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Schumacher (2021)
Regarding Schumacher, the person
I'll be the first to admit this is a good documentary about what drove Schumacher during his career, always the perfectionist. From various interviews and disclosure we learn Michael did not ever consider himself to be responsible for (racing/collision) mistakes, we see he is almost fearless on the track, but insecure about what is expected from him. Other than that, the documentary implores the viewer to believe he was a very nice guy when (if) you got to know him, and a great family guy. Great, but also boring and to put it bluntly "fairly common". I think I was not the target audience here, because I don't care much about all this. I wanted to see legendary race moments summarised, the genius he displayed as a driver, the perfection when it was in a actuality faultless (and not just from his perspective). The almost 2 hours is frankly quite a chore to watch, it's not exciting, and it left me cold almost completely, except around the period when Schumacher started to near Senna, and eventually surpassed him, the tragedy that followed and the emotional moment when Michael reaches the milestone of equal F1 GP victories as his former idol. The Benneton period was when I myself started to really get into F1 so I remember it most fondly, and then there was Ferrari. The early period of failure at the Scuderia was amply covered, as was his ability to upgrade the car and motivate the team, but as soon as the leading man became unbeatable in the red car, it became apparently uninteresting to cover in detail for a story about the man, not the myth. The agenda of this documentary then seems more to underscore that Schumacher was really a human after all, a family man even, a nice guy to befriend privately, a flawed person like all of us, but one with an exceptional talent for racing. It doesn't, however, adequately, or edge of your seat excitingly, do his racing legacy justice. For that, it would need to scrap 45 minutes of (appraising) professional and (emotional) family talk, and replace it by a very carefully selected series of footage that shows him at his best as we all knew him: dualling on the track, battling for victory sometimes against the odds, sometimes at all costs. After watching it, I immediately YouTubed some footage of Schumacher, Hill, Senna, Häkkinen, and then some highlights of Verstappen VS Hamilton. If you simply love racing, I recommend you do the same. This story tells, but doesn't show.
Don't Look Up (2021)
A satirical mirror without effective purpose (or fun)
This is a strange beast, it was marketed as a quirky comedy by Netflix in my region, and given the trailer I was up for it. The scenes used for said trailer as seen in the context of the movie itself are far from comedy, in fact they're mostly painful, satirical and overlong awkward moments. I watched this for 35 minutes at first, then switched it off, utterly frustrated. Reading about the plot, and the satirical nature I gave it another shot the next day, sometimes skimming through the most drawn out scenes. One things for sure, the run time of this feature is far too long. After seeing the credits roll I changed my rating from a 4/10 to a 7/10, because I think the story has redeeming qualities as a societal reflection. At the time of writing this review, 3 days after watching, I changed it again, to a 5/10, here's why. The comedy part doesn't work for me, because the situation is far to painful and frustrating to watch, being only a slight exaggeration of the truth. The satire doesn't work either, because either the viewer already knows and agrees with the state of humanity at this point, or doesn't, and alas this movie won't convince them otherwise. The message is muddled then; of course it's not about a comet, but about humanity's inability as a mass to act decisively upon a global threat, as mentioned by others to be climate change. We're the frog that stays put in the pan of water set to slowly heat until boiled alive, oblivious to its fate. That message won't hit home for climate change sceptics, and for the rest of us who "got it", well, this amounts to almost 2,5 hours of utter frustration and agony to sit through, because that part of the audience is left feeling even more helpless and miserable. Finally then, as entertainment, only the predictable last scenes have merit. Start watching from BASH's efforts to stop the comet and you're fine. As a side note, I thought every actor was excellent in this picture, probably exactly demonstrating the kind of person and character the director was going for. Mark Rylance stole the show for me, as a corporate evil version of Ready Player One's Halliday, but every man and woman in the cast demonstrated the ability to play a stereotype of some sort with obvious enthusiasm.
Transformers: War for Cybertron (2020)
A heavy hearted snorefest
Recently I've been rewatching the G1 Transformers cartoons with my kids and while it didn't age quite as well as I imagined, it's still fun to watch, and my kids love it. Jump to 2020/2021 in cartoon land, or "animated series" and we have to make do with seasons consisting of 6 episodes each. Let's be honest here, these are basically expended commercials for the (admittedly wonderful) new WFC toy line. Going into Siege I was expected there would be a lot of action and story packed into the episodes, considering 6x24 minutes isn't a lot to work with time-wise. I was wrong. Characters seem half asleep, nothing much happens, even when Siege transitions into Earthrise. During both current seasons my kids asked me when the Transformers would stop talking (slooooooowly, so full of pretentious "meaning") and would actually transform. But no, the al forms are almost never seen, they're just robots, talking, depressingly talking, and running. It struck me that Bumblebee thinks it's a better idea to run away from a big threat in Earthrise rather than transform into a car and drive like hell. Then we see Sky Lynx and its alt form is never even shown. To make matters worse is that the voice acting seems to be done by actual robots; there's no emotion or any life in any of the dialogue. It's tiresome and weak. Even the blast effects during fighting are a miss; "plip plip" sounds without any oomph. It's just a boring show for adults that has no real feeling of stakes, doesn't reward investment, and offers no hook beyond seeing the original transformers combined in a few bare bones episodes, but they're not in disguise, and we hardly see them in action.
Ad Astra (2019)
A thought provoking slow-paced journey with scientific goofs to satisfy public demand for action
I liked this film a lot. Its 2 hour run time doesn't ever feel boring to me, even though the pacing is consistently slow and introvert. Maybe it's because I'm also a somewhat of an introvert person that some of the dynamic resonates. The desire for solitude always conflicting with the inability to accept loneliness. The film is very meandering and smooth in its story telling, which is mostly expressed through beautiful visuals, the cinematography, and studious narration by the protagonist. He buries rage underneath a shield of calm and unfailing restraint. There's not a lot of politics here, or morals, or social commentary, just a very basic story about a person's character and motivation, and about father and son. It's about our drivers that determine what's important in a life, and what perhaps might not be. The scientific goofs that permeate the film every now and then seem an artefact of trying to put some tension in the proceedings, some Armageddon-style drama, and a touch of Life/Alien. It doesn't matter, they're just distractions. I'd say if you enjoy Moon, Space Odyssey (also part 2), Interstellar, and pretty much anything by Alex Garland, you'll like this too. It's a far cry from something like the Martian and Gravity; this film requires patience and an ability to submerge oneself in the context. Recommended for some, pass for anybody expecting a space war, or Event Horizon 2.
Caprica: Pilot (2009)
An interesting beginning at a much lower pace
Having just finished watching all of Battlestar Galactica, I was curious what Ron D. Moore's next endeavour would be like. In short, this pilot wasn't like BSG, and didn't really even have the same feel. Most differences are in the camera, which isn't the shaking documentary style, but a rather more classical affair. The music's pretty laid back, although there's still good use of interesting and uncommon instruments. Both in tone, setting and general presentational feel, it reminded me a little of a random very long dragged-out episode of the show "the outer limits". I don't consider that a bad reference, but it's certainly no BSG. The air is mysterious, ominous and inquisitive, which hasn't been done in a while in scifi shows as I recall, but seeing how many "the outer limit" episodes were made, it's not that unique either. It's rather strangely interesting, but somehow less compelling than intended.
On the whole, the story of this pilot was good as a meticulous introduction, but stretched somewhat too thin for my liking. Maybe it's because I just finished the Daybreak episodes of BSG, which were so full of high speed info, both in your face and between the lines, that my head seemed to explode for a whole day after watching them. But even so, Caprica's pilot takes quite a long while to kick-start and really lets all information sink in slowly. Very gracious, but if you've seen existenz and the matrix, or even fight club, you will (too) easily follow. Nothing wrong with that, but after the hectic blood pumping style incorporated in Moore's previous work, I just suddenly feel bored for being able to keep up so easily. Feeling bored would not be a good thing I believe. I realise the show might want to delve deeper into an audience beyond the scifi crowd, or the dedicated BSG fans, but it's a fine line for those fans to be bored with science gimmicks they've seen a hundred times over, and overheating the brains of anybody upgrading from "Friends" or even "Frasier". As it is, so far so "ok", but nothing revolutionary is to be found in the plot, so it's up to characterisation to save the day. Fortunately, the two leads are good, especially Graytone, with Adama taking a bit of a back seat here. It'll be interesting to see how the two develop. I do hope the Twilight/Buffy feel surrounding the teens will be reduced somewhat. It's not very original and it probably falls flat for most adults.
The ending of the episode shows were the story can take us, which is tantalising, even though I'm not sure if it's ultimately worth the effort depending on the future pacing. So, the cylons, or cybernetic life-form nodes, yes yes, some seriously creative retrospect acronym creation went on here, is this what we all came for, or just a bait? Well, time will tell. How did the cylon centurions start their existence, how might they have achieved the monotheistic beliefs and rebellious nature that would ultimately bring about the first human- cylon war? If you want answers to these questions, stick around for possible revelations. I probably will, lured in as I am, but here's to hoping the presentation will become a little more exciting.
Avatar (2009)
Cameron's new film ultimately falls ironically flat despite 3D
Seeing all these positive votes is a surprise to me. I genuinely believe this movie profits from the relative newness of 3D cinema effects. People are wowed by the beautiful renderings of nature, the RDA equipment and the Na'vi liveliness; I had to convince myself that these were all CGI. We've come a long way since Jar Jar Binks.
I too was impressed then, from the moment opening scenes touched my eyes through the lens of truth (the goggles), with scenery and characters seemingly popping out of the screen. After a while though, your grip on reality pulls you back, much like how this occurs with our human lead Jake Sully time and time again. See, the showing lasts more than 2.5 hours and during that long long time on a planet far far away, this effect alone failed to grip this viewer. I'd say the first half of the film is good, not on par with Cameron's older releases, but it creates a base for trust that all is going to be well with this movie. Then after about 90 minutes, the story just gets boring, with spectacle over substance taking over. The thing is, for a movie that doesn't require any thinking, it's just too long and ultimately uninteresting.
The tribal Na'vi are so incredibly goody good and in touch with nature in their tribal hippie ways it's almost sickening, while the RDA side takes the cake in showing off humans as a bunch of heartless corporate military types that only like flamethrowers, Mechs, bulldozers and blowing up large Mana trees. The black and white (or is it digital) nature of the two "teams" therefore is insignificant. I felt myself neither siding with the RDA (the side branded the enemy by the script) because of their horrible nature, nor with the Na'vi simply because the whole semi-helpless but prevailing native/tribal/aboriginal premise made me feel slightly embarrassed, nauseous and fatigued. The two sides offer no help in keeping you immersed due to their lack of identifiable content; neither are like "real people". The 3D effects are left to do that, but in the end the flat characterisation made me "wake up" from the dream about an hour into the movie and never sucked me in again after that.
It's a shame, but Avatar, as a consequence of its cheesy cliché ridden script (just tick mental boxes of "influential" source material for fun if you get bored at some point) and heavily dualistic right/wrong nature finds no opportunity to surprise the audience with any real feeling of care for what's happening to any of the leads, and more importantly it fails to let the viewer make a conscious choice who to root for. This is not T2 where you felt bad when Arnie sunk in the "lavapit", or, if you're a girl, this is not T where you felt bad when Leonardo sunk in "icewaterpit" (an ironic similarity there). This movie and the persona's fates all left me rather emotionless, save for the impact of the grand vista's and mesmerising effects.
With the director and writer deciding everything and the plot being more than obvious in its flow, Avatar ended up being underwhelming as a story, however brilliant as a tech demo. I say again, we will probably look back on Avatar in later years as one of the pioneers to widely distribute 3D tech and it deserves that place, but long before that the story will be forgotten and that cannot be said for films like Titanic, Aliens and Terminator 2, that managed to push the boundaries of technology, while also providing a story and characters that are worth caring about and remembering. So, why still 7/10? Well, despite the bland characters the movie is entertaining enough if you persevere and whichever way you look at it, it's a technological landmark that merits a good score, if only for a little while. But next time, Cameron, it's gotta have more cow bell.
Space: Above and Beyond (1995)
It's corny, over the top stuff, but it grows on you and sticks
I have mixed feelings about this one. I remember trying to follow the show in Holland back in 1996, but due to bad airing stability and a slot on the other side of prime time, the whole thing lost my interest. Now, more than a decade later, I bought the whole episode set and I must say it's been good for nostalgia.
You won't find anything in this show that hasn't been done better in any number of war drama's (band of brothers for example), but hey, it's in space, so that's fun bonus. The decors and budget must have been low-budget as heck because they genuinely made me smile or frown deeply. Also, 12 years hence, the special effects and CGI stuff are greatly outdone by even pretty standard video games. To me, this is still a fun show. It's gritty, and very laden with morale and ethics. Often it feels too artificial, especially when the card board scenery and goofy awkward moving/fighting chigs mix with scripts that are just plain corny.
They (the writers and actors) try to create an environmental and emotional vehicle to make a social point. Like in most chauvinist/patriotic shows (i.e. any US show/movie involving marines/heroes), it's just beyond any form of subtlety. Sometimes it feels like the structure was designed for the mentally numb, with its over the top camaraderie. Furthermore, you can see premature deaths and emotional responses coming from more than a mile away. So, more often than not, you can see where it all will end up right after an episode starts.
Why still watch? Because regardless of its simplicity, the shows does have a heart, albeit a stereotype one. I think it's still unique among far superior shows like Babylon 5 and star trek TNG and the new battlestar galactica. It has a certain roughness and honesty, even though the clichés often pile up faster than necessary. However, maybe that's where the charm lies. It's not going to win any story medals, but the darkness factor is pretty unforgivingly real. On the flip side, numerous plot holes and predictable scenario's leave a lot to be desired (no doubt the actual reason for its cancellation; the story had nowhere to go besides victory or loss and the main characters' personalities were deepened to the point of exhaustion). The story is often nonsensical or even mostly absent, offering nary a thread to facilitate the social interactions of the 58th.
Lastly there's the chigs; do they look bad, no, do they seem like a versatile maneuverable and superior enemy, no, does every marine with his/her big gun miss every single shot always, yes, so there you go; lousy shots make for hard as nails enemy, very silly. Chigs as "the enemy" and default "bad-ass" characters here are also ridiculously black and white. It makes for easy story telling; you are meant to hate certain characters (also human ones)to start loving the heroes more vividly and to create a bond of choosing sides, and this artificial hatred is induced through so many blown-out of proportion ways that sometimes you can't help but laugh. Nobody's that bad; it's the return of the uber-bully. Example of episode without balance; Ray Butts (not a credible character and episode), episode with balance; who monitors the birds (great character development on the Chig side and for Cooper). Countless examples exist of moments where you'll think..."hang on, how did he/she get there, that doesn't make sense, wouldn't they have known that....it could never have....why does nobody think it's odd that..." and so on. The first reunion with Nathans girl was particularly funny. I spotted where it was going, but throughout the episode conviced myself even these writers would never go there. But there you go, the Space Above and Beyond script does not deter cheapness and amateurism to make a point.
The show certainly has its moments of dread and utter enjoyment. So, watch it if you really like Sci-Fi and dark wars, consider it too rough at times, but persevere, have mixed feelings about it, laugh at it, be moved, have awkward fun predicting character lines and deaths, learn to love it, despite all of its faults, and consider it a favorite, old loyal car that you just can't leave behind. True ambiguous romance.