Month: February 2017

Moon

Some Spoilers Below

At just under ten years old, it is safe to say that Moon is a modern classic.  One DMS member described it as “Multiplicity in space!”  Brilliantly acted by Sam Rockwell, Moon is the low budget, well tempered answer to Event Horizon, which, if you’re in a situation like mine, you have to watch when your partner is out of town because it will cause nightmares.

We had not watched Moon since its 2009 release, and we are pleased to report that it rewards multiple viewings.  The main (almost only) characters are Sam Rockwell, who plays a few iterations of the same cloned astronaut/moon miner (conveniently named Sam), and Kevin Spacey, who plays GERTY, a computerized assistant that is one part Kubrick’s HAL 9000, one part Claptrap, and one part GLaDOS.  Watching as Sam’s plight unfolds, we could not help making comparisons to The Loneliest Astronauts by Kevin Church and Ming Doyle.

Shut the fuck up Dan.

Moon is, however, something entirely different and effortlessly fresh.  Plus, you get to see Sam Rockwell’s tight butt and listen to him make such dad jokes as “You’re really full of yourself aren’t you Doug,” while alone and talking to an extremely full plant he’s named Doug.

Without getting too deep into the plot, Sam is Jesus.  He is nearing the end of his three-year contract with Lunar Industries under which he works as a miner of Helium-3 on the dark side of the moon.  The number 3 appears repeatedly throughout the film, which we believe is a reference to the holy trinity (one of the first sci fi plots known to man).  Each of the lunar rovers Sam watches over like a shepherd is named after one of the apostles.  It is Matthew, who valued money above all else before meeting that guy Jesus in the New Testament, that ends up causing problems for Sam.

Sam’s little mining outpost provides the Helium-3 that allows the distant residents of Earth to enjoy unlimited green energy.  Just as we in the United States benefit from and are therefore complicit in the wars our countries wages as evidenced by the goods we buy, the residents of Earth are all complicit in Sam’s plight.  He pays the price for our reckless consumption and greed.  Sam also kind of dies and kind of gets resurrected.  Just like our boy J.  Sam’s daughter’s name is also Eve.

At a pivotal point in the film, Sam Prime figures out what Sam the Original already knows but refuses to accept.  Sam Prime refuses to let Sam the Original’s denial continue, but when Sam Prime is yelling “Wake up!” at Sam the Original, he might also be yelling at the audience.  We should all be looking for clones hidden under the edifice we and our predecessors have painstakingly constructed.  Walter Kovacs knew.

Kovacs strikes again?

The last line of the film is a radio personality (probably hopped up on OCs) yelling through the froth in his mouth about Sam Prime’s return to Earth.  You can likely guess what he called him, but in light of the current scumbag’s two Executive Orders on the subject, we want to highlight that Sam Prime is referred to as an “illegal alien” in the final words of the film.  If you have not read the scumbag’s lesser discussed Executive Order, linked above, you should.  Section 8 purports to “empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law.”  That is a terrifying and potentially irreversible erosion of our Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The attention to detail throughout the film is subtle and refreshing.  For example, the attorney we keep on retainer specializes in trademark law and tells us that the logo for Lunar Industries is a phenomenal trademark.

Now that’s branding.

It is a Sunday afternoon.  If you have not seen this movie, watch it right quick.  If you have seen it, let it unfold in front of you again.  You will not be disappointed.

We and 1984

We prefer Zamyatin’s We to 1984, which Orwell published three years after reviewing We.  We do, however, absolutely love this post from one of our favorite blogs, Utopia or Dystopia:  Where Past Meets Future about 1984 and the current political climate in the US of A.  From the author, Rick Searle:

“[T]rying to use 1984 as a map through the Trump presidency might pose just as many distortions as insights . . . because our efforts and attention might be drawn into an ineffectual resistance against an enemy unlikely to arrive, while the real villain slips in unnoticed in his place.   What’s required, then, is a close reading of 1984 to see where it fits and diverges from what’s happened so far . . . .”

Searle’s close reading is something we should think about carefully.  Please click on the link to his blog above and read his thoughts.

Intercepted

Many DMS members (and others) have noticed a trend toward dystopian literature in the newspapers we read, meaning that the newspapers read like dystopian literature.  We love the work The Intercept is doing, and we are a big fan of its new podcast, Intercepted.  We especially loved the interview with Seymour Hersh.  Frankly, we were pissed at how the Russian hacking was reported.  The Intercept was on the money the whole time.  Check out the podcast.  These people are writing the survival guide for the new era, and most people have not yet realized it.

Keep the faith.

Ghost in the Shell – New Trailer

The new live action Ghost in the Shell is out March 31.  We will try to get a preview for you ahead of time, but regardless of whether it is a spiritual successor or just eye candy, we are dying to see it.

Why do we always have to wait for the Super Bowl to end before decent content is released?

Arrival

Should you watch Arrival?  Yes.  You should watch Arrival.  This is the film Contact (“Whatever it is, it ain’t local.”–sorry Jodie) wanted to be twenty years ago.

Arrival begins with a trope best known from Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, not to be confused with the television adaptation that, tragically, fell victim to the pitfalls of that format but is definitely still worth a watch.  Twelve large coffee beans, obviously representing the Apostles, appear hovering at various positions on Earth and offer contact in the form of doors that open periodically to allow ingress.

We prefer a coarse grind.

This film caught us completely off guard.  We remained deeply skeptical even after enjoying the first half of the film, but as the pieces clicked together, we were swept away by Arrival’s elegant undertow.  If you are caught in a riptide, you should swim sideways.  We let this one carry us out to sea.

We cannot say too much about the film, except that it depends on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.  Our rudimentary understanding is that the language you speak defines the way in which you think.  We are not linguists, but this does remind us of Marshall McLuhan’s theory that a medium that enables communication also structures, or limits, communication.  (The DMS recommends this reader if you are unfamiliar with McLuhan.)  Noam Chomsky’s work is heavily critical of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, and it looks as though modern linguistic theorists (yes we know that Chomsky is still alive) are also skeptical.

We realize that we are mixing linguistic theory and media theory, but when you have a scumbag in office whose preferred method of communication is limited to 140 characters, it is worth thinking deeply both about language and the media we use to communicate.  Arrival begs us to think deeply about these things insofar as it literally centers on our relationship with aliens.  The message there is relatively overt.

To use an example from McLuhan, think about an automobile as a medium for communication.  We built our country’s infrastructure around the automobile, and now we are finding it difficult and costly to change that infrastructure.  Here at the DMS, we care about how people consume media and communicate.  Arrival explores how we may be limiting ourselves.

Walter Kovacs again?

Watchmen

After lying in furtive restlessness for hours the other night, this DMS member slid from underneath the covers, shuffled to the living room, and decided to re-watch the film adaptation of Watchmen.  So now we know who watches them.  Please tell Alan Moore.  Maybe also check out Moore’s latest hit, Providence.

The DMS’s in-house doctor believes our rapidly increasing bouts with insomnia are a direct result of exposure to information about current events.  Also past events.  See Thompson, Hunter S., Better Than Sex:  Confessions of a Political Junkie (1995); Thompson, Hunter S., Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973).  Unfortunately, our esteemed doctor studied history before medical school, so she is not optimistic that a cure will be developed anytime soon.

As the media, correctly, churn out articles discussing one of two chilling Executive Orders signed by a scumbag on January 25, 2017, in-depth reviews of the same scumbag’s restructuring of the National Security Council appeared below the fold.  Maybe it is the cognitive dissonance inherent in feeling nostalgia for the Bush administrations, but during this viewing of Watchmen, we got a bit closer to understanding Sally Jupiter’s refusal to hold a grudge against Edward Blake, the Comedian.  We do not condone the Comedian’s many horrific acts of violence, but evidence is piling up that this life is a terrible joke.

We think the Comedian solidifies his opinion that, as Walter Kovacs repeatedly tells viewers, the end is nigh when Dr. Manhattan watches passively as the Comedian guns down a woman carrying his child in Vietnam.

The End Is Nigh!

Since we have copies of the comic books handy, we will quote the Comedian from his original rant directed toward Dr. Manhattan.

 

“You watched me.  You coulda changed the gun into steam or the bullets into mercury or the bottle into snowflakes!  You coulda teleported either of us to goddamn Australia[,] but you didn’t lift a finger!”  (emphasis in original).  Dr. Manhattan, a character with god-like abilities, does not care about humans in the Comedian’s view, and, well, the Comedian saw how terrible humans can be to each other.

In the film, Nixon has ruled with an iron fist for more than a half dozen terms.  Democracy is a farce, and the audience is left with a question:  Is Adrian the hero, or is it Kovacs?  We are reminded of a passage HST wrote while covering the ’92 election:

“Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism—which is true, but they miss the point.  It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place.”

After Nixon died, HST wrote “Richard Nixon was a warrior:  He gave no mercy and expected none.

Yet he approved my first White House press pass and never had me busted for the horrible things I wrote about him.”

What would HST write about our current scumbag?  He might have written a joke but not the laugh out loud kind.

Walter Kovacs?