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.
I was a big fan of the first film and really wanted to catch this in the cinemas but was just too busy at the time. In the end, catching this on Netflix might have been wiser after all as this film is just too long and keeping up with its frenetic pace with so many characters and the dynamic changes of art style is quite exhausting. It does look great but it’s too overwhelming even for me. I was let down too by stale story beats like playing up Miles Morales being too busy as Spider-Man to attend to his real life or being forced to sacrifice the few to save the many. That said, it does have some decent character building moments as well so the verdict is kind of mixed. It definitely isn’t as good as the first film to me but I’ll still be looking out for the last part of what now looks like a trilogy.
It would probably be unwise to take Hayao Miyazaki at his word that this will be his final film and I’m not terribly fond of the quality of his later ones anyhow. Still, it would only be fair to watch at least one of his films properly in the cinema and so here we are. This one does finally feature a boy as the protagonist and apparently that’s because it’s semi-autobiographical. It also starts strongly with a firm grounding in reality but eventually veers off into the most fantastical and dream-like of Miyazaki’s worlds yet. There are all kinds of possible interpretations but none are terribly solid or boldly stated enough and so this is again mostly an exercise in pure imagination.
David Fincher’s latest thriller is streaming on Netflix and while it’s as slick as his other films, it hasn’t made much of a splash and feels a little pointless. As its tagline suggests, it amounts to being competence porn and while it does start with the protagonist making a mistake, it only goes to show that even the most skilled and well prepared of professionals are subject to the vagaries of random chance. It’s a very satisfying procedural to watch as it shows every detail of the work of a professional hitman. But it’s not saying anything that is interesting and its subtext, that in the end, it’s the rich, white dudes who get to life, makes for a sour conclusion however true to life it may be.
Genshin Impact has been out for a few years now and though I have little interest in it, its cultural influence has been undeniable. It’s crazy how the AI chat sites are full of characters made by kids from this game. It’s also fascinating that this a China made game but seems to be trying very hard to come across as Japanese instead. They’ve calibrated its appeal very precisely to sell it to the worldwide market. Since it’s famously free to play, I thought I’d at least try it out briefly just in order to be able to understand what it’s all about.
My wife insisted that we catch this in the cinemas and indeed it seemed like a good idea to support an artsy Malaysian film that’s enough good to win plaudits internationally. Indeed I really like how this is mostly set in Pudu, Kuala Lumpur and seemed to feature the lack of official identity documents in Malaysia as its driving theme. It’s the feature film debut of Lay Jin Ong who also wrote the script. However he was also a producer for Shuttle Life, film that I excoriated some time ago. This is far better than Shuttle Life but it falls into the same trap of being too old-fashioned where it counts and operates according to the principle that misery equals high art. Worst of all, it pulls a bait and switch in that it’s actually not at all about migrants in Malaysia nor the lack of identity papers.
This is only the second Senegalese film to be featured here but it’s an old one, contemporaneous with the French New Wave in fact and so shows its influence. However it’s also distinctly African in its sensibilities which at times can make it difficult to decipher. Confusing as it is sometimes, I’m very pleased that it actually does have a plot and even if I can’t understand everything, I found the parts that I could understand absolutely hilarious and entertaining. At the same time, it offers a very satisfying portrait of what Senegal was like in that era, from the poorest to the very richest echelons of society. Just a fantastic film all around.
