Been a while since I shared my Netflix viewing with you nice people (I know, you were waiting with bated breath) so tonight’s entry is a sort of summary.
1. Danger 5
I’m starting off with this one because it’s the hardest one to explain and modern pop psychology insists that doing the hardest/most dreaded thing first is the route to success.
Kind of like doing the hardest question on the exam first.
Anyhow, Danger 5 is a crazy little show coming out of South Australia that is a high density parody of the type of 60’s spy show that had a team of heroes from all over the world working together to do awesome super spy stuff. It is the same era that gave us Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, and all the other Supermarionation shows, and it is done in much the same style, only with people.
The show works on a bunch of levels all working at the same time. First, to pump up the awesome factor to suitably ridiculous levels, despite its 60’s style, it is somehow also set during World War 2, and so their enemies are Hitler and his Nazis.
Also, they take the multi-ethnic team thing to extremely by having characters who simply speak their native language (with subtitles, of course) and everyone understands one another anyway.
Anyhow, I can’t really do the show justice, it would be like trying to explain what is so great about the Simpsons. All I can do is recommend it to you.
If you have Netflix, the first season is already there. Watch it, and let it amuse, amaze, and entertain you.
2. The Institute
It’s a documentary about this big social experiment/alternative reality game/cult that started in 1960’s San Francisco. People would get a mysterious invitation to something called the JeJune Institute, located in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district. When they get there, it looks like a completely normal financial industry office. They mention JeJune Institute, and are led to an unremarkable room where they watch a presentation from the group’s founder.
From there, it leads to secret rooms, surreal scavenger hunts with secret signs and bizarre symbols, mysterious clues about the fate of a little girl named Eva, secret radio channels that declare the JeJune Institute to be evil, and other good stuff.
And I was enthralled. This seemed to me like exactly the kind of grand, intricate, imaginative fiction that I would love to create for other people to play in. I had enormous admiration for the people who set it up and woven in so many stimulating details and given the whole thing this air of mystery and transcendence.
And then, two-thirds of the way in, I realized the whole thing was fake, none of this ever really happened, and the movie was the real fiction. And that made me very depressed.
They had me thinking the world was a more wonderful place that I had ever known for a while. Then, poof, gone.
Needless to say. I stopped watching at that point. And I sincerely hate the people who made it.
I don’t care if that’s fair.
3. Cloud Atlas
Six story lines which sort of intersect but not really.
That isn’t too important though because they are all fairly interesting and extremely well made. All the stars play multiple roles, which is always fun.
Especially tasty is seeing Tom Hanks play a person who seems to be one character’s best friend, a doctor who agrees to treat the other main character for that plotline for a terrible tropical disease. The treatment involves giving said character’s regular sips of a yellowish liquid.
Later in the movie, it turns out that Tom Hanks is actually poisoning his patient, and he becomes this chortling, drooling, greedy, Dickensian villain. The classic “demon in gentleman’s clothes”.
And that’s delightfully unexpected in Tom Hanks.
Two of the plotlines are science fiction, although one’s post-apocalyptic, so fuck it.
It did, however, give an answer to something I had wondered for a long time. If a future version of English is well thought out, consistent, plausible, and delivered like natural language, is it still really fucking annoying?
The answer is : oh God yes.
And the endings for all the plotlines are incredibly corny. I am used to not being satisfied with the endings for a lot of things, but to have six crappy endings in a row is rather trying.
Still, overall, I enjoyed the movie. The artistry that went into alone was worth my time.
4. The Terminator (partial)
I am finally watching the original Terminator again. This is only my second time seeing it, and the last time was around 1988, so my memory of it had grown threadbare to the point of nonexistence. The more I watch of it, the more I realized I had forgotten about it.
Part of the problem is the simple factor that memories, especially ones without a lot of emotions attached, decay over time.
But another part of it is that I have seen Terminator 2 like eight times. Therefore, it is a much stronger memory than the one time I saw the original, when I was barely paying attention anyhow.
Watching it this time, my strongest impression is : THIS IS THE EIGHTIES. Everything about the movie seems like a blueprint for all the 80’s action movies that came after it.
The style, the pacing, the editing, the sometimes extraordinary camera angles… everything.
Including the often annoying LOUD INTENSE ACTION soft quiet conversation OH NO MORE ACTION formula. Like action porn and theyt are alternating between high intensity sex and soft quiet refractory periods.
Of course, it’s really hard to keep what we all know now from influencing your viewing. For me, the movie comes off as a prequel to T2 now.
When they first showed Doctor Silberman, I practically leaped from my seat and growled at him. HATE. HIM. SO. MUCH.
Like, approaching Kai Winn levels of hate, and I pretty much maximum hate her. I am not capable of more hate.
Well, that’s what I have been watching lately.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.