This is such an iconic film that not having watched it would be embarrassing to any serious cinephile. I always suspected that I wouldn’t like it and this is notable mostly because of it was a pioneer in so many filmmaking techniques. This was indeed largely the case as the film reads as being too obviously propaganda to me to have any emotional effect. I suppose it is impressive in being able to muster such large crowds for huge scenes, no CGI crowds back then, and it’s cool to see the Soviet-era battleships up close like this. But even the much vaunted Odessa Steps scene felt like nothing special to me because its lessons have been so thoroughly absorbed by other filmmakers already.
I do so love the films of Kelly Reichardt and though this one is set in Montana instead of Oregon as with most of her work, it’s not any less good. This consists of three individual stories of different women, adapted from short stories by Maile Meloy. As always, there is so much depth and understated emotion in the characters, different as they each are, through the landscape of Montana adds an element of isolation to all of them. Without being able to focus on one specific protagonist here, the emotional impact is more muted than something like Old Joy but every story is strong and enjoyable.
2023 seems to be a pretty good year for Malaysian films with a string of releases that are, if not great, at least interesting. This one was fully crowdfunded and then released for free on YouTube, allowing it ignore government censorship concerns. It’s effectively a dystopian action thriller that pushes racial segregation to its most extreme. It’s clever in how its appropriates the word ‘Pendatang’ and it slyly critiques how racism is manufactured by elites for their personal gain. I was disappointed however in that it’s not that well made and its scenario is really more about life under a totalitarian police state than about racism. It’s a valiant effort but it doesn’t really say much about life in modern day Malaysia.
I loved Slay the Spire, so it was only a matter of time before I got around to playing this deckbuilder game that was clearly inspired by it. It flips the theme around so you’re playing as the forces of hell fighting against good but the story hardly matters in a game like this. It modifies the formula so that you’re deploying monsters to defend a number of distinct battlefields for example. On the whole, it’s very similar however so those who loved Slay the Spire should love this as well. I’d say that the design here isn’t quite as elegant as its inspiration and it’s also a more forgiving game. Yet combined with its better production values, I found myself playing this a lot more than I’d expected.
At over seven hours long, this is by far the longest film we’ve watched. Even staggering it out over the course of a week, experiencing it in its entirety was quite a trial especially as it is an artistic film that isn’t always easy to understand and is entirely in black and white. I added this to my list because Béla Tarr is perhaps Hungary’s greatest director and this title often named among the greatest films ever made. The themes of desolation and hopelessness are obvious but it’s hard for someone unfamiliar with Hungary to place the circumstances under which the story takes place. I will say that this is easily one of the most pessimistic films I’ve ever encountered and it really is unique. Sitting through seven hours is still a big ask though.
Ken Liu is unfortunately better known for his translations of Chinese science-fiction into English but he does write stories of his own. I regret to say that I haven’t read them myself but given his reputation, I was eager to find out what a television series based on his stories would be like. I am pleased to report that the series, casting uploaded human intelligences as gods, is utterly fantastic. The technical details are reasonably plausible, it’s appropriately global in scope and best of all, every character acts rationally in pursuit of their goals according to their individual psychologies. It’s such a perfectly conceived and executed project that I have a hard time understanding how it ever got made.
Going through the greatest classics of science-fiction proves to be as rewarding as ever and this one even features dogs! For a person who loves dogs as much as I do, this is very appealing! This book brings together a series of short stories originally published between 1944 and 1951 about a world in which human civilization has fallen and humanity is remembered only by their heirs, the dogs. Each story is accompanied by a foreword that helps connect the whole. The work is very much a product of its time. Author Clifford Simak’s guesses about the implications of technological development feel mistaken to us and the obsession about psionic powers isn’t something that shows up in modern science-fiction any longer. Even so as an exercise of pure imagination to remind us that mankind may not necessarily be the inheritors of some far future Earth, I’d rate this as a masterful and emotionally affecting work.
