Category: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items

Ready Player One – A Science Fiction Movie Review

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Lately I’ve been at a loss to find any sci-fi movies that I might like.  After some searches I saw a trailer for this 2018 Spielberg film and decided to give it a viewing.  The scenario is a dystopian future where because of (you guessed it) global warming and the exhaustion of all fossil fuels everybody lives in trailer homes stacked on top of each other in piles.  And because life is so miserable, everybody spends all their time inside a virtual reality program called the Oasis.  This program was invented by an uber-geek named James Donovan Halliday who when he died revealed to the world that hidden in Oasis was an Easter Egg and clues to finding it.  Whoever found it would inherit his ownership of Oasis which was worth around a trillion dollars.

This is the story of how a teen age geek named Wade Owen Watts (in game name; Parzival) with the help of his friends Aech, Art3mis, Daito and Shoto find the Easter Egg and save the gaming world from the evil IOI (Innovative Online Industries) corporation that wanted to win the contest and turn Oasis into a boring commercial wasteland.  Nolan Sorrento, the head of IOI, detects Wade’s success at finding the clues and uses real world violence to try and sideline Wade and his friends.  And in fact, Wade’s aunt and many people living in his trailer stack are killed in a drone attack meant for Wade.  But eventually good prevails and Wade and his friends find the egg and live happily ever after.  Now for my review.

This is a Spielberg film.  And it is like every other Spielberg film.  The hero is introduced and we watch him struggle, fail, learn and grow.  The good people are hip and watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and the Breakfast Club when they were young and the bad people are corporate types that wear three-piece suits.  And because this is today one of the characters is a black lesbian because diversity.  And like in all Spielberg films, when the climactic scene where everything will either fail or succeed is reached, there is the annoying back and forth fumbling which is supposed to produce nervous tension.  In this one the on-line character is trying to get a key into a keyhole while his real-life body is standing in the back of a speeding mail truck that is being slammed into by hostile vehicles.  So, for several minutes we have to watch him miss the keyhole.  This sort of thing was annoying in the Indiana Jones movies and in Saving Private Ryan.  It’s still annoying today.

It’s not a terrible movie.  The special effects in the movie are extremely good.  But the characters in Oasis and in the real world are not particularly likable or realistic.  And the plot is very predictable with the usual strawman for the villain.  I suppose someone who is a big fan of gaming might enjoy the in-jokes and references to classic games.  I thought it was trite and very self-indulgent.  Probably good for Spielberg fans.

A Thoughtful Article Over at the American Mind – Our Calamitous Century by Forfare Davis

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This was a fun and interesting read.  It also quotes a movie that I might want to watch.  Our society has prioritized cost above all else and now we may find out what happens when all your stuff comes from people who don’t like you in a place that is quarantined under the plague.

Our Calamitous Century

 

 

 

Vox Day Has an Interesting Link to a Theory on the Cyclical Nature of Social Change

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I’m not much of a sociologist but the outline sounds plausible.  The cycle runs for 80 – 90 years and supposedly would describe the last two hundred and fifty years of American history if the author is to be believed.  Just throwing it out there if you like that sort of thing.

https://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-fourth-turning.html

https://app.hedgeye.com/insights/58414-the-fourth-turning-why-american-crisis-may-last-until-2030

 

 

Star Trek – The Original Series – Complete Series Review – Season 1 Episode 23 – A Taste of Armageddon

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In this episode the Enterprise is on a diplomatic mission to a star system with an advanced civilization.  But when they attempt to communicate with the planet they are warned off.  Ambassador Fox, the head of the mission, orders Kirk to make contact and of course Kirk and Spock head down to the surface leaving Scotty in charge.  When they reach the surface, they are met by a typically beautiful woman named Mea 3 (played by a young and petty Barbara Babcock who later on was Grace Gardiner on the 1980s NBC show, Hill Street Blues).  While the planetary leader Anan 7 is explaining to Kirk about a 500-year-long war that is still going on, an attack takes place between the planet they are on and their enemies on the third planet from their sun.  But when Kirk speaks to the Enterprise, they tell him that their sensors show that no attack occurred.  Spock figures out that the attack is just a computer simulation that is played between the strategic computers on the two planets.  Anan 7 confirms this and explains that whatever the calculated damage turns out to be those located in the affected areas are declared casualties and have a day to report to a disintegration chamber.  Anan 7 explains to Kirk that by allowing a million self-inflicted casualties every year both sides sustain their infrastructure and thereby ensure that the war will go on indefinitely.

Unfortunately, in the latest “attack” both Mea 3 and the Enterprise are virtual victims.  Anan 7 arrests Kirk and Spock and orders them to send their entire crew to the planet to be disintegrated.  When they refuse Anan 7 uses a voice simulator to impersonate Kirk and tell Scotty to send the entire crew down to the planet.  Scotty, of course, figures it out and puts the ship on a war footing and raises the shields.  The planet’s offensive weapons are brough to bear on the enterprise but the deflector shields hold.  Meanwhile the imbecilic Ambassador Fox contacts the planet and believes Anan 7 when he says it was all a misunderstanding.  Fox orders Scotty to drop the shields but he refuses.  Ambassador Fox beams down to the planet to conclude a treaty and is immediately marched off to the disintegration chamber.  But luckily for him Kirk and Spock escape from captivity and rescue him and Mea 3.

Now Kirk puts his plan into effect.  He destroys the disintegration chambers and finishes by blowing up the computers that report casualties with the enemy.  Anan 7 is in despair and tells Kirk that the enemy will stage an actual nuclear attack.  Kirk informs him that two worlds that have kept a gutless fake war going for 500 years will be so frightened by actual war that they’ll both negotiate a peace rather than get their hands dirty.  Ambassador Fox volunteers to assist them in the negotiation.

I like this episode.  Anan 7 is such a sniveling cowardly bureaucrat that every time he calls Kirk a barbarian you can’t help but like Kirk more.  Kirk shows resolve and ingenuity.  Scotty also displays courage and grit when he disobeys the chain of command and refuses to lower the shields at the order of that other idiotic bureaucrat Ambassador Fox.  This is a solid 8 episode.  Kirk does some brawling and tumbling around but he’s not particularly comical so there isn’t a high Shatner mockery score.  Let’s call this an 8 // 2.

Shakespeare in Film – Part 7 – Hamlet – Branagh’s 1996 Version

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I saw this in the theater when it came out.  There are a few things that should be said about it to start with.  It’s fully four hours long!  It has everyone in Hollywood (and outside of it) in the cast.  Richard Attenborough, Brian Blessed, Julie Christie, Billy Crystal, Judi Dench, Gérard Depardieu, John Gielgud, Charlton Heston, Derek Jacobi, Jack Lemmon, Kate Winslet and so help me even Robin Williams.  And the cinematography is full of pomp and circumstance and beautiful settings.  But it is unwatchable.

Branagh runs around doing his crazy act and shouting out his lines at a dizzying rate but the whole thing is annoying and after even a half hour becomes too tedious to endure.  Some of the performances I did enjoy.  Richard Briers as Polonius I thought was good.  I liked Derek Jacobi as Claudius.  Jack Lemmon as one of the watchmen I found unconvincing.

For a true devotee of Shakespeare who is determined to watch it, I suggest watching it in a scene by scene fashion.  Probably twenty or thirty minutes is the sub-lethal dose.  So taking it in eight to twelve bite sized chunks you could get through without losing your ability to appreciate the lines.

It’s a pity.  Branagh was given a budget and an array of talent that is impressive.  And a lot of the visual presentation is beautiful.  But his vision for the title role falls far short of even such popular versions as Franco Zeffirelli’s 1990 version with Mel Gibson.

So let me not go on beating it up.  Let me just say I cannot recommend this version for an enjoyable experience of the play.  Watch Olivier or Gibson.

Trump Gives Google and Amazon a Thumb in the Eye

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It’s just a drop in the bucket but it shows that these are the two tech giants that most offend the President.  Hopefully it’s only the beginning of a process to rein them in.  The author of the article says breaking up Amazon and Google is a bad idea.  I totally disagree.  Breaking them into a thousand pieces is a wonderful idea.

My Latest Take on the Coronavirus

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Like everyone else I’ve been reading about the coronavirus for the last couple of months and trying to decide how dangerous this bug is. The situation in China was alarming but also puzzling. The information was obviously being parsed by the Chinese government there to minimize the negative impact on their economy and reputation. Now that the virus is global, better information is emerging. I found a very useful website that not only has all the data that is available from the health organizations but also some helpful tables and graphs that make clear some of the characteristics of this outbreak.

Something that I had heard but didn’t have good information on was the correlation between age and mortality rate. This table will put that into perspective.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Notice that in general, the mortality rates for this virus are much higher than the seasonal flu. 0.2% of people in their twenties who catch this die. Compare that with the seasonal flu where the mortality for that age group in the United States is considerably less than 0.002%. So this measures a thousand times deadlier than the flu. But the joker in the deck is that’s comparing flu statistics for the United States versus what are mostly deaths in China. Now that the bug is spreading outside of China we are seeing the proportion of critical cases sink.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Look at the lower curve which shows the death rate over time. What this reflects is the improved statistics we now have and the better care that patients receive in regions with modern healthcare infrastructure. Without a doubt, this virus is much more virulent than seasonal flu. Its mortality rate is thirty times higher (3% vs, 0.1%). That’s nowhere near the thousand times higher rate we saw above, but it’s still really high. In 2018 61,000 Americans died from the flu. 80% of those were the elderly. If coronavirus really is thirty times deadlier that means 1,800,000 Americans will die from this virus, of which 1,440,000 will be elderly. That’s a big number. And now being personally on the upper side of the age divide that of course makes it even more interesting! The seriousness of the virus is precisely why so many people are taking additional precautions to limit its spread. One of the most popular things to come out of the pandemic is the increased use of PPE, especially face masks. Because of the demand for them, they can be particularly difficult to acquire normally in the store which is why many are sourcing them online on sites like this – https://www.sciquip.co.uk/products/ppe/disposable-medical-face-masks.html.

Here’s my takeaway. It’s still too soon to know if the estimates on mortality are as high as they seem. It will take testing of the general population to tell if we’re underestimating the number of people who have been exposed to the virus but have been counted among the regular flu sufferers. If the actual mortality rate is closer to the 0.1% that a normal flu virus has then this won’t cause much more than the panic that is currently roiling the stock market.


But if it is as high as even 1% and it becomes a pandemic, then it’s going to kill a lot of old people. It won’t kill many younger people and almost no children. That probably means it won’t shut down the economy. It won’t even shut down the school system. But it will fill up the hospitals and funeral homes and empty out the nursing homes. Pretty grim thought. Will it become a pandemic? It’s starting to look like it already has. All over the world, people seem to be dying of this disease. Currently, there isn’t that much research on the disease, but it is known that it can impact the lungs quite significantly. For those concerned that they might have caught Coronavirus, it might be worth comparing your lungs to someone with the disease. To do this, people could use the COVID-19 lung ultrasound imager from Butterfly Network, for example. That device helps people to see their lungs, allowing them to see if they are inflamed. If they are, it could be a sign that the person has the disease. With this information, this person may want to contact their local healthcare department for treatment to ensure this disease doesn’t spread much more. Whilst we don’t know much about this disease, it’s important for people to take extra precautions to keep everyone safe. Soon we’ll find out if it’s the flu or the angel of death for the elderly.

Republican Senators Introduce a Motion to Censure Chuck Schumer for Threatening Supreme Court Justices

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Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, sponsored the motion and it already has fourteen senators joining in.  This sounds like a good idea.  Allowing the minority leader of the Senate to threaten judges without consequences is weak.  He should be slapped down.  Basically he is encouraging madmen like antifa to target the court.  The Supreme Court has a number of important cases this year.  Hopefully Roberts doesn’t make himself the spoiler an we get some progress on these issues.

 

 

 

 

Shakespeare in Film – Part 6 – Hamlet – Gibson’s 1990 Version

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Mel Gibson became a movie star in such action adventure movies as Road Warrior and Lethal Weapon.  But he was interested in more intellectually challenging projects and so eventually he became a director and produced some very interesting films such as Apocalypto and Passion of the Christ.  But even before his directorial debut he branched out into less popular films.  He starred in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1990 version of Hamlet which is the subject of this post.

Gibson was surrounded by a very respectable group of American and British actors with Glenn Close as the Queen, Alan Bates as the King and Helena Bonham Carter as Ophelia, Hamlet’s love.  The staging is more naturalistic than the Olivier version and has a number of outside shots that make it feel less claustrophobic than the Olivier version.  Interestingly the selection of scenes coincides closely to Olivier’s.  Zeffirelli didn’t completely eliminate Rosencrantz and Guildenstern but they were minimized.  And once again as in Olivier’s version it is Horatio who speaks the final lines of the play.

Without a doubt this version is much more emotional and the dialog is imbued with a more theatrical air.  I won’t say that the intensity is over the top but it is decidedly less restrained than Olivier’s version.  From a personal perspective I prefer Olivier’s rendering but by no means would I call Gibson’s performance poor.  It is spirited and heartfelt but it lacks the polished perfection of Olivier’s performance.

In an earlier installment of these Hamlet posts I described the different acting methods used by the British Shakespearian tradition that concentrated on mastering techniques versus the American method acting school.  Gibson is not an extreme method actor but he emphasized the emotional aspect of the part and that explains some of the difference between the two versions.  But as much as Gibson is a good actor he cannot compare to Olivier.  So, Gibson’s version is interesting and skillfully done.  But it wouldn’t be the one I would add to my collection if I was only going to have one.

Shatner Moves On

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William Shatner Refuses To Reprise His Role As Captain Kirk, ‘Star Trek’ Icon Says Character Is “Played Out”

Say it ain’t so!  Well, my real question is, “Was anybody actually asking?”  Actually, eventually they would.  The desperation in Hollywood will require even the deceased Star Trek actors to appear in later movies as digital zombies, kinda like poor Fred Astaire dancing with a broom in some vacuum cleaner advertisement.  But Shatner is right.  He’s outgrown Star Trek.  He’s ready for Hamlet.  Well, maybe Falstaff.  He’s old and fat enough for it.  But I kid, I kid.  Shatner is one of the legends of early television and deserves all the attention and mockery we give him.

 

Hat tip to one of the Shat’s biggest fans for passing this along.