Category: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items

Watchmen (2009) – A Science Fiction-Fantasy Movie Review

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Watchmen is a movie based on a DC Comics comic book series from the 1980s written by Alan Moore and directed by Zack Snyder.  Moore is a self-identified “anarchist” (read weirdo) and the fictional world of this story reflects his hatred of anything conservative (read normal).

The story takes place in an alternate reality of 1985 where Richard Nixon is in his fifth term and a band of “superheroes” called the Watchmen have been disbanded after they were used for such actions as winning the Vietnam War for the Americans.  Apparently, people became afraid of their impact on society.  The movie starts with one of these retired heroes; the Comedian being murdered by another extremely powerful masked individual.  He is thrown through the window of a Manhattan skyscraper.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

We are introduced to the former heroes.  By the way I recognized none of the actors.  I’m sure some of them would be familiar to anyone who has gone to the movies much in the last fifteen years.

Except for Doctor Manhattan who is some kind of god-like being with psychic abilities and atomic power that can destroy cities, the rest of the heroes are just humans who are strong and trained as fighters.  Doctor Manhattan got these powers while he was working in the American nuclear weapons industry.  He is able to become enormously large, teleport to Mars at will and able to invent whole new power sources for Earth’s future.

When the Comedian is murdered the other Watchmen suspect that someone is trying to kill all of them.  When an assassin tries to kill another one; Adrian Veidt (AKA: Ozymandias) they get the gang back together and look for the killer.  There’s all kinds of action and adventure.  But in the final act we find out that Ozymandias is responsible.  He stages an atomic attack on New York City, London and a couple of other cities and the leaders of the world assume it was Doctor Manhattan that did it as a warning against nuclear states (like the US and the USSR) threatening nuclear war.  This brings the countries of the world together out of a sense of common defense against Doctor Manhattan.  And Doctor Manhattan approves of the peaceful result of the hoax so the secret is maintained.  But one Watchman; Rorschach objects and has to be killed by Doctor Manhattan to keep the secret.  Rorschach’s friends are angry but agree to keep the secret for the sake of world peace.  At the end of the movie, it appears that Rorschach was able to leak the secret before he was killed.

Okay, so what did I think of this movie?  To start off we have Richard Nixon in his fifth term pretty much as evil incarnate.  So, there’s that.  The movie has a dose of sex and violence so this isn’t a kid’s superhero movie.  So, there’s that.  The story itself and the characters have interesting moments.  The question comes down to, is it worth the time to watch it?  I’ll have to qualify this.  If you like comic book stories there is a decent chance you’ll like this movie.  The effects and the acting aren’t bad.  The plot isn’t reasonable but it is clever.  If you don’t like comic book stories, you won’t like this movie.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 08MAY2025 – More Dune

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The fever dream that is David Lynch’s Dune owes far more to the earlier Jodorowsky attempt at a Dune Movie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky%27s_Dune#Background ) than to Frank Herbert’s novel. These things include

  • Stunt casting Sting mirrors Jodorowsky’s intent to cast Mick Jagger for Feyd Rautha
  • The art work in the Lynch version is greatly affected by both Jodorowskys use of H.R. Giger (then mostly unknown) and Jodorowsky’s use of Moebius (of Heavy Metal Comic book fame) to help create the cinematics and layout
  • The bizarre ending involving the Weirding Modules and Rain on Arrakis steals from the Jodorowsky ending (though doesn’t go QUITE so acid trip as Jodorowsky) and totally diverges from the Dune Module

I did see it in the theater when it came out. It has some good points ( Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, the overall look) but it is of its time and strongly affected by the Jodorowsky work which is NOT what a Dune originalist would like. Here, 41 years on it seems very dated and of its time. Of the three attempts at Dune that got to the screen it is probably the weakest.

Guest Contributor – Arthurincali – 08MAY2025 – Review of Dune

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ArthurinCali has put together a review of David Lynch’s 1984 motion picture adaption of Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel Dune.

For you Dune fans go over to his substack and see what he has to say about both the book and this movie version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seeing Things as They Really Are

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The stoic Epictetus is supposed to have said, “Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.”  When I read up on what Epictetus thought was within our control it’s pretty small.  All that’s under our control is our thoughts and opinions.  Even our actions are constrained by the external world.  So, this freedom he speaks of is internal.

It doesn’t seem to be much.  But I guess if you live in a world where there is one Nero and a hundred million Romans without any real freedom you have to take what’s available.  And who knows, some of the good emperors were stoics.  At least Marcus Aurelius has been presented to us through his writings as one.  Maybe he was.

Then what about our world?  We brag that we are a free people.  And compared to the Roman Empire I guess we are freer.  But when I think of the direction, we are headed it’s not that much better and in fact because of the efficiency of our technology maybe eventually we will be more thoroughly enslaved than my ancient forebears on the Italian peninsula.  In that case maybe I should consider the wisdom of Epictetus and his world view.

This all came up because I saw a quote that said something like, “Hopelessness is freedom.”  I took it to mean that hoping for things that won’t happen is wasting your life.  That the better way is to take the situation as you find it and work around it to accomplish what is possible.

This makes sense to me.  I waited decades for things to go the way I wanted them to go and it only ever got worse.  That’s because I thought that other people believed what I did.  I thought that George W. Bush was a “conservative.”  Well, maybe he was, by his definition.  But reality wasn’t the same for him and me.

Now, Donald Trump seems more like what I hoped for.  But Donald Trump isn’t the Emperor of America.  He’s not even the boss.  He’s just someone trying hard to fix things.  I wouldn’t exactly equate him to Marcus Aurelius.  I don’t think anyone who spent any time with Stormy Daniels could be considered a stoic.  I don’t think he’d even qualify as an epicurean.  He’s a well-meaning man trying to fix things by plugging holes in a collapsing dam.  Will he succeed, even temporarily?  It’s really hard to say.

Stretching the Roman Empire analogy way beyond recognition, the Goths are already over the Rhine and the legions are undermanned and poorly trained.  So, things look pretty bad.

Maybe it is time to start looking within to see what can be done to make the best of a bad situation.  The stoic viewpoint was an important part of the Christian philosophy that allowed something to survive the wreck of the Western Roman Empire.  The Christians couldn’t become legionnaires and defeat the barbarians.  But they could become monks and form a nucleus of knowledge and civilization to help the common people survive the chaos of the dark ages.

Maybe we will see something similar.  Any help that is going to come in the future might have to come from ourselves.  I’m not sure I’d express it as, “Hopelessness is freedom.”  Maybe a better way to say it is. “The truth shall set you free.”  Facing reality is the best way to make progress.  See things for how they really are and you are less likely to be disappointed in how things turn out.  Do I feel freer now?  Maybe.

Curses!  Foiled Again!

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Ah, the whiplash sting of rejection.  My manuscript has been rejected by Ark Press (see bold text below).

 

Thank you for submitting to Ark Press.

The Ark editorial team has reviewed your work and given it careful consideration. We appreciate the opportunity to review your treatment and manuscript, however, The Sniper isn’t right for us.

We would, however, love to see another project from you. The writing was quite good and the story kept us engaged. Please do keep us in mind in the future

Best of luck with your writing,

 

If I were a drinking man I’d probably go on a two-week bender and drown my sorrow in 180 proof rum.  But the show must go on!  I will gather up the jagged shards of my dreams and limp off stage to nurse my wounded pride and super-glue my shattered dreams of literary glory back together somehow.

I told Camera Girl of this crushing defeat.  She told me to suck it up and stop whining.  Not the sympathetic shoulder I was hoping for.  In another age maybe I would have run off and joined the French Foreign Legion but I don’t think they allow enough free time for macrophotography and right-wing punditry in the Legion.  Vive la France!

Well, it wasn’t all bad.  They did say the writing was pretty good.  I mean, maybe they were just saying that to soften the blow but I’ll take a positive spin on that and continue to work on finishing the book and then either get it published or self-publish it on Amazon.

Honestly, I was very glad that they got back to me.  And I liked the polite and professional remarks they sent.  I think a lot of publishers don’t even bother to send rejection letters anymore.  So, an honest rejection is actually kind of comforting.  But still, there is a disappointment when you don’t win the prize.  But we know that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  At least that’s what that crazy atheist said back a hundred and some odd years ago.  And he should know because he went crazy and died!

So, the show must go on and all sadness and chagrin must be pushed aside and efforts must be redoubled.  I intend to memorize a hundred new adjectives every week, take up MMA fighting and try my luck at swordfishing to increase my relatability with the reading audience.  After all Hemingway did some of that stuff and he was very relatable.  I wonder how good Camera Girl is at MMA fighting?  She’s pretty strong and agile so maybe she would be a good sparring partner.  But she is kinda mean and I can’t afford to be injured too badly before I get into the octagon with my real opponents.  Maybe she’ll agree to fighting me blindfolded and with one arm tied behind her back.  That seems reasonable.  But just to be sure, maybe I’ll also tie her ankles together.  Yeah, that would be good.  I could definitely take her then.  Alright, I love it when a plan comes together.

The Coalescence of the Not-Stupid

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So, what if it’s true that Hollywood as an industry is more or less done?  Suppose that there won’t be ten or twenty somewhat-good movies coming out every year anymore.  What if instead there are a couple of decent mini-series by Netflix and Amazon and maybe one or two summer “blockbuster” fantasies and all the rest is just low budget dreck?  How would that affect the entertainment habits of the population?

Well, let’s think about what the population is.  Currently the populace is divided into several different divisions.  But overall, there is a demarcation into two larger groups.  First there are the boomers and GenX contingents.  They both grew up when entertainment was big business and they are used to paying for entertainment that they consider “good.”  They would go to a good movie or buy a music album if they consider it worthwhile.  These are the people who are most distressed by the current state of American entertainment.  Someone my age looks at television or what is currently considered good cinema or popular music and is horrified by the low quality and overall stupidity of the art.

The second grouping is everyone younger; millennials and the Zoomers.  For the most part these people don’t buy music or pay for movies.  They stream everything and are willing to watch and listen to low quality content if they can pay next to nothing for it.  Not being part of this group I’m not completely sure whether this strategy is a byproduct of their poverty or whether they simply don’t care what kind of entertainment product they consume.  Nevertheless, the outcome either way is that the future will be determined by this paradigm.  Entertainment businesses will not be making the kinds of profits they made from the boomers and GenX from the new kids.  Okay, that’s what we are seeing.  Entertainment will become mass marketing of the lowest common denominator at the lowest price.  In other words; garbage.

But that will not be the whole story.  The bell curve is a fact of nature.  Most of humanity is very average, and lately that average seems to have sunk a bit.  But the right side of the curve exists.  There is a segment of the population that is intelligent and they need entertainment that isn’t always the lowest common denominator.  And they tend to be more prosperous than their less intelligent brethren.  And whereas they will join with everyone else to celebrate whatever moronic pop star or whatever mindless video game happens to be in vogue this month, they will occasionally need something more nutritious for the mind and soul.  And how will this work?  After all there isn’t a pipeline for intelligent entertainment.

What I think will happen is organizations; whether corporate or individuals, will spring up to curate what’s out there and arrange for venues and opportunities for these people to enjoy this better entertainment together.  Now maybe the “together” isn’t physical.  Maybe they’ll be doing this over the internet with chat functions used to allow the patrons to share their reactions to the content.  But I think renting a theater to play old movies (or new movies that have been made expressly for a specialized audience) would make perfect sense.

The power of the internet to connect smaller but focused groups is already very well known.  What still needs to happen is for a larger group of intelligent people to coalesce around a commercial entity that is willing to provide them with entertainment that exceeds the lowest common denominator on a consistent basis.  But I think it will happen.  Some day soon, the not-stupid will band together and find out just how strong they are.

Women in the Military – God Help Us

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I saw two stories today about the military and both of them were associated in one way or another with women and DEI.

The first one has to do with Defense Secretary Hegseth’s orders to force women to pass the same physical fitness tests as men for combat and other physically challenging roles.

You would think this should already be in place since women claim not to be inferior to men in any way.  But reality rears its ugly head and now this will essentially eliminate 99.9% of female candidates from the special forces organizations and a very large chunk of women from even basic combat roles.

This is one of the first things I see happening in the Trump administration that I can point to as a clear improvement on the status quo.  Ever since Obama the military has been woke and women in command positions has been a big part of the problem.  Hopefully now a lot of combat officer positions will be restricted to men and that should have a very positive effect on our combat capability.  Now if there are women who are physically capable of pulling their own weight in combat circumstances, I don’t necessarily think they should be in combat roles.  There are other problems with mixing women and men in close physical quarters.  But at the very least eliminating women who aren’t strong enough to fight from the equation is a big plus.

The second story is a NY Times article about the investigation of the crash of the Black Hawk helicopter and the civilian airliner near Ronald Reagan airport.

https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/black-hawk-pilot-rebecca-lobach-ignored-key-instruction-before-dc-crashreportclaims-article-151511950

The first item is that the pilot was a woman who was performing a periodic training flight to maintain her flight status.  The article says she had 500 hours of flying experience at that time.  But the most disturbing aspect of the article was the statement that the control tower had warned her of the collision danger and her trainer told her to change course to the left to avoid the collision and she did not.  She had fifteen seconds to change course and she did not.  In addition, the female pilot had some linkage to the Biden White House.  I didn’t see any details about what her role was.  But that immediately raised a red flag in my mind.

So, it’s very easy for me to immediately take these details and say that this disaster was caused by DEI.  Is that fair?  I don’t know, but as a first approximation I think it’s a reasonable starting hypothesis.  If even the NY Times is throwing this woman under the bus, then who am I not to cast the second stone?  And this goes hand in hand with a number of stories I’ve read of women in the military whose aircraft and naval vessel piloting have been less than adequate.  When I think of Camera Girl behind the wheel of her car and all the times I’ve told her to go left and she’s gone right (or other-left as she calls it) I get the sense that DEI can be a recipe for disaster.

Well, anyway, Pete Hegseth, keep going the way you are.  Put women back in the kitchen and the nursery and everyone will be that much safer and happier.

Update:

Here’s another more detailed article about the female helicopter pilot.

That Was Entertainment

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If you’re older than fifty then you remember when entertainment was big business.  Big American corporations made our movies, published our books, recorded our music and amused us sitting around the television set every night.  And they made good money doing it.  Going to the movies was a national pastime and buying records of popular music was what teenagers did relentlessly.  And everyone watched must-see-tv whether it was a Thursday night sit-com or the late-night show with Johnny Carson.  Entertainment was bankable.

Well, that’s all over.  Kids don’t buy music.  They stream it for almost nothing.  They stream movies too so they don’t go to theaters.  And they really don’t want to pay for it either.  Same for books, same for television.  The only thing that still kind of pays is cable television.  That’s because cable is set up so the fees are lucrative.  But guess what?  Millennials and zoomers have now cut the cable.  Only old people pay for or watch cable.  So, the change is complete.

The result is that except for truly bankable extravaganzas like Marvel superhero movies (mostly) or Taylor Swift concerts entertainment producers aren’t spending the money needed to make entertainment entertaining.  Case in point, have you looked at broadcast television in the last five years?  Don’t.  It’s unbelievably bad.  The production values are awful, the actors can’t act but worst of all the writing is putrid.  It’s as if it were written by emotionally disturbed cretins.  The characters are unlikable and the plots are idiotic and completely predictable.

After what passed for Oscar nominees this year, we don’t even have to bother talking about how bad Hollywood has become.  Up until recently the only bright spot was that some of the cable channels and corporations like Amazon and Netflix were spending generously on good writers and good actors for some of their series.  It could be debated whether these shows were as well made as Hollywood movies were in their heyday but without a doubt, they were head and shoulders above anything that was on broadcast television in the last ten years and they absolutely entertained.  But now even these shows are starting to fall apart.  Amazon recently spent a billion dollars on a Lord of the Rings adjacent production called “The Rings of Power” and it flopped very badly.

So, what is next for entertainment?

Well, the answer is confusing.  What young people like is video games.  And because of this they consume other entertainment in a way that relates to this medium.  They like to read fan-fic about those games.  In other words, fans of the video games write amateur stories and post them to websites so that other gamers can read them.  And now these writers are even seeing their fan-fic turned into videos or even movies of these video-centric stories.  These stories adhere closely to the limitations and conventions of the games.  The characters are constantly referencing their health levels and skill levels as they attempt to conquer different challenges.  So, the plot is very much tied to the experience of the game.

I find all of this confusing and somewhat disturbing.  I don’t doubt that these video games are exciting and maybe even challenging but how much of the same thing can you stand to consume before something more original and intellectually and even emotionally stimulating will be needed?  And at some point, wouldn’t it be reasonable to want a movie about real life where normal people overcome the challenges that happen in the real world?  Or how about a comedy or a drama?  It can’t all be video games, can it?

Well, anyway that’s what I was thinking about today.  I don’t know how all this ends but it’s something that is worth thinking about.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) – A Movie Review

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When I watched and reviewed the earlier chapters in the John Wick “saga” I noted that the number of bullets and kills had increased orders of magnitude between the first and second installments and if that trend were to be continued into a third movie it would be necessary for Mr. Wick to slaughter whole sectors of the galaxy to provide the sheer numbers necessary.

Well, I was wrong.  In this third movie, John Wick is still only killing gangsters within the confines of the borough of Manhattan.  Well, except for a short sojourn to Casablanca to get some help from Halle Berry in finding a mystical Arab mafioso who requires John to cut off a finger Yakuza style and rededicate himself to “The Table.”  While there, he barely kills anyone at all, less than a hundred.

Okay, forget about plot.  It’s entirely too stupid to even mention.  Suffice it to say that John Wick is fighting and killing assassins so quickly and continuously that he must have single-handedly used up all the ammunition on the planet.  He even depleted all of the armor piercing rounds on Earth.

On a personal note, Keanu Reeves is looking very old.  It’s clear that all this fighting is taking a terrible toll on him.  And it’s no surprise.  Without a serious count I’ll say conservatively Mr. Wick was hurled through several dozen panes of glass, thrown off a four-story building, shot a half dozen times, stabbed several times, crashed his motorcycle into a building, had a finger amputated then cauterized, he was branded and punched close to a thousand times.  That’s got to take it out of fellow.

Look I get it.  These movies provide a video game-like environment where the audience experiences the adrenaline rush of a non-stop first-person shooter experience.  And looked at from that point of view John Wick 3 gets the job done.  There are knife fights, endless gun fights, fist fights, dog fights, karate fights, there are even fights on motorcycles.  Some of the assassins even turn out to be fans of John and tell him during the battles that they really admire him and killing him isn’t personal, it’s just business.

And the end of the movie isn’t really an end.  It looks like just the end of round three.  But I’m not sure there will be a round four.  The net profit from the movie was only $89 million.  And as blockbusters go that’s small potatoes.  So, this might be the final installment of the adventures of John Wick.

As far as recommendations, see the first John Wick movie.  It’s the best one.  Unless that movie strikes you as incredibly fun don’t bother with the sequels.  Neither of them materially improves on the action and as far as storytelling they lack the emotional rationale of the first film.

One little interesting cinematic moment in the film is where an homage to the spaghetti western, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” is included.  Wick is in a gun store looking for a gun to defend himself with and he takes components from several revolvers and matches them together and listens to the gun’s action to see if the composite is smooth operating.  Of course, he barely has time to use the gun before abandoning for the next scene so it is purely a staged moment in the film.  But I still liked it.