Watched 25 January 2019
Kind of fun, but weird. And not weird in a good way — weird in a “not sure what it wants to be” way. It tries to be a thriller, but the plot is way too messy and clichéd to be interesting. It tries to be a comedy, but there is no real intent to the humor; just a residual layer of silliness, no courage about it. I guess this tone was intentional, but it simply did not work for me. The longer it went on, the less satisfying it became.
Watched 30 January 2019
Felt rushed and incomplete. The interview with Billy McFarland did not really add much depth, and several of the more interesting people featured in the Netflix documentary were missing altogether. The poorly-edited-in internet memes and patronizing attitude detracted from the experience and eroded the point being made. Meh.
Watched 24 January 2019
I expected the charm and fuzzy feelings, but not the nuanced, topical take on immigration, delivered with the utmost efficacy. Bravo!
It’s all very wholesome and hard to criticize, though I think it could have benefited from some more Spirited Away-style bittersweetness, and a more complex antagonist. But hey, it works.
Sidenote: the wonderful art direction somehow reminded me of Spielberg’s Tintin and, in contrast, how much of a disappointment that was.
VR devs keep making amazing stuff and one of these days I’ll be forced to buy a headset
This project is all about driving visual effects with body movement! Very interesting combining the two in an interface. Each parameter can be mapped (in a bunch of different ways) to how you move your body.#leapmotion #unity #VR pic.twitter.com/8xbPekZQjy
— Noah Zucker (@Noah_Zr) January 11, 2019
Watched 3 January 2019
Building it around the concept of “choose your own adventure” itself did not make any of the choices and outcomes anymore engrossing or thought-provoking — the experience of rewinding to take different paths made everything feel muddled and disconnected. I think the stakes should have been higher, giving the viewer fewer opportunities to fix mistakes.
There is a glimpse of interestingness near the beginning when the medium-unique twist is revealed, but it gets lost as the narrative branches off and grows in possibility space, with some storylines dropping the idea altogether.
It’s a fun ride, and then it’s over. Though I might have to give it another go. Also: the poster is really neat.
“Snail mail”
Watched 15 December 2018
What if haunted house movie but
- ten hours long, lots of repetition
- cheesy, artless direction
- all spoken lines are monologues
And they’ll soon be running on just two and a half browser engines ☹️
I'm old enough to remember when the Internet wasn't a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four.
— Tom Eastman (@tveastman) December 3, 2018
Watched 2 December 2018
These films are very awkwardly put together. They feel shallow and soulless in a way that is hard to describe. In terms of epic narrative scale, they seem to be the most ambitious Godzilla films to date. Yet that ambition comes at the cost of detail and emotional tangibility. All characters look the same, animation is robotic, individual moments have no emotional heft. No part of it even got me to go “that’s cool”.
Sure, I would love to learn about the heroic future humans fighting to reclaim the Earth from Godzilla. But please, make me care about it.
Watched 29 November 2018
No new take, just a patchwork of rehashed tropes. Every scene feels like something you’ve seen before, and the paper-thin “I have backstory!” characters don’t help either.
This is just one of those small things that make me disproportionately happy ✨
I just landed text-underline-offset and text-decoration-thickness support in WebKit! https://t.co/1vFZRbRuc8 Now pages can fine-tune the placement/thickness of their underlines! 🎉🎉🎉
— Myles C. Maxfield (@Litherum) November 7, 2018
Watched 5 November 2018
I was expecting this shark movie to be more of a boat movie. But it turned out it was actually more of a submarine movie, and also a Jason Statham dating simulation movie. So yeah, it was fun.
Rewatched 4 November 2018
I just wanted to rewatch the Elastigirl bike chase… Ended up doing that, rewinding, then watching the whole thing. I’m pretty sure this won’t be the last time that happens, so it’s going in the 5-star bin.
Played 30 September 2018 on Mac
Brilliant in mechanics and narrative. Absolutely fantastic soundtrack. Got a bit too high on its own supply at the end there, which left me somewhat emotionally detached. That disconnect might just have been due to expectations, though: I was anticipating a more adult-ish, less “anime” overarching feeling. But I guess anime is real.
Watched 13 September 2018
Cool and exciting, but the low budget/high ambition combo leaves it stuck in a sort of uncanny valley — the kind of sci-fi that never quite manages to hide its seams. Still, very enjoyable and made me wish for more cyberpunk movies. I’ll probably go watch Ghost in the Shell for the fiftieth time now.