I held off reading this for the longest time because I didn’t like the first one all that much and I’d heard that the English translation, by Joel Martinsen this time instead of Ken Liu, was kind of weak. Still I kept running across references to it such as how even Barack Obama is a big fan and went to meet author Liu Cixin. I also realized that even in the English-speaking world, big idea science-fiction novels are rather rare and this is nothing if not all about big ideas.
I usually don’t write about television shows here but I think I might have to start doing so as they are becoming increasingly sophisticated and have more artistic merit than many films. The Expanse is a great example, being an impressively well produced adaptation of the novels James S.A. Corey. So far we’ve watched the first two seasons and while they are very far from being perfect, I found it surprising that something this good exists for television.
We went to the cinema to watch this only because we had nothing better to do during Chinese New Year and Alita: Battle Angel has an atrocious rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I also realized we’ve now watched all three films of the trilogy in the cinema, quite a rarity for any film series really, without consciously intending to do so.
I’ve played every Grand Theft Auto game since Vice City and I fully intended to play this one. However it took a while for this to be brought to the PC and even longer for it to be discounted. That delay worked just as well for me because there was no way I was buying a high-end system just to play it. Even today, this is probably the most demanding game I have and it’s still gorgeous while also subject to the occasional slowdown. Hard to believe this game was first released all the way back in 2013.
Here’s another adaptation of a very famous novel which I’ve never read. The novel entered the limelight again a few years ago due to the publication of a supposed sequel that is now more widely regarded as a first draft. This adaptation was widely acclaimed upon its release and is clearly definitive as no one has since tried remaking it.
It’s been a while since we last watched a film by Zhang Yimou especially since we skipped the badly reviewed The Great Wall. I had no great expectations for this, thinking that it should at least be beautiful. The visuals however turned out to be somewhat restrained being more focused on character-driven conflict and though the results are predictably, it’s not as bad as I feared.
BlackKKlansman is better known and is already on my list though I have yet to watch it. I did not realize that this film, made by Boots Riley who is mostly known as a musician, shares such similar themes with it. But then after a while I realized that this isn’t about white-black racism at all, even if it seems so initially, but really about criticizing capitalism.
