Reading/Watching in 2016, part 4

It turns out I saw three of the best picture nominees for this year’s Oscars: Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian and Spotlight.  Mad Max was one of only two movies I saw last year to which I gave five out of five stars.  I was surprised by how much I liked it, as I had not been too eager to watch a post-apocalyptic action flick.  I actually gave Spotlight half a star less than Mad Max, but I’m totally cool with it winning best picture, as I thought it was excellent.  It may deal with difficult subject matter, but it’s not a hard film to watch, much in the way that mystery movies are mostly not overly depressing, even though they often revolve around a murder.  Spotlight really is kind of a mystery movie, as these reporters follow leads and uncover clues that lead to the reveal of this massive scandal.   As I said when I first gave my thoughts on it, I was just so damn captivated watching the investigative journalism process at work.

Books:

The Long Utopia by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

After Terry Pratchett died, I couldn’t help wondering what would become of the series that he collaborated on with Stephen Baxter, which began four books ago with The Long Earth, which focuses on the discovery of an apparently endless string of parallel Earths, all devoid of human life.  I was very surprised when I discovered that this latest book had been published just a little over a month ago and that a fifth is due to be released in June.  I guess the two had enough time to finish or at least plan out the conclusion to the series before Pratchett’s death. 

They're a quick read and I personally like them well enough, but I'm not sure I could wholeheartedly recommend the Long Earth series.  I mean, they're okay, but not amazing.  They might be disappointing to someone who is a fan of Discworld and is expecting something similar.  They're more serious than the Discworld series, but I think they're also lighter and goofier than Stephen Baxter's usual work (his forte is hard sci-fi).  They may even be considered lighter reading than a lot of the Discworld books.   

 The idea of exploring alternate Earths holds basically the same appeal as travelling to other planets; that's mainly what grabbed me when I first picked up The Long Earth.  While some of the big ideas they've presented have been interesting, I can't help feeling that as the series has progressed, the authors have perhaps crammed in one or two too many disparate sci-fi concepts on top of the original premise.  The last book introduced super intelligent humans into the mix and then this latest one concerned an alien invasion of sorts.  I dunno, tackling those various topics is nothing Star Trek or Doctor Who or Stargate hasn't done, but in these books, it somehow feels a little tonally off to me, I guess.  Maybe some of these elements are just not woven together as well as they might be.

 I didn’t dislike this book, but it was probably my least favorite entry in the series so far.  Having come this far, I intend to read the next book, which I assume will be the last.  I hope it will wrap things up on a satisfactory note. 

Movies:

Mr. Brooks

Kevin Costner plays a pitiable serial killer.  On the surface, he’s a respectable member of the community, but he has this secret addiction to killing that he can’t fully control.  I saw that this got mixed reviews, but I found it pretty compelling.  My biggest complaint is that there’s no sequel. 

After watching the movie, I read that the original plan was to do a trilogy, and even though the movie did well at the box office, no sequels have materialized.  It’s not that I think the story necessarily feels “unfinished”; it stands up perfectly well on its own.  It does leave the viewer wondering what happened next, but sometimes stories are like that- they’re just meant to make you think and wonder, often with no intention of answering the questions for you. 

I just kind of wish that I hadn’t learned that the director and cast had talked about continuing the story, because if I didn’t know that, I’d still just be under the impression that the ending was meant to be somewhat open-ended and I’d be mostly content with that decision.   Now I’m a little disappointed and saddened that they never did make another movie or two.  The movie is nine years old at this point, but it doesn’t feel entirely too late to pick up where they left off.    Maybe reboot the story as a miniseries?  There are a lot of possibilities. 

Broken Flowers

This is the second Jim Jarmusch movie I’ve watched this year, after “Only Lovers Left Alive.”  I had another one of those “where the f*** has the time gone” shocks when I realized that this film was eleven years old.  I thought it just came out a few years ago, three, five, six, something like that- not over a decade.

Bill Murray is a mopey lothario who finds out from an anonymous letter that he might possibly have a grown son from a twenty year old relationship and is encouraged by his mystery-aficionado friend to track down his former flames from that time period to try to determine whether or not it’s true. 

Supposedly, Bill Murray considered retiring after “Broken Flowers” because he didn’t think he could top his performance.  I find that a little strange since he’s definitely not at his most dynamic in this movie.  In fact, he’s so understated most of the time, I thought he was rather dull.  Things don’t really start to get interesting until Murray begins his journey.  It’s categorized as a comedy/drama, but aside from some subtle stuff, I didn’t find it particularly hilarious.  I laughed a few times, though, like at the very end, and I enjoyed the movie overall.

The next paragraph is going to slightly spoil the movie, so skip ahead if you plan on watching it and would prefer to know as little as possible.  

Boy, talk about a movie with unanswered questions.  This is a mystery with no clear solution.  Some might find it frustrating, but frankly, I kind of like that.  It’s more interesting than when I thought I could predict how it was going to end.  A poster on the imdb boards describes this movie as a Rorschach test, which seems like a good way of describing it. 

 Colossus: The Forbin Project 

This sci-fi movie takes about forty minutes for anything very interesting to happen, but once things finally start moving, it’s pretty good.  Government scientists create a computer intended to be entirely in charge of America’s defense.  What could possibly go wrong?  Well, as soon as it’s activated, Colossus detects the presence of a Soviet computer built for the same purpose and pretty soon, both computers have merged to form one super intelligent A.I. with the goal of taking over the world, using our nuclear weapons in order to blackmail the human race into submission.  Kind of a frightening prospect. 

I have to wonder if putting control of our lives into the metaphorical hands of a machine would be all that bad, however.  After all, unlike Terminator’s Skynet, Colossus’ main objective is to prevent war and ensure the survival of the human race.  Sadly, the longer I live, the less faith I have in humanity to not lead itself to utter ruin.  The ruthlessness with which Colossus carries out its agenda and punishes those who defy its will is quite chilling.  On the other hand, I’d still feel safer with a cold, logical machine running the show than President Trump.

The Martian

There’s a movie called “Robinson Crusoe on Mars,” which I’ve never seen, but I’m willing to bet that this is far more scientifically accurate.  In this film, Matt Damon is the marooned astronaut, in case you were unaware.  It’s nice to see intelligent sci-fi like this getting made.  This movie couldn’t help but make me reflect on some of my own inadequacies, though. 

For one thing, if I’d been Matt Damon, I would have died alone on that planet long before help could have arrived.  Even if I’d been one of the other astronauts who left him behind, I might have been wishing NASA had installed escape pods in the spacecraft rather than volunteering to basically double the length of the mission to go back for the guy we’d left behind. 

There’s a line in the movie: “Every human being has a basic instinct: to help each other out.”  I’m not saying I lack that instinct, but I’m such a mess, I don’t know how I can be expected to help other people when I can’t even help myself.

I have the opposite problem with this movie that I have with Colossus: The Forbin Project.  Colossus takes a long time for the plot to really start moving.  Meanwhile, I think Damon gets stranded on Mars within the first ten minutes, which is not really enough time to learn much about these people.  Even though The Martian is over two hours long, not much of that runtime is really devoted to getting to know these characters; it’s all about how he survives and how NASA is working to rescue him.  We never even get to see Matt Damon’s character’s parents or anyone back on Earth that he’s close to.