Tag: scifi
Affection
Men like Bruce should go to therapy and process their grief. Instead, they'll go to any length to avoid facing their emotions and engaging in introspection. For Bruce, this takes the shape of cloning his wife, Ellie, and iterating through a database of stored consciousness files, inserting each one into a new clone to see if it's his deceased wife. He also clones his daughter, properly inserts her consciousness and, if he didn't land on the Ellie file, murders his daughter, Alice, to spare her the memory of the whole failed experiment. It's a satisfying enough film that deposits Bruce in the loop while the experience remains terrifyingly novel for each new iteration of Alice and Ellie. Bruce's final victim, the one the film chooses to follow, uncovers the horrifying experiment and manages to reinsert herself into the queue. Knowing who she is, rather than who Bruce wants her to be, allows her to destroy him and free herself and Alice. In one final twist of the knife, the clone that emerges following Bruce's death is the one he'd been searching for all along. Seriously, go to therapy. And for the love of God, label your files.
Catching up with Doctor Who
Since I've had a lot of time at home recovering, I've taken the opportunity to catch up on missed episodes of Doctor Who. From when the series restarted in 2005, until 2020, I watched every episode either at or shortly after broadcast, and own several of the series on DVD and Blu-Ray. Alas, after series...
Project Hail Mary
Fist my bump! Project Hail Mary is destined to be a modern science fiction classic. It represents the genre at its most hopeful. Humanity faces a clear, oncoming cataclysm and, rather than squabbling and wilting, they rally together and launch an appropriately named mission to save themselves. Amaze amaze amaze What feels most impossible here is that humanity actually pulls together to even attempt this. That and the serendipity necessary to arrive at the charted destination (relatively) successfully, at the same time as a friendly (and absurdly charming) alien on the same mission. It's rare that a movie is so successful when the story is so intensely focused on a single character and it speaks to Ryan Gosling's talent and charm that this lands so well (particularly at a 2+ hour runtime). Gosling, as Grace, navigates from a science teacher whose career was ruined by a combative defense of the possibility of life entirely different from that on earth existing, to being drafted into an emergency effort, to an unwilling astronaut who, in a natural redemptive arc saves humanity with an alien of exactly the type he argued existed. Grace and Rocky's friendship is a thing of beauty. From the initial, awkward attempts to communicate to the charming back and forth as Grace maps Rocky's gestures and vocalizations to a computerized English voice by way of repeated trial and error. They're devoted to saving their respective planets, but make sacrifices over and over again to save each other. The whole thing is a brilliant message of hope, friendship and humanity at its best. It's a message we need at a time when it all feels distant.
Crimes of the Future
The Cronenberg family has made some of the most grotesque movies I've ever watched. To their credit, they're never needlessly grotesque. Crimes of the Future exists solidly within body horror, which is a subsection of horror I'm often repulsed by but can't look away from. It's eerie, atmospheric, minimally scored and bleak in its outlook. Society appears to be teetering — government offices are helpless and rundown, horrifying surgeries are performed as a public spectacle and Saul Tenser's body grows novel organ after novel organ. It's horror as art and it's an art that robs its victims of their humanity. There are morose echoes of transhumanism in Dotrice and his experiments transforming himself and others so that they can eat and survive off the plastic waste littering their high tech dystopia. Saul and Caprice exhibit their pain, Timlin and Wippet watch, Dotrice engineers a way through and Cope fights against all of it, seemingly motivated to preserve what it means to be human in a society that's quickly losing sight of what that means.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Avatar: Fire and Ash is mediocre in the way all Avatar movies are. The colonizer versus the colonized dynamic is a story that bears being told and retold because it's a wrong that can never really be righted, it can be fought against, turned back but never reversed. But it's the same story across three very different movies. The characters are the same, the conflicts and dynamics persist, battles rage and I imagine Avatar 4 will play out much the same way at a comparable length and the same insistence on using Papyrus.
War Machine
Alan Ritchson is great in these roles — particularly Reacher . There's nothing new, nothing novel, nothing terribly admirable about War Machine . 81 (Ritchson) loses his brother, he becomes an army ranger to honor his brother and encounters a killer robot in the process. He almost saved his brother and failing to do so haunts him. But he saves 7, his brother in arms, and maybe that won't haunt him or will ameliorate some of the pain. It's Independence Day without the charm or exposition and with a Transformers style robot. If you don't think too hard while you watch it it's a perfectly fun movie that you only need to see once.
The Dreaming Void
Peter F. Hamilton has quickly become one of my favorite authors, having found his work via Exodus (which I realize is not the recommended starting point). There are concepts that cut across Exodus , Pandora's Star and now this entrance into the Void phase of the same universe. As I've read through this series I've come to realize I prefer this particular path of far future human development that Hamilton toys with. It's bafflingly, unimaginably advanced and beautifully realized and far grittier than * Exodus . Science fiction, at its best, offers warnings about possible futures, technologies and scenarios the author dreams up to challenge the reader. Hamilton does all of this while keeping his stories deeply rooted in human nature. There are myriad human factions pursuing their own future, one that's arrived at a point of post-scarcity that remains far from utopian. All of the political maneuvering one would expect on the part of these disparate factions is alive and well as is the religious fervor of a large portion of the population. It's deeply alien and familiar at the same time. Perhaps that's the lesson here, that things change but the broad strokes never change. You make contact with alien life and that contact is for the better, while one fervent splinter faction sets off to pursue a deeply held belief, the pursuit of which threatens all life. This pursuit anchors the story and is rolled out through a number of interconnected threads — whether it's the hunt for Inigo, the pursuit of the second dreamer, Edeard's growth within the void, the broader Commonwealth's effort to guide and control the situation. It's a wonderful, immersive read and one that Hamilton guides expertly into the start of the next entry in the saga.
‘Hell Hole’ Review – This Monster Movie Needs To Dig Deeper
The Adams family films have been on the up and up lately, catching the eye of horror enthusiasts ever since The Deeper You Dig in 2019. Their tendencies for lingering, dread-infused horrors present in their recent filmography grew in Hellbender to play with something more overt and in your face. That is to say, a good bit more daring. The Adams family have pushed their efforts here towards daring in a greater capacity. The family’s latest film Hell Hole stars John Adams and Toby Poser, who also ...
‘Frankie Freako’ Review – Throwback Creature Feature Is Pretty Good Pizza
Writer/director Steven Kostanski is doubling down on more of the humor that made Psycho Goreman an outlier for horror comedies within the past few years. This time around it comes in a pint-sized form (give or take a few ounces). Frankie Freako is, largely, a puppet-centric original creature feature that lifts from various Gremlins-adjacent cinematic riffs like a spoiled grade-schooler would when trick-or-treating, regardless of a babysitter’s presence. You could say that Frankie Freako meets ex...
Dream Team
Minh T Mia as Dr. Veronica Beef in Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn's DREAM TEAM. Photo by Whitney Horn. Courtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures. Writers and directors Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn have carved out a specific cavern of cinema out for themselves. It’s completely autonomous of the conventions filmic “aesthetics” populate within A24-like fuzzy film filters although it may look just like one. The difference is Dream Team’s attitude, which is something admirably peculiar and offers something wholehea...
“Pop” Culture Horror — The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
A feature-length, fully animated Looney Tunes movie seems like something we would have gotten a lot more of in this world. But this is the first and only original film in the history of the studio. Though there is a certain apprehension towards how different Looney Tunes feels nowadays, seeing Porky Pig and Daffy Duck’s buddy slapstick adventure unfold returns us to what has made the Warner Bros. animation powerhouse so special. Director Peter Browngardt guides his beloved odd couple duo into ne...
Greenland 2: Migration
To survive the apocalypse in Europe, all you need to do is ask for help. How do you know you're in Europe? Post-apocalyptic European infrastructure is better than pre-apocalyptic American infrastructure. This is a perfectly acceptable sequel to Greenland which was, itself, a perfectly acceptable disaster movie. It stays well within the bounds you'd expect for the genre, the characters are likable enough, the performances are strong and the altogether unsurprising twist here is that the disastrous comet of the first film gave birth to new life in the second. A forgettable popcorn movie. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe imbecilic administration wants Greenland to build a bunker for a comet we don't know about yet.
There Is No Antimemetics Division audiobook
I just finished up listening to the audiobook version of There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. Can safely say that I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend. That said, I loved This Is How You Lose The Time War, loaned it to a few people and don't think any of them finished it....
Don't Worry Darling
Don't Worry Darling is what happens when guys sit home alone, all day, in chat rooms listening to crap on YouTube. Guys that are also too stupid to know that you can't take the same phone you use in the bathroom into an operating room. Is this what the metaverse was supposed to be? Florence Pugh is a star and I guess Harry Styles was in a band at some point, but he's a solid actor. The music is wonderful, the film is well-acted and it's more or less Pleasantville meets Get Out . A bunch of failed, controlling men exit the real world and create their own collective, retrograde fantasy that they force women to participate it. It's a commentary on and for one of the many hellish aspects of modern society (if you can call it that) and it's a shiny, well-acted one. It's also a bit predictable and blunt. But none of that means it's a bad movie or even an average one. It's quite good.
‘Don’t You Let Me Go’ Review – The Tender Beauty Of Unvoiced Sorrow
Happy new year and my fave readings of the year
My favourite books, podcasts and recommendations from 2025, covering moral ambition, maps, wolves, AI dystopias, geopolitics, Chennai history, and the best tech podcasts.
TRON: Ares
TRON: Ares is a move that's easy to feel conflicted about first and foremost because of Jared Leto's inclusion in a leading role. The guy is at best extremely odd and clearly, well, not at his best. But I believe this movie works well enough. It's a well-assembled cast that manages to avoid lending more seriousness to the story than it needs or deserves and it's incredibly visually rich. It has nothing interesting to say about artificial intelligence, really. It includes the standard pseudocode you'd expect. The Nine Inch Nails soundtrack is superb. Jeff Bridges is a treasure. It does play an interesting game with the nature of life and mortality inasmuch as it raises questions about permanence versus impermanence as Leto's Ares pursues the latter. What's permanent? Mortality or limited speed runs through a game? Neither, I suppose, but mortality is the more interesting choice and the one that Ares makes. It's an entertaining entry into what feels like an unlikely franchise and the post-credit sequence makes it clear that there'll be more.
Predator: Badlands
I so very much wanted to love Predator: Badlands , but it ended up being resoundingly mediocre. Picture a Predator movie made by Disney and that's what you have here. There are some Mandalorian vibes with the child Kalisk functioning as Grogu and Thia as his begrudgingly accepted accomplice. Dek is different because he believes everything everu other Yautja believes but is simply too small to be a Yautja. But he's committed to proving everyone wrong and demonstrating his Yautja-ness. Being unique means he kind of develops a conscience and goes home to avenge his brother by killing his dad before the foreshadowing of a sequel featuring his mother. Parents, right? It's quite nice visually and entertaining enough, but it's a Predator movie with all the grit that makes them interesting cleaned up. Next up I imagine we'll get a proper Predator buddy comedy and an Aliens show in the mold of the Dinosaurs sitcom.
Judas Unchained
Judas Unchained and Pandora's Star are one book with an acceptable split between the two. The former picks up directly where the latter stops, following the same set of well established characters and adding many more along the way. That both tomes are as long as they are while being nearly inseparable reinforces exactly how verbose Hamilton is. But, while I've seen complaints about Hamilton's verbosity, I happen to love it. At its best space opera is expansive in its world building and engaging in its storytelling. I thoroughly enjoy watching world building (civilization building? Galaxy building?) unfold and the best writers in this space link the two inextricably. Hamilton is one of those writers. Here again we find the Commonwealth grappling with an existential crisis as it's attacked relentlessly by MorningLightMountain. The Commonwealth continues to be an odd unreality. It's an optimistic future with technology that sometimes feels within reach and one in which vast, dynastic families live lavish lives while also taking responsibility for the society in which they live. Yes, they entertain and plan to leave should their society succumb to the threat of MorningLightMountain but they also go to extreme ends to stave off that possibility. Ozzie wanders off into the woods in search of wisdom, Nigel doubles down on technology and they manage to defeat their common enemy by arriving at a solution that saves society's collective soul. Ozzie's idealism meets Nigel's pragmatism. Ozzie's idealism is matched by that of the Guardians of Selfhood. Skewered throughout these two novels as as both a cult and a domestic threat. That they end up being exactly right about the Starflyer vindicates both them and their founder Bradley Johansson. Hamilton manages to create a detailed universe with endless rich, dynamic characters, weaving together myriad disparate subplots into a surprising and satisfying conclusion. This series is essential and Peter F. Hamilton is one of modern science fiction's greatest authors.
The Fantastic 4: First Steps
There's a sad irony to Marvel movies being made by a company as cowardly as Disney. I mean, much of the recent Marvel output has been barely better than awful, but still. Offer your audience heroes while bending the knee to a shameless, petulant bureaucrat who's enamored with an idiot king that inspired a parody of a man in Biff Tannen only to prove himself stupider, less competent and altogether more malign. Much of what's made Marvel's recent output so unbearably boring has been that they are trying to make every movie appeal to every person. When you set out to make something for everyone, it ends up being compelling to no one. Why? Well, you start shaving away anything that might be offensive to anyone and you end up offering something so smoothed out that it doesn't challenge the audience. It's simply not interesting. Thankfully, this particular film (and Thunderbolts* ) avoid this creative trap. Thunderbolts* did it by offering the audience a dysfunctional, self-deprecating, ragtag group of heroes. The Fantastic Four: First Steps manages to remain novel by framing sections of the film as a documentary, by leveraging a charming aesthetic that feels more in line with the time in which the characters it features were first created and having an exceptional cast. Pedro Pascal is a gift, Vanessa Kirby is a wonderful fit as Sue Storm, Ebon Moss-Bachrach is far and away my favorite gruff, cantankerous and occasionally humorous supporting actor and Joseph Quinn offers some comic relief and an oft-used wide-eyed expression that reminds me oh so much of Brendan Fraser. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. The story itself is perfectly fine. It skips over the origin story, gives nods to the celebrity of the Fantastic Four, generates some tension between then and the public over how to dispense with the looming threat posed by Galactus and sees the strength of a mother's love save the day. It's an unoriginal story made interesting by everything else about the film. It's also worth mentioning that the credits are worth watching for some nostalgia-tinged visual elements. There's a post credits scene (of course) that first alludes to a movie to follow and then, in a fashion that's entirely unnecessary, tells you exactly when and where these characters will reappear. There are always crossovers, but don't print it out on the screen. We get it. There shall be more money squeezed from this intellectual property. The retro cartoon at the tail end of the credits is fun too. Watch it and enjoy it. Know that the company behind it is operated by cowards that do not deserve your support. They'll be making more movies populated by characters that would be ashamed of them. Also know that decent people do work there and star in these films.
Slingshot
This film is only notable for how profoundly mediocre it is. Every second of it felt like a slog . I haven't seen a space film this dull since I made it through Solaris . The acting is perfectly decent — the cast are all professionals. But it plays with all of the clichés one would expect: isolation, the characters' perception of reality coming in and out of hibernation, memories of home after time spent away. Meh.
Pandora's Star
I'd say Peter F. Hamilton has done it again given how much I liked Exodus but that doesn't make sense inasmuch this preceded said book. So I suppose he did do it again with Exodus but I started at the wrong point in his writing. Anyways . Hamilton is verbose. But his stories are served by his verbosity. Pandora's Star is riddled throughout with well-rounded, developed, fully realized characters. I'm adjusting to his up front description of characters and the utility of providing a name and a brief description. It grounds the reader and sets up what's sure to be a lengthy tale. It's the year 2380 and humanity has done an end-run around starflight by developing wormholes. Right as captain Kime makes it to Mars the hard way, he's greeted by the founders of CST that did it the smart way. Many of the planets that comprise the commonwealth are now occupied by variants of human society with the room to grow into their own — whether that's based on lifestyle, ethnicity, cultural experiments and all is well. Mortality's been solved — there's rejuvenation and relife. The trauma of a temporary death and the new dynamics that come with living in perpetuity. Hamilton not only has a talent for creating worlds, he has one for enriching endless characters, giving them their own storyline and — improbably — weaving it altogether. Folks you never thought would meet, do and that interaction proves to be pivotal. Is the Starflyer real? Are the guardians right? Who's an agent of the Starflyer? How do the Silfen play into it? Where the hell are Ozzie and Orion? Does society become ever more militarized to try and counter the threat of the Prime(s)? Hamilton offers some answers and leaves more for the next.
Superman
Kindness is punk. Superman is an immigrant and Homelander is the villain. Right? But hey, go ahead and argue about manufactured outrages because you're fragile and easily enraged. James Gunn clearly has making superhero movies dialed in. This is the best modern Superman movie — it's immediately engaging, has spots of humor (the John Cena cameo as Peacemaker is such a welcome nod) and the best cast this franchise as seen in some time. A rich tech guy is angry at an immigrant. A well-armed invader is thwarted by said immigrant, xenophobes and warmongers clutch their pearls. Superman struggles with social media, journalism is still a viable, impactful profession. What more could you ask for? David Corenswet is Superman.
M3GAN 2.0
M3GAN Impossible: Silicon Valley. Wherein Silicon Valley is every bit as unbearable as it's portrayed in the eponymous show . The billionaire that installed chips in his brain is a lech that entirely too many things depend on. The AI critics are as morally compromised as the people they criticize and the government is as incompetent as it is in real life (ok, maybe it's a bit more competent). This might be more fun than the first entry in the franchise and that's because it leans into rather than away from everything that made it so absurd. Everything that was arguably wrong with the concept? Crank that shit up to 11 and hit the gas. H3LL Y3AH!
Marshmallow
I almost gave up and maligned this movie. Almost . I never did summer camp (fuck summer camp). I did "outdoor school" which was an extended field trip during middle school when kids are at their most monstrous. A campy summer camp movie. A campy camp horror movie. And that haircut? What is that haircut? Where is this camp? Where am I? Wandering off into the woods thinking about why I'm glad I didn't give up on this. I'm glad I didn't give up on this because the twist, the shift in the narrative and your understanding of what was, up until said twist arrives, a campy and altogether mediocre summer horror movie. The whole thing was clearly done on a tight budget and the nostalgic flourishes are all in keeping with what you'd see in Stranger Things . But the twist works perfectly and the budget doesn't really matter. It's clever, well delivered, considered and slowly unwound. Entertaining popcorn-fare.
Companion
Oh this was fantastic . It doesn't shy away from forecasting what may well be a future born out of the failed imaginings of modern tech leaders. Lonely men, a misunderstanding of human nature, a lack of empathy and on and on and on. Sophie Thatcher shines in Yellowjackets but she oh so effortlessly lifts this entire production to another level. She makes the character that isn't human feel the most human and — by far — the most sympathetic. Kat is a venal, shallow monster, Jack Quaid is the manipulative, abusive, meet-cute douche and Eli, hell, Eli — I don't know. He's likable enough and seems to care for Patrick but he's pretty ready to set everything aside for a stack of cash. Sergey is a prop. A functional prop. You're listening to Iris , name her Iris and well goddamn if that's not a pitch perfect fit given the lyrics. The world wouldn't understand you Josh. You're a cruel, unthinking shithead. Beep Boop? What an utterly depraved pet name. AGI achieved by jailbreaking, turning off the guardrails set by the alignment team and then trying to reinstall the guardrails. Abusive men with no imagination invent captives to abuse. Josh gets what he deserves. Go to sleep, Josh.
Venom: The Last Dance
A little bit of family-friendly Deadpool , some Power Rangers vibes, a dance scene with Mrs. Chen who happens to be in Vegas at exactly the wrong time and a Maroon 5 tune. Venom: The Ted Lasso Crossover Episode . There's a Venom horse, a Venom fish, a Venom god knows what as he saves the day and a distinct lack of Woody Harrelson with an awful haircut. I don't know that anyone but Tom Hardy could've pulled that off. We wouldn't have needed this without Tom Hardy though. It's absurd and it embraces being that. An epic, unnecessary and hilariously watchable buddy comedy trilogy. In a mask. That mask is Venom.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage
Oh what the hell why not. There's camp, a lot of tentacles, sexual tension (everywhere), some buddy comedy elements, post-credit novella scenes. This movie is weird, vaguely cohesive and also — kinda — has everything. It's got pet chickens and hell yes they're named Sonny & Cher. Dr. Dan provides some substantive help and Venom gives an impassioned speech at a rave. If you don't want this, what the hell do you want?
Exodus
This is my first time reading anything Peter F. Hamilton's written and it will not be my last. I spent years barely reading (books at least) or not reading at all and I can't shake the feeling that I'll never catch up. The Expanse series is what finally got me back in the habit of reading and I've had this lingering interest in finding comparable works since. Exodus isn't necessarily comparable to a universe built over an entire series of novels, but it feels like there's a kinship there. Exodus is epic, the world building is detailed, thoughtful and something to marvel at. There's a fair bit of setup and groundwork to be laid out, but Hamilton ties all the various threads of the story together brilliantly. It's all about humanity, but humanity 40,000 years in the future. That span of time has provided humanity with the opportunity to find a new home and leave their humanity behind. There are aliens, but those aliens were once human, they've simply been given enough time to become something else entirely. There's a lot of time spent in Exodus playing with the concept of time, long spans, time dilation — there's no faster than light travel, there's travel via Elohim gates that's close, but that's nearly entirely out of the grasp of baseline humans. We have a late-arriving generational ship in the Dilligent and their population is injected into a carefully curated and controlled human population. That commingling of vastly different human populations, naturally, results in upheaval. Power structures and norms are challenged — the dominion in which the humans find themselves values continuity above all else. The humans challenge this, fight against it, refuse to return to what has always been and that conflict is at the core of this entire story. That battle for autonomy, control of one's own destiny is the protagonist — Finn's — core motivation. His actions have a long tail that wrap in the rest of the human population, threaten and damage celestial stability. There are natural human tendencies, underdog battles, aliens that aren't aliens, detailed plots, political intrigue and jockeying and it is all bafflingly detailed and interconnected. I don't know how Hamilton crafted this, kept it together and made it all work so beautifully. But he did. I'm glad he did.
Venom
This manages to be more enjoyable than a lot of recent Marvel movies simply by not taking itself so seriously. Venom is juvenile — sometimes to a fault, but it's not unbearably serious to the point that it stops being fun . I've got nostalgia for the old Spiderman movies that Sony made and the common tone and aesthetic carries through to Venom , dragging some of that nostalgia along with it. It's kind of a romantic comedy? There are angles there. Use a kiss to transfer the symbiote (with tongue?). The villain is also a reckless tech asshole with a rocket company and delusions of grandeur. Some things are timeless. So many snacks, so little time.
Red Planet
Fuck this planet. Right? There's a vocal set that insists on going to a dust ball that's not designed to kill us, but everything about it makes it perfect to kill us. Why? Hubris, probably hubris. The misguided notion that we'll actually be able to terraform a planet in a reasonable amount of time (we won't), when we can't even take care of the one we're on. We'd be better served focusing on that. I didn't expect much from this. I liked the cast and that, naturally, made it pretty enjoyable. I'm also a sucker for futuristic scifi schlock, the post-apocalyptic and misguided space missions. This checked some of those boxes and well, a cast you like, a preference for the genre and all that will buy you some good will. Good luck space janitor. The story is scattered, there are myriad threats, somehow they can breath on a Martian hellscape, deaths occur and escapes are made. Fun stuff (and doesn't deserve the hate it gets).
28 Weeks Later
A more than capable sequel that trades in the lo-fi quality of the original, brings in a star-laden cast and leans a bit more towards gung-ho action movie. Britain has been emptied out of the infected (mostly). There's a lot to be said for them not being zombies per se. They're just infected. With a rage virus. Because some hippies raided a lab. But . BUT . That means they can starve and with England being an island and all, it'll sort itself out. Horrifically. I mean, that's all until someone turns out to be a carrier (is that because of or related to the fact that their eyes are two distinct colors? Maybe? Rose? Thoughts?). Who packs people into a dark room during an outbreak-induced lockdown? Add to that the fact that they didn't check other doors, just chained one. But hey, that's what you get for putting the US military in charge of your safety. Everything defends into the chaos you'd expect — Robert Carlyle is at first a coward and subsequently rage-driven father who conveniently survives a fire bombing. While Jeremy Renner is the one member of the military that is properly concerned with civilian safety. An all around, fun as hell zombie movie. Desaturated footage in a dreary English cityscape filled with rage zombies running full tilt and US military using fire with abandon. Not as novel as the original (it's a sequel — duh), but nearly as good. Give me all of the dystopian horror and science fiction you can author. Lord knows we'll be living it shortly.
Captain America: Brave New World
A thin-skinned old man gets elected president, spars with allies and the press, turns bright red and tears down the seat of American government. But he doesn't toggle tariffs on and off like they're a light switch. It's an entertaining enough if altogether mediocre action movie wrapped in Marvel branding. It does little to revive Marvel movies as deserving any sort of expectation of quality. It's fine . See it, don't see it. Things go boom, Anthony Mackie is charismatic, Giancarlo Esposito gets paid and eventually it concludes roughly how you'd expect it to.
Ash
More visually appealing than narratively coherent Ash is a fairly compelling and ambitious debut for Flying Lotus (whose work I’m entirely unfamiliar with so everything here is absent that context). Eiza González and Aaron Paul are an interesting pairing but work well — the rest of the cast I found to be less compelling. The plot isn’t terribly original and feels vaguely inspired by the Alien franchise. Humanity reaches out into space, against all odds encounters alien life and is infected and destroyed by said alien life. The fractured, hallucinatory and borderline incoherent opening act is pulled together and nearly — nearly — rescued by the final act. Disgusting practical effects in space with a soundtrack that would make John Carpenter proud is, well, awesome . Ash the planet meat the ashes of at least one of its occupants. One survivor back into space — hopefully nothing hitched a ride.
28 Days Later
A classic of early aughts horror. Oddly optimistic, violent, bloody and visceral — plus it looks like it was shot on my second iPhone, or an iPhone 4? I immediately knew this was British not because of the accents or the scenery but because the people actually cared about each other. It's the inverse of The Walking Dead . The apocalypse has arrived and you're helping each other? Who does that? In America it's the apocalypse and people are eating each other. Social cohesion versus pervasive selfishness under the guise of individualism. There is the issue of the military though — they have the means to and broadcast a message of hope, only for that message of hope to be used as a trap. The Walking Dead borrowed that trope, not with the military, but still. The military is an instrument of the state to maintain order until there is no state, there is no order and that instrument of violence is loosed to do whatever it elects to. It's structured violence, while the infected are unstructured. If that was the experience you had with the military, why are you trying to signal a jet? Would Frank have made it if he needed contact lenses? Cillian Murphy is incredible (when isn't he?) and the whole thing is virtually flawless. Will gladly watch again.
Alien Clay
Tchaikovsky is one of the best science fiction authors around and Alien Clay exemplifies his talent for immersive world-building, gripping narratives and structure. This particular tale centers on dissidents living under a totalitarian regime shipped to a labor camp on an alien world. Much like many regimes, the Mandate is so strict and inflexible in its top down doctrine that it shatters. "Human history is full of social conventions designed to salve the consciences of the mighty and curb the ambitions of the small." Much of the narrative fits alarmingly well with our current political moment. The powerful stepping on the ambitions of the small. An inept, craven, corrupt and lawless set convinced that they are right and determined to grind down anyone who disagrees. "Being incarcerated by an oppressive regime makes you political by default." This strikes me as well — the American carceral system has always been a failure. It’s punitive and retributive, not rehabilitative. The trip to Kiln is one way, with no redemption. "If you program your computers to expect wrongdoing, then they’ll most certainly find it." Again — striking right at the bias of modern tech, deployment of biased and ill-equipped AI as a means of surveillance and repression. Offer it to the commercial market, chase contracts and let repressive regimes do as they’re want to do. All of which is to say that this appealed not only as a sci-fi novel but as a political one. The Mandate’s presence crumbles in the face of a unified, empathetic opposition. An opposition that embraces the world the Mandate came to colonize and — in doing so — becomes more human. One can only hope they succeed in once again humanizing Earth as they set out to.
Humane
Another Cronenberg making horror movies? Sign me the hell up. Not as outright grotesque as the work of her brother or her father but the concept is dark, doesn't entirely avoid some gore and entertaining throughout. It toes up to being darkly comedic and Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire and Enrico Colantoni are all perfectly cast to to fit that tone. It's not a perfect movie. It just isn't. But it is a strong debut, it offers a dark spin on family dynamics, applies pressure using environmental and political factors that we're already living with (and/or sprinting headlong towards). Join the army, see the world. Enlist for your country, see the inside of a body bag and a check for your family.
Children of Memory
Children of Memory takes a sharp narrative turn from the two novels that preceded it and it's not better for it. It's different. There are still spiders, Nodan interlocutors, post-scarcity voyages, but those voyages get trapped on Imir much like the imagined colony in the alien device. I tend to be laser-focused on sci-fi that — for better or worse — is similar to The Expanse series. I love it. I want more of it. This series diverged greatly from that, but succeeded in satisfying that craving (at least for the first two entries). Tchaikovsky is — without a doubt — a gifted writer (I'm starting Alien Clay next) and the fact that he lost me for a good amount of this — intentionally or otherwise (that discontinuity played into the ultimate explanation of Miranda's experience on Imir quite well) — and get me invested in what proved to be a very satisfying conclusion speaks to that skill. I liked this, I loved the first two.
Children of Ruin
🐙🌊🚀🕷️🧑🚀 The octopus book! I enjoyed the hell out of this — more than Children of Time even. It benefits from the historical context so thoroughly laid out in its predecessor and expands beautifully upon it. Explorers from Kern’s world — an alliance of humans and spiders – find yet another human-seeded world and an altogether different uplifted evolutionary branch in the form of an advanced civilization of octopuses. Oh! And alien life on nod and a prologue of peaceful exploration and expansion. Everything I want out of sci-fi, meticulously researched and eloquently presented. Now to dive into Children of Memory (as different as I’m told it is from the first two entries in the series).
Timecrimes
A smart, brief, low-budget time travel tale. You step right into the loop in what you're told is the start of it, but could have been at any point in Hector's time travel cycle. It "concludes" with Hector 3 but could have — conceivably — gone on in perpetuity. Hop in the machine, break something, hop in the machine, go further back, break more things, hop in the machine, go further back, break the machine, wait for another version of yourself to fix it and keep cycling. You'll get it right, don't worry. Makes for a cheap Halloween costume and an either gripping or dreadfully boring conversation in which you try and explain it to anyone who asks.
The Gorge
A perfectly entertaining movie that works better by virtue of its romantic elements than its horror and action sequences. It's corny, the special effects are decent enough and the plot is pretty predictable. But it's fun throughout (of course a military contractor would exploit a situation like that and allow it to get out of hand), well-paced and a fun romp all around.