I really enjoyed the first season of Westworld, but I was disappointed with the second. Season 1 felt like a complete story by itself. Season 2 doesn’t really add much besides a revenge narrative, which I’ve never cared for. It just felt like violence for the sake of violence. Besides, killing countless robots that can easily come back to life isn’t just boring, it’s also rather pointless. Continue reading
“Evolution forged the entirety of life on this planet using one tool: the mistake.”
I’ve got to admit the premise of Westworld is hard to swallow. Why go to all the trouble of creating hundreds of realistic robots that need to be constantly cleaned, repaired, cured of infections, and given amnesia, when creating a Virtual Reality version of Westworld would be so much safer and cheaper? Continue reading
I didn’t care for the first Incredibles movie. Its repeated central message is “If everyone is special than no one is.” In the world of The Incredibles, some people are born naturally superior to others and equality is bad because it takes privilege away from those who were born into it. So I wasn’t looking forward to watching Incredibles 2. But I’ve got a kid, so I knew it was inevitable. I turned out being pleasantly surprised. Continue reading
I’ve long been a fan of Star Trek. Recently, I’ve been re-watching all the Star Trek series. I’ve made it through Enterprise, the Original Series, the Animated Series, and The Next Generation and I’ve just finished the second season of Deep Space Nine. I’ll go on to watch Voyager and Discovery after that. Continue reading
Netflix’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s classic novel The Haunting of Hill House is genuinely scary. They don’t follow the original story exactly. The main characters are a family living in the house, not paranormal investigators, but many of the best lines from the novel are used. I’d say it certainly stays true to the spirit of the original work. Continue reading
If you haven’t seen the original series and the prequel movie, Twin Peaks: The Return won’t make any sense (come to think of it, even if you have seen the previous material, it still won’t make sense.) Disappointingly, we don’t get closure for many of the season two cliff hangers. We don’t learn if Leo survived or not (he only appears in a clip), we don’t learn what happened to Annie or Donna or Hank (they don’t appear at all), and we don’t find out how James Hurley got out of being a murder suspect. Continue reading
I was a fan of the original Twin Peaks (1990-1991). It stood out from other network television series by being weird. There were quirky characters like a lady who carried a log with her at all times. There were dream sequences that were filmed with the actors speaking backwards. And the whole thing was a soap opera parody with almost everyone in town having a secret affair with someone else, people faking their own deaths, and even a surprise twin showing up. Continue reading
It’s become a cliche to say “the book is the better than the movie”, but it’s a cliche for a reason. The Girl with all the Gifts is better as a book than as a movie because the book goes into much more detail than the movie can given its medium. How boring would it be if a movie just showed someone thinking for thirty minutes? And yet whole chapters of books are filled with nothing but the thoughts of characters and it remains fascinating. Continue reading
Not all movies stand the test of time. We’ve probably all experienced shock at rewatching a childhood favorite only to discover it’s not as good as we thought it was. I remembered The Transformers: The Movie (1986) as being sophisticated because Optimus Prime dies in it and tried to get my wife to watch it one time, only to be chagrined to find out it’s basically just one long toy commercial. Continue reading
I didn’t like The Incredibles (2004) the first time I saw it. Now that a sequel is coming out, I thought I’d give the original movie another chance. Let’s see how that goes.
The Incredibles seems to be an homage to the Fantastic Four (1961-present), a comic in which someone with super strength, someone who can stretch, someone who can turn invisible and make force fields, and someone who can light themselves on fire and fly form a kind of found family. In The Incredibles, we have someone with super strength, someone who can stretch, someone who can turn invisible and make force fields, and someone who can run fast forming an actual family. Continue reading
