Archives for 2015
Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse – Ch 5
We bid farewell to Apollo, prophetic dreams return, and Dionysus is still a jerkwad. That’s right, it’s time for the fifth part of Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse, a.k.a….
I Place an Underwater Phone Call
Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse – Ch 4
And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Or the moment I’ve all been waiting for. (That’s right, I’ve been waiting for this so long that I’ve become plural! Can you handle us right now?) Apollo finally shows up in the fourth chapter of Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse, a.k.a…
Thalia Torches New England
As a Seahawks fan, I can get behind this title. [Read more…]
To tide you over…
Hi everyone! For those of you waiting for the next Percy Jackson entry or Farscape rewatch, please know that they’re coming! The Great Laptop Implosion last week wiped out what I had for the next chapter and the next two episodes, and having to re-do what I’d already done is never as much fun. (I make notes in Word on my laptop as I read/watch, then I go from there to actually write the post, only moving things online in the final stage.)
The rest of my last few days have been taken up with other things such as seeing/reviewing Ex Machina, writing more of A Dragon at the Gate, a guest post for another website (I’ll tell you about that when it’s live) and taking part in a podcast about mythology. Oh, and I also did some laundry and went to Costco. Are you not FASCINATED?! 😉
But I do have something quick to amuse you. Earlier today I was out in one of my writing haunts when I looked out the window at the outside table that I was sitting next to and saw this little AT-AT doing a bit of writing of its own…
Movie Review: Ex Machina
A few weeks back I made a quick post about Ex Machina, a sci-fi film written and directed by Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine, Dredd), declaring my interest after seeing the trailer. It’s still in limited release here in the United States, but tonight I got the lucky chance to see a free screening here in downtown Seattle attended by Garland himself.
After a young programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a company lottery to spend a week at the secluded home of CEO and tech genius billionaire Nathan (Oscar Isaac), Nathan asks him to spend that week performing the Turing Test on the android Ava (Alicia Vikander) to determine whether she possesses true artificial intelligence. Isolated with a technological marvel and an intimidating eccentric monitoring his every moment, Caleb’s Turing Test swiftly enters uncomfortable territory.
Ex Machina is an excellent, thought-provoking, science fiction film that intrigues its audience as much with its atmosphere as with its ideas. From the beginning, through both the secluded setting and the subtle, unsettling undertones of Isaac’s portrayal of Nathan, an undercurrent of creepiness pervades the film. Nathan’s home is more research laboratory than a house. Keycards control access. Doors lock during intermittent, unexplained power outages. Caleb is not allowed access to the outside world due to the sensitive nature of Nathan’s work. Yet the film keeps the viewer off-balance with occasional–and well-placed–bouts of humor that both a) keep the tone from feeling so single-minded as to be tiring and b) accentuate the creepiness for the contrast.
Which isn’t to say that Nathan and his home aren’t the only sources of creepiness here. Vikander plays Ava with a charming, innocent seductiveness that draws Caleb and the viewer closer to her despite the unease of knowing that he’s interacting with…what? A machine pretending at being sentient, or an actual consciousness? And if the latter, then just what does that mean?
Ex Machina kept me guessing. Most of the time, I didn’t quite know where the film would wind up. It doesn’t telegraph its ending, and as the details of every step along the way unfolded themselves, rarely was it ever what I expected (save for once–and that’s not to say that’s a bad thing, either). It’s a bit of a mind-screw in a number of ways, which I won’t spoil here.
Furthermore, the film avoids clichés that one often finds in stories dealing with androids, A.I.s, and humans. It also avoids telling the viewer exactly what to think about what occurs, but rather presents itself and lets us decide what to think about it all. In fact, in a Q&A after the film ended, when asked what message he wanted audiences to take away from this film, Alex Garland responded that his goal was not to give a specific message but to start conversations, as the subjective nature of experiencing it could lead to many different points of view.
So here’s your tl;dr: Ex Machina is a thought-provoking, eerie, mind-game of a science fiction movie, and you should go see it because I said so.
Marvel Trifecta
So guess whose laptop’s hard drive crashed and evaporated and exploded, leaving its owner kicking himself for not backing up some future blog posts and part of a chapter he’d written? If you guessed Mark Ruffalo’s, you’d be wrong. It’s me! So there may be a bit of a delay in my usual posting while I get things sorted out.
So in the meantime, have this trio of Marvel-related videos that came out this week!
The whole concept of Ant Man continues to give me trouble. I’ve never read the comic, and I’m having difficulty suspending my disbelief. I’ve got no problem with the Hulk, Groot, Rocket, etc., but even if he’s GOT super-strength when he’s that size, he’s got so little mass, it’d be like firing a bullet at a stone wall. But then I didn’t think Thor could work either, and it proved me wrong.
Hulk vs. Iron Man. This does not seem to be a good way to get Hulk to calm down, but I like it anyway!
This is, apparently Iron Man vs. Ultron, but I haven’t actually watched this one, because I don’t want to spoil the ENTIRE movie for myself.
Thanks for being patient, everyone. I hope to have everything working again soon!
Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse – Ch 3
Nico further endears himself, Apollo is hinted at, and Riordan makes a somewhat uncomfortable implication with regard to what must happen when girls grow up. Also, no one’s going to go look for Annabeth. All this and more in part three of Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Titan’s Curse…
Bianca di Angelo Makes a Choice
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