Notes, page 9
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Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
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.
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“Snail mail”
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The Haunting of Hill House
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 -
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle
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.
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The Predator
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.
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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 -
The Meg
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.
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Incredibles 2
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.
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Undertale
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.
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Upgrade
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.
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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Watched 10 September 2018
Dinosaurs are cool
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Deadpool 2
Watched 15 August 2018
As fun and cringe-worthy as the first one. Somehow more enjoyable because Infinity War was such a downer.
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Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Watched 4 August 2018
There is a shot in this film that, for a split second, managed to trick my brain into believing Tom Cruise was about to die. I didn’t smile and think “that’s cool.” Folks, I audibly gasped in a movie theater.
(I’m talking about the helicopter scene)
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Mission: Impossible
Rewatched 3 August 2018
It’s clear why kid me thought this was the coolest thing ever. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the iconic moments I remembered still hold up. What I wasn’t expecting was for the rest to be so… messy? The more expository scenes feel very half-assed, to the point of being a bit silly.
