Yes, I'm apparently watching Stob Wobs again. This time, I'm at the part where they discover the clone army allegedly ordered by conveniently-dead-person Cipher Diaz.
They already know (from the space-chef at a space-American space-1950s space-diner) that this clone army is expensive, so the obvious next step would be to follow the money to find out who really ordered this army. Of course, that would leave less time for pointless action sequences and fights with silly-swords so that isn't what they do.
But the Jedi Masters don't even dismiss the possibility that Cipher Diaz actually did place the order without authorisation. Which means that apparently, people can just spend a few billion credits out of the Jedi treasury without anyone thinking that's maybe a little suspicious. Despite the fact that they're all fucking clairvoyant. Let me guess, your vision was clouded by the dark side of the finances? Did someone use Jedi mind tricks to cook the books? Perhaps giving Master Ponzi a seat on the council was a mistake. Oh, but I'm sure the fanbois will explain it by some vague appeal to "the force." *hand wave*
I know these prequel movies (a) are hated, and (b) end with the destruction of the Jedi. (I came in too late to complain about spoilers.) I can only assume that (a) is the direct result of (b) not being caused by a massive audit of the Jedi Order that reveals just how much money they've been blowing on force-knows-what and all the Jedi banged up for embezzlement and fraud.
One bonus point for cool name, though. I wonder what gritty cyberpunk story Cipher Diaz was borrowed from.
Showing posts with label my media habits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my media habits. Show all posts
Monday, April 24, 2017
Friday, March 31, 2017
I Am (Apparently) Watching Stob Wobs
Don't expect a full "My Media Habits" post for it, but it's going something like this:
Quigon: Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that reside within all living cells and we are symbionts with them.
Me: YOU MEAN MITOCHONDRIA.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
And Now, Our Feature Dream
I feel a bit of sympathy for people who don't remember their dreams after waking up. Dreaming can be quite fun, and mine seem especially so. I've had exciting dreams. I've had entertaining dreams. I've even had more than a few lucid dreams; far from every night, but often enough that I have a reality check to confirm that I'm dreaming when they happen.
However, one night last week I had a feature film. Produced by my subconscious. And delivered as a dream. That's never happened before.
In fact, it was actually remarkable because of its complete omission of dream-logic. Sure, it operated according to movie-logic which is no more realistic, but even a bad movie riddled with plot holes has a certain coherence to it that even lucid dreams generally lack; even after waking up from it, I was willing to suspend disbelief in much the same way I would for, say, a Doctor Who serial. (That the dream had the aesthetic of a no-budget film from the 1960s or 1970s certainly helped in that regard.)
The dream/film was set in New York City in/around Columbia University. No time period was specified, but it was presumably supposed to be the late 1960s or early 1970s; the dream looked like a movie from that era, the protagonist looked a bit hippie-ish, and the streets immediately outside the campus looked extremely rundown; the neighborhood around Columbia (called Morningside Heights) genuinely was rundown in that era, but when I was there (in the early 2000s) it was trendy and expensive.
Curiously, while no computers or mobiles or other era-inappropriate technology made any appearance, the cars were suspiciously current and did not resemble those of the era. I didn't register this fact until after I woke up, though, so I suppose it was just a facet of the scene being cobbled together from my own years-old memories of the neighborhood mixed with a few historical facts and photos and not actually part of the scene itself.
The film's protagonist was a long-haired 20-something hippie-ish man who I could have sworn was given a name but I don't remember it now. (I'd look it up, but IMDB does not cover private screenings for one provided by my own subconscious. I'll just call him George.) He was a student at Columbia who, one evening, walked into a restaurant near the campus and discovered that its patrons had all slid about halfway down the slope of the Uncanny Valley. Looking at them, it was impossible to point to any one thing wrong with them and yet, their mannerisms were just inhuman in some indescribable way— and this fact became apparent to both George the protagonist and me the viewer (and I still felt it having woken up). Shaken by the sight of them, George left immediately. He returned to the restaurant the following day around noon, only to discover it was abandoned— not just closed, but nonexistent; no tables or chairs, the storefront clearly available to let. That evening, he returned yet again only to find the restaurant once more quite existent, and quite busy with creepily inhuman patrons. Working up his courage, George went in and inquired about the place; a smiling (and decidedly normal-human) hostess cheerily informed him that this was a parallel universe restaurant situated in between a number of different worlds and open to all of them. She showed George a few strips of shiny gray metal tacked to the doorframe and informed him that the presence of that metal indicated a portal between universes.
Inspired by the discovery of parallel universes accessible through metal-marked portals, George met with his girlfriend (who had a name I've again forgotten; I'll call her Max). The two of them set out to investigate portals and parallel universes and through their investigation learned that the neighborhood was absolutely lousy with them. They also learn that the few people who've done enough research to know about portals and alternate universes can be granted their own private universe which serves as a paradise in which they can live the remainder of their lives in bliss.
Through research and investigation, George and Max successfully make arrangements to receive their own private paradise and are advised to go to a particular building on the campus to reach it. When they do, they find the building locked but they also find the distinctive portal-metal on the doors and so figure out how to enter the portal located on the threshold without physically opening the door. On the other side, they find a small garden with a portal-metal archway at its far end, to transport them to their destination. In the penultimate scene, they pass through the archway portal— and end up chest-deep in a disgusting swamp/sewer thing from which there is no means of escape; the portal that took them there only goes one way.
The final scene takes place in a classroom (presumably at Columbia, though never explicitly stated) in which a distinguished elderly professor lectures on the history of humanity's interactions with the elder gods, with particular emphasis on the fact that humans who make arrangements with them inevitably get screwed. Elder gods lie, you see. Their promises of paradise are not to be trusted.
All told, the story was actually a bit boring and certainly loaded with plot holes. No one can see the portals that are right there in the open. There are apparently portals on nearly every building yet George never explores them. The final scene comes completely out of nowhere; there were no mentions of gods at any point prior to that. If this were a real film, I'd say it was a bad one and not necessarily an endearingly bad one despite its no-budget-1970s vibe. Frankly, the novelty value of having a feature film as a dream is really the only reason I'm even bothering to write about it.
Incidentally, according to Google Street View, the location of the extra-universal restaurant from the dream is occupied by a real restaurant called Vine Sushi and Asian Cuisine. That's... actually a little bit creepy, I think. If you happen to find yourself in the area, can you just check to see if that place has two vertical strips of shiny gray metal nailed to each side of the doorframe?
Rating Summary:
Medium: Dream
Genre: Sci-fi
Availability: Nonexistent
Bechdel Compliance: No (apparently, my subconscious is sexist?)
Rating: I literally slept through the whole thing.
However, one night last week I had a feature film. Produced by my subconscious. And delivered as a dream. That's never happened before.
In fact, it was actually remarkable because of its complete omission of dream-logic. Sure, it operated according to movie-logic which is no more realistic, but even a bad movie riddled with plot holes has a certain coherence to it that even lucid dreams generally lack; even after waking up from it, I was willing to suspend disbelief in much the same way I would for, say, a Doctor Who serial. (That the dream had the aesthetic of a no-budget film from the 1960s or 1970s certainly helped in that regard.)
The dream/film was set in New York City in/around Columbia University. No time period was specified, but it was presumably supposed to be the late 1960s or early 1970s; the dream looked like a movie from that era, the protagonist looked a bit hippie-ish, and the streets immediately outside the campus looked extremely rundown; the neighborhood around Columbia (called Morningside Heights) genuinely was rundown in that era, but when I was there (in the early 2000s) it was trendy and expensive.
Curiously, while no computers or mobiles or other era-inappropriate technology made any appearance, the cars were suspiciously current and did not resemble those of the era. I didn't register this fact until after I woke up, though, so I suppose it was just a facet of the scene being cobbled together from my own years-old memories of the neighborhood mixed with a few historical facts and photos and not actually part of the scene itself.
The film's protagonist was a long-haired 20-something hippie-ish man who I could have sworn was given a name but I don't remember it now. (I'd look it up, but IMDB does not cover private screenings for one provided by my own subconscious. I'll just call him George.) He was a student at Columbia who, one evening, walked into a restaurant near the campus and discovered that its patrons had all slid about halfway down the slope of the Uncanny Valley. Looking at them, it was impossible to point to any one thing wrong with them and yet, their mannerisms were just inhuman in some indescribable way— and this fact became apparent to both George the protagonist and me the viewer (and I still felt it having woken up). Shaken by the sight of them, George left immediately. He returned to the restaurant the following day around noon, only to discover it was abandoned— not just closed, but nonexistent; no tables or chairs, the storefront clearly available to let. That evening, he returned yet again only to find the restaurant once more quite existent, and quite busy with creepily inhuman patrons. Working up his courage, George went in and inquired about the place; a smiling (and decidedly normal-human) hostess cheerily informed him that this was a parallel universe restaurant situated in between a number of different worlds and open to all of them. She showed George a few strips of shiny gray metal tacked to the doorframe and informed him that the presence of that metal indicated a portal between universes.
Inspired by the discovery of parallel universes accessible through metal-marked portals, George met with his girlfriend (who had a name I've again forgotten; I'll call her Max). The two of them set out to investigate portals and parallel universes and through their investigation learned that the neighborhood was absolutely lousy with them. They also learn that the few people who've done enough research to know about portals and alternate universes can be granted their own private universe which serves as a paradise in which they can live the remainder of their lives in bliss.
Through research and investigation, George and Max successfully make arrangements to receive their own private paradise and are advised to go to a particular building on the campus to reach it. When they do, they find the building locked but they also find the distinctive portal-metal on the doors and so figure out how to enter the portal located on the threshold without physically opening the door. On the other side, they find a small garden with a portal-metal archway at its far end, to transport them to their destination. In the penultimate scene, they pass through the archway portal— and end up chest-deep in a disgusting swamp/sewer thing from which there is no means of escape; the portal that took them there only goes one way.
The final scene takes place in a classroom (presumably at Columbia, though never explicitly stated) in which a distinguished elderly professor lectures on the history of humanity's interactions with the elder gods, with particular emphasis on the fact that humans who make arrangements with them inevitably get screwed. Elder gods lie, you see. Their promises of paradise are not to be trusted.
All told, the story was actually a bit boring and certainly loaded with plot holes. No one can see the portals that are right there in the open. There are apparently portals on nearly every building yet George never explores them. The final scene comes completely out of nowhere; there were no mentions of gods at any point prior to that. If this were a real film, I'd say it was a bad one and not necessarily an endearingly bad one despite its no-budget-1970s vibe. Frankly, the novelty value of having a feature film as a dream is really the only reason I'm even bothering to write about it.
Incidentally, according to Google Street View, the location of the extra-universal restaurant from the dream is occupied by a real restaurant called Vine Sushi and Asian Cuisine. That's... actually a little bit creepy, I think. If you happen to find yourself in the area, can you just check to see if that place has two vertical strips of shiny gray metal nailed to each side of the doorframe?
Rating Summary:
Medium: Dream
Genre: Sci-fi
Availability: Nonexistent
Bechdel Compliance: No (apparently, my subconscious is sexist?)
Rating: I literally slept through the whole thing.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Metaphors And Realism: Breaking Bad Redux
Having made a very brief My Media Habits post for the show "Breaking Bad," in which I dismissed it as shite, I subsequently found, on a far more popular blog, a review of the show which praised it for a thorough deconstruction of male power tropes in culture; apparently, in the episodes I couldn't be bothered to watch, Walter White goes on at great length about how he's providing for his family while effectively screwing them over, which starkly parallels the way "family values" is used to justify male power at the expense of everybody, including men.
I don't much care.
One of the first things I learned about writing, when I was still cranking out terrible short stories in secondary school, is that all the metaphors in the world are wasted if the story doesn't make any sense on the surface. You can thoroughly deconstruct, parallel, satirise, or do whatever the hell you want to anything you want, but if, on an entirely concrete literal level, the story is absolute dross, you have failed and the only people who will pretend to like it are literature professors.
So I don't care what metaphors Breaking Bad manages to pack into the later episodes. The basic premise is too unrealistic and I don't buy it, therefore anything built on it is lost.
I don't much care.
One of the first things I learned about writing, when I was still cranking out terrible short stories in secondary school, is that all the metaphors in the world are wasted if the story doesn't make any sense on the surface. You can thoroughly deconstruct, parallel, satirise, or do whatever the hell you want to anything you want, but if, on an entirely concrete literal level, the story is absolute dross, you have failed and the only people who will pretend to like it are literature professors.
So I don't care what metaphors Breaking Bad manages to pack into the later episodes. The basic premise is too unrealistic and I don't buy it, therefore anything built on it is lost.
Friday, September 6, 2013
My Media Habits (Part 1.5): Bromine Eaking Barium D
The show "Breaking Bad" spells its name with the periodic table squares for bromine and barium, so I cannot possibly be blamed for pronouncing the full name of the two elements involved.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
My Media Habits (Part 1): Orange Is The New Black
So according to this Buzzfeed, the (relatively) new Netflix-made series Orange Is The New Black is "one of the year’s best offerings on any platform." Unfortunately, I only watched the version that's available on Netflix, which is mediocre at best.
In this newish series, Piper Chapman, played by someone I can't be bothered to google, is a shallow ditz who got convinced to transport drug money for dubious reasons and is now, ten years later, sent to prison for having done so. So basically, it's a prison drama. Yeah, I'm not sure why I watched it either.
Now I'm not saying I have to like a protagonist (I've written protagonists more unlikeable than Piper) but a problem arises when most of the tagonists (of both "pro" and "an" varieties) are so shallow and uninteresting that I simply can't move myself to give half a shit about what happens to any of them. Am I supposed to care that a shallow ditz is thrown into an unforgiving environment and being slowly molded into a more aggressive ditz? My caring about her personal struggles was out the window the moment she was more concerned with her weight than the fact that she was about to go to prison. Some of the other characters have more depth (there's a transexual who stole credit cards to pay for her surgery, an old Russian lady with an interesting backstory, and a slaver and murderer who is somehow supposed to be sympathetic) but they're minor characters compared to Piper and her drug smuggling ex-girlfriend.
And here is the point at which my disconnect with the show becomes complete. I'm asexual (and aromantic, if that's actually a thing), and because of this, using "true love" as a character's motivation will always strike me as an Ass Pull. I know intellectually that a majority of the population are animals who will abandon all pretense of higher functioning at the suggestion that they might get to mate, but on the semi-emotional level of understanding characters and why they do what they're doing, it just doesn't work. This is problematic, because about 90% of the plot rests heavily upon this authorial crutch. Why does a seemingly intelligent man fawn over a ditzy bimbo who's about to go to prison? Because he wuvs her. Why does said ditzy bimbo jeopardise the relationship she wants so much to have a fling with the crazy criminal ex who sent her to prison? Because she wuvs her. Why does one of the guards risk his career and his freedom over a relationship with an inmate that's legally considered rape? Because he wuvs her. Time and again, characters do things so stupid and out of character you want to scream at the screen and strangle the writer and we're supposed to just roll with it because "love." Maybe it's different for the 99% of people who have a biologically hard-wired compulsion to do weird things with their genitals, but my suspension of disbelief is just not that big.
Incidentally, my asexuality also means that the large quantities of fanservice are instantly transformed into squick, giving the show a decidedly minefield-like nature and meaning the single one emotional reaction that dominated my experience was "oh god, I did NOT need to see that."
Credit where credit is due: The show makes a point of revealing backstories for even the more minor characters, all of which are more interesting than the primary characters anyway. It also pulls off the difficult task of creating a character so unlikeable that we might declare nothing to be too horrific for her only to put her in a situation that is clearly too horrific even for her— and which is apparently true to life for American prisons at that, so full marks there. When the characters are not being motivated by "love" for someone they hate or driven by the absurd coincidences that plague Netflix-original series, they actually tend to be strong and well-rounded; even the ditz gets a proper development arc although it's too little too late to make me actually start caring about her.
Unfortunately, its comparatively minor selling points don't outweigh the problems with the show. Even if you're willing to buy that someone will throw away everything they love and want to preserve or maintain a relationship with someone they hate because "love," the writers clearly need to do a bit more thinking about how people act and react. Ditziness notwithstanding, a person who is being literally starved to death over a petty prison dispute with an inmate cook goes to the authorities to request a transfer to another prison— but then refuses to say why and then backs out of the whole thing. Maybe this is just one of those weird emotional things I'm just not capable of picking up, but I would think that the desire to (a) eat and (b) not die should override the loyalty to or fear of someone you've literally met once. Yet she doesn't tell the authorities, or her lawyer. She tells her fiance, but he doesn't think to do anything about it (even though he proves himself more than capable of interceding on her behalf later). Then, she's offered food after having eaten literally nothing for the past 72 hours, and she throws it away out of fear/loyalty to the prison cook or spite for the ex-girlfriend who gave it to her, when she should by all rights be too hungry to think before eating it. Later, a misplaced screwdriver creates a massive kerfluffle, and upon realising she inadvertently took it, she goes through an entire episode's worth of machinations to hide it and to try and return it secretly rather than turning it in at the earliest possible opportunity; it's not like the prison staff have proven so unreasonable that they'd overreact to an honest mistake.
Then, of course, there's the Netflix Coincidence problem; the tendency of Netflix-original shows to rely on absurdly contrived coincidences. She just happens to have a lawyer who's not good enough to get a fairly weak case against her dropped. Her crazy ex just happens to be in the same prison she is. The less that's said about the chicken, the better.
One other thing, the Buzzfeed article mentions the following little tidbit: "While love isn’t a word I’d apply to Pablo Schreiber’s sadistic prison guard, George “Pornstache” Mendez, even he displays an unexpected soft side." Apparently, that part was in the Buzzfeed-only version of the show because the closest I saw to that in the Netflix version was decidedly the opposite— the character is outwardly creepy and disgusting ("rapist"), but when he gets drunk and starts making tearful confessions, he reveals that he's actually a complete sociopath ("rapist who complains his victims don't appreciate him as a person") as well. So maybe Buzzfeed's Jace Lacob liked the show because he's a robot with a prototype emotion chip that still has some kinks to work out.
Rating Summary:
Medium: Television.
Genre: Prison Drama
Availability: Netflix
Bechdel Compliance: Yes
Rating: 5 to 15 years for assault and battery on my sensibilities and tastes.
In this newish series, Piper Chapman, played by someone I can't be bothered to google, is a shallow ditz who got convinced to transport drug money for dubious reasons and is now, ten years later, sent to prison for having done so. So basically, it's a prison drama. Yeah, I'm not sure why I watched it either.
Now I'm not saying I have to like a protagonist (I've written protagonists more unlikeable than Piper) but a problem arises when most of the tagonists (of both "pro" and "an" varieties) are so shallow and uninteresting that I simply can't move myself to give half a shit about what happens to any of them. Am I supposed to care that a shallow ditz is thrown into an unforgiving environment and being slowly molded into a more aggressive ditz? My caring about her personal struggles was out the window the moment she was more concerned with her weight than the fact that she was about to go to prison. Some of the other characters have more depth (there's a transexual who stole credit cards to pay for her surgery, an old Russian lady with an interesting backstory, and a slaver and murderer who is somehow supposed to be sympathetic) but they're minor characters compared to Piper and her drug smuggling ex-girlfriend.
And here is the point at which my disconnect with the show becomes complete. I'm asexual (and aromantic, if that's actually a thing), and because of this, using "true love" as a character's motivation will always strike me as an Ass Pull. I know intellectually that a majority of the population are animals who will abandon all pretense of higher functioning at the suggestion that they might get to mate, but on the semi-emotional level of understanding characters and why they do what they're doing, it just doesn't work. This is problematic, because about 90% of the plot rests heavily upon this authorial crutch. Why does a seemingly intelligent man fawn over a ditzy bimbo who's about to go to prison? Because he wuvs her. Why does said ditzy bimbo jeopardise the relationship she wants so much to have a fling with the crazy criminal ex who sent her to prison? Because she wuvs her. Why does one of the guards risk his career and his freedom over a relationship with an inmate that's legally considered rape? Because he wuvs her. Time and again, characters do things so stupid and out of character you want to scream at the screen and strangle the writer and we're supposed to just roll with it because "love." Maybe it's different for the 99% of people who have a biologically hard-wired compulsion to do weird things with their genitals, but my suspension of disbelief is just not that big.
Incidentally, my asexuality also means that the large quantities of fanservice are instantly transformed into squick, giving the show a decidedly minefield-like nature and meaning the single one emotional reaction that dominated my experience was "oh god, I did NOT need to see that."
Credit where credit is due: The show makes a point of revealing backstories for even the more minor characters, all of which are more interesting than the primary characters anyway. It also pulls off the difficult task of creating a character so unlikeable that we might declare nothing to be too horrific for her only to put her in a situation that is clearly too horrific even for her— and which is apparently true to life for American prisons at that, so full marks there. When the characters are not being motivated by "love" for someone they hate or driven by the absurd coincidences that plague Netflix-original series, they actually tend to be strong and well-rounded; even the ditz gets a proper development arc although it's too little too late to make me actually start caring about her.
Unfortunately, its comparatively minor selling points don't outweigh the problems with the show. Even if you're willing to buy that someone will throw away everything they love and want to preserve or maintain a relationship with someone they hate because "love," the writers clearly need to do a bit more thinking about how people act and react. Ditziness notwithstanding, a person who is being literally starved to death over a petty prison dispute with an inmate cook goes to the authorities to request a transfer to another prison— but then refuses to say why and then backs out of the whole thing. Maybe this is just one of those weird emotional things I'm just not capable of picking up, but I would think that the desire to (a) eat and (b) not die should override the loyalty to or fear of someone you've literally met once. Yet she doesn't tell the authorities, or her lawyer. She tells her fiance, but he doesn't think to do anything about it (even though he proves himself more than capable of interceding on her behalf later). Then, she's offered food after having eaten literally nothing for the past 72 hours, and she throws it away out of fear/loyalty to the prison cook or spite for the ex-girlfriend who gave it to her, when she should by all rights be too hungry to think before eating it. Later, a misplaced screwdriver creates a massive kerfluffle, and upon realising she inadvertently took it, she goes through an entire episode's worth of machinations to hide it and to try and return it secretly rather than turning it in at the earliest possible opportunity; it's not like the prison staff have proven so unreasonable that they'd overreact to an honest mistake.
Then, of course, there's the Netflix Coincidence problem; the tendency of Netflix-original shows to rely on absurdly contrived coincidences. She just happens to have a lawyer who's not good enough to get a fairly weak case against her dropped. Her crazy ex just happens to be in the same prison she is. The less that's said about the chicken, the better.
One other thing, the Buzzfeed article mentions the following little tidbit: "While love isn’t a word I’d apply to Pablo Schreiber’s sadistic prison guard, George “Pornstache” Mendez, even he displays an unexpected soft side." Apparently, that part was in the Buzzfeed-only version of the show because the closest I saw to that in the Netflix version was decidedly the opposite— the character is outwardly creepy and disgusting ("rapist"), but when he gets drunk and starts making tearful confessions, he reveals that he's actually a complete sociopath ("rapist who complains his victims don't appreciate him as a person") as well. So maybe Buzzfeed's Jace Lacob liked the show because he's a robot with a prototype emotion chip that still has some kinks to work out.
Rating Summary:
Medium: Television.
Genre: Prison Drama
Availability: Netflix
Bechdel Compliance: Yes
Rating: 5 to 15 years for assault and battery on my sensibilities and tastes.
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