Free Solo is the movie about Alex Honnold's free solo of the El Capitan. I watched it because my wife had taken Bowen indoor rock climbing and he'd enjoyed it. I've personally never really gotten excited about climbing: it seems like a lot of effort for not very much reward, but there's obviously a certain amount of machismo in the climbing culture, especially as far as free-solo climbing is concerned: it always seems to be about who can do the most dangerous thing while coming out on the other side alive.
I enjoyed the sections where Honnold would practice and try out different approaches to the climb (while roped). I felt like the movie didn't actually have enough of those: to see the amount of practice and preparation that went into something like this. The movie spent a ton of time on his relationships, and not enough on his notebooks and very little introspection as to how he knew he was ready.
There's a tiny bit of brain science, where Alex is put into an MRI scanner and showed that his amygdala is pretty much difficult to activate. That could explain why he's able to stay calm through situations that others would find frightening, and also why he's driven to seek out such especially perilous experiences.
Arturo asked me if I thought the movie was morally responsible, since there'll be some idiots who'll be inspired to free solo and then die doing it because they're not as competent/talented/dedicated/self-aware as Alex Honnold seems to be. My response was that "Well, sure. Some idiot's going to do that, but I'm also not a person with a lot of sympathy for idiots. I showed the last 20 minutes to Bowen and he said: `That's even more scary than descending Stelvio!'"
Nevertheless, the cinematography is amazing, the shots are stunning, and the glimpse into a life dedicated almost monastically to a sport was fun enough to watch. Recommended.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Friday, March 08, 2019
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Review: Samsara
Baraka is the only BluRay in my collection I ever wore out from watching it too much. (It also got loaned out quite a bit, so it wasn't just me) But somehow I missed Samsara when it came out in 2011! Well, it made it into the Amazon Prime Video free selection so I watched it.
As with Baraka, it's a movie without words, so you can take your non English-speaking parents to watch it, for instance. It's full of beautiful images from the natural world, as well as images from the not-very-natural world, all juxta position. The movie was filmed in 70mm, so the quality of the image is nothing short of amazing.
For me, it didn't have the same impact as Baraka. The opening sequence, while haunting, hardly has the same impact that the snow monkey scenes in Baraka did. The time lapse photography, which was rarely seen when Baraka came out, is now a common staple in many documentaries, so as a viewer I no longer found it fresh.
Still, if you watched Baraka and enjoyed it, you should watch Samsara at least once. It might not be as impactful as Baraka, but it's still very different from the other stuff out there. Recommended.
As with Baraka, it's a movie without words, so you can take your non English-speaking parents to watch it, for instance. It's full of beautiful images from the natural world, as well as images from the not-very-natural world, all juxta position. The movie was filmed in 70mm, so the quality of the image is nothing short of amazing.
For me, it didn't have the same impact as Baraka. The opening sequence, while haunting, hardly has the same impact that the snow monkey scenes in Baraka did. The time lapse photography, which was rarely seen when Baraka came out, is now a common staple in many documentaries, so as a viewer I no longer found it fresh.
Still, if you watched Baraka and enjoyed it, you should watch Samsara at least once. It might not be as impactful as Baraka, but it's still very different from the other stuff out there. Recommended.
Friday, May 04, 2018
Amazon's customer focus blows my mind
Amazon's customer focus blows my mind, especially as someone who knows how the sausage gets made at big companies. One day, I was watching an Amazon rental movie at home. Bowen would come and interrupt me, I'd pause the video, play with him or answer his question, and then unpause. This happened so frequently that day that I eventually gave up on the movie.
The next day, I got an e-mail to the effect of: "We noticed you had poor quality video last night. We're giving you your money back."
This blew my mind. Somewhere at Amazon, there was a project to detect poor quality streaming and refund customers. The ROI on that project was negative: if the project succeeded, Amazon would lose money. Google for sure doesn't do this. Neither does Apple, as far as I know. It just boggles my mind that anyone would greenlight a project whose entire purpose was to return money to its customers.
My guess is that ultimately, the ROI must be positive, because even cheapskates like me notice excellent service and will buy more from Amazon as a result. But good luck getting big data to pick up on stuff like that and justify a costly software engineering project. I am in awe.
The next day, I got an e-mail to the effect of: "We noticed you had poor quality video last night. We're giving you your money back."
This blew my mind. Somewhere at Amazon, there was a project to detect poor quality streaming and refund customers. The ROI on that project was negative: if the project succeeded, Amazon would lose money. Google for sure doesn't do this. Neither does Apple, as far as I know. It just boggles my mind that anyone would greenlight a project whose entire purpose was to return money to its customers.
My guess is that ultimately, the ROI must be positive, because even cheapskates like me notice excellent service and will buy more from Amazon as a result. But good luck getting big data to pick up on stuff like that and justify a costly software engineering project. I am in awe.
Tuesday, January 09, 2018
Review: Summer Wars
I came to Summer Wars with low expectations, thinking that it was part of Hosada's pre-Girl Who Leapt Through Time work. Turns out that it actually post-dates that work and of course is a much better title than the latter.
There are several cliches that seem popular in Asian literature and film. One of them is the person who has to travel to a family gathering and (to keep up appearances) decides to present a friend as a significant other to his or her family. At first, Summer Wars seems to be exactly this movie.
Mixed in with all this, however, is a story about virtual reality and the take-over of an essential online service by a malicious AI. The technical details of this part of the story are far-fetched and unbelievable (no computer scientist will consider this plot anything other than laughable), but it serves the purpose of bringing the story of a multi-generational family with its long-term unfathomable disagreements, bitterness, and history together.
With all that in place, the story suddenly transitions into a family drama, with the people we think of initially as the primary protagonists suddenly shoved into the background. In any other director's hands this would be a major disaster, but Hosada somehow makes it work, and the end result is impressive.
Make no mistake, this isn't nearly as good as The Boy and the Beast. But it's significantly better than The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and is worth your time. Recommended.
There are several cliches that seem popular in Asian literature and film. One of them is the person who has to travel to a family gathering and (to keep up appearances) decides to present a friend as a significant other to his or her family. At first, Summer Wars seems to be exactly this movie.
Mixed in with all this, however, is a story about virtual reality and the take-over of an essential online service by a malicious AI. The technical details of this part of the story are far-fetched and unbelievable (no computer scientist will consider this plot anything other than laughable), but it serves the purpose of bringing the story of a multi-generational family with its long-term unfathomable disagreements, bitterness, and history together.
With all that in place, the story suddenly transitions into a family drama, with the people we think of initially as the primary protagonists suddenly shoved into the background. In any other director's hands this would be a major disaster, but Hosada somehow makes it work, and the end result is impressive.
Make no mistake, this isn't nearly as good as The Boy and the Beast. But it's significantly better than The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and is worth your time. Recommended.
Friday, January 05, 2018
Three Mamoru Hosada Films
This holiday period, I was hoping to take Bowen on a bike tour. (Yes, rather than ask for a Christmas present, he asked for a bike tour!) But instead, I caught a flu virus from his brother and could only spend most of the holidays catching up on media.
I'd missed all of Mamoru Hosada's movies over the years, but caught them both up due to a trial subscription to Funimation. (The app is horrible, and the selection seems slim, so I'm going to cancel)
Wolf Children, is the middle work, showing how Hosada's maturing as a film maker. Mature, poignant, and well-written, it's full of the bittersweet nature of parenthood, as well as the duality of nature and how much of parenting involves letting go. It's not as compelling a narrative as say, Totoro, and Bowen got bored and couldn't even make it past the first 20 minutes, so don't buy or stream it hoping that your kids will love it the way they love Totoro. They won't.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, an earlier work is both a time travel story and a rumination on the nature of relationships and lost opportunities. The time travel story is unfortunately very weak: not only is it low on exposition, the protagonist seems clueless about the limited nature. Worse, one of the characters in the story talks about time leaps as though they're a commonplace mechanism, but no one else in the world experiences them as such. OK, time travel is mostly fantasy, but the rumination on relationships and lost opportunities is equally weak. The writing never quite sells the protagnoist's feelings and epiphany, and as a result the emotional impact of the final 20 minutes of the movie gets completely diluted. I wouldn't avoid it, but it's clearly much weaker than Wolf Children or Your Name, another time travel movie.
The Boy and the Beast is a revelation, and clearly catapults Hosada into the stratosphere. It starts off fooling you into thinking that this is one of those traditional kung fu movies, where a boy comes under the tutelage of a master and becomes a major ass kicker. Then it throws in literary and cultural references to A Wizard of Earthsea, Journey to the West, Moby Dick. The movie blew me away with its intelligence, resolution, and a unique look at the relationships between master and disciple, between a boy and his father, and a deep understanding of what it means to come of age into a society while retaining what's unique about yourself. If anything can convince you that Mamoru Hosada is the true successor to Hayao Miyazaki, this movie will. Go watch it. I'm going to see if I can convince Bowen to watch it, though I suspect he might need just a bit more maturity to appreciate it more. But that's OK. Miyazaki's best movies are great for kids and even better with a few years of experience behind them. Do what you have to in order to watch this wonderful movie, which beats out everything I saw in 2017, including the surprisingly under-rated Dr. Strange.
I guess I'm going to have to watch Summer Wars next too.
I'd missed all of Mamoru Hosada's movies over the years, but caught them both up due to a trial subscription to Funimation. (The app is horrible, and the selection seems slim, so I'm going to cancel)
Wolf Children, is the middle work, showing how Hosada's maturing as a film maker. Mature, poignant, and well-written, it's full of the bittersweet nature of parenthood, as well as the duality of nature and how much of parenting involves letting go. It's not as compelling a narrative as say, Totoro, and Bowen got bored and couldn't even make it past the first 20 minutes, so don't buy or stream it hoping that your kids will love it the way they love Totoro. They won't.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, an earlier work is both a time travel story and a rumination on the nature of relationships and lost opportunities. The time travel story is unfortunately very weak: not only is it low on exposition, the protagonist seems clueless about the limited nature. Worse, one of the characters in the story talks about time leaps as though they're a commonplace mechanism, but no one else in the world experiences them as such. OK, time travel is mostly fantasy, but the rumination on relationships and lost opportunities is equally weak. The writing never quite sells the protagnoist's feelings and epiphany, and as a result the emotional impact of the final 20 minutes of the movie gets completely diluted. I wouldn't avoid it, but it's clearly much weaker than Wolf Children or Your Name, another time travel movie.
The Boy and the Beast is a revelation, and clearly catapults Hosada into the stratosphere. It starts off fooling you into thinking that this is one of those traditional kung fu movies, where a boy comes under the tutelage of a master and becomes a major ass kicker. Then it throws in literary and cultural references to A Wizard of Earthsea, Journey to the West, Moby Dick. The movie blew me away with its intelligence, resolution, and a unique look at the relationships between master and disciple, between a boy and his father, and a deep understanding of what it means to come of age into a society while retaining what's unique about yourself. If anything can convince you that Mamoru Hosada is the true successor to Hayao Miyazaki, this movie will. Go watch it. I'm going to see if I can convince Bowen to watch it, though I suspect he might need just a bit more maturity to appreciate it more. But that's OK. Miyazaki's best movies are great for kids and even better with a few years of experience behind them. Do what you have to in order to watch this wonderful movie, which beats out everything I saw in 2017, including the surprisingly under-rated Dr. Strange.
I guess I'm going to have to watch Summer Wars next too.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Review: Your Name
I rarely review movies, but Your Name is an exception. It was Japan's highest grossing movie in 2016 and was apparently a hit in China as well. Traditionally animated, beautifully scored, and with a script that defies genre classification, it's worth your while to seek out.
I missed the movie while it was playing in the theaters, and now I don't think that's a bad thing, since I managed to get a DVD with both English and Chinese subtitles with the original Japanese voice acting rather than a dub.
The plot begins simply enough as a body-swap between two teenagers separated by a huge distance: one lives in Tokyo while the other lives in the country-side. The plot picks up dramatically when the swapping stops, and suddenly little details that originally seemed meaningless become important. There's a science fictional element in the plot (beyond the body-swapping), but the story focuses mostly on the characters and never bothers to explain the mechanism, which is a good thing, as no explanation would have been satisfying.
Ultimately, we learn to care about the characters and their tenuous connection with each other. Along the way we get some exposure to Japanese culture in a good way. Recommended.
I missed the movie while it was playing in the theaters, and now I don't think that's a bad thing, since I managed to get a DVD with both English and Chinese subtitles with the original Japanese voice acting rather than a dub.
The plot begins simply enough as a body-swap between two teenagers separated by a huge distance: one lives in Tokyo while the other lives in the country-side. The plot picks up dramatically when the swapping stops, and suddenly little details that originally seemed meaningless become important. There's a science fictional element in the plot (beyond the body-swapping), but the story focuses mostly on the characters and never bothers to explain the mechanism, which is a good thing, as no explanation would have been satisfying.
Ultimately, we learn to care about the characters and their tenuous connection with each other. Along the way we get some exposure to Japanese culture in a good way. Recommended.
Wednesday, January 06, 2016
Little Boys Are So Sensitive
In most human cultures, the males of the species are supposed to be tough. But of course, little kids, including boys, just aren't that way. Bowen keeps reminding me of that day after day. Now, most of the time, he is a pretty tough guy. I once watched him ride into a pit and crash with the bike falling on top of him. He cried for 10 seconds and then got right back on his bike and kept going.
5 days after his hernia surgery, the doctor told him he could ride a bike again. He was still limping and walking funny, though he'd been off painkillers for a few days. Immediately that morning, he told me to pick him up from school by bike. That it came as a surprise to his classmates was apparent when I came to pick him up: once they saw me in my helmet and riding shoes, they collectively said, "bike again?"
Over the Christmas break we decided to show him Inside Out. Earlier in the year, he'd met Rosana "Rosie" Sullivan, who was one of the artists at Pixar. Rosie (Rosie actually worked on The Good Dinosaur, not Inside Out) made an impression on him, so when we asked if he wanted to see Rosie's movie, we weren't surprised when he said "yes!"
What surprised the heck out of me, however, was that 30 minutes into the movie, he said, "I'm too scared. I don't want to continue watching Rosie's movie." Note that this wasn't his first movie. He'd already watched all 3 Toy Story movies, Frozen, Kung Fu Panda, Nausicaa and Totoro. To my mind, Nausicaa has scenes that are more scary (or sad) than what's in Inside Out, but for whatever reason, the situations and events in Inside Out were real to him, whereas perhaps it was clear that Frozen and Totoro are fantasies. He was so scared that he couldn't sleep alone, and had to move into Xiaoqin and my bed at midnight so he could sleep.
The next day, he said, "When I'm older Rosie's movie won't be too scary for me. Maybe when I'm 46, I'll like to watch the movie." (Yes, I'm 46, and my son never fails to remind me how old I am)
In any case, I don't remember being so sensitive as a kid. I only ever got nightmares when I was taken to a real horror movie (goodness knows what my parents were thinking when they took us to one --- we all had nightmares for weeks). But maybe we're all that way as kids and you only get less sensitive after you get inducted into the horrors of a formal education system.
5 days after his hernia surgery, the doctor told him he could ride a bike again. He was still limping and walking funny, though he'd been off painkillers for a few days. Immediately that morning, he told me to pick him up from school by bike. That it came as a surprise to his classmates was apparent when I came to pick him up: once they saw me in my helmet and riding shoes, they collectively said, "bike again?"
Over the Christmas break we decided to show him Inside Out. Earlier in the year, he'd met Rosana "Rosie" Sullivan, who was one of the artists at Pixar. Rosie (Rosie actually worked on The Good Dinosaur, not Inside Out) made an impression on him, so when we asked if he wanted to see Rosie's movie, we weren't surprised when he said "yes!"
What surprised the heck out of me, however, was that 30 minutes into the movie, he said, "I'm too scared. I don't want to continue watching Rosie's movie." Note that this wasn't his first movie. He'd already watched all 3 Toy Story movies, Frozen, Kung Fu Panda, Nausicaa and Totoro. To my mind, Nausicaa has scenes that are more scary (or sad) than what's in Inside Out, but for whatever reason, the situations and events in Inside Out were real to him, whereas perhaps it was clear that Frozen and Totoro are fantasies. He was so scared that he couldn't sleep alone, and had to move into Xiaoqin and my bed at midnight so he could sleep.
The next day, he said, "When I'm older Rosie's movie won't be too scary for me. Maybe when I'm 46, I'll like to watch the movie." (Yes, I'm 46, and my son never fails to remind me how old I am)
In any case, I don't remember being so sensitive as a kid. I only ever got nightmares when I was taken to a real horror movie (goodness knows what my parents were thinking when they took us to one --- we all had nightmares for weeks). But maybe we're all that way as kids and you only get less sensitive after you get inducted into the horrors of a formal education system.
Thursday, November 05, 2015
Review: Ex Machina
I don't usually review movies on this blog, but I'll make an exception for Ex Machina, a delightful science fiction movie about AI written and directed by Alex Garland.
Let's face it, most science fiction movies are summer block busters: the goal of the movie is to provide spectacle, and not move the viewer or engage the mind. Ex Machina, however, aims to do both, which places it in a special category indeed.
The story revolves around Caleb, who's a programmer for the world's most popular search engine. He wins a lottery to visit the founder of the company in his secluded home, which turns out to be a research facility where he (Nathan) is working on a strong AI. Caleb discovers that his true purpose is to determine if Nathan has succeeded in his creation. (The movie uses the phrase Turing test, but in reality, the way it's administered is completely wrong --- but I'll forgive this movie the technical error, since it's quite clear that both Nathan and Caleb understand what the real Turing test was, and why they're approaching it differently)
I won't go into the details of the plot: it's excellent, and well worth your time to watch the movie. There are just a couple of plot holes in the movie, but the story is told well enough, and the outcome unpredictable enough, that these plot holes only become apparent after you're done ruminating over the show and have thought about it enough. Most of the technical conversation and language, however, is correct and plausible.
The movie is slow: there aren't any action set pieces, just lots of people (and an AI) talking. The special effects are restrained and under-stated, and the outdoor scenes are shot in Norway, which renders it unfamiliar enough to me that it looked different from the usual North American shot movies. And if you're a busy parent, Ex Machina is great because it's a 108 minute story, not one of those 3 hour epics that make it impossible for you to watch in one sitting. That said, Ex Machina is rated R for violence and nudity.
I didn't hear a lot of hype about the movie (wikipedia says it was shot for $15M and made $36M in the box office). As such, you've probably not heard of it, but if you're a science fiction fan (or perhaps, if you've worked for the world's most popular search engine), give it a shot.
One note: The movie's available in SD or HD on Amazon Instant Video. I picked the HD version (which streams in 720p), but to be honest, there's very little in the movie that depends on HD. Unfortunately, most of my movie viewing in recent months has been in Blu Ray at optimal viewing distance, which meant that Amazon's 720p stream looked disturbingly like SD to me.
Let's face it, most science fiction movies are summer block busters: the goal of the movie is to provide spectacle, and not move the viewer or engage the mind. Ex Machina, however, aims to do both, which places it in a special category indeed.
The story revolves around Caleb, who's a programmer for the world's most popular search engine. He wins a lottery to visit the founder of the company in his secluded home, which turns out to be a research facility where he (Nathan) is working on a strong AI. Caleb discovers that his true purpose is to determine if Nathan has succeeded in his creation. (The movie uses the phrase Turing test, but in reality, the way it's administered is completely wrong --- but I'll forgive this movie the technical error, since it's quite clear that both Nathan and Caleb understand what the real Turing test was, and why they're approaching it differently)
I won't go into the details of the plot: it's excellent, and well worth your time to watch the movie. There are just a couple of plot holes in the movie, but the story is told well enough, and the outcome unpredictable enough, that these plot holes only become apparent after you're done ruminating over the show and have thought about it enough. Most of the technical conversation and language, however, is correct and plausible.
The movie is slow: there aren't any action set pieces, just lots of people (and an AI) talking. The special effects are restrained and under-stated, and the outdoor scenes are shot in Norway, which renders it unfamiliar enough to me that it looked different from the usual North American shot movies. And if you're a busy parent, Ex Machina is great because it's a 108 minute story, not one of those 3 hour epics that make it impossible for you to watch in one sitting. That said, Ex Machina is rated R for violence and nudity.
I didn't hear a lot of hype about the movie (wikipedia says it was shot for $15M and made $36M in the box office). As such, you've probably not heard of it, but if you're a science fiction fan (or perhaps, if you've worked for the world's most popular search engine), give it a shot.
One note: The movie's available in SD or HD on Amazon Instant Video. I picked the HD version (which streams in 720p), but to be honest, there's very little in the movie that depends on HD. Unfortunately, most of my movie viewing in recent months has been in Blu Ray at optimal viewing distance, which meant that Amazon's 720p stream looked disturbingly like SD to me.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Review: Boyhood
I'm a Richard Linklater fan. Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight were all excellent movies, as intense as any experiences you're likely to get in life. So when I saw that his work this year was Boyhood, I had very high expectations and dug out some time in my wife and my schedule to see it.
In case you missed the hoopla, the movie's gimmick is that it ages the actors in real time. In other words, the movie takes place over a period of 10 years, and the actors met every few years to shoot the next parts of the movie, so all the growing up and aging is done naturally, without need for much make up. This approach makes the movie very natural, and looks as real as a documentary.
Unfortunately, the story is terrible and banal to the extreme. Lots of threads are unresolved, but perhaps the best thing I can say about the movie is that I can use it in the future to show my kids as an example of what a terrible life awaits you if you choose to study useless subjects like psychology and photography instead of say, Computer Science.
For an example of a good movie in this genre, watch My Father's Glory instead. I feel like my hours spent watching Boyhood was wasted instead, and that the critics that praised this movie to the heavens are praising it just to be fashionable.
In case you missed the hoopla, the movie's gimmick is that it ages the actors in real time. In other words, the movie takes place over a period of 10 years, and the actors met every few years to shoot the next parts of the movie, so all the growing up and aging is done naturally, without need for much make up. This approach makes the movie very natural, and looks as real as a documentary.
Unfortunately, the story is terrible and banal to the extreme. Lots of threads are unresolved, but perhaps the best thing I can say about the movie is that I can use it in the future to show my kids as an example of what a terrible life awaits you if you choose to study useless subjects like psychology and photography instead of say, Computer Science.
For an example of a good movie in this genre, watch My Father's Glory instead. I feel like my hours spent watching Boyhood was wasted instead, and that the critics that praised this movie to the heavens are praising it just to be fashionable.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Review: True Romance
Somehow, I missed True Romance when it first came out in the theaters, and when I saw that Amazon was having a sale on a Quentin Tarantino movie that I'd missed, I jumped on it for $5
The plot of the movie is a lot like No Country For Old Men (another $4.50 blu ray): two innocents find a drug stash in the most unlikely set of events possible, and then try to flee while profiting from the drug stash as quickly as possible.
The movie's a fantasy, of course, but it's classic Tarantino fantasy, with lots of unlikely events, heart-wrenching violence, and somewhat believable characters. What ties it together is that the movie moves fast enough that you're never given time to think it through.
The movie never bogs down, and the ending was interesting enough that I watched the alternate ending just to see what the alternative was, and agreed with Tarantino that the movie deserved the original theater ending.
A fun watch, and worth $5.
The plot of the movie is a lot like No Country For Old Men (another $4.50 blu ray): two innocents find a drug stash in the most unlikely set of events possible, and then try to flee while profiting from the drug stash as quickly as possible.
The movie's a fantasy, of course, but it's classic Tarantino fantasy, with lots of unlikely events, heart-wrenching violence, and somewhat believable characters. What ties it together is that the movie moves fast enough that you're never given time to think it through.
The movie never bogs down, and the ending was interesting enough that I watched the alternate ending just to see what the alternative was, and agreed with Tarantino that the movie deserved the original theater ending.
A fun watch, and worth $5.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Review: Indie Game The Movie
I will admit that I know Jon Blow, one of the 3 game developers featured on Indie Game, and that was one of the draws of the movie to me. The movie covers 3 indie game developers, using Jon as the "voice of experience", Super Meatboy, and Fez. Super Meatboy's development team (2 people) was clearly the star of the show, since Fez was still under development when the movie was done.
The movies explores a number of interesting themes, but strangely enough, didn't talk much about game play. All 3 games are platformers, and when you think about it, that's about the limit of what a small team can manage without outside funding or without spending a ton of the developers' capital.
The development process isn't very well touched on, since a lay audience isn't going to understand much of how a typical developer goes about his day anyway. What's interesting is that with the exception of Jon, who can code and design, both the other titles feature a non-coding designer with a programmer. It's definitely not just one person slogging away. This makes sense, it takes unusual talent and dedication to start something like this without a co-founder.
All in all, the movie was a fun watch, but strangely slow pace and rather shallow. You're forced to read between the lines to extract any value from it. Not recommended.
The movies explores a number of interesting themes, but strangely enough, didn't talk much about game play. All 3 games are platformers, and when you think about it, that's about the limit of what a small team can manage without outside funding or without spending a ton of the developers' capital.
The development process isn't very well touched on, since a lay audience isn't going to understand much of how a typical developer goes about his day anyway. What's interesting is that with the exception of Jon, who can code and design, both the other titles feature a non-coding designer with a programmer. It's definitely not just one person slogging away. This makes sense, it takes unusual talent and dedication to start something like this without a co-founder.
All in all, the movie was a fun watch, but strangely slow pace and rather shallow. You're forced to read between the lines to extract any value from it. Not recommended.
Monday, April 07, 2014
Review: Journey
Journey, for me, was a magical experience. When I sit down a reflect on the games I've played since December last year, many of them fall into the "interactive movie" category. There's nothing wrong with that. The Last of Us, had me thinking about its themes long after I'd finished the game, and Arkham City is an excellent story that would hold up to any of the Batman stories in any other medium. But those games wouldn't lose all that much if they were translated into movies. In fact, without the constant repetition and restarts due to player deaths, The Last of Us might even make a better movie than it did a game.
Journey, however, is the kind of experience that only works as a game. The wonderful thing about it is that it's an incredibly accessible game. Using only the twin analog joysticks and two buttons, it's a game that eschews complexity, timing based controls, and high speed reflexes and hand-eye coordination for a contemplative travel through the virtual landscapes it renders and the emotional spaces it evokes. What's more, unlike hard-core games that require hour upon hour of slogging and skill mastery, Journey is relatively short, and if you have time to watch a movie, you will have time for Journey.
You control a traveler, rendered in simple fashion little more sophisticated than a stick figure. The start of the game has you contemplating a mountain far away, and it is understood (though the game never explicitly tells you) that you are going there. Along the way, you traverse a desert landscape, an underground cavern, underwater spaces, and a snowy tundra. You visit ruins, and encounter creatures, most of which help you, and perhaps, another traveler representing another player who is also making the same journey.
You can't die, though there are moments when you are threatened, even succumbing to those threats won't hurt your ability to finish the game. The other player who might travel with you can't help or hinder you in your travels. In fact, other than a couple of gestures, you can't even communicate with each other explicitly. Yet the nature of the game is such that mere presence still grants you camaraderie. The puzzles will never stump you for more than 10 minutes, if that. There are no difficulty levels, no ability to save or restore the game. At no point are you forced to move forward, and nothing shoots at you when you're having a contemplative moment or just enjoying the scenery.
If Journey was made into a movie, it would be flat, lacking the emotion it was designed to evoke. But by taking on the character in a virtual space, and providing the means for various forms of traversal, Journey managed to invoke in me feelings of exhilaration, as I slide down a sand dune or soar through the skies towards my goal. I felt fear, when a monster detected my presence (even though I knew I could not die), and came after me. And there were many many moments of wonder as I wandered through a new landscape, not knowing what would come, but enjoying the moments of beauty and solitude that came with making my way through the virtual spaces. The combination of the design, the music, the simplicity of the controls and the way the game teaches you what to do with just dialog and just a handful of on screen prompts in the first 15 minutes of play is nothing short of amazing.
I don't want to over-state the pleasures and the strength of Journey. I wouldn't go as far as to say that you should acquire a PS3 just for this game. (I'd say that for Uncharted 2) But it truly is a game that I think just about everyone should play just to understand why video games are art. Just as missing out on great books like A Wizard of Earthsea would be a great pity, I think missing out on Journey would also subtract from your life.
I bought Journey as part of a collector's edition. However, I will review the other two games on that disc (Flower, and Flow) separately. You can also purchase Journey directly from Sony as a download for $14.99. Highly recommended.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Review: The Last of Us
The Last of Us is a weighty game. It lets you know this the moment you start it up, because to even start a new game requires lots of disk churning and whirling. I once timed a game startup at 15 minutes, though after the game got cached onto my hybrid SSD startup became a much more manageable 3-4 minutes. The characters move as though the weight of the world is on their shoulders as well. Joel, the main viewpoint character, grunts and moves slowly, and even on the occasions when you play Ellie, the girl he's supposed to protect, she doesn't quite dance, either.
The first 80% of the game absolutely drove me nuts. Part of it was my own fault, and part of it was the game's. I'd read many reviews saying that this was a game where you could stealth your way past a lot of enemies, and so I set out to do precisely that, only to be frustrated time after time by an exit that required making noise and therefore led to my having to kill every moving object in the arena. This was my fault: I shouldn't have paid any attention to reviews.
And then sometimes I would try to stealth a section and for no apparent reason monsters would descend upon my location and the game would frustrate me no end. I couldn't apparently shoot my way out of the encounter, nor could I find a way to avoid the monsters! This was the game's fault. In many ways, the first 80% of the game felt like the first day you attended an English class that wanted to teach you LITERATURE. Until that day, you enjoyed reading, and you loved stories. What that English class taught you was that LITERATURE means you can't have any fun reading whatsoever. The stories would have to be insipid and boring, like The Merchant of Venice, instead of Flowers for Algernon. You would have to read Things Fall Apart instead of A Wizard of Earthsea. In many ways, The Last of Us does for action games what The Merchant of Venice would do for Shakespeare: make you hate it. Instead of the beautiful state of flow you can achieve in Among Thieves, you got a character, Joel, who plodded instead of ran, couldn't aim a weapon straight, and of course, ran out of ammunition at every opportunity. Even the "realism" rankled, because your enemies would shoot infinite bullets at you, but when you finally killed one you'd try to loot his body and discovered that he'd apparently used his last bullet just before you killed him. The first 80% of The Last of Us felt like I was being made to atone for years of being a rat-bastard DM. And yes, I was playing the game on EASY mode! Nowhere did the word fun enter into the game play. I played the game hoping for a payoff, but watched in despair as the hours racked up on the PS3 without a sign of me becoming actually good at it.
Then in the last 20% of the game everything finally clicked. First, I'd finally upgraded Joel and his weapons to the point where I didn't feel like he was incompetent at everything. He still ran out of ammunition frequently, but I finally learned that nail bombs were for humans and Molotov cocktails were for monsters. The repetition finally drilled everything into me. Then the game switched me over to playing Ellie, the girl he was trying to protect, and her encounter with the enemy David sent chills up my spine, tingling with suspense. That's followed by a gorgeous sequence in Salt Lake City where every cliche would have had Joel running after Ellie as she ran head-long into danger, and instead... we got giraffes in a beautifully rendered post-apocalyptic urban setting. Make no mistake, this game is gorgeously rendered. Naughty Dog has managed to motion-capture and program its way past the uncanny valley of character animation and facial expressions. Every nuance of the characters, from body language to little ticks and smiles is rendered in such a way that the game feels very much like a feature film, and I'm not talking about the cut scenes. If this is what Naughty Dog can manage with an 8 year old CPU/GPU combination and 256MB of RAM, I can't wait to see what they do given modern technology and 8GB of RAM.
There are minor glitches in the game, though the most glaring one was the stealth-kill button when you play as Ellie. The game prompts you to push the triangle button, but it really should be the square. This bug cost me no small amount of frustration.
What's more, the game does all the right things in terms of story. For instance, I agree that one of the problems with Tomb Raider was the character called Sam. Naughty Dog could have gone that way, with you having to rescue Ellie all the time, but in fact, didn't. Not only does Ellie rescue herself, but during combat she frequently helps Joel, which is one of the reasons the relationship between Joel and Ellie is believable. By the end of the story, you understand that these two will do anything for each other. On top of that, the story is extremely self-aware: the violence is brutal, and the game doesn't shy away from it, and Ellie gasps when Joel does something particularly nasty. The game does for the zombie game what Unforgiven did for Westerns.
The soundtrack is also well done, full of quiet beauty, and quite unlike anything else you might have heard in video games. I was content to let the ending credits roll and just listen to the music when the game was over, but rather than feel satisfied that I had done something, I just felt relieved that I didn't have to play this game any more.
Thus, I am left with a dilemma. As a technological tour de force, this game is a must play. For the moments of beauty in a post apocalyptic world, it's clear that the teams of artists that worked on this game did not waste their time. With great voice acting and a reasonably decent story (though unfortunately I spotted the plot twists miles away), the characters draw you in and make you believe in Naughty Dog's creation in a way that lesser games struggle to do. But is the game play fun? Not really. It's repetitive, and the amount of work you have to do to gather objects, etc., overshadows the moments of brilliance. And you really just care about the story, you could just watch the entire game on youtube. Nowhere does the game actually let you make substantial choices, so you wouldn't be missing much.
If you haven't played games for awhile, play Among Thieves or Tomb Raider first. Both those games excel at putting you in flow, and being fun. Then when you have had enough fun, and want to eat your vegetables, play The Last of Us. And in this case, it's OK if you never get to your veggies. You won't get constipated if you don't.
The first 80% of the game absolutely drove me nuts. Part of it was my own fault, and part of it was the game's. I'd read many reviews saying that this was a game where you could stealth your way past a lot of enemies, and so I set out to do precisely that, only to be frustrated time after time by an exit that required making noise and therefore led to my having to kill every moving object in the arena. This was my fault: I shouldn't have paid any attention to reviews.
And then sometimes I would try to stealth a section and for no apparent reason monsters would descend upon my location and the game would frustrate me no end. I couldn't apparently shoot my way out of the encounter, nor could I find a way to avoid the monsters! This was the game's fault. In many ways, the first 80% of the game felt like the first day you attended an English class that wanted to teach you LITERATURE. Until that day, you enjoyed reading, and you loved stories. What that English class taught you was that LITERATURE means you can't have any fun reading whatsoever. The stories would have to be insipid and boring, like The Merchant of Venice, instead of Flowers for Algernon. You would have to read Things Fall Apart instead of A Wizard of Earthsea. In many ways, The Last of Us does for action games what The Merchant of Venice would do for Shakespeare: make you hate it. Instead of the beautiful state of flow you can achieve in Among Thieves, you got a character, Joel, who plodded instead of ran, couldn't aim a weapon straight, and of course, ran out of ammunition at every opportunity. Even the "realism" rankled, because your enemies would shoot infinite bullets at you, but when you finally killed one you'd try to loot his body and discovered that he'd apparently used his last bullet just before you killed him. The first 80% of The Last of Us felt like I was being made to atone for years of being a rat-bastard DM. And yes, I was playing the game on EASY mode! Nowhere did the word fun enter into the game play. I played the game hoping for a payoff, but watched in despair as the hours racked up on the PS3 without a sign of me becoming actually good at it.
Then in the last 20% of the game everything finally clicked. First, I'd finally upgraded Joel and his weapons to the point where I didn't feel like he was incompetent at everything. He still ran out of ammunition frequently, but I finally learned that nail bombs were for humans and Molotov cocktails were for monsters. The repetition finally drilled everything into me. Then the game switched me over to playing Ellie, the girl he was trying to protect, and her encounter with the enemy David sent chills up my spine, tingling with suspense. That's followed by a gorgeous sequence in Salt Lake City where every cliche would have had Joel running after Ellie as she ran head-long into danger, and instead... we got giraffes in a beautifully rendered post-apocalyptic urban setting. Make no mistake, this game is gorgeously rendered. Naughty Dog has managed to motion-capture and program its way past the uncanny valley of character animation and facial expressions. Every nuance of the characters, from body language to little ticks and smiles is rendered in such a way that the game feels very much like a feature film, and I'm not talking about the cut scenes. If this is what Naughty Dog can manage with an 8 year old CPU/GPU combination and 256MB of RAM, I can't wait to see what they do given modern technology and 8GB of RAM.
There are minor glitches in the game, though the most glaring one was the stealth-kill button when you play as Ellie. The game prompts you to push the triangle button, but it really should be the square. This bug cost me no small amount of frustration.
What's more, the game does all the right things in terms of story. For instance, I agree that one of the problems with Tomb Raider was the character called Sam. Naughty Dog could have gone that way, with you having to rescue Ellie all the time, but in fact, didn't. Not only does Ellie rescue herself, but during combat she frequently helps Joel, which is one of the reasons the relationship between Joel and Ellie is believable. By the end of the story, you understand that these two will do anything for each other. On top of that, the story is extremely self-aware: the violence is brutal, and the game doesn't shy away from it, and Ellie gasps when Joel does something particularly nasty. The game does for the zombie game what Unforgiven did for Westerns.
The soundtrack is also well done, full of quiet beauty, and quite unlike anything else you might have heard in video games. I was content to let the ending credits roll and just listen to the music when the game was over, but rather than feel satisfied that I had done something, I just felt relieved that I didn't have to play this game any more.
Thus, I am left with a dilemma. As a technological tour de force, this game is a must play. For the moments of beauty in a post apocalyptic world, it's clear that the teams of artists that worked on this game did not waste their time. With great voice acting and a reasonably decent story (though unfortunately I spotted the plot twists miles away), the characters draw you in and make you believe in Naughty Dog's creation in a way that lesser games struggle to do. But is the game play fun? Not really. It's repetitive, and the amount of work you have to do to gather objects, etc., overshadows the moments of brilliance. And you really just care about the story, you could just watch the entire game on youtube. Nowhere does the game actually let you make substantial choices, so you wouldn't be missing much.
If you haven't played games for awhile, play Among Thieves or Tomb Raider first. Both those games excel at putting you in flow, and being fun. Then when you have had enough fun, and want to eat your vegetables, play The Last of Us. And in this case, it's OK if you never get to your veggies. You won't get constipated if you don't.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Review: Dear Mr. Watterson
I watched Dear Mr. Watterson in the hopes of gaining some insight about Calvin and Hobbes, easily one of my favorite strips. Since Bill Watterson's pretty much a recluse, you're not going to see him in this movie. However, you do get to see a lot of other cartoonists, including Bill Amend (Foxtrot), Berkeley Breathed (Opus).
You do get to see the place where Watterson grew up, and if you have good memories of the strip, that's going to be very evocative. You do see some Calvin and Hobbes originals, but unfortunately, the choice of shallow depth of field means you don't actually get to see what the folks in the movie talk about, like the white-out in various panels, etc. The strips, when they are displayed, are shown in MTV-style. Rushed pans, and single focus which basically means you never actually do get to read a strip to remind you in case you haven't gotten every strip ever done memorized.
All in all, the director squeezed a 90 minute picture out of a 30 minute picture. Avoid. Spend your money on the book collections instead.
You do get to see the place where Watterson grew up, and if you have good memories of the strip, that's going to be very evocative. You do see some Calvin and Hobbes originals, but unfortunately, the choice of shallow depth of field means you don't actually get to see what the folks in the movie talk about, like the white-out in various panels, etc. The strips, when they are displayed, are shown in MTV-style. Rushed pans, and single focus which basically means you never actually do get to read a strip to remind you in case you haven't gotten every strip ever done memorized.
All in all, the director squeezed a 90 minute picture out of a 30 minute picture. Avoid. Spend your money on the book collections instead.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Review: Before Midnight
I saw Before Sunrise/Before Sunset as a set of movies years ago. Those were great films, so when XiaoQin mentioned that Before Midnight was in the theaters, I was happy to see it with her.
Before Midnight is set in Greece, 9 years after Before Sunset. Like the other films, the film is shot in almost real time. Like many couples in their 40s, they have three children, one divorce, and a family life under pressure, though given that Jesse is a successful writer, they do not seem to be under financial stress.
As with the prior two films, the dialogue is beautiful and real, and even the depiction of the people involved seem real. Whatever make-up is on Julie Delpy, for instance, isn't there to make her look like an ultra-beautiful mother, but serves the story and role she plays. Even the fights between the couples and the extremes they go through seems real. I like it quite a bit better than Before Sunset, where I felt that the plot leaned too hard against what the character might do.
Obviously, this isn't a movie that needs to be seen in the theaters, but it does deserve your viewing. Highly recommended.
Before Midnight is set in Greece, 9 years after Before Sunset. Like the other films, the film is shot in almost real time. Like many couples in their 40s, they have three children, one divorce, and a family life under pressure, though given that Jesse is a successful writer, they do not seem to be under financial stress.
As with the prior two films, the dialogue is beautiful and real, and even the depiction of the people involved seem real. Whatever make-up is on Julie Delpy, for instance, isn't there to make her look like an ultra-beautiful mother, but serves the story and role she plays. Even the fights between the couples and the extremes they go through seems real. I like it quite a bit better than Before Sunset, where I felt that the plot leaned too hard against what the character might do.
Obviously, this isn't a movie that needs to be seen in the theaters, but it does deserve your viewing. Highly recommended.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Review: The Amazing Spiderman 2012
I missed the reboot of the Spiderman movies last year, so caught it on my Nexus 7 instead recently. The Tobey Maguire Spiderman movies were great, especially the second movie where the scene where the subway passengers lifted Peter Parker up over their heads and said, "it's just a kid" moved me in a way few other superhero movies did. I bought Marvel stock based on how I felt about those movies and those paid me back very well. The third of the series is not worth your time watching, but even Christopher Nolan screwed up with The Dark Knight Rises.
Unfortunately, The Amazing Spiderman just cannot live up to those standards. If the other movies didn't exist, this one might be barely acceptable. First of all, Andrew Garfield just does not pull of Peter Parker very well. He's too stylish and good looking for someone who's supposed to play an awkward nerd who's frequently bullied. Emma Stone did portray a smart and spunky Gwen Stacy, and I was pleased with the way her father, Captain Stacy was portrayed.
Gone, however, is the strong sense of morality that Spiderman always had. Gone is the motto, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility." Gone is the closure that Peter Parker had when he caught the crook who'd killed Uncle Ben and discovered that his apathy had cost the life of a loved one. Instead we have a murky sense of betrayal that Parker was orphaned, and a villain who's transformation into one makes no sense in either plot or moral sensibility. Just as badly done: Parker's second job as a photographer is gone --- he now comes off as a freeloading high schooler with an attitude problem rather than the likable nerd with a secret.
I don't regret the time spent watching the movie, but I do regret that the stars/director who made my favorite superhero series asked for so much money that the franchise got rebooted early and we ended up with a lousy Peter Parker. I definitely would pass on watching the sequel in the theaters.
Unfortunately, The Amazing Spiderman just cannot live up to those standards. If the other movies didn't exist, this one might be barely acceptable. First of all, Andrew Garfield just does not pull of Peter Parker very well. He's too stylish and good looking for someone who's supposed to play an awkward nerd who's frequently bullied. Emma Stone did portray a smart and spunky Gwen Stacy, and I was pleased with the way her father, Captain Stacy was portrayed.
Gone, however, is the strong sense of morality that Spiderman always had. Gone is the motto, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility." Gone is the closure that Peter Parker had when he caught the crook who'd killed Uncle Ben and discovered that his apathy had cost the life of a loved one. Instead we have a murky sense of betrayal that Parker was orphaned, and a villain who's transformation into one makes no sense in either plot or moral sensibility. Just as badly done: Parker's second job as a photographer is gone --- he now comes off as a freeloading high schooler with an attitude problem rather than the likable nerd with a secret.
I don't regret the time spent watching the movie, but I do regret that the stars/director who made my favorite superhero series asked for so much money that the franchise got rebooted early and we ended up with a lousy Peter Parker. I definitely would pass on watching the sequel in the theaters.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Review: Ted the Movie
Two guys are lifelong friends and roommates, but then one of them gets a girlfriend and the other is forced to move out. This sounds like a tired, cliched plot of a romantic comedy, except in Ted's case, the roommate is a talking, walking teddy bear who's been with John Bennett since he was 8. My brother told me about the movie, and the trailer made me want to see it, even though the biggest problem with movie trailers is that they essentially show the best parts of the movie, leaving you watching the movie composed of the less interesting parts.
Well, there's some of that going on, and the movie seemed loosely edited without the feel of the tight pacing required to keep you from one laugh to another. Ted, however, looks great, and moves realistically, if such is possible for an animated Teddy bear. The plot while cliched, is a lot of fun. It's a pity the dialog doesn't live up to the plot, actors, and characters --- they almost always feel forced.
For $1.99, however, I felt like I enjoyed the movie enough to recommend it. Just don't go in expecting it to be great. But hey, if you ever grew up talking to your stuffed animals, you should watch it.
Well, there's some of that going on, and the movie seemed loosely edited without the feel of the tight pacing required to keep you from one laugh to another. Ted, however, looks great, and moves realistically, if such is possible for an animated Teddy bear. The plot while cliched, is a lot of fun. It's a pity the dialog doesn't live up to the plot, actors, and characters --- they almost always feel forced.
For $1.99, however, I felt like I enjoyed the movie enough to recommend it. Just don't go in expecting it to be great. But hey, if you ever grew up talking to your stuffed animals, you should watch it.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Review: The Cove
I don't usually review movies on this blog. First of all, I have my hands full just reviewing books. Secondly, to my mind, most movies can't rise beyond the point of brainless entertainment.
Thus it is that when I'm writing this review of The Cove, I find myself in desperate straits.I want to be able to reach out from behind the screen and grab you, and make you watch this movie, (It's only $1.99 on Amazon Instant Video) but in my desire to do so I don't want to sound too earnest, too rabid, for fear that you'd be scared off.
So let me back off a bit and talk about my relationship with dolphins. I never grew up watching Flipper, nor am I particularly a dolphin fan. I've never swam with one, and probably wouldn't pay money to do so. On the other hand, I'm a sailing skipper, and on many occasions have had dolphins swim with my boat, besides my boat, or play with the bow(s) of my boat while sailing. I've also seen whales in San Francisco Bay while sailing. If the sight of these creatures in the wild leave you unmoved, you're not a candidate to see this movie.
The Cove is about dolphins. Specifically, it's about the whaling community of Taiji, in Japan. Every September, Taiji engages in a slaughter of dolphins, killing over 2,000 animals. This movie is about the slaughter of the dolphins, the method by which they have been slaughtered, and the politics behind the International Whaling Commission which permits the slaughter to still happen.
I'm not much of an animal activist: I've killed animals for others to eat in my time, and if I had to kill animals in order to eat meat I wouldn't have any trouble doing so. But dolphins are on top of the food chain, which means that they accumulate more mercury in their bodies than just about any other kind of marine animal you could eat. The results of the dolphin slaughter is for no good reason at all: a lot of the meat produced gets distributed throughout Japan and sold as whale meat (which isn't a lie --- dolphins are pretty much whales). Taiji men and women have 5 times as much mercury found in their hair as other Japanese. These folks aren't just destroying intelligent mammals, they're also poisoning themselves and their fellow citizens (and children) as a result.
But why do they do so? It turns out that part of the catch is also to produce captive dolphins for the various Seaquariums around the world. That's right. If you've ever visited SeaWorld, or taken your kids to one, you're part of the problem. While dolphin meat is not highly desired (see above), captive dolphins generate $150,000 each in revenue for the town of Taiji, and the slaughter of the remaining dolphins is just a by product.
The film follows a group of activists led by Ric O'barry, who used to be a dolphin trainer for the above mentioned TV series. He describes his change from animal trainer to activist, and all sorts of high technology comes into play for capturing the footage in this movie, which obviously the Japanese officials tried very hard to prevent from coming into existence. Underwater cameras, cameras disguised as rocks, blimps, night vision cameras, and a team of skin divers come into play. It's technically impressive and there's not a little bit of suspense as they play cat and mouse with the authorities.
This movie won the academy award in 2009 for best documentary. It deserves it. I'm not the emotional type (and as mentioned, am fond of eating animals) and the movie touched everything about me that made want to go out and join the activists. Highly recommended. Watch it, and you may never be able to visit Seaworld again. But if you watch only one movie this year, watch this one. Please.
Thus it is that when I'm writing this review of The Cove, I find myself in desperate straits.I want to be able to reach out from behind the screen and grab you, and make you watch this movie, (It's only $1.99 on Amazon Instant Video) but in my desire to do so I don't want to sound too earnest, too rabid, for fear that you'd be scared off.
So let me back off a bit and talk about my relationship with dolphins. I never grew up watching Flipper, nor am I particularly a dolphin fan. I've never swam with one, and probably wouldn't pay money to do so. On the other hand, I'm a sailing skipper, and on many occasions have had dolphins swim with my boat, besides my boat, or play with the bow(s) of my boat while sailing. I've also seen whales in San Francisco Bay while sailing. If the sight of these creatures in the wild leave you unmoved, you're not a candidate to see this movie.
The Cove is about dolphins. Specifically, it's about the whaling community of Taiji, in Japan. Every September, Taiji engages in a slaughter of dolphins, killing over 2,000 animals. This movie is about the slaughter of the dolphins, the method by which they have been slaughtered, and the politics behind the International Whaling Commission which permits the slaughter to still happen.
I'm not much of an animal activist: I've killed animals for others to eat in my time, and if I had to kill animals in order to eat meat I wouldn't have any trouble doing so. But dolphins are on top of the food chain, which means that they accumulate more mercury in their bodies than just about any other kind of marine animal you could eat. The results of the dolphin slaughter is for no good reason at all: a lot of the meat produced gets distributed throughout Japan and sold as whale meat (which isn't a lie --- dolphins are pretty much whales). Taiji men and women have 5 times as much mercury found in their hair as other Japanese. These folks aren't just destroying intelligent mammals, they're also poisoning themselves and their fellow citizens (and children) as a result.
But why do they do so? It turns out that part of the catch is also to produce captive dolphins for the various Seaquariums around the world. That's right. If you've ever visited SeaWorld, or taken your kids to one, you're part of the problem. While dolphin meat is not highly desired (see above), captive dolphins generate $150,000 each in revenue for the town of Taiji, and the slaughter of the remaining dolphins is just a by product.
The film follows a group of activists led by Ric O'barry, who used to be a dolphin trainer for the above mentioned TV series. He describes his change from animal trainer to activist, and all sorts of high technology comes into play for capturing the footage in this movie, which obviously the Japanese officials tried very hard to prevent from coming into existence. Underwater cameras, cameras disguised as rocks, blimps, night vision cameras, and a team of skin divers come into play. It's technically impressive and there's not a little bit of suspense as they play cat and mouse with the authorities.
This movie won the academy award in 2009 for best documentary. It deserves it. I'm not the emotional type (and as mentioned, am fond of eating animals) and the movie touched everything about me that made want to go out and join the activists. Highly recommended. Watch it, and you may never be able to visit Seaworld again. But if you watch only one movie this year, watch this one. Please.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Review: Premium Rush
We needed an excuse to visit the Living Room Theater in Portland, and Premium Rush was available at a reasonable time, so we paid a visit.
The movie's plot is predictable and simple. You can also read a regular person's review. But what does a serious cyclist think of it? Well, I'm happy to report most of the movie's pretty accurate. The common bike accidents (even car-bike collisions) are due to the cyclist doing stupid things like riding wrong way, getting door'd, and of course, mixing it up with pedestrians and not behaving like a vehicle. Unfortunately, the lay audience would probably watch this movie and think about how dangerous cycling in a big city is rather than that a cyclist behaving the way the protagonist does in this movie would be an idiot.
There are several points of unrealism in the movie. First of all, the villain of the movie manages to get around the city of New York faster in a car than a strong cyclist can do it. That's impossible in any big city, even one as small as San Francisco, let alone New York. If car drivers could get about faster in New York than cyclists could do so, then bike messengers wouldn't have jobs.
There's also a bike race that's entirely unrealistic. A cyclist with a derailleur bike with brakes could simply draft the fixie and win in a final sprint. The fixie couldn't possibly draft the derailleur bike with brakes because the derailleur bike could brake harder than the fixie could. Of course, both cyclists in the movie are testosterone-filled boneheads rather than intelligent druggies/road racing cyclists, but as the only professional cyclists around who don't take have to performance-enhancing drugs to succeed, one would think that they'd be familiar with the tricks of the trade.
Having said all that, if you could turn off your brain, it's a perfectly enjoyable movie. My parents both laughed and enjoyed the movie despite not being completely versant with English (the movie is very thin on plot, as I said). Watch it for entertainment, but if your mom already worries about you riding your bike, tell her it's a stupid movie not worth her time. You wouldn't even be lying.
 |
| From 2012-08-30 |
The movie's plot is predictable and simple. You can also read a regular person's review. But what does a serious cyclist think of it? Well, I'm happy to report most of the movie's pretty accurate. The common bike accidents (even car-bike collisions) are due to the cyclist doing stupid things like riding wrong way, getting door'd, and of course, mixing it up with pedestrians and not behaving like a vehicle. Unfortunately, the lay audience would probably watch this movie and think about how dangerous cycling in a big city is rather than that a cyclist behaving the way the protagonist does in this movie would be an idiot.
There are several points of unrealism in the movie. First of all, the villain of the movie manages to get around the city of New York faster in a car than a strong cyclist can do it. That's impossible in any big city, even one as small as San Francisco, let alone New York. If car drivers could get about faster in New York than cyclists could do so, then bike messengers wouldn't have jobs.
There's also a bike race that's entirely unrealistic. A cyclist with a derailleur bike with brakes could simply draft the fixie and win in a final sprint. The fixie couldn't possibly draft the derailleur bike with brakes because the derailleur bike could brake harder than the fixie could. Of course, both cyclists in the movie are testosterone-filled boneheads rather than intelligent druggies/road racing cyclists, but as the only professional cyclists around who don't take have to performance-enhancing drugs to succeed, one would think that they'd be familiar with the tricks of the trade.
Having said all that, if you could turn off your brain, it's a perfectly enjoyable movie. My parents both laughed and enjoyed the movie despite not being completely versant with English (the movie is very thin on plot, as I said). Watch it for entertainment, but if your mom already worries about you riding your bike, tell her it's a stupid movie not worth her time. You wouldn't even be lying.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Review: Scott Pilgrim
I came to Scott Pilgrim by way of the movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. I could explain the plot, but you'd probably have more fun watching the trailer:
In any case, I thought the movie was unique and very enjoyable in many ways, if not exactly deep. A more literary movie, for instance, would have each of Ramona's ex-boyfriends represent something, either about love or about Ramona, but most of the exes are played for laughs.
I thought the comic book series Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Box Set might have the ability to provide more than the movie's relatively shallow plot.
The verdict: the books do a little better, but not so much better that I would recommend them over the movie. One of the best things about comic books is that they have an unlimited special effects budget, so you would expect the comic book to be even more over the top than the movie. But in many cases, the movies one-ups the books. For instance, the vegan police segment on the movie works way better than what's in the books.
You can read the books in a couple of days (they're comics, each about the size of a Japanese manga). The style is not quite manga-style, though there is a lot of negative space in use, with certain scenes told entirely via pictures rather than with words. The plot is largely the same as the movie, and the characters, while a little bit more fleshed out, aren't vastly different from that in the movie.
I would recommend either watching the movie or reading the books, but don't do both like I did. The movie's a lot shorter, and gets all the highlights of the book right.
Mildly recommended.
In any case, I thought the movie was unique and very enjoyable in many ways, if not exactly deep. A more literary movie, for instance, would have each of Ramona's ex-boyfriends represent something, either about love or about Ramona, but most of the exes are played for laughs.
I thought the comic book series Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Box Set might have the ability to provide more than the movie's relatively shallow plot.
The verdict: the books do a little better, but not so much better that I would recommend them over the movie. One of the best things about comic books is that they have an unlimited special effects budget, so you would expect the comic book to be even more over the top than the movie. But in many cases, the movies one-ups the books. For instance, the vegan police segment on the movie works way better than what's in the books.
You can read the books in a couple of days (they're comics, each about the size of a Japanese manga). The style is not quite manga-style, though there is a lot of negative space in use, with certain scenes told entirely via pictures rather than with words. The plot is largely the same as the movie, and the characters, while a little bit more fleshed out, aren't vastly different from that in the movie.
I would recommend either watching the movie or reading the books, but don't do both like I did. The movie's a lot shorter, and gets all the highlights of the book right.
Mildly recommended.
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