The Machine-Our Baby Will Grow Up

2014 was a year with more apocalyptic/dystopian films than you could shake a time capsule sealed MRE at.  This also seemed to be the year that artificial intelligence anxiety exploded.  Even Her, probably the most benevolent take on this genre of robots and computers loosing their leashes, still dealt with the idea that our creation would evolve beyond us, just deciding not to attempt to destroy or subjugate us, thank you very much.  Next year will see several more, with a new Terminator flick ready to dazzle us with AIs both friendly and hostile, an apocalypse and timey whimey shenanigans.  Chappie, the new film from Neil Blomkamp will no doubt offer a unique vision of the future and the evolution of an AI.  The trailers make him look cute, but who knows how the film ultimately developes, ie I've avoided spoilers.  Then...there is Ex Machina, a film I know nothing about, except that it again deals with robots, AI and apparently the line between man and machine blurring.  Just based on its aesthetics I have glimpsed, it seems to me the film shares at least some ideas with The Machine.

I'll be honest, the trailer, with a pretty blond android all pertly female and kicking ass, was intriguing in a bad b-movie kind of way, yet for some reason, I decided to purchase the Blu Ray and watch it all the way through.  And I was very pleasantly surprised at a war anxiety thriller (WW3 against the Chinese looms on everyone's minds, if not imminently on a kinetic tip) that offered a philosophical meditation upon the idea, can a machine posess a true consciousness?  Can it...she...possess a soul?  And if so, are we still entitled to her services as our servant, our creation?

What if The Machine says no?

And extra wrinkle thrown in, is that the cyberneticist who is the lead engineer on the project also is the designer of brain implants that have been given to wounded soldiers to help them recover brain function.  The thing is...these implants have made them into something else, something that is separating itself from the human race and identifies itself more with The Machine.

It suggests a new world in the making, one where the old, slow bio units, the humans, may no longer be the top of the heap, or even have a place long term.

Not that the machines necessarily actively want to get rid of us, but the tension of the situations, within and without, may force circumstances that otherwise would not exist, had the chaos in the world not existed, creations of our own making.

As are the machines.

A mighty fine pickle we have manufactured.  Both in scenario and this cinema offering.

Check it out.

Automata-Would You Actually Frak A Robot That Looked Like A Robot?

I mean, if she started cooing out of that expressionless face, her mechanical eyes blinking when you just touch her on the shoulder...really?  Some dudes would find that sexy? Sexy enough to pay for?  Of course, I live in the internet age, where any kink one can imagine (I mean ANY) exists just a button push away.  It is seriously disturbing what sort of crap (literally as well as figuratively) some get off on.  How do you get that damaged?  I truly don't understand.

That said, Cleo is a nice droid and the damage of humans isn't her fault.

Hello, my name is Stoney and this is the story of a robot.  Or several robots.  Or whole civilizations of them.  Potentially.  The world is looking into the abyss.  But not because of marauding AIs looking to exterminate humans.  Oh, and not because of the Earth's climate.  Well, it is global warming, but the culprit for sure is a Sun that has gone far more active.  Humans have taken shelter in their cities and while hiding away, amuse themselves with clever, subservient robots.  Most of whom aren't prostitutes.  In fact, that sort of thing is illegal, or at least, frowned on and usually unheard of.

Antonion Banderas plays Jacq Vaucan, an insurance claim investigator for ROC, the outfit that builds most of the robots in the world.  He is a veteran investigator who is quite jaded about wild claims about robots and crazy things that owners claim they do to try to get cash back.  So when really wild stuff dealing with robots going beyond programming profiles start surfacing, he is skeptical.  Until he stumbles across a robot making like a Tibetan monk in Vietnam, that is, lighting itself on fire.

They don't do that.  They can't do that.  The way they are built, their brain is something called a kernel, a quantum processor that governs their reasoning processes.  They have two rules that govern everything they do, basically Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics simplified.  Robots can't hurt humans and can't hurt themselves.

Later, we find out that kernels exist where the two laws are no longer imprinted.  It turns out, those laws also limit a robot's learning, development and self discovery.  Take those away and...something different and unpredictable happens.

What do you do when your product wants to evolve beyond what it is and has figured out what it needs to do to do so?  Not that it is becoming a threat, but it is certainly becoming something more distanced from humanity, beyond humanity and certainly is no longer satisfied with doing your cooking, cleaning, building or satisfying your kinks.

You will have to satisfy yourself again.

Good flick.  I program you to see it.

The Interview Used as Actual Propaganda to Undermine North Korea's Kim Regime?

So it would seem.  The story can be found here.

I call this life trying to imitate art.

Beavis and Butthead: Out of Time or of their Times?

I just watched the news one season of Beavis and Butthead that came and went on MTV.  The boys premiered to fanfare and good ratings but quickly sank.  Now, having watched it myself, I have to say, it was great to have the boys back, their satirical voice just as on point as always.  But, unlike the late 80s and 90s in which the show originally ran, the elements they picked to slay in their in between segments, the videos, "reality tv" segments and the like...I don't watch any of that, but it has always been my impression that much of popular culture has become far more forgettable, disposable and throwaway than the stuff BnB originally contended with.  Based on both what they targeted and what they had to say about it, it is almost as if they had to struggle to come up with lines that were more than just the fart in the wind pap they were targetting.  Boys, let us hope you find a new home worthy of your talents.  It is clear that what passes for the viewing audience for Mtv nowadays has no idea what they have in you and frankly, you are too good for them at this point.

If you are looking for something to get yourself for the New Year, though?  Pick up this season on Blu Ray.  Watch it with a smart friend.  And some nachos.

Battle of the Damned-Freaking Zombies and Robots. And Dolph. There Is No Reason You Should Not Be Watching This Now. Srsly.

Robots.  Zombies.  A very grizzled Dolph Lungren.  A cordoned off city and a corporate suit signing up a party of mercs for a rescue.  All very simple and above board, right?  But...like the plot in a porno, ancillary at best, the loyal viewer is here for all the action.  The poster spells out what you are in for.  Apparently a semi-sequel to another movie called Robotropolis, the prior film gives a sort of explanation for the squad of robots which shows up patrolling the Zed infested city.   Having read reviews of that film, as much as I love an AI goes wrong scifi story, that one was bad.  All you needed to know, robots go berserk, kill creators, escape from factory, correct their own code, wander lost, find zombie city, commence to slaying.

They show up about a third of the way into the film, though.  First, it is Dolph and his crew on the mission, slowly getting picked off by the zombies.  Eventually, it is down to the Dolphster and a small band of civilian survivors, including his target he has been hired to rescue.  Apparently there's another dude who knows of the dirty dealings the corporate suit has been involved with and their complicity in the Z plague.  Dolph is supposed to whack him.  Will he do it?

Does it matter that much?

This really isn't that complicated.  If reasonably acted and shot robot on zombie action does it for you, this film is B movie goodness.  You will know right there whether it is your bag.

Carry on.

After The Dark-The Apocalypse As a Philosophy Lesson

After seeing this film and God's Not Dead, and having not taken lots of philosophy courses in my college career, I have to ask...are lots of philosophy professor arrogant, aggressive douches putting up a front of being way too impressed with their own intellect, and that turning out to be a coverup for deep personal wounds or insecurity?  Because with both films, we get that breed.  If so, does the feel tend to generate such or do such individuals decide they have found a home in philosophy and pursue it to its ultimate professional and metaphysical ends?  In the case of GIND, Kevin Sorbo's Prof. Radisson, he is found to blame God for personal loss, breaks down and seemingly experiences enlightenment before expiring from a car accident.  As for Professor Eric Zimit (James D'Arcy), here is a man who is convinced of his own intellectual prowess, judges his students on his estimates of theirs, and the worth and survival of a civilization on ruthless logic and calculation, and is confounded by the idea that very smart students might come to completely different conclusions.  He is also found, in the end, staring into his own personal abyss, his intellect giving him no solace for his own personal spiritual deficit.

Oh, what am I going on about?  This is After The Dark (The Philosophers), which shows the above Prof Zimit leading his philosophy class through their final exam.  In this case, it is an exercise in which they roleplay candidates for an attempt at survival in during a nuclear attack.  They are to evaluate each other and decide who would be best to be put in a bunker with limited resources to ride out the attack and see them on the other side to try to rebuild civilization.  With each iteration of the exercise, not only does he increase the difficulty and pressure as well as variables in play for them to think about, personal considerations are hovering in the background, affecting the decisions some of the students make as the exercise unfolds.

Beautifully bringing to life the apocalypse and survival in their collective mindscape, After The Dark lushly illustrates these scenarios unfolding.  And, it asks the  provocative question...is raw intellect enough?  Or is the measure of a man, of a civilization, more to do with soul?  Are we just a collection of data points?  Or are we purpose manifest?  Is there more to existence than existence?  Is life defined by mere biological continuance?

When does survival become too expensive a proposition?

Good indie science fiction flick.  Check it out.

Lone Survivor-Hold On, They Jumped Off A Cliff. Twice. Wow.

Peter Berg is an interesting director.  One might be tempted to dismiss him as a technically adept but workman director, with a lineup like The  Rundown or Hancock.  However, most of his movies, though not necessarily great, seem to have a bit of a spark to them.  A bit of a heart, seemingly a desire to transcend the banality of the material and tell a tale that has a human connect.  That he is not a Peter Hyams or a Brett Ratner.  That he is "better than this".

And you know what?  I'm inclined to agree.  Even Battleship, a movie that the world most definitely did not need, somehow, he managed to inject a little heart, humor and even suspense into the film to make it a pulpy scifi love letter to American servicemembers and classic warships.

Even then, even with his technical skill and obvious affection for those who serve in uniform, it is hard to picture him directing a serious war movie that tries to capture the reality of aspects of war.  Doubly, a scenario in which our guys lost.  But after he finished Battleship, that is exactly the project he embarked on, to adapt the book Lone Survivor, an account by Marcus Luttrel, a Navy SEAL who was the lone survivor of a recon team out in advance of Operation Red Wing, an attempt to apprehend Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, who was responsible for the deaths of twenty Marines as well as many allied Afghans, as well as other Taliban leaders. 

Filming in mountains in New Mexico standing in for the Hindi Kush mountain region in Afghanistan, we are shown bits of the SEAL unit interacting with each other at their Forward Operating Base, both at work and at play.  It isn't overplayed or underplayed (some critics have said more effort could have been given to characterization, but in my opinion, the film managed to do just enough to establish who these people are and why they do what they do, both with the scenes in Afghanistan as well as the opening scenes showing sailors going through SEAL training school).

The focus of the film would be the recon element sent out in advance of Operation Red Wing, to confirm the location of Shah and the other targets and to conduct on site reconnaissance, to gain fresh real time intelligence for the main force follow on.  They land without a hitch and establish an observation point.  Trouble starts immediately, though, with communications proving difficult due to the terrain conditions in Afghanistan.  Things really get out of hand, though, when a shepherd and two Afghan boys stumble across them.  The team has to make a decision what to do with them.  They decide to let them go, hightail it out of there and call off the mission.  However, they are eventually run down by a large Taliban force and are slowly ground down in a grueling firefight, in which Mark Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg) is the only survivor.

This is a film that pulls no punches in its depiction of the torment the SEALs go through.  It is amazing what they do to try to evade their pursuers, including jumping off TWO cliffs to try to avoid them.  Just as amazing, is how fast the Afghans pursue, carrying heavy weapons, too.  Also, the Afghan natives that assist Luttrell show another side to this, directed by their tribal honor code as well as their hatred of the Taliban.  The Taliban are depicted pretty much as their actions have indicated in reality, a bunch of fundamentalist thugs.

This movie is not about anything too deep.  Not a meditation about the whys of war.  It is not a deep examination of the ties that bond warriors.  It is really about one really bad day that happens to some good men.

One of them lived to tell the tale.

I for one am glad, for it is a worthy tale to be told.

The Interview-Better Than A Courier Drone Up The Butt. Much Better.

North Korea is truly a step into another world.  Anyone can step into that world, too.  I found that out in my four years at Camp Casey, home (for now) of the ground combat element of the 2nd Infantry Division, just several miles as the crow flies from the Korean Demilitarized Zone.  But you can get closer. Take a tour to the Joint Security Area and you can go see that meeting area set up for the two Koreas to talk to each other, though it has been quite awhile since they have on an official basis.  You just have South Korean MPs in their Taekwondo stances and aviator glasses staring down NK soldiers there.  You can even go into the Blue Buildings  and actually stand on North Korean territory.  Just looking around, you can get a sensation of tragic history and a feel of the surreal. 

So, watching The Interview, for me, was a step back into familiar territory.  Dealing with North Korea is like watching the gyrations of a wonderland from the darkest hell, with a sense of theater.  So when this hacker shenanigans busted out around this movie, I was like, what the hell?  A silly Seth Rogen/James Franco apparently causing this much fuss with them?  I don't remember the father of Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Il, losing his silly glasses over this.  I mean, there was probably some of their usual saber rattling at the time, but that was them usually trying to angle for something.  Un of the strange hair cut...

...seems to do things at random.  At first, you can go for the "crazy like a fox" angle that lots of dictators play, seemingly, to keep the world on edge and guessing.  Then...you have to wonder if the guy really knows what he is doing, or perhaps he is just out of his league and not up to the task of being the boy-god of a totalitarian, nay, Orwellian dictatorship.

But then, we, the USA, the fortress of freedom, the bastion of liberty, the defender of free thought and speech, knuckle under.  The mainstream theater chains, mid-December, knuckled under to the threats of these hackers and declared that they were not running the film, scheduled to be released Christmas Day.  Then even stranger, Sony Pictures said they weren't going to release it, in theaters or in any medium.  The public outcry, thankfully, was cacophonous.  Americans of most stripes were incensed that elements of our society and our expression could be cowed by anyone, much less a tin pot dictatorship.  Seemingly, Sony was shamed into action, and agreed to release the film both online and into the waiting hands of eager independent theaters on Christmas Day.  They have also said the film will be released in other mediums later.

So, yeah for freedom, good to see the spine was still there, even though some of us had to fumble around in the dark for it.  They forgot where they had left it last.

Anyway, the film is out, you can see it.  Please do.  Because it is awesome.  Though the trailers sold the film on its dick and poop jokes, believe me, there is much more to the movie than that.  The Interview has multiple targets and points to make.  It doesn't extensively dwell on most of them, merely making the point and moving on with the story (this isn't a documentary or a college lecture, it is a comedy, but one with a point of view).  David Skylark (James Franco) hosts a TV interview show that is popular and makes bank, but is pop culture pap.  Seth Rogen (Aaron Rappaport) is his producer, who enjoys the money and trappings, but dreams of doing real journalism.   Then, one day, they find out that Kim Jong Un, dictator of North Korea, is a fan of Skylark's show and wants to be interviewed.  In Pyongyang, the capital of NK.  When Skylark goes public with this, the CIA comes knocking...

...with Agent Lizzy Caplan (and her breasts) with an proposal.  Could you guys whack Kim Jong Un for us?  Please? 

Operation Honey Pot begins.

And away we go to the races.  The film heads off to North Korea, where Skylark hangs with Un and at first starts to think that the NK dictator might be an ok guy and starts to get cold feet about their mission.  He finds out otherwise later, but one of the key things that impressed me about this film, alongside observations about the failings of the US news media and the stumblings of US foreign policy, is their humanizing of Kim Jong Un.

...yes, in the end he is revealed to be a not so nice guy, but...it is more complicated than that.  For a Hollywood pic, especially a comedy, this Un is a very human one, and if you don't feel sympathy for him, you at least understand a bit more about the situation he finds himself in, thinking, brother, sucks to be you.  By the way, hats off to actor-comedian Randall Park in his portrayal of Un.  A great job, sir.  You were fantastic.

The Interview is a fantastic time at the movies.  But not just a romp in celluloid.  It has some actual points to make, but won't beat you over the head about it.

Go see it.

Gamers-The Hands of Fate

    Nobody is more passionate than fans of the imaginative genres.  Every year, they crowd conventions to revel in their mutual loves, to commune with other members of the tribe who get what its all about.  For some, it is an escape.  For others, it is spice of life.  No matter the reason, though, and no matter the fandom, theirs is a full throated celebration of stories, of possibilities.  No one exemplifies this more than gamers, either.  For them, celebrating the imaginative genres isn't just a matter of spectating, watching or reading stories of others.  They get to tell their own stories in their various worlds.  Not that gamers aren't invested in other fandoms.  Oh, you bet they are and their passion goes soul deep with them, too.
    
     Perhaps you need evidence about this gamer tribe and what they are about.  This movie is a passport to that world.  All the gamer movies are a celebration, but this film makes the point of breaking beyond the holy cloister of the role-playing table top and not only touches on other game genres, but addresses other fandoms, especially the passionate fan of a beloved TV series that died too soon, leaving a hole in the hearts of tragically obsessed fans. Yes, there is a bittersweet Browncoat shoutout in there, you'll see it when it happens.

   But anyway, the story is this group of roleplayers who have been featured in all three Gamers films.  A veteran crew of roleplayers, including Kevin Lodge (also Osric the Paladin), Joanna (Daphne the Fighter), Gary Wombah (Luster the White Sorceress), Leo "Davinci" Lamb (Flynn the Fine, a Bard) are being distracted by life and having trouble focusing on the campaign.  Another of their compatriots, Sean "Cass" Cassidy (Brother Silence, a Monk) has fixated upon Natalie, a feisty, sarcasting redhead who has entered their game store haunt with the horde of other collectible card gamers.  So, to try to impress her, Cass enters that weekends card flopping tourney.  He loses badly.  But it turns out that Leo, owner of this game store, is also a veteran player of this storytelling game.  He has been out of it for years, but feels for his friend and decides to help him in his quest to woo this lady gamer.  He helps him in a deck build, supplies him with some useful cards and begins schooling him, Morpheus-style, in how to win this game and potentially, a date with Natalie. As Cass sets forth on his quest, he begins swimming the treacherous waters of this game's fanbase and begins to find out what he really wants and why. 

   There are a few side stories, too, most notably that of Gary, who fixates upon a paid con mascot wearing a the costume of a character from a show he blames for cancelling another show beloved and remembered by fans who are still heartbroken and bitter.  In Gary's case, he is becoming a bit unhinged and may be in need of a particular intervention.  But in his efforts, and in his demonstrations of his rememberances, he speaks to heartbroken fans from all walks. 

   You know who you are.

   Fan passion, that is what this is all about.  And if you are fan, especially a Gamer fan, this is a must-watch.