Watching

 

Last night I watched the first episode of Foundation from AppleTV.

And…

It. Was. Bad.

The Foundation TV show veers so far from books and Asimov’s vision that it is an entirely different story with minor elements that are similar, e.g. character names and buzzwordy concepts. But other than those similarities it bears little in common. And whilst the writers and all the visionaries of the TV show are quite talented, it takes their entire team to be even a modicum as good as Asimov was at the height of his skills. Foundation ranks right up there with John Carpenter of Mars as yet another bad execution.

Almost every SF book and fantasy book that I have adored and loved over the years that has been adapted to a film or TV show, with the exception of one or two, has just been dreadful. I suspect I will check out the next couple episodes, to see if it gets better, but I’m kinda predisposed to doubting that.

Wow! This was bad.

I am at a loss for words. The film has an apocalyptic”grey goo” scenario in it, and Keanu Reeves as an actor has vastly improved in the past 13 years, but he was wooden in this, and honestly, I don’t think his acting is all that bad, I really think the director just gave him shitty direction.

“See that door Keanu? Be the door! Be the door Keanu!”

I feel sorry for Reeves, in a way, to have to turn in this performance.

All the military/intelligence personnel were war-mongering crackpots and jackasses whose solution to every problem was to shoot it.

And Jaden’s character was simply annoying. Most children in adult films are annoying, but the writers & director just used Jaden’s character to move the story along when they ran out of ideas of how to move the story along.

This remake is not a patch on the original 1951 release.

 

It was fun in a run of the mill kind of way.

It was what Ready Player One! should have been.

Free Guy used a lot of recognizable gaming tropes from one aspect that were kind of funny but there was also a lot of “meh, old news” tropes and jokes that just went wide. Maybe if you haven’t ever seen a single gamer oriented movie with in-jokes before they might be kinda funny.

Film was obviously made for a young audience.

You want to know the biggest issue I had with the entire movie? When the villain is destroying the servers at the end. Totally broke suspension of disbelief.

1) You aren’t going to put your servers in your building.

2) They won’t be on the ground floor

3) Redundant servers? Hello? Even without sharding the most basic server architecture wouldn’t work how it was depicted. Or shut down in the way depicted either.

Yeah, I know, my brain can put aside all the other fantastical elements of the film but I get hung up on the server architecture and the server installation.

And yeah, I know main villain took a fireaxe to the computers, but they don’t spark like that when you hit them. They’d probably just keep on trucking.

Frankly I would have just started yanking network cables rather than the dramatic show of violent frustration.

Additional thought: If you watched the trailer, you’ve watched the movie.

Today I watched “From Bedrooms to Billions – The Amiga Years”

Just got done watching this documentary, and apart from the bad 80’s rock music celebrating a product, it was a fun run through my youthful memories and the changing games industry.

During those years Peter Molyneux was one of my game design heroes. Wish I had gotten the opportunity to work with him during that period.

 

Today I watched “Chaplin”

 

Today I watched “Life of Pi”

I know they are CGI and I know it’s only a film, but I cried for the poor animals on the boat.

“What about the humans Justin?”

There were humans?

Today I watched John Carter.

Swashbuckling tale sort of tangentially related to the book.

Not quite a “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” re-write but enough to confuse the hell out of me after a 30 year span from when I first read the novel.

Today I watched “Lawrence of Arabia”

A classic that I never got around to watching in all the years. How weird is that?

 

Today I watched “Moneyball”

Interesting. A few emotional moments. I don’t even like baseball. But I found the story of Moneyball fascninating

I am not holding out much hope for this film.

Update: It was as bad as I thought it was going to be. Actually. It was worse. It was like a very long, quite boring trailer for a new expansion.

P.S. I love World of Warcraft (the game) and the RTS games.

Today I watched “Kung Fu Panda 3”

I think this series of films is starting to get very tired. It started out as a parody and cliché, now it has become a parody and a cliché of itself.

Today I watched “The Machine”

Didn’t know this was shot in Wales until I sat down to watch it. Whilst it has a reasonably good grounding in technology, the story just feels like a regular run-of-the-mill military technology programme abusing people and then ultimately the military losing control. It was rather “Hollywood predictable” and derivative of most stories like this.

 

Today I watched “Tai Chi Master”

Rather predictable chopsocky with a young-ish Jet Li. Nothing to write home about.

Today I watched “Mr Holmes”

Interesting tale of a (fictional) person of staggering intellect and observational skills in their declining years. I found it very moving on several levels.

 

Today I watched “Minions”

Fun. Milking that franchise for all it is worth.

Today I watched “Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead”

The usual entrepreneurial marketing gimmick. “Buy my weight loss programme.” The usual hyperbolic, faddish silliness that the “enlightened” will lap up until they go on to their next fad.

Today I watched “13 Assassins”

Stylistically violent period film. Incredible story driven narrative that provides another level beyond just lots of grotesque sword play, maiming and dismemberment. Several shocking scenes.

Today I watched “Sabotage”

It was… predictably bad. Classic 19080’s Schwarzenegger though.

Today I watched “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi”

Stylised Japanese sword drama. Entertaining. Some tense dramatic moments but mostly lighthearted throughout.

Today I watched “Lilo & Stitch”

Today I watched “Hot Fuzz”

Some funny bits. Some crap bits. Shame. Shame.

Today I watched “Kings of Pastry”

A business acquaintance recommended it to me. I don’t normally watch “competition” cooking shows/documentaries because I learn nothing, but this was quite interesting.

Today I watched “The Emperor’s New Groove”

Today I watched “Leon: The Professional”

Today I watched “Carry on Cleo”

Classic. But you kind of have to be a) British and b) 12-yrs old to really appreciate these films.

Today I watched “Skyfall”

One of the better bonds of recent years. And Bond has lost a lot of the smarm.

Today I watched “Snowpiercer”

The French novel was better. Interesting premise. So long as you completely ignore the ridiculousness of the premise it’s a ripping yarn over social hierarchy. Conclusion was a bit “meh.”

Today I watched “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters”

Wow! This was bad. Not scary. Bits of it were “eew, gross, do you mind, I’m eating.”

Today I watched “Mr Peabody & Sherman”

Today I watched “Chinese Zodiac”

Jackie Chan keeps giving the character he portrays on-screen, Jackie Chan, more toys that only Jackie Chan could have. Or something. Chan has become a parody of himself and it has gotten boring. I used to lap these films up, now I cannot stand to watch his later work as he just tries too hard.

Today I watched “Disney’s Tarzan”

 

Today I watched “The Four”

Predictable over-acted, too much wire-work chopsocky film with no redeeming merit.

Today I watched “Mulan”

 

Today I watched “Harlock: Spare Pirate”

Kind of fun actually.

Today I watched “In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale”

Predictably bad. Predictably generic. Predictable. Like every 1980’s swords-and-sorcery film I ever watched when I was playing D&D.

Today I watched “The Fox and the Hound”

Classic of course. Never got to see it during the cinema release the first time around when I was a kid. Not as sad as I thought it was going to be. For a Disney movie a rather flop ending though.

Today I watched “Mr. Nobody”

Slow, uninspiring, convoluted story that doesn’t really go anywhere and has a completely unsatisfactory ending. Not an ending where you go “yes? yes? And? And then what?”. It’s the kind of ending where you’re just not fucking interested. “More like thank fuck that’s over with.”

Today I watched “Jobs”

Interesting (if not strictly truthful) bio-pic.

It’s hard to watch someone portray someone who you knew as a friend.

Today I watched “In a World…”

Not funny.

At all.

For people who are supposed to be professional voice actors at the peak of their game you’d think they could deliver a line that didn’t sound like it was made out of solid oak with inlaid mahogany.

Stiff.

Wooden.

Flat.

Boring.

I practiced on my guitar through the entire movie completely disinterested in what was happening to any of the characters.

Basically it’s a film about some chick wishing she had a deeper or voice or something.

Whatever.

Seriously.

What-fucking-ever.

Today I watched “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”

Today I watched “Stardust”

Today I watched “Curse of the Dragon Slayer”

Today I watched “Star Trek Into Darkness”

Today I watched “The Returned”

Today I watched “World War Z”

Today I watched “Tiny: A Story About Living Small”

Today I watched “Trollhunter”

Today I watched “Robin Hood”

Today I watched “The Hunger Games”

Today I watched “The Touch”