A film that includes ‘invisible hand’ in the title is sure to at least aspire to be economically literate and that’s so rare that it’s a must watch for me. The premise is one that I’ve never seen before either. Earth has effectively been conquered by an alien civilization, but through economic, not military means. I have quibbles over exactly how well the aliens are meant to understand human psychology and culture but on the whole I’m very pleased by how this turned out. It has only middling reviews however, leading me to suspect that critics aren’t happy with its very depressing outlook for humanity or don’t understand the economic thinking it is trying to distil.
I loved Cultist Simulator so when I saw another developer taking the same mechanics and apply them to the life of an artist, I knew I just had to buy it. This is a much more modestly sized and consequently shorter game however. Like its inspiration, this is quite a handful at first as your fledgling artist must grapple with poverty and mental illness. But once you understand the basic loop, you only have to search for a victory condition and go straight towards it. It’s not actually very difficult but there’s much more randomness than in Cultist Simulator and once you achieve one, there’s not much difference in going for another victory type so I doubt this has much replay value. Still, I love its theme and I want to reward developers who make quirky games like this.
This should be the last film we have to watch by Andrei Tarkovsky and good thing too because my wife isn’t eager for any more of his work. It’s probably the most autobiographical of his films and even features his wife Larisa Tarkovskaya and his mother Maria Vishnyakova in supporting roles. One can tell how much of himself he put into it and how intense his feelings are. Yet there’s effectively no plot, no biographic details of his real life and hence nothing solid to hang the emotions on. To us, most of it is just incomprehensible and that goes even for dedicated fans and critics.
Like everyone else I loved Breaking Bad but the quick development of this prequel series rather turned me off so I never intended to watch it. When it finally ended after six seasons however, the consensus seemed to be that it’s actually a worthy show in its own right. I thought I’d give the first season at least a shot and so far we’re down for more of it. It’s a lot funnier than we thought it would be and though it lacks the wow factor of drug dealing, the firm focus on legal work keeps it intelligent and interesting.
For something a little different, this month I’ve been reading this bestselling non-fiction book about health and longevity. This book has made enough of an impact that it’s doing the rounds within the rationalist community that I frequent and my wife has been obsessed with health and fitness lately so I thought I should read this myself. It has won major kudos for being scientifically rigorous and up to date and indeed the back of the book is crammed with references. It’s probably possible to read up on all this for free elsewhere but it is valuable to have all this knowledge compiled in one place. As the book itself states however, its aim is to equip the reader with the knowledge and the tools needed to make meaningful health decisions, but as there can be no single plan that works for everyone, this book may disappoint those looking for an easily actionable list of things to do. Indeed if you’re someone in generally good health and already getting all of the fundamentals right, this book remains interesting but it doesn’t all that much.
This is officially the very first Studio Ghibli so it makes for a nice circle to complete our tour of their filmography with it. Unfortunately this is also one of their weakest ones. The early part of the film is downright boring, with violence that carries no weight and no clear theme apart from Hayao Miyazaki’s characteristic love of all flying things. Things improve once the characters actually reach Laputa and the film falls in the more familiar pattern that later Ghibli films would solidify. Still it’s never great and I hate how Sheeta is a passive princess character who keeps needing rescue.
Chantal Akerman’s reputation made a huge leap a couple of years ago when her Jeanne Dielman shot to the top of the polls of the greatest films of all time. As I’ve never seen any of her work, I thought I’d opt for a gentler introduction to her style with what is ostensibly a documentary about New York from the perspective of a Frenchwoman. It still isn’t an easy watch at all as there is no structure and the only dialogue is the reading of letters from the director’s home in France. I kind of just let both the images and the words of the letters wash over as there is nothing concrete to hold on to. It was fascinating see the New York of the era and emotions of the director’s mother comes through strongly, but I still had a hard time being fully engaged with it.
