science fiction

Jumping at Shadows

Chet Kozlowski — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 16:43:05 +0000

Jumping at Shadows Chet Kozlowski April 21, 2024 - 12:43

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In the new Australian film Monolith, a podcaster hears from multiple callers about a mysterious black brick. They "receive" this thing, this artifact, after traumas and it wends its way into their consciousness and their very dreams. It takes over their lives and gives them violent and invasive visions. The podcaster's show, Beyond Believable, explores strange phenomenon. She follows leads who have similar experiences with strange bricks and starts connecting the dots.

She's identified only as The Interviewer and is herself a disgraced journalist. A big investigation she worked on went sideways, and she's exiled herself alone in a big home in the middle of the woods. She's trying for a comeback: "I don't need a break, I need a story," she tells her editor. "A career-defining story." She’s sure she's on to something with these black bricks and is on the verge of a revelation. About a conspiracy? About alien visitors? About the end of humanity?

Monolith is a chamber piece directed by Matt Vesely and written by Lucy Campbell, both whose credits include shorts, online series, and Australian TV work. All the action takes place with one character in and around a very modern open plan house whose floor-to-ceiling windows look out on blank woods.

The filmmakers cite Denis Villeneuve's Arrival as an inspiration, but their ambitions are too spare and their budget is too low for that model. It's like remaking Dune without the sand. Monolith more resembles Alex Garland's Ex Machina in its emphasis on a remarkable manmade structure and its relation to nature.

Narrative structure is the issue with Monolith. Its first fifteen minutes is an exposition dump, a montage of headlines and screenshots about a character we don't know yet and don't have empathy for. We're told too much in the beginning and shown too little later on.

Actor Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise and Netflix's I Met a Girl) is the only character onscreen. While Ms. Sullivan has an appealingly resonant voice, she doesn't have the presence to carry off an entire film. She's left "jumping at shadows," as her character complains, rather than going through significant actions. She's feisty on the phone with a reticent source. "I'm sure it's challenging to remain ethical in your industry," she says sarcastically, but it's unclear if she's insulting the source or the mirror.

Her only interactions are with her callers. The twelve voice actors listed (some quite well-known, like Ansuya Nathan of HBO Max's The Tourist, and Damon Harrimen, Charles Manson in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) give her expressive support. But they are voices on a phone. The only character we see and follow is The Interviewer. And watching one person, regardless of how compelling, respond to voices on a phone, regardless of what they’re saying, makes for a flat cinematic experience.

Director of photography Michael Tessari's muddy palate makes it all dour instead of spooky. (One stirring image, genuinely creepy, is used on the poster to misleading effect, making the film seem bigger than it is). Composer Benjamin Speed's and Leigh Kenyon's sound design is mostly the blips we've come to expect from low-fi sci-fi like this.

Monolith wants to belong to the same class as Shane Carruth's Primer or Andrew Patterson's The Vast of Night, no-budget movies that make up for it by trafficking in ideas that tickle the intellect. Monolith's implications are vague and its execution derivative.

(A quibble: why is her podcast called Beyond Believable and not simply Beyond Belief? Granted, actual podcasts are called that. Titles aren’t copyrighted. There are other recent movies called Monolith, for example.)

Monolith isn't bad, exactly. It's just underbaked, visually and thematically. Its premise is intriguing and deserves more thoughtful exploration. Maybe the filmmakers could expand upon it with a bigger budget and deeper revision.

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Monolith. Directed by Michael Tessari. 2022. Released by Well Go USA Entertainment. In theaters and on digital platforms and Blu-Ray. 95 minutes.

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Starchild

Gary Lucas — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 23:23:05 +0000

Starchild Gary Lucas February 28, 2024 - 18:23

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2001: A Space Odyssey was on TCM last night until the wee hours (2 am EST). Now, I must have seen this cinematic epic -- one of my favorite films -- at least a hundred times, beginning in 1968 when I saw it in Cinerama in Boston upon its first release, followed by a couple of times on acid in local theatres in New Haven in the '70s. Once, in 1996, in a punk club in Ebisu Tokyo (known as The Milk Bar, appropriately enough for all you Stanley Kubrick fans), where it screened on a TV monitor in the basement, but with a totally improvised new electronic noise soundtrack replacing the audio. Once this film hit home video and then DVD, fuhgettaboutit -- I've played music to the Stargate sequence myself over the years as part of my "Monsters from the Id" project.

Compare and contrast the picture of Keir Dullea as old Dave Bowman in the Regency bedroom of his, or It's, mind at the end of the film, right before he transitions into the Starchild with this photo of cadaverous vampiric Max Schreck as Count Orlock in F. W. Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu.

Kubrick knew the history of cinema backward and forward and what he was doing here. This makes sense if you read Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of the film, in which the Starchild detonates an orbiting nuclear warhead to create a false dawn on Earth where the Cold War is still raging ("Russia, are you listening?" -- D.J. Trump).

Kubrick, sensing a Bridge Too Far here, cut that bit out of his film so that there is instead an almost upbeat mystical-religioso ending ("And a young child shall lead them") as the Starchild hovers benignly over Planet Earth.

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Look!!! It's Godzilla!!!

Gary Lucas — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:06:23 +0000

Look!!! It's Godzilla!!! Gary Lucas January 16, 2024 - 17:06

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Best Godzilla movie ever (#38 in a series -- and there's another Godzilla film coming in MARCH for Godzilla's sake) -- and the best overall Creature Feature since Cloverfield -- a really enjoyable MOVIE (unlike the lame 1998 Roland Emmerich reboot with that inane Puff Daddy / Jimmy Page rap), lovingly recreating a post-war Japanese milieu. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki and produced on a shoestring (15 million bucks, as opposed to a typical 200 million dollar Hollywood extravaganza) by Japan's TOHO Studios, who got the franchise rolling in 1954 with Godzilla: The Sea Beast (in Japanese, Gojira -- a specially coined word denoting a cross between a gorilla and a whale) before Joe Levine Americanized the film with insertion of newly-filmed scenes with Raymond Burr. What makes this so compelling an entry in the big G sweepstakes is the emphasis here on human drama as opposed to mere special effects (which are reliably awesome, needless to say). Thematic concerns dovetail snd elaborate on actual historic events and super "what if?" moments -- including the supposed recalcitrance of the American and Japanese governments to even mention the existence of Godzilla to an already devastated post-war Japanese populace for fear of "spreading panic". So renegades of the remnants of the Japanese Navy take the matter in hand and cook up a potentially hare-brained scheme involving encircling and weighing Godzilla down with a bunch of bubbling Freon canisters, and--well, I don't want to spoil the fun here. I saw it with our friend Jon Surgal last night at the DGA Theater in midtown, and even Caroline Sinclair was entertained (and she pretty much hates monster movies). A rousing orchestral score by Naoki Satō was complemented Tarantino-style by using music tracks from the first Godzilla film by composer Akira Ifukube. Godzilla's roar was actually beefed up here by sound designer Natsuko Inoue running a sample of Godz's original high-pitched, almost birdlike-like bellow through monster-sized speakers in the echoey confines of the ZOZO Marine Stadium (a baseball stadium in Chiba Japan). From an aesthetic design standpoint, this is the most malevolent-looking Godzilla to date, way past original director Ishiro Honda's "guy in the rubber suit" conception. Sorry to say, there's no mention or appearance of Godzilla's cute adopted son Minya -- but maybe there's a sequel on the way?? Probably so, as the (spoiler alert!) final shot centers on a submerged piece of the destroyed Godzilla starting to, um, regenerate (come to think of it, this shot was absolutely copped from the last shot of the 1961 Danish-American co-production Reptilicus). It only goes to show that everything New is OLD! You're welcome.

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Space-Age & Pop-Art Dreams

Robert Cochrane — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 23:13:23 +0000

Space-Age & Pop-Art Dreams Robert Cochrane January 14, 2024 - 18:13

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Across My Dreams With Nets Of Wonder (Fisher King Publishing) - John Howard

For a man to whom narrative has played a salient part in his songs, it came as little surprise that English tunesmith John Howard seamlessly transferred his attention to creating a trilogy of engaging and evocative memoirs outlining his erratic but lifelong sojourn in music. Now his fertile imagination has delivered a febrile and fantastical novel, Across My Dreams With Nets Of Wonder, whose title has been lifted from Bob Lind's evergreen 1965 hit "Elusive Butterfly" whose subject matter is a delightful motif fluttering throughout a text of extraordinary articulation and finesse.

Part Alan Bennett meets Doctor Who, Back To The Future reimagined by Ealing Studios, here is a novel not short on ambition. Elements of science fiction seamlessly blend with a sense of magic realism. Still, in Howard's matter-of-fact vision, there's an everyday element to unusual and unexpected turns and twists within his assured and diligent prose. Science Faction is a term that more easily encapsulates his tale of extraordinary and unlikely events rendered acceptable to the reader via his understated handling of quirks, strangeness, and charm. There's also a neat blast of art history sneaking across within the chapters.

At the heart of the novel resides a delightful subtext. An affectionate cavalcade of postcards and polaroids a la '60s London in full swing with pop music as the beat in the heart. Cameos cascade. Marc Bolan and David Bowie in their early twenties as gouache young, ambitious things, Joe Meek and his largely forgotten crush and prodigy Heinz, the Beatles, and a litany of girl singers sparkle like light through the scratches on a once glitzy newsreel. You don't need to be a music aficionado to capture and enjoy the vibe, but if you are, it adds an extra frisson of pleasure.

Just as the disparate strands of Howard's ambitious themes seem to become engulfed by the breadth and depth of his grand design, they gradually resolve their existence as they become woven into the page-turning narrative -- no mean feat in itself.

Funny but imbued with a Proustian sense of sadness, this is a dynamic tour de force about time, ambition, and the true nature of what resides beneath our mannered, social surfaces most daily situations rely upon. It effortlessly crafts historic interactions into playful narratives. Einstein and Turing become a pair of space-age houseboys on a spaceship, and an A.I. Marilyn Monroe steals the show towards and at the end.

A dizzying accomplishment, this is a serious novel with a playfulness of heart. It is a page-turner that strikes a depth and poignancy either absent or avoided in most accessible fiction. This unique offering deserves the wider audience that a movie could provide, but for now, it deserves to be shown in the expansive private cinema of the mind.

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Building a Better Partner

Chet Kozlowski — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:26:49 +0000

Building a Better Partner Chet Kozlowski October 20, 2023 - 10:26

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Aaron Barnes is on the autistic spectrum: shy, avoiding eye contact, voice precise and movement stiff. He designs software and is a mathematical genius. His best (and only) friend is a stuffed bear named Eddie. He makes halting attempts at online dating, sometimes putting off potential amors by monitoring his own emotions, out loud, robotically saying "sad face" and "happy face."

Aaron's mother died recently, and he dutifully follows up her care duties with a grumpy old man named Ben Olsen. Bringing Ben sandwiches and enduring his insults about "the younger generation" is as close as Aaron comes to a regular relationship. Aaron lacks social skills yet craves contact, and out of spare parts he makes a robot to be his partner and names her Emma.

So starts Boy Makes Girl, the film directorial debut of Mark Elias, who also wrote the screenplay and plays Aaron. Mr. Elias is the latest of a string of shoestring auteurs, made possible by digital production and streaming. His film is billed as a "sci-fi comedy," but it's pretty low-fi and not a comedy in the knee-slapping sense. Instead, it's a small and sensitive take on how we pair off today.

Mr. Elias has an intense demeanor and is known for his role in TV's 9-1-1 Lone Star, and here he's a one-man band. His acting is more inspired than his direction (with Mark David), which tends to be flat and expository. He plays Aaron as a cross between David Byrne's jerky stage persona and actor Rami Malek (known, ironically, for his role in Mr. Robot): buttoned up and mechanical.

Aaron's made-up mate Emma (played by Grey's Anatomy's Meghan Holoway) begins as a throwback to characters we've seen in everything from Bewitched to The Little Mermaid: an innocent come into a world not of her making. But she becomes eager to experience what humans call life. She finds joie de vivre than Aaron can't even imagine. While Aaron waves his arms to keep the world away, Emma waves her arms to embrace it.

The throwback theme is underscored with the casting of character actor Paul Dooley, who played everybody's dad, best known for Sixteen Candles. He's gruff old Ben Olsen, Aaron's mother's former charge. Ben is old school, referring to women as "broads," every other word starting with F. He takes Aaron under his wing, showing him adventure, gambling and carousing. Things turn dark when he asks Aaron to buy him Oxy.

That dark turn is Boy Makes Girl's saving grace. It sets it apart. John Billingsley's sleazy character helps with this (you'll recognize him from lots of stuff, most recently Star Trek: Enterprise). Before he comes on, Boy Makes girl is tame and predictable. Its low budget shows. Aaron's "lab" is low tech, just a few computer monitors in a dark room. Aaron's creation of Emma isn't shown; she’s just suddenly there. The sets are obviously rooms in peoples' homes; Ben Olsen's house looks too well-kept for an old man alone; there isn’t even the remains of a TV dinner on the living room table. A drug dealer's symbol of ominous affluence is an above-ground pool. But what Boy Makes Girl lacks in production values in logistics it makes up in heart.

It raises some interesting questions: what kind of mate would we build? What do we expect from them in this age of shifting social identities and personal autonomy? How must we adjust ourselves to fit? The press notes list Weird Science as an inspiration, but that 1985 John Hughes film was a male masturbatory fantasy. Mr. Elias' film is more of the times. Themes of loneliness, abandonment, and the debt of generations present themselves.

Boy makes Girl is an admirable first effort, one of the best of recent auteur projects that goes straight to streaming. It used to take years for filmmakers with ideas to come up through the ranks, starting in the proverbial mailroom. Now they routinely produce feature length movies almost as a business card, instead of "reels." Boy Makes Girl's playful take on Frankenstein is one of the best surprises of the season.

__________________________________________________

Boy Makes Girl. Directed by Mark Elias, 2023. Available on VOD platforms. 105 minutes.

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Nope on "Nope"

Brandon Judell — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 18:54:46 +0000

Nope on "Nope" Brandon Judell November 20, 2022 - 13:54

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Award season has recently begun, and online links to the studios' Oscar hopefuls, along with special screenings, are flooding film critics nationwide.

So with positive expectations, I opened an email and sat down in front of my 27-inch computer screen to view Jordan Peele's Nope. (Sadly, the link nixed hooking up with my Samsung.)

The experience was not exactly one of unbridled enjoyment. I should have been forewarned. When one of America's more annoying reviewers, the New Yorker's Richard Brody, titles his assessment: "Nope Is One of the Great Films About Filmmaking," you know you're in trouble.

There isn't a piece of crap Brody hasn't stuck a rose in, and not a rose he hasn't crapped on.

Flowers aside, the first hour of Nope is pretty negligible fare with the exception of a flashback to a killer chimpanzee and the wonderful-to-see-again Donna Mills almost getting kicked in the kisser by an upset steed. Mostly we have Daniel Kaluuya walking about as horse trainer OJ Haywood. Picture John Wayne overdosing on Valium and you have his performance. Not since my turtle Willie pondered my presence when I was in the sixth grade have I confronted such inexpression.

OJ ("not that OJ") is a bit upset because his dad just got killed by an object that's fallen from above. Worse, though, is that OJ's broke and he's stuck with a nonstop-yammering sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), who wants to be on the Oprah show. Her route to success is getting a snapshot of an alien living in a cloud.

Since Nope opened in July, I feel I can be a bit more revealing with the plot now as opposed to let's say the much-awaited Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, about which I've been forewarned to be very tightlipped about, especially the action scenes, the cameos, and so forth.

Well, I won't reveal much more than that Nope's long awaited monster, when it takes its bow, looks very much like a foiled decoration that had fallen on the floor and was then treaded over by a brigade of kindergartners at your local Party City. (Possibly a paean to 1950's films such The Blob.)

To be fair, critics have unanimously applauded the visuals by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who bowled us over with Dunkirk (2017). As for his work on Tenet (2020), well, some projects go haywire, not his fault, and the film did have a "look."

Additionally, one of my students, Tony, on a day when his hair was blue, insisted that the crowded theater in which he saw Nope just went wild during its second half. So maybe if you haven't seen this thriller, screen it right after your Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family gathered about you as opposed to viewing Nope alone on 27-inch computer screen or on your cell phone.

(Please note if you want to know more about the rediscovered Black historical figure, billed in Nope as the "star of the first motion picture ever created," catch Samuel Spencer's superb bit of research in Newsweek.)

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Is That a Sand Worm in Your Pocket . . . or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

Brandon Judell — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 02:15:36 +0000

Is That a Sand Worm in Your Pocket . . . or Are You Just Glad to See Me? Brandon Judell October 26, 2021 - 22:15

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Attending the morning screening of Dune at the New York Film Festival, I was hoping for an LGBTQI romantic comedy about the Pines on Fire Island. What I got was Star Bores. Well, maybe that's an iota too harsh.

Clearly, there is nothing overtly queer about this adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic 1965 sci-fi novel. Even a bare-chested Timothée Chalamet in bed sets off no sparks. As Paul Atreides, he portrays the son of Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) of House Atreides, ruler of the ocean planet Caladan, who's assigned by the Emperor Shadda to serve as fief ruler of the planet Arrakis. It's times like these when you really appreciate Wikipedia.

So why is everyone's excited about controlling the planet of Arrakis and subjugating its native inhabitants? Well, it’s home to a valuable "spice" that endows its users with "a longer life span, greater vitality, and heightened awareness," plus you need to ingest it for interstellar space travel.

Well, Paul's dad immediately orders his ready-for-battle troops to land in Arrakis the following day. Paul, meanwhile, is dreaming nightly of an attractive young woman (Zendaya) with an air hose up one nostril who lives on the spice planet. So against his father's wishes, he joins up on the expedition. However, before that he has to place his hand into the box of pain, and if I try to relate any more plot, I'll die from brain freeze.

Clearly, I haven't read any of the Dune books, which might make some difference in my ability to embrace this enterprise. Proof: As I was going down an escalator with a cherubic woman, I asked what she thought of the film. She, having read everything Herbert had ever written, was in an orgasmic trance, avowing this film was everything a Dune adaptation could and should be.

I, however, am a member of the ilk who believes a film should not force you to turn on your Kindle for comprehension. Prime examples of features that succeeded on their own merits: The Life of Pi, The Lord of the Rings, Bastard Out of Carolina, and arguably the Harry Potters, but who hasn't read them?

Now, you might counter you’ve checked out Dune's RottenTomatoes rating and saw a 90% positive response. Please note if a film is only half bad, there are no half-bad tomatoes on that site for critics to choose. Accordingly, these scribes will be charitable and avoid the giving of a rotten tomato. I know. I've been one of them in the past.

Indeed, maybe I'm wrong about Dune's dreary screenplay with its undeveloped characterizations and tedious wordings; the mixed acting chops; the poorly choregraphed battle scenes that make you make you appreciate Game of Thrones all the more; plus the uninspired direction, and who knows, you just might have a good time.

Time Magazine's Stephanie Zacharek swore she did, even though she wrote in her final paragraph: "Dune is sluggish in places -- my eyes glazed over during one or two or maybe three of the battle scenes -- but Villeneuve's conviction counts for a lot." Can someone explain that to me?

IndieWire's always astute David Ehlich, while applauding Chalamet's performance and some of the visuals within "these interminable 155 minutes," notes, "It's hard to overstate how little actually happens in this Dune, which flows like an overture that's stretched for the duration of an entire opera."

But judgments aside, I was wondering whether there were any LGBTQI moments in the original texts or ones that I overlooked in the film. Googling "Dune homosexuality" supplied me with the following.

In the film, the villainous Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) is dastardly. Think a hefty Rudy Giuliani. But in the text, Travis Johnson of Flicks.com recalls that the Baron "is a predatory homosexual given to pederasty and incest, an unrepentant rapist and murderer. Prior adaptations have leaned into his sexuality to differing degrees, with [David] Lynch's [1984 take] in particular embracing the archetype of the depraved gay sadist."

On Reddit, utrickp7 in a post titled "Struggling with anti-gay themes," recalled numerous homophobic passages within the Dune series, including: "The homosexual, latent or otherwise, who maintains that condition for reasons which could be purely psychological, tends to indulge in pain-causing behavior -- seeking it for himself and inflicting it upon others."

Now as I researched on, utilizing both trustworthy and possibly reliable sources, it appears Frank Herbert had a gay-activist son, Bruce Calvin Herbert, who died from AIDS-related pneumonia.

In a related Reddit post, maximdhiver, who labels himself a historian, quotes from Dreamer of the Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert, written by another son, Brian. The following occurred when Herbert's wife was on her deathbed: "Bruce had wanted to come . . . but Dad was delaying in giving him a time that would be convenient. My brother wondered, but did not say so to Dad, if this had anything to do with his homosexuality, which our father had never accepted."

A few posts later, mwisconsin shares: "I met Bruce in 1989, while I was working for my father-in-law's TV station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I didn't know who he was. It was a month in when, in casual conversation, he revealed to me who is father was. . . . I can tell you that Bruce told me he didn't speak with his father because his father didn't like that he was gay."

Roberta Johnson in her review of the biography for Booklist cites that when his sons misbehaved, Frank hooked the lads up to a lie detector machine and that "Bruce struggled with drugs and homosexuality." The bio, according to a Booklist review, also recounts in detail Frank's "obsessive dental hygiene habits."

Then last year, when the Los Angeles Review of Books published Jordan S. Carroll's "Race Consciousness: Fascism and Frank Herbert's Dune," an article detailing how the alt-right is trying to co-opt the book series, the paper's readers went on a rant.

Bob Arctor wrote in: "Herbert was a dick about his son being gay."

Someone writing in as Nicol added: "Why do you Dune cultists always minimize this man's horrific relationship to his son due to his son's gayness, something he hated so much he would be having his characters rant about homosexuality being linked to sadistic violence in his books? Oh wait its because you like reading the homophobic rants isnt it. . . . As if [Frank] Herbert wouldn't have thrown his whole weight behind Trump for the sake to teach these wimpy lib commies and the 'gay agenda' a lesson" (sic). Bravo, Nicol!

Happily, in part one of the Dune saga that's now being released, no homophobia is apparent, but then I went to pee twice so I might have missed it.

Addendum: Having just rewatched Dune on HBO this morning with the subtitles on, I no longer strained to hear the often stilted dialogue or worry myself about the plot points. Finally, I was able to enjoy the often stunning visuals which at times survied the overly assertive editing and underdeveloped characterizations.

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A Fossil Goulash of Terrible Lizards

Brandon Judell — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 19:00:40 +0000

A Fossil Goulash of Terrible Lizards Brandon Judell June 22, 2018 - 15:00

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Victorian naturalist Sir Richard Owen, back in 1841, coined one of Stephen Spielberg's favorite words, "dinosaur," which is derived from the Greek for "terrible lizard." Jump ahead 84 years to when Willis O'Brien directed what many consider to be the first film featuring these reptiles on steroids, The Lost World . Brontosauruses have never been allowed to be reclusive creatures again.

Not long after came Michael Crichton with his 1990 blockbuster novel, Jurassic Park, which has now spawned five films of varying quality, the current Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom being possibly one of the more forgettable.

Fallen Kingdom is a sequel to record-breaking Jurassic World and a prequel to whatever's down the pike. The plot: Three years have passed when a soon-to-erupt volcano threatens the existence of Isla Nubar and all the DNA-engineered dinosaurs that roam upon its terrain. Should humans try to save these creatures or let God decide their fate? At a congressional panel, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) slumberously addresses the issue, noting man has proven unable to contro this technology. Our government sides with God and Ian, but not our heroine Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) who runs a dino-rights organization in sensible heels.* But what can she do with her group's lack of funds and political connections?

Enter Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), who's employed by the bedridden Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), who was the wealthy co-partner in the creation of Jurassic Park. Mills tells Claire he will supply the cash and manpower to rescue the raptors, pterodactyls, and tyrannosauruses and then transfer the whole gaggle onto a deserted island his company owns with her help. Sounds good, and even Owen (Chris Pratt), who's living a solitary man's life in the woods, is convinced to join the venture so he can reunite with Blue, his favorite raptor. The chance to snuggle with Claire now and then is also a draw.

Don't be fooled, heroes. One should never trust a poorly acted, one-dimension villain making believe he's a good guy. Yes, Eli Mills has other plans up sleeve. He's going to utilize the dinos for . . . . My lips are sealed or maybe I just don't remember.

What follows is the standard "good humans vs. bad humans" trope with a healthy dash of 'unrestrained capitalism is evil" for seasoning. Sadly, director J.A. Bayona, who proved his worth with The Orphanage (2007) and The Impossible (2012), telegraphs many of his thrill moments here. You're going to jump now and then because you've been trained to jump at these moments. Clearly, screenwriters Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow, who together also scribed the prequel, suffer from a momentary lack of febrile imagination here, a fear possibly of pushing the envelope.

However, if you hunger for umpteen dinosaurs, you get that. If you need an adorable little girl (an engaging Isabella Sermon) to identify with, check. And if you desire an arm of a nasty being bitten off, check again. There are the thrills, but a lack of real surprise. Also, a bit more of that Pratt charm would have been appreciated. Still, I know I'll be queuing up for the follow-up. How many of us can resist the chance to watch the past pummel the present in order to control the future? It's the odd deliciousness of rooting for one's own demise.

*Claire wore Melania pumps in the prequel, which is not the best footwear choice when trying to escape from an allosaurus or its ilk.

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Class Distinction

Dusty Wright — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 07:09:59 +0000

Class Distinction Dusty Wright December 16, 2017 - 02:09

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The concept of ownership -- items, people, ideas -- is the heart of master storyteller Ursula Le Guinn’s 1975 masterwork The Dispossessed. Winner of the Nebula and Hugo awards, the highest lliterary awards for science fiction writers, this story transcends that genre’s boundaries. It is a story of a man Shevek, a physicist/anarchist, from the arid and socialistic planet Anarres who creates The Principle of Simultaneity -- instantaneous communication -- something that will revolutionize interstellar communication between all worlds. This is a tome about philosophical and ideological differences and how one views what is truly the best utopian society or how two neighboring planets occupied by anarchists and capitalists view/exploit Shevek's discovery.

The book's narrative timeline is non-linear, so one may feel compelled to reread certain passages or chapters, but once you understand the author's intention and cadence the rewards of the narrative will unfurl in perfect order. In fact, I reread the opening chapter several times to unlock a deeper understanding of the protagonist's predicament. When Shevek travels to the sister planet of Urras hoping to share his discovery, away from the grips of jealous and fearful colleagues, he comes to understand that utopian ideas and political systems all must deal with "ego" for better or worse. Jealousy is also an issue when ego takes over. And power most always corrupts, even in the most benevolent societies. Moreover, enslavement can be both physical and spiritual, and material possessions can just as easily enslave a society as political despots.

Buy and read this book and her other classic novels The Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness. You will be handsomely rewarded.

A Majestic Sequel

Dusty Wright — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 05:25:15 +0000

A Majestic Sequel Dusty Wright October 31, 2017 - 01:25

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To be completely transparent, I purposely didn't read any reviews on Blade Runner 2049. I didn't want to be influenced by other critics' opinion.

Smart movies don't always catch fire; may not be box office blockbusters nor receive the universal critical acclaim they so deserve. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner sequel may not have caught the collective raves or boffo box office receipts that others movies can boast, but that doesn't diminish the fact that it is an incredible sequel and in some ways better than the original. In today's 90 minute "super hero" hyper-edited, 3D cinematic experience a movie like Blade Runner 2049 crawls along at a snail's pace, allowing the dystopian landscape to infect the movie audience's collective consciousness and to create a visual backdrop that affords the narrative its forward thrust.Kudos to director Denis Villeneuve and his design team. The future is not so bright. It's rather bleak and depressing. Mr. Villeneuve's previous movie, another scifi epic, Arrival was also deserving of high praise and its Oscar nomination. The man knows how to construct a mystery narrative, one full of clues and surprises without smash cut edits, gratuitous violence or mind-numbing action sequences.

Without spoiling the plot of BR49, which at this late stage is probably impossible, thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), literally unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years. Their first meeting in the dusty and abandoned Las Vegas is a real acting and visual treat.

Moreover, we discover that the Wallace Corporation acquired the remnants of Tyrell Corporation, thus giving it control of the replicant technology and the business records of Tyrell, yet it is missing one key element that becomes central to the plot of Ridley's sequel.

"Nexus Dawn," the video short above, does not appear in the movie, but it does introduce Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), owner of the Wallace Corporation and is set in 2036. In this scene he reintroduces a new line of "perfected" Replicants -- the Nexus-9. He believes he's created the perfect bio-engineered replicant "slave" race of workers that our future planet will need to colonize the stars and handle most of the dangerous jobs at hand.

And kudos to writers Hampton Fancher and Michael Green for constructing a terrific script. While the glib Officer K may not be the most talkative leading man, his somewhat deadpan delivery style perfectly frames his character's expected behavior. Blade Runner 2049 is a must-see movie and very much deserving of an Oscar nomination for best film and best actor for Ryan Gosling and Dutch actress Sylvia Hoeks as Officer K's nemesis simply know as Luv. (Image and clip courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.)