Having to warn enemies, combo solutions to problems, very fun to explore - especially going in with no expectations. I feel like it’s pretty rudimentary for a full game, but as we saw - not a full game. Just… the first chapter? I feel like an episodic experience would be a fascinating journey, but I honestly think it might be a case that each time a chapter is added it’ll just package it all back up again. or maybe just unveil the full game as a whole later? I don’t know. The dialogue was incredible, the new characters were wonderful, full arcs for the main two companions, some very cool twists and turns in the tight story. It had the right mix of levity and tension. The final twist with the Charalike was interesting but I’ll have to see how it plays out - if this is a first draft episode then I expect that to be more symbolic than kept, y’know? The allusions and full… visits with the other characters in the town was quite cool, especially the ones we didn’t see much of before, like the sick reindeer dad who got way more lines and hopefully a bigger role. I uh… what else is there to say. Was it funny? Absolutely, charming and funny. Was it a fun experiment with mechanics? Yeah it definitely was. Theres room to expand from where it left of, and plenty of places to add more. Did it live up to expectations? So Toby did a quote recently where he mused aloud about his fear of releasing a new game. Undertale raises many expectations. I know most people were expecting a Gaster thing, not because it was likely but just because they wanted it. What they got was essentially an alternate universe mini Undertale retelling. Toby did a fantastic job, I enjoyed it immensely. Does it step from the shadow of Undertale, I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I think it does an impressive job of moving onwards towards something new. Undertale is a packaged experience. This clearly pays homage, but it’s also something else. It could end up a wonderful sequel game, spiritual sequel game, or it could end up as a hybrid. Maybe just the first episode looks back, and the rest go forwards. I don’t know. I don’t know what Toby is thinking. But I am very excited to find out.

[stuffgetswatched]

Indictment of Guardsman Raines

I watched a cool lil thing called GUARDSMAN (2018), which you can find here:

It’s pretty neat for a fan short, good use of lighting, not at all hammy (which is a huge accomplishment in of itself). That’s my full review.

Because you know what else this is?

A flimsy excuse to dig out the ancient Uplifting Primer and the Munitorum Manual and take this negligent heretic up on every charge in the books.

I have him down for two floggings, either a third flogging or sixty days incarceration, sent into battle without a weapon, penal battalion, two firing squads, and having his extremities removed and letting him bleed to death, then burning his body.

How could this one man have racked all these charges in two and a half minutes of screen time? All too easily.

0:46 - For Abandoning his Uniform Helmet

Art. 1295/00r Leaving Weapons or Equipment on the Battlefield without Permission

Any soldier who leaves their weapon [or equipment] on the field of battle without prior permission of his superior officer will be shot. - Imperial Munitorum Manual, p40 

Art. 4999/65r Losing Weapons or Equipment

Any soldier who, whether though neglect or deficiency in memory, loses any part of their kit shall be flogged. -  Imperial Munitorum Manual, p41

1:05 - For Hesitating upon Contact with the Enemy and Failing to fix Bayonet

Art. 3883/99i Failing to use Departmento Munitorum Weapons or Equipment to Discomfort the Enemy

Any soldier who fails to utilise their weapons or equipment in its primary purpose of discomforting the enemy - either through misuse or personal use - will be stripped of that weapon and sent into battle without it, then found guilty of 'Failing to Carry a Weapon at All Times'. - Imperial Munitorum Manual, p41

Art. 3854/44b Failing to Carry a Weapon at all times

Any soldier who fails to produce a weapon (main weapon, sidearm or close combat weapon) upon demand by a senior officer will be flogged. - Imperial Munitorum Manual, p40

1:33, 1:36, 2:01 - Firing Without Direct Orders

Art. 9353/21r Discharging a Weapon without Permission

Any soldier who discharges their weapon without the permission of a senior officer or in a non-battle situation shall be subject to a beating of no less than ten blows. In addition, he will be found guilty of ‘Wasting Ammunition’. - Imperial Munitorum Manual, p40

Art.4734/68y Wasting Ammunition

Any soldier who sells, or willfully, through neglect, wastes any ammunition will be sent to a penal battalion. -  Imperial Munitorum Manual, p38

2:05 - Weapon Failure in Combat Situation

Art. 4421/22m Running out of Ammunition during a Combat Situation

Any soldier who finds them self unable to prosecute the foe with ballistic, laser or plasma weapons shall, upon return to base, be incarcerated for not less than 60 Days. -  Imperial Munitorum Manual, p41

Due to unclear cause of weapons failure, the following charge may instead be applied pending further investigation:

Art. 2354/55r Allowing a Weapon to Jam in a Combat Situation

Any soldier who allows their weapon to jam during a combat situation will, upon return to base, be flogged. -  Imperial Munitorum Manual, p42

2:15 - Discarding of Lasrifle in Combat Situation

Art. 114/67y Ill-treatment or Neglect of Accouterments

Any soldier who ill treats their effects, issues arms, equipment, or appurtenances through willful or non-willful neglect will be shot. -  Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer, p9

2:24 - For failure to properly recite the Prayer in the Time of Tumults

Art. 6741/09a Heresy

Any soldier who speaks ill of the Emperor, the Imperium, cites his loyalty to any entity besides the Emperor, defaces holy artifacts or buildings, incites heretical thoughts or actions, talks openly about forbidden subjects and generally behaves in a manner disrespectful to all that is holy and good will have his extremities removed and left to bleed to death, for the Emperor’s pleasure. The body will then be burned to ensure to taint remains. - Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer, p12

The following are minor Negligences that demonstrate the Guardsman’s character, through failure to follow the blessed advice in the Uplifting Primer, which was available to the Guardsman for study as per Cadian 114th regulation.

Failure to remove lodged missile from body immediately as detailed in the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer page 75.

Failure to disinfect wound before applying tourniquet as detailed in the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer page 75.

Failure to recite the Litany of Binding during application of tourniquet as detailed in the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer page 75.

Failure to attempt to locate friendly units via vox, as detailed in the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer page 48.

Failure to remain hidden, specifically not moving, remaining silent, and failing to remain vigilant, as detailed in the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer page 49.

Failure to use combat-cant for communication, as detailed in the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer page 27.

Failure to avoid symptoms of Cowardice while reciting (incorrectly) the Prayer in the Time of Tumults, specifically ‘cold and clammy skin’ and ‘irregular breathing’, as detailed in the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer page 78.

Failure to salute Adeptus Astartes. While not a technical violation, as the Adeptus Astartes are not part of the Astra Militarum, in the absence of a superior officer the Guardsman is required to perform in a manner befitting the Cadian 114th’s reputation. This specific instance may potentially be prosecuted under Art IG 3612/63k (Failure to Salute) or Art. 0493/67k (Not Showing Devotion).

[stuffgetswatched]

Deadpool 2

Well. That certainly was a film. Spoilerific review below, and you would be surprised at how much of this film can be spoilt. This is actually the hardest review I've had to write so far, despite being an unambiguously great film.

[This review was very very briefly not “Keep Reading”’d. I hope no-one was spoilt in the five seconds it was like that, I’ll be more careful going forward.]

Holy shit?

Holy shit.

Once again, I am taken aback by how much this film gets away with. I guess when you make 700 mil you can just get the studio to green light whatever the hell you like? A great use of all those resources. The slow motion full speed action sequence at the start, the inclusion of just... everyone they could grab. Every song they could find to make tiny jokes, like Pina Colada and that Logan OST song. They did everything they could think of without bloating the whole deal. Even the credits shenanigans for fucks sake.

This review could easily just be me super excited about the jokes and happenings, so I’m just gonna list the ones that stick with me in the hour after watching:

THE JUGGERNAUT CHOIR

LGBT Film of the Year

The goddamn Martha joke

Shout out to the ‘soft mouth’ quip that finally made me uncomfortable. Took two films but you did it guys, great work out there.

The willingness to be lame when it contributes to a better joke later

“Shove it Thanos”

Every single frame of Domino, who was never once wasted in a shot and was somehow introduced even better than Negasonic was last film

... also how much of a bro is Juggernaut? Kid busts you out of prison, you don’t turn on him at all, help him out with his relatively minor orphanage thing, just stick with him and ‘fuck some shit up’. What a cool dude.

We should all be more like Juggernaut.

Now we’ve gotten that out of the way, I’m gonna try and nail down my thoughts on the best part of the film, and that one idea I want to be learnt from the film.

The film is entirely unapologetic of it’s repeated mentioning of abuse, torture, and psychopathic tendencies. We see Cables family burnt to a crisp and don’t even flinch. As Domino drives down a street, devastation erupts all around her to make way for her luck aura. The X Force is eviscerated in incredibly brutal ways, all for an extended gag. But why? Because awful shit like this is part of the world, and the film demands that we acknowledge this reality going forwards.

Deadpool near the half hour mark domes one of the kid’s abusers, and defends his actions like this: “Fuck your rules, I fight for what’s right. Sometimes you’ve got to fight dirty.” This is consistent with his position towards the end of the last film: admitting to be doing good, but objecting to the means.

But the film argues against it thoroughly. Vanessa is dead exactly because of the gunho attitude of Deadpool. Abuse creates three of the most destructive people in the film and murder creates the fourth. Violence begets violence. Cruelty is an unbroken cycle. The entire experience is permeated with a layer of cynicism and raw exposure with the harsh reality precisely to make the ultimate message pop so vividly.

Neither Deadpool nor Cable could be expected to change with a simple Colossus speech, and I think that it’s also intended for a subset of its audience as well. We’ve had so many films that have such abstract morality lessons, or take these things as read, and they just… aren’t convincing, not for the people who are not already convinced. That is what makes it so inherently mockable.

The world is absolute trash. A billion terrible things happen every day. It’s so easy to just want to carve your way out. To assign moral judgement to wrongs and say there can be no redemption. To be so hurt that you can’t see a way out without striking back.

But as Vanessa says at the close of the film’s emotional arc... “It’s okay.”

There are no buttons to push that can save the world. No number of easy solutions will create a path to a better tomorrow. No one death that will return what you lost. In a way, just a little way, the film uses all of this to offer a message of reassurance to those who perhaps need it most, using the language of the would be Deadpools, Cables, and Dominos of the world.

I think that’s pretty admirable, and makes a great film into an excellent one.

[stuffgetswatched]

Brooklyn Nine Nine: Seasons 2 & 3

Well those two seasons sure went by in a flash. I got some new thoughts, since my review of the first season last week. Yep I smashed these two seasons out in like six days. Buckle up, Spoilerific as usual.

The show... it has a lot more going on. I noticed it start to build up in the second season, but by the third it had erupted into activity. So many strung out plotlines, interconnecting ideas through all the episodes. Gone are the one off ‘let’s find something out about a cast member' episodes, now everything descends from a former episode at least a little bit. This debuted with Rosa’s task-force, and then of course with the surprisingly raw season 2 finale. This change came at absolutely the perfect moment, just as I started to wonder if Season 2 was just all more of the same. More of the same was fun, but now we’ve moved onto more involved plots and they are just fantastic.

I had a few hesitations last review about some of the cast, particularly Gina and Amy. Those hesitations are gone. Gina is used perfectly, if anything she has been de-flanderised. They really nailed down exactly who she is and what she’d say over all those episodes, and now while she’s still the wild card she’s all the more enjoyable for the development. Amy... Amy Amy. She grew on me immensely, the dorky but incredibly brave officer who gets put through hell because she cares too much. She’s a long way from her pilot, and I’m so glad her character development came through. How they’ve taken their time to build her up gives me a huge amount of faith going forwards for character developments, such as Rosas abrupt engagement, which might otherwise make me nervous for where the plot might be doing.

The show has had a few extremely good story-lines, and new additional characters. Wunch gave Holt a reason to lose his cool once in a while, Doug only grows more lovable as Jakes frenemy, Pimento brings out new sides of Rosa, the list goes on. All used rather well, none outstaying their welcome.

Andy Samberg has this weird superpower and I gotta talk about it. He’s nailed a particular habit of setting up jokes as Jake, getting sandbagged, and then making the perfect anticlimactic noise for it. Often it’s a very quick ‘awkay’ but it’s always perfect and it punctuates the jokes all the better. A lot of the characters got more comfortable and better to watch over time, but Jake has just gotten subtly funnier - despite being in many more situations where he has to be earnest. It’s a pleasure to watch, and it reflects incredibly well on Samberg. I feel like I've been watching this character develop in his brain since he played the Park Ranger on Parks and Rec, who feels like a sort of proto-Jake.

I can’t give Andy all the credit, because I’ve been noticing more and more that the writing has had some top notch moments, especially for a sitcom. Excellent Exchanges like the following were more and more common as season three continued:

"... we're going to hear about our adoption any minute!"

"I thought you were doing fertility treatments."

"We are sigh but it's not going well. The doctor said my sterility is so aggressive it may have spread to her." 

What else? Jake and Amys relationship took the brave option of just... starting. Right at the end of the season 2, no cliffhanger, no bullshit, it just happened. That’s exactly what I wanted to happen.

I find that the show is at it’s best when the team is off Police Work, such as their ‘half-day’ party and the side stories that take place on days off. Actually I think there is a larger point here, in that I stopped seeing this at all as a police show a very long time ago? The setting is very much a backdrop that let’s them go undercover and have the occasional shot of Rosa just run some poor sod down. None the less, I did notice there was a very conscious change in the way the police work was handled. In season 3 they tend to be just... all around better police officers. Earlier on there was a lot of illegal entries and hunches and random arrests, usually overcome with hard work, natural talent, or a lil humble pie. Now they are just way more responsible, which feels... appropriate.

I have to bring back Wunch if only to mention an exchange which was intended to be completely incomprehensible but as a former history student I was delighted by: their exchange regarding the Fall of Addis Ababa as a metaphor. Just... man. Reaching in every direction to get a good Holt joke off there, I really appreciated it.

What else is there to say. The show is still great, it’s evolving and slowly ramping up in scale, and i’m invested in seeing where it goes nest. I’d be lying if I haven’t been sitting impatiently waiting for a certain Rosa episode to drop that I had heard about, but I’m certainly not bored with what they are sending out.

I... don’t have a witty end here. The show is just really fucking great, and I hit a point in mid season 2 when I just couldn’t stop watching. It’s good.

I’m going to go watch the Season 4 opening ep now.

[stuffgetswatched]

Limitless (2011)

Part Two if the 10% Myth film duet. You can read my disappointing adventure watching Lucy here, if you wish. This one was actually a film, featuring an actor used well. It also contains the greatest scene I have seen in months, and I am devastated I won’t have a gif or video to show of it. Spoilerific thoughts below.

When I talked about Lucy, I referred to it charitably as 10% of a script. I think Limitless is the remaining 90%. Eddie is painfully easy to emotionally attach to, thanks to a very heavy reliance on Bradley Cooper, who basically runs this film off his acting alone. His breakup, his inability to write, his crappy apartment, all of them manage to touch the right authentic nerve to get us in and invested with him. In a way this is just one of the two characters he plays, something I noticed the film subtly tried to imply with the shots of Eddie and his girlfriend seeing themselves as they try the stuff. Along with his performance, they spent a significant amount of time just showing us this stuff. The emotional impact of the changes are allowed to carefully drop.

As they wean off that, they just start slowly pushing what he is doing, creating sort of an interesting story to follow along. He has a plan, purposefully vague, to make the world better, and it’s not important to know the specifics - we know the steps. Money is what the bulk of the film is focused on, he needs money. The film again does a good job sprinkling and keeping the underlying ‘this was a seriously bad idea' drug plotline as he sours, and when it all crashes down it’s happening perhaps a little predictably but never boring none the less. It tried to mirror a standard addiction story as some more subtle storytelling, which I appreciated.

I also enjoyed the revelation that the OTHER former romantic interest actually had a role in the film as the first ‘this drug thing is way bigger than you' reveal.

I... actually don’t have much else to say. The film did fine. But then it ended. It ended, narrowly avoiding the conclusion it was naturally developing towards: that Eddie had cheated his way into a world he knew nothing about, and he was going to get played. But he didn’t deserve to win? The film didn’t establish the out he pulls out of his ass either, not at all. It felt rushed, or a last minute change - from the genuine ‘I lost’ look of horror, and then abruptly into ‘but I actually won tho’. That’s why I say 90%. It went extremely well, and then... didn’t write an ending. Perhaps that is because there was a television adaptation in the works? I would not know.

Despite that ending... I have to say a lot of this film was spent with me not managing to make many notes. I was intrigued, the film hooked me. There wasn’t much to in depth think about, just stuff to watch to see what happens next. That’s nothing to sniff at.

I want to say something clever about this film having 90% of a script and me having 90% of a review, but honestly I just want to share my reaction to the greatest scene of Bradley Coopers career.

In the penultimate action sequence he has none of his wonder drug, and the mobster establishes that he injects his own dose. So after stabbing the mobster, and needing a dose, he lies in agony and watches as blood slowly pools across the laminated floor towards him.

This was my live reaction to my friend:

DRINK HIS BLOOD

DO IT

I WANNA WATCH BRADLEY COOPER DRINK BLOOD

DO THIS FOR ME FILM

DO IT

DO IT

CMON

COWARDS DO IT

DOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIIIT

YEAH

YEAH

YEAH

DO IT

YEAH

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

YOU BRILLIANT FUCKERS 

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go to my grave remembering that one film where the eternally charming Bradley Cooper had to sip fresh blood off his own floor.

[stuffgetswatched]

Lucy (2014)

Part One of the 10% Myth film duet, it’s this fucking thing. Oh... man. This was a film. It really was. I uh... wow. Spoilerific, if you care. There is little of value to spoil. [Hey it’s future me, here is part two of this duet, Limitless.]

Mercifully only an hour and twenty minutes, this is my second Luc Besson film of the three I have on my little list to watch, and ho boy. This is the first film I have watched in recent memory that really REALLY needed to be longer to work. It needed ten or fifteen minutes at the front of the film to make us care about Lucy. it starts, aside from crappy cheesy monologue, right in the middle of a conversation with two people we don’t care about. Then one is dead, and the other is being dragged off for... god knows what. We’re on the second scene of the film and all we have is general empathetic “I sure hope this innocent person isn’t raped and murdered” to go with emotionally. Considering the subject matter, that’s literally the bare minimum investment they could hope for.

After that point, after her drug bag inevitably ruptures and the film begins, she has this weird transformation into just... the raw basics of her standard film role. Unemotional. Attractive. Action. So I guess they decided there was no point giving us an emotional connection after all. Except now I am watching her go on a rampage with no means of understanding what she is doing and why - after trying to make me see things through her eyes for twenty minutes, now I am watching her from third person, trying to guess what she’s about. It’s abrupt and disorientating, and perhaps they were trying to be clever that way but it honestly doesn’t tie together.

The film is trying so hard to be taken seriously, lots of cuts to artsy sidebars, animals fucking, monologues about life and philosophy. It has a detailed explanation and expansion of the 10% Myth as orated by Morgan Freeman who may as well have stepped out of any other film where he is a professor into this one.

But on the one hand where it tries hard to get an average movie going audience to follow along with it’s jargon, it’s also slapping the attentive viewer with it’s nature metaphors. Get it? She’s being led into a trap, that’s why we kept cutting to her being hunted, and the literal mousetrap. Get it? Her drug bag burst, that’s what happened when she was kicked directly in the obvious wound. No? Here’s another two minutes of CG to get that super clear in your head.

Meanwhile the film hammers on with the most basic and boring transhuman interpretation: as she becomes more powerful, she loses her humanity. That’s why she told her mother about her nice her breastmilk was on the phone - a conversation blessingly cut short by the cell line being dodgy.  And why after killing all of his work colleagues, she kisses that police guy. She... she kills a lot of people for no reason in this film, even after the point where she is unstoppable and thus there is no suspense for seeing her die.

This film has a lot of problems outside even of those. Details that don’t work “Go secure the room” she says to the police guy, and then he fails to evacuate the building leading to unnecessary death. About twelve suited Korean hit men with guns manage to walk in a line into a Parisian central hospital and take out French police like it’s nothing without raising an alarm. “I must make a computer” quoth the super-person, instead of just making a billion text documents online with her mind.

Before I talk about the ending, i’d like to take a quick moment to say... some of the CG was really good. The final moment between 99% and 100% was in fact pretty excellent, and the hard cut at 100% was the best sequence in the film, hands down. Really excellent. The CG of her nearly falling part on the airplane was also fantastic, the only moment where she was seemingly beatable. It actually felt like a setup without a release of tension - she nearly fell apart once, ergo it should happen again later at a more pressing time. But then... it doesn’t. She is unopposed for the rest of the film.

So... how did it end? Well, I’m not sure what the filmmaker wanted me to take away from it. An infinite amount of knowledge and a person downloaded to a pretty hefty USB stick. The final form of human evolution. But in reality SHE IS EVERYWHERE, right? Cheesy and Dumb as that line is. “Now we have learnt how” she says, closing the film. What have we learnt Lucy?

Did we learn that a producible drug can turn people into superhumans just by dunking enough of it into their system at once? Did we learn that a random american woman is now a god of this new world? Did we learn so little that one older man and his coworkers are going to be able decipher the secrets of humanity before the only trustworthy person dies? Should we have that knowledge at all? Why don’t we all just ascend now that we know how? Do we have to be USB’s or do we get other options? Is the filmmaker interested in asking any questions, or just expecting us to have to ask them?

What is Lucy about? It’s about 10% of a script.

[stuffgetswatched]

Brooklyn Nine Nine: Season 1

I finally caved and watched Brooklyn 99, and now can proudly boast the ability to consistently spell Brooklyn for the first time. I liked it, and I got a few Spoilerific thoughts below.

It’s gonna be real hard to find gifs per season, or actually find much to say going forwards, assuming the show doesn’t change too much.

Coming off a Parks and Recreation thing, Brooklyn took me by surprise almost immediately by eschewing the ‘Everyone is Meeting’ stage of the pilot/first season and went with the simpler ‘New Boss Meeting Team’ open. In fact the dummy protagonist Jake knew both Rosa and Gina pre-workplace, has a best friend relationship with Charles and arguably Terry, and his crush on Amy. The entire cast has some close links that have bound themselves together right from the pilot, and that theoretically leaves us in the perspective of watching how the introduction of Holt changes the currents.

But it also never leans too much into this. Sometimes he will audience stand in, to learn about some obscure office cultural thing, but usually he is more akin to an iceburg floating through the office that the other characters have to avoid, creating the conflict. They do fairly well in not making him a villain as much as a more distant part of the crew.

The characters are all fairly interesting. Jake is of course played well by Samberg, never too big to dominate the show, never too obviously stepping back for an episode. Terry Crews playing essentially his own stereotype is another consistent source of laughs they don’t overplay. Rosa establishes herself early and well, and Charles avoids falling into the specific useless archetype I suspect he was pitched to be and is instead a character all of his own. Amy I struggled with for a long time, but her role is admittedly one of the hardest to nail down for a show like this. I've seen her character before many times, and was expecting it - but I feel like efforts were made to break her out of that pigeon hole. I am interested to see how she progresses in future seasons.

Holt is solid, he’s got his joke well and the actor keeps finding new ways to keep it going without reusing it. Gina works fine with the cast although I find myself having the least to say about her, interestingly, good or bad. I hope she avoids being Flanderised. The two background officers who I cannot recall the names of fill the role of the ‘Jerry’ and don’t quite stand out well enough. They work well as a team, but I need to see more of them to actually come to appreciate what they bring, and at the moment I don’t see much.

I mean... the scene happened in the season. Lotta spoilers in that gif folder, hmm.

Fuck all that though. This show does something pretty fucking great. I ain’t laughing at anyone in particular. It’s always situations, never people. Charles and his propensity for dating older women, show has jokes about it, but it’s always trying to aim the comedy at the reaction of the young characters. It’s not funny because it’s a joke necessarily, it’s funny because it tickles the crap out of everyone in the room. I think this is why them all being familiar helps, because you get the sense that no one is being actually hurt by the comments, unless it’s to set up an apology later.

And it was a pretty ballsy opener to go straight in with Holt’s homosexuality in the pilot, especially by preceding it with a seemingly innocent “Anyone getting a gay vibe?” joke that got lost in the mix on purpose and then drudged up later. That’s some subtle shit. I like that.

The finale was fairly standard stuff. I liked that it was, in the end, quiet and honest and kind to the characters. It didn’t create drama out of nothing, just concluded some stories and set up the expected ‘maybe’ well. I left the season nodding to myself and being interested for more.

If this was the rough early season, with excellent cold opens, consistent characterization, and the always welcome earnest tone... how good is season two going to be?

[stuffgetswatched]

Star Trek: Beyond

Well next on the list, it’s Star Trek. This film was... it was maybe the best of the new Star Treks, but it wasn’t quite tight enough to make it fantastic on it’s own. More Spoilerific thoughts below.

This film was at it’s best when it was engaging in the relationship they had developed between existent characters. The duets, especially Spock and Bones, they were fucking fantastic and highlighted why we enjoy their chemistry. Bones himself is basically part of the three main characters, simply due to how well Karl Urban has carried the role. Sulu continued to secretly be the most competent person on the ship and the obvious next captain, Chekov (RIP Anton, you were the best) and his sexual exploits in the background, they were all done fantastic. Obviously Scotty had the most to do on his own, but what I found weird was that Uhura was almost underused? She was there but she wasn’t doing anything massive on her own, like she wasn’t distinct aside from being a part of Spocks little arc. That was kinda disappointing.

I honestly wish more of the film had been spent on those relationships? I had huge hopes with the plot seeming to be ‘shore leave interrupted’, but as we came to realise that the station they were sent to was insanely advanced it dawned on me that it was going to go to the well again with the big stakes explosions destruction. Thankfully they didn’t break the Yorktown, but they certainly broke the old Enterprise.

Why do they have a fetish for blowing crap up in these films. Is it necessary? The mutilation of the ship initially was more than enough for me, then I had to sit and watch them just... crash it again.

I mean look at that. The film looked incredible, as they always do, that’s the best warp has ever looked. But I honestly didn’t need it to enjoy the film. It’s nice that they do it, but if they could avoid studio shutdown by cutting the CGI budget down by twenty five million then I’ll be more than happy.

All credit to the production crew and Simon Pegg, it did not feel like a production as dogged with issues as it was. Rogue One is a great example of a similar modern film that was butchered before release with rewrites and reworks, but Beyond came out very comprehensive. Up until about... an hour in it was working and functioning perfectly, I was even praising the writing for being surprisingly top notch. Then... is starts to struggle a little bit. The world was defined as a graveyard world, and they tracked the crew by tracking the only bit of a rare Vulcan metal that should be there, around Uhuras neck (sadly her largest plot contribution aside from getting Kirk on the other side of the door). However the graveyard was old enough that it caught the Kelvin. Surely in those centuries, more federation ships, with pre-destruction Vulcan numbers, would exist? I don’t know, niggles appeared at this point and some of the set pieces started to struggle.

The writing also struggled with the main non crew characters, Krall and Jaylah. Because of the massive focus on the core characters, and the promotion of Bones to equal screen time, these two were sharply curtailed into relatively basic roles. Jaylah started interestingly, but never really came back again in her own - she got a moment to resist the flow of the plot but was easily persuaded to ‘be brave’ which isn’t really how one overcomes deep trauma but okay sure whatever. She had a rivalry, i noticed, with the subcommander of Kralls folks, but that was so sandbagged by time restraints they had to break the battle flow to inform you it existed.

I was shocked that Idris Elba was Krall, mostly because... Krall was so painfully generic. I feel like we’ve done this a hundred times before, and this specific story twice. Villain from the Federations past, a soldier who can’t let a war go, ‘unity makes you weak’, ‘conflict is a part of life so blow up a monument’. It’s kinda painful how often I have seen that plot in relatively one dimensional villains. His subcommander had a line where he was like 'Complete the Mission' and that belonged in a different film that gave the idea that ‘captains do anything for their crew’ more time. It was the only tie in to the attempt to make him make more compelling. Didn’t work.

Neither of those two actors were used to their potential, and Idris Elba was most likely a shocking waste of money that wasn’t needed to be spent. He had nothing to do, nothing to say and no emotion to elicit, speaking in a guttural voice with a heavily covered face. And Paramount wonders why it’s struggling financially!

This film was sometimes annoying to watch because it had a lot of very good ideas, and it came surprisingly close to being truly great. The cheesy but awesome music killing the enemies should not have worked, but it did. The cinematics were beautiful and the camera work was fine. The heart and soul was in, and details when they were used were used well. But for every great touch was a moment of waste, such as the unintentionally hilarious reverse of the Into Darkness shot of the Enterprise crashing into the sea, but now with the Kelvin surfacing out of the pool. It was held back, especially in the second half.

What else to say. ‘Sulu is Gay now’ was the most understated thing, and I mean... yeah sure. It’s fine, I’m not going to complain about more representation. Fuck anyone who argued it was rubbing it in faces, it was exactly the same level as the Guardians of the Galaxy “the nova core guy has an alien wife and kid” and no-one complained about that. It’s actually sad how easy it is for them to play with inter-species relationships in the film more than same sex ones, I’m glad they are doing it, but you know.

I think the weird thing I actually got from Beyond is the realization that a film like this without human protagonists couldn’t exist today. People have a hard enough time watching or making films with female or minority protagonists. Imagine if they got one of the thousand Federation vessels without any humans on board and just followed that. Maybe they could be working on the frontier, not the best vessel, not the worst vessel either, just a Defiant level ship trying to keep a minor sector from erupting into internal conflict on the Federation border. An important job, but not a real threat. A thankless task, letting them focus on the extended crew, all those aliens that no-one cared about in the background of other sci fi films. Not played for laughs, not treated as fodder.

Wouldn’t that be interesting?

[stuffgetswatched]

Solo: A Star Wars Story

And you know what? It actually totally was. I have some Spoilerific thoughts below, but I gotta say, I really fucking liked it.

So I was expecting something... I don’t know. I’d heard that it was an alright film sunk by The Last Jedi’s wake. I heard that it’s colour pallet and specifically the whats it called... the coating of brown on top of the whole thing was not great. I saw some pictures. I had seen the trailer and some screens from it, i knew some of the actors and such.

But holy crap it was really fucking great. At first I was instantly uncertain, the introduction introduced Hyperfuel as a thing, a background character right away, I was left... uncertain. Maybe a bit untrusting, nothing about early Han made me see the character he was going to become, outside of references to stuff he would do later. I noted the child slaves, which I guess is a star wars staple, but I hadn’t noticed it as much as I had with this current generation where they seem to be everywhere in the films. Also they continued at first the really annoying trend that aliens were always enemies or comic relief, never just... background people to fill the space.

But the film really began when Han was recruited into the Imperial Navy, and why? Because that’s when they started really sprinkling in Han into this character. All credit to the actor, across this whole film he started to act more and more like the character, stealing moves and ideas from everyone he met till the role started to fill out into an approximation of Harrison Ford. Which is perfect, exactly how it should be done.

The characters are the highlight here, specifically the returning ones. Chewie was the most true to form he has been since Return of the Jedi. I had not realised until now but something had been missing from him and his interactions, but the growing bickering with Han really just... wow. It all flooded back. Donald Glover has Lando on fucking lock and does from the moment he appears. Not a single moment did he drop the ball, all credit to him and them all.

The newer characters filled their roles very well, never filled the spotlight too much. The original crew were great for their parts, with Val and Becket more than providing the contrast to show the difference between Natural Talent and Experience, which was a really nice way to highlight the amateur hour that Han had to go through without discrediting him too much. Actually that whole train robbery reminded me of some early Firefly stuff in a real good way, it felt like a proper heist.

L3 was great, and I can bet you a lot of fucking money she turned people off on this film in a big way. A sassy female droid talking about droid rights? You can discredit 1/4 of this films negative reviews just on that, I bet certain critics fucking despised her. I liked her inclusion and the technical aspects a lot, she was played strong but only for a small part of the film so it worked out real nice. She had a lot of subtle human mannerisms, like the way she adjusted naturally to getting in seats, fiddled with her fingers, spoke indecisively. it was really nicely done. She ultimately was comic relief, but not slapstick crap like BB8 quickly became, just... her own character, and a part of Lando’s backstory.

It made me compare her to the droid in Rogue One, where they were both done similarly but she was much more realised and aware of that most understated of facts about Star Wars: All Droids are Slaves. The new films have been touching on it a lot, and I'm glad because there’s a lot of mileage to approaching that almost contradiction with a new perspective.

The inclusion of the little scene with her talking about a potential romance with Lando? That touches my transhumanist heart, that’s good shit, more films need to play with that in a serious way.

Most of these gifs are about Lando, surprise surprise.

What this film does best, and what could have sank it, are the references. They touched on a lot of things, like an awful lot of things. I noted down Bossk getting a namedrop, Teras Kasi, The Maw of course, as well as the obvious ones like the legendary Sabbak game. Real nice fake out on that game, by the way, that first game easily could have been the game even despite losing, but they went back and stuck the landing.

The most important part for me is that they took the time to evoke scenes rather than draw on them? The shot of Becket firing down the hallway with an imperial-esque desk behind him reminded me so much of Han doing the same in A New Hope just for that one moment, and that’s the kind of subtlety that sticks out.

The reference in the room is Darth Maul, but there isn’t too much to say. When it happened I thought “Holy Shit that’s Canon now?” but of course... it’s already canon. Never thought for a second it’d be on the big screen again, really glad I didn’t look at the imdb.

The ending was nothing special, I felt like the heart of the film was through to the end of the Kessel Run, and the final parts were more... busywork to make the whole thing tie together. Not that they were bad, it was more... the reveal that the insanely cool villains from the train heist were the proto-rebellion, because it’s a Empire Period star wars film and thus they have to be in it. Holy shit good on Anthony and Warrick for getting face roles, I jumped out of my seat when I saw Warrick with his fucking RPG just chilling. Good shit.

So I gotta say... this film wasn’t needed. It wasn’t anything strictly new. But it handled itself and it’s references extremely well, like the latter half of Rogue One, and it managed to modernise in exactly the right ways to avoid muddying the feeling.

It was a Star Wars Story. More than any of the new trilogy have managed, or any of the offshoots. This was Star Wars, through and through.

Hell, now I want a Star Wars film that takes droids and aliens seriously. I want Star Wars films that delve into the relationship between the Empire and the Crime Bosses. I want to see that Imperial Aesthetic stretched beyond the top end and the bottom end, give me two Grand Admirals at the edge of the Imperial Sphere trying to pacify Outer Rim Warlords and competing for prestige. Give me the story of that war that Han Solo moonlighted in.

This film made me want more Star Wars again.

[stuffgetswatched]

The Fifth Element

Holy shit okay, so Fifth Element. It's not the craziest thing I’ve ever watched, but I honestly spent the bulk of the run time completely unaware it was a comedy. It was a weird enough experience that I had to write about it, so I did.

So I had heard of this film. I knew the director Luc Besson as the guy who did another film Valerian, I’ve been meaning to watch. I knew this was considered a Cult Classic, but I also knew it had problems with the central romance being a bit... eh. I'd also seen gifs of some cool low budget vaguely cyberpunk looking scenes with Bruce Willis in dyed blonde hair and an orange wife beater?

I’ll be honest, I conflated it with Total Recall (that I should also watch) and was constantly expecting them to eventually go to Mars for the whole damn thing.

I thought this was gonna be a low budget sci fi. Well.

The seventeen minute intro? Priests? Egypt? 1914? I was completely blindsided by how wrong I was about this film. I didn’t quite realise how wrong I was until it was all over, when it finally clicked that... oh it’s a weird 90′s comedy film with a sci-fi skin.

In hindsight it makes a lot of the utterly bewildering events and decisions make a lot of sense. Why is the border of the Federation a line of red lights in space? Why did they make Gary Oldman stuff potatoes in his mouth and pretend to be a hillbilly? Why was Chris Tucker...? I got a thousand questions like this, and the answer is just… because they thought it would be funny. I didn’t laugh but it really does contextualize a lot of the small weird crap in the film.

I can’t quite tell if it was trying to parody something specific or just science fiction in general;  perhaps being twenty years out of cultural frame keeps me from getting the greater joke? As it is, it just seems to be firing jokes off in random directions. I really can’t stress enough how confusing Chris Tucker’s script was in the film, I honestly have no idea what he added. Also that one joke where Bruce Willis fails to communicate with a deaf guy? Yeah that’s… yeah.

There’s a weird meta joke I noticed, where Leeloo is considered a “Perfect Supreme Being” on a factual level. She is supposed to be a godlike alien creature. But whenever people refer to her as that, it’s always a joke about her being beautiful. This seems obvious but it was weirdly confusing to me at the time, I was expecting something… more? Like it seemed too obvious, what was the second layer of the comedy? But there wasn't any. It was just… she’s beautiful and all the characters know it.

I guess I have to talk about Bruce and Leeloo? Up until the moment when Bruce Willis is told that she is fragile and has to be loved, it did not feel like there was a real romance being done. I saw all the beats, but they were done with no chemistry at all. I actually wrote down at around forty minutes in:

“the most redeeming part of this film is that i am getting the most likely unintended impression that the ‘lost powerful space babe falling for the hero’ is not falling at all, and is basically doing her job perfectly despite the weird scenario and people”

The romance is nothing, and if they had swerved at the end to them not being in love they had the groundwork to make that flow. I kind of want to talk about the infantalising of Leeloo despite the sexualisation, but Born Sexy Yesterday says it all and better than I could.

But forget all that. Forget the sex jokes, forget the mildly boring aesthetic design, forget the attempts at humour.

None of that matters.

I need to talk about the Diva Dance.

I have never seen a film actress so uncomfortable in a floppy rubber suit. I have never seen my expectations inverted so abruptly for so little purpose. I have never heard an opera/pop dance remix. I have never considered inter-cutting a weird opera dance remix with the fight scene in which we finally get to see the ‘Supreme Being’ acrobat at alien orcs.

That one moment indirectly led me to have such a strong impression of a film that I had to create a tumblr to talk about it, even just briefly. It is absolute insanity, literally bringing a tear to Bruce Willis’ eye. Holy crap.

I mean the film continues afterwards. Bruce Willis finally does what he was hired to do: five minutes of Die Hard. The film reaches climax fifteen minutes before the end and then tries to build to *another* that act three climax again to beat the big evil.

But it’s all pointless after that clusterfuck of a sequence.

I want to mention specifically are the two incredibly awesome things that I did really like in the film, and they are gonna seem really specific.

1) The scene with the guy selling noodles out of his stereotypical Asian river boat turned flying car through Bruce Willis’ window. I genuinely adore that idea, and it's getting utterly stolen. It’s such a natural evolution of something I’ve personally done, bought food through the open window of a cross country bus. The idea of people in a dystopian setting being desperate enough to use their car as a moving drive in/delivery is really imaginative, so kudos to the one intern in the writing team who got that in the script.

2) The film has a single spaceport set that it uses, and for some completely inexplicable reason one of the walls is garbage. Just… a floor to ceiling pile of literal garbage. The flight that they are getting is a prize winning flight to a luxury planet for the rich and famous. And yet the spaceport to get there, the same one that all the other rich people used… has a garbage wall. They even lampshade it, “I’m sorry for all the Garbage” says the lady at the ticket desk. Why does this exist? I honestly don’t know what reference it is trying to make. Maybe just a wild swing at airports? I don’t know. But that idea is just… something about it, I adore it. I want it. I’m stealing the crap out of it.

So... I guess to close this all out, that’s Brion James and that is his acting face in this film. He doesn’t do any other ones. Naked lady? That face. Someone rang the doorbell? That face. Mild confusion? That face. Variations on the same bewildered open mouthed expression. How I did not see that  and think ‘oh, this is a comedy’ probably reflects either poorly on me, or poorly on the film.

I can’t quite decide which.