Should You Watch “The Man in the High Castle?”

2015-12-01 9 min read Movies Marco

Yes!

Philip K. Dick has long been one of my favorite science fiction authors, excelling in inventiveness and concision. His stories are plot-driven and to the point, which makes them almost perfect for movie adaptations. Some of those (think The Blade Runner) came out splendid, while others (think A Scanner Darkly) were more mixed blessings.

Of course, this being science fiction, making movies out of novels was always hampered by cost. Science fiction is not cheap to special effect on any day, and plot-driven (as opposed to action-driven or character-driven) movies are a particularly expensive type. They have none of the bombastic effects of, say, a planetary explosion while not much of the cheap timeouts of a romantic subplot.

Elysium (2013)

2013-12-18 8 min read Movies Marco

I was curious about this movie, an allegory of the current state of mankind and of health care. Not curious enough to break my long-standing ban on movie theaters, but enough to actually pay-per-view on Amazon.

My conclusion: the problems with which the movie concerns itself are real, but the movie doesn’t work. It is too slow, too long, and the plot has severe theatrical deficiencies.

Let’s start with a plot summary. It is some time in the 22nd century. Earth is an ugly, overpopulated, diseased planet. So much so that the rich moved to an orbiting station called Elysium where they can pursue a life of quiet boredom, or cocktail parties and giant mansions.

Cloud Atlas (2013)

2013-06-21 7 min read Movies Marco

It’s not often that I get to see a movie based on a novel I haven’t read. I am a voracious reader, but I do not like going to the movies. Cloud Atlas gave me that chance: I had read about the novel only in passing, but the movie was front and center on the Amazon home screen. A perfect opportunity!

I hear the novel was not doing so well, until it hit China and then it became a huge hit. Reading about the structure, I make sense of the cultural difference that could lead to different acceptance.

Amazon Pilots: Zombieland

2013-05-09 2 min read Movies Marco

Imagine an office. Two co-workers chatting over some tiny calorie-counting lunch. He is complaining about trifles and trivialities like the world is falling apart. She is listening empathetically, as if she could possibly care.

The two, for mysterious reasons, have a window office. For even more mysterious reasons, they are eating their lunch facing away from that giant status symbol of a window. And while they spoon their sugar-free yogurts and leaf away at that non-fat ranch dressing salad, mayhem ensues just outside the window.

Amazon Pilots: Browsers

2013-04-24 3 min read Movies Marco

[Note: Amazon has published a series of pilots for a variety of shows, asking viewers for their opinion on which ones should continue. It’s an innovative way to farm out a choice the company is not really capable of making, since this is their first attempt at content production.]

Imagine Ugly Betty. With four unpaid Betties. And musical numbers. That’s Browsers in a nutshell.

Four enterprising young folks start their internship at the online magazine, Gush. They are told they are to browse the web and find interesting content, to the tune of 40 amazing links a day. After one week, one of them is going to get fired. Justin, annoying fifth-of-six-executive-assistants to the vicious Johanna*,* seems amused at the turmoil he inflicts. Johanna, when she shows up, is a veritable meanbag. Turmoil ensues, and in the end nobody is as evil as they seemed.

Chasing Mavericks (2012)

2013-04-14 6 min read Movies Marco

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Everybody had been telling me I should watch Chasing Mavericks, but I somehow didn’t feel inclined. Surf movies – and movies about surfing, which is not the same thing – tend to be depressingly fictionalized. They portray the world as a surfer would love it to be, and not as it is. The waves are always perfect, the bros are always on a spiritual quest of communion with the ocean, and somehow there are always more ladies in the water than anyone has witnessed in a lifetime.

Skyfall (2012)

2013-02-15 3 min read Movies Marco

Wait! I already watched this movie!

It was the distant year 1982. The first movie of a successful franchise had been very disappointing. The producers could smell the money, but knew there was nothing to be won by continuing on the trodden path. So, the very keen decision: kill one of the main characters, add an amazing and disposable super-villain, and allow for a reboot with fresh blood.

The movie in 1982 was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Ricardo Montalban was the titular character, Khan, an antagonist with an old grudge and a score to settle. The beloved character that had to go was Spock, the Vulcan science officer whose actor, Leonard Nimoy, was probably sick of the pointy ears and who had a lot more to offer than “Fascinating.”

Extract (2009)

2012-12-22 4 min read Movies Marco

Extract movie poster Mike Judge is a funny guy. Office Space and Idiocracy are some of the most intriguingly humorous movies in recent history, with Idiocracy gaining renewed hilarity because Microsoft’s Metro user interface looks remarkably like the pictogram computer interface in the movie.

Extract is a movie by Mike Judge, who wrote, directed, produced, and even cameo-ed in it. But it’s funny only in stretches, without an overall funny theme. Given how the other two movies worked out, that’s a little short of expectations, which explains why the movie is already available on Netflix.

Om Shanti Om (2007)

2008-10-28 4 min read Movies Marco

It’s been a long while that I’ve been curious about Bollywood movies. I have enough friends from India that their constant chatter about them has started to make a dent, and I’ve been quite bored with standard Hollywood fare. I think part of it is that Netflix continues suggesting crappy movies from the 80s (Ladyhawke, Labyrinth and Working Girl amongst the latest).

Regardless: when the Internation section of my recommendations contained a Bollywood title with great rating, I added it to my queue, not hoping much, but assuming it would be better than the other stuff I’d seen these days.

Gattaca (1997)

2008-04-28 4 min read Movies Marco

Another Netflix suggestion – I would love this movie because, after all, I loved 12 Monkey. Well, stinking suggestion engine, the only thing the two movies seem to have in common is a fondness for naked males, otherwise they couldn’t be any farther from each other.

I had the first inkling of catastrophe when I read “Written and directed by Andrew Niccol”. Movies written and directed by someone frequently have this crusading tone, and the mixture of crusade and science fiction is usually lethal.

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