is Bitcoin the best candidate for 'disruptive technology from the future' ever?
from script of STAR TREK XIII KIRK : Now the Romulan time agents have elected Trump the future of humanity is doomed McCOY : If we could just go back before those events and introduce something that would cancel out the effects of the rise of the alt-right on economics and society... SPOCK : An earlier introduction of Distributed Ledger Technology might accomplish that. Using the basis of the Federation's economic model might strain the processing speeds of primitive AI technology, but by my calculations early 21st century computing could rise to the challenge, if given sufficient motivation. McCOY (dismissively) And how does your great Vulcan intellect propose to explain the relevance and significance of DLT to the ignorant, materialistic barbarians of the early 21st century? KIRK : Easy! We hide it in something they understand and will embrace immediately - FREE MONEY!
Inspired by an email exchange which featured the realisation "satoshi nakamoto as an alien is more believable than satoshi nakamoto as satoshi nakamoto"
Murder on the Orient Express 2017..would leave you with a very warm feeling about a potential Poirot movie franchise
IF The classic 1974 version never existed
And
The first hour wasn’t so much better than the last hour
Like last years surprisingly watchable Magnificent Seven remake,this movie is crawling out from under a classic and though Branagh is a good director, he is no Sidney Lumet.
This is less of a problem in a dashing introductory first hour when (like the Magnificent Seven remake) a smartly written take on the material and some sharp storytelling make this look like a new Sherlockian movie franchise in the making.
Branagh does a great job with Poirot breathing real life into a character I had previously thought was a bit of a cold fish. You might say this reinvention is Robert Downey Jnrish without the martial arts. He manages to capture the difference between Holmes and Poirot - the |Belgian isn’t a deductive super computer but a sufferer of obsessive compulsive disorder who has turned it into a talent and a lifestyle.
As soon as it runs into Christie’s brilliant plot however (arguably THE whodunnit murder mystery, based on the most shocking crime of the 1930s) it falters. Lumets classic version in 1974 only barely holds the 6+ plot threads together but it does with hefty dopings of horror and tragedy.
Branagh, good as he is cannot do this level of juggling, resulting in a confused, rushed middle and then overstages the finale. Is this a common Kenneth Branagh as director thing? more interested in characters than plot? (based on this and the first Thor film you would have to say that's a yes).
In several earlier moments he has Poirot surveying crime scenes directly from above with the camera slowly descending from above into the room. It’s very subtle and effective - then we have a climax that looks right out of a bad DC superhero movie. Does it really need the Last Supper shot? That must be a hideous cliche by now. I loved it in Watchmen but please this material doesn’t need to play postmodern games with classic images - it should be classic images itself.
Performances are generally ok though some of the more senior cast seem to think they are playing alongside Peter Ustinov and Elizabeth Taylor.
It is definitely watchable and based on this I’d certainly watch the proposed Death On The Nile sequel but I would hope it has a different director. These books are from one of the premier female novelists of all time - so how about a female director - what is Patty Jenkins doing between Wonder Woman films?
One nitpick- if you can flawlessly create 1930s Istanbul and gorgeous mountain vistas with the wonder of CGI, could you not also add some cold breath effects to the actors supposedly standing around high up in a mountain range in huge piles of snow?
I saw this on a free screening with Searcys who have never served me a bad cocktail, and have always sent me away happy if not entirely sober.
It's over a week since I saw BLADE RUNNER 2049 a second time and I'm still thinking about it a lot. The dam has just burst. Prepare for random thoughts.
BLADE RUNNER 2049 is not only better than the original, by having characters you actually care about, it makes the plot of the original movie 20% better by giving that slightly abusive Deckard and Rachel relationship some consequence.
Apparently BLADE RUNNER 2049 has been a box office flop. I'm neither shocked or disappointed by this because it means I'm not going to hear theories on it from some empty headed trendy who only went to see it for Ryan Gosling.
Gosling is brilliant, better than Ford in both movies (and Ford is pretty good in this one). Gosling seems to be playing a ghost version of his doomed character from DRIVE and his work with Ana de Armas as Joi makes for a level of hearbreak we never get anywhere near in the cold, sometimes brutal original movie.
Officer K/Joe and Joi are just about the best screen couple I've seen all year. It's horrifying when Joi is destroyed and absolutely devastating when 'Joe' finds (or is reminded) that Joi is essentially a very smart App, and the important bond he has established with this 'woman' actually meant absolutely nothing beyond his own mind.
It was a nightmarishly relatable moment.
According to Slash Film podcast review, the hero of Kafka's The Trial is 'Joseph K', who thinks he is the center of a huge conspiracy, only to find is a minor functionary. Gosling's Officer K/Joe is an instant classic movie character, tragic on several levels. The narrative's flirtation with the plot twist from ANGEL HEART is all the more tragic and pathetic when it is revealed to be a cruel tease.
Wow that was a lot of spoilers wasn't it!
Tough. You should have paid to see the movie instead of waiting to see such a breathtaking cinematic experience on your shit television.
The debate used to be
IS DECKARD A REPLICANT?
It's now
CAN DECKARD'S MANGY DOG TALK?
This movie is worth seeing more than once. After the three way love scene, between K, Joi and Marriett you hear Mackenzie Davis (also great as a kind of Pris 2.0) say to Joi "There is not as much to you as you think" .
The first time you hear it this is needlessly cruel.
The second time, when you know what Joi is, this is cruel, accurate and heartbreaking all round.
Apparently this and other scenes are getting flak for their portrayal of women. I'm not going to defend this movie from feminists because most feminists I know have a brain and won't be offended by this movie. Like the similarly devastating and disturbing HER, there is nothing in this movie that makes me think "wow losing my emotions to an App controlled by a immortal, omnipotent, all powerful faceless corporate is a great alternative to some sweet but dozy bird I might find on Tinder".
Denis Villeneuve has instantly become, like David Fincher and Christopher Nolan, someone whose entire back catalogue now needs to be watched. I wasn't knocked out by ARRIVAL (or INTERSTELLAR for that matter) but SICARIO is a classic. I hope he's not bitten off more than he can chew with D U N E.
Another great scene, another great actress, Sylvia Hoeks as Luv, who isn't really a powerless male fantasy figure
Standing in for Bowie (see below), Jared Leto is actually great as Wallace, 2049's frustrated Tyrell. The Slash Film podcast summed up Wallace perfectly;
"He's the CEO of Samsung coming on stage decades after Steve Jobs (Tyrell) has left and taken all his secrets with him".
As we know Denis Villeneuve is a D U N E fanatic did he cast Jared Leto because he wants Jared Leto as Leto?
I have had issues with the BLADE RUNNER since it was the crushing disappointment of 1982 but the more I see it on better quality medium the better it gets. The first time I saw the BLADE RUNNER FINAL CUT at my friend Rob's house in dazzling HD I had a genuine Philip K. Dick moment when I thought the characters in the Philip K. Dick movie looked more real than we did in the reality that was watching it.
DANGEROUS DAYS BLADE RUNNER DOC 1 The brutal love scene in original movie was more originally more tender according to Sean Young but it was cut to look like abuse. If they were "made to be together" as Sean Young says in one cut scene, this makes Tyrell even more of a cruel god.
The more I watch the original the more intriguing Edward James Olmos's character Gaff becomes as he is obviously some form of handler for Deckard, whatever he is.
For all my re-evaluation and late appreciation of BLADE RUNNER, if you want something genuinely Philip K. Dick from the 1980s, that also screams 1980s in all it's vulgar glory, Paul (STARSHIP TROOPERS) Verhoeven's TOTAL RECALL seems a little forgotten today.
DANGEROUS DAYS BLADE RUNNER DOC 2 While doing painstaking model work to ensure that every microscopic light source in the cityscape for the opening of the orginal movie looks real, Douglas Trumble's exhausted Special Effects crew gets a trip to director Ridley Scott's breathtaking actual sets. They are gobsmacked to find beautiful interiors like Tyrell's office with light dancing around like Midsummer Nights Dream from no realistic sources whatsover. Later, graffiti on piece of tiny modelwork is shown to say "RIDLEY IS GOD"
We speculated in the 80s that the ultimate cyperpunk accessory would be cybernetic eyes what would show you the world as if shot by the Scott Brothers. (You could have a dropdown that could switch between Tony and Ridley).
Anyway.. back to BLADE RUNNER 2049
When listened to on headphones. soundtrack to BLADE RUNNER 2049 by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch, just like the astonishing Vangelis soundtrack for the original, will put you right back in the movie, even when you are actually just queuing up for a flu jab at Boots.
Jóhann Jóhannsson was the original choice for the BLADE RUNNER 2049 soundtrack before Denis Villeneuve decided quite late on to go with Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch. (If we we got is a last minute rush job it is all the more impressive). Jóhann Jóhannsson is a brilliant modern composer which means eventually we will get a probably excellent variant soundtrack for this movie before long.
The soundtrack for the BLADE RUNNER 2049 - "Black Out 2022" short, by Flying Lotus is also good and should be expanded to album length. (While we wait for the live action movie of these events).
Bowie was the original choice to to be Wallace because Denis Villeneuve and Ridley Scott considered him to be hugely influential on Blade Runner and cyberpunk aesthetic. As I've mentioned elsewhere cyberpunk was coined as a term AFTER Blade Runner to describe the look and concept. So what Bowie music inspired Blade Runner?
Diamond Dogs? - no, too 1970s, too glam
Outside? - no, a response, a reflection back from the 1990s
You'd need something from the big technological/style bang of the 1980s as it sloughed off the 1970s, something like this.
This is the sound of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and eventually literary cyberpunk being born screaming into life
**UPDATE** Now I come to think of it Bowie's 'Heroes' and 'Low' are much more influential on both actual movie soundtracks.
One final note.
When Denis Villeneuve needed a location to show a defunct dying Las Vegas he chose a Stock Exchange (in Budapest). I wonder how ironic and prophetic that will seem when we finally get to see BLADE RUNNER 2075?
USA have not qualified for the next world cup after losing to Trinidad and Tobago. Urgh. One of the reasons association football is so exciting is comparative lack of scoring, meaning any one mistake can be hugely consequential and if you leave it to fate in this sport, fate will bite you on the a*se.
I know, I'm an Englishman, and because of that I can offer some comfort from similar disappointment in the past.
It's a sad fact but I nearly always enjoy football tournaments more when my own team does not qualify. I won't go into the details as it's depressing but watching World Cup as a neutral is far better.
Forget it's a sport you should be a part of, and if you really want to enjoy it, treat Russia 2018 as something more like a Netflix subscription.
Brazil, Belgium, Spain and France all play football like a movie directed by Luc Besson.
They will be out of this world to watch and it will probably be an experience like STAR TREK : DISCOVERY.
Germany are not far behind on the good to watch stakes but also have an admirable hypnotic sheen that would be like binge watching THE CROWN.
Italy, Uruguay and Argentina will be dramatic and gripping like BREAKING BAD
All the African teams will be as crazy entertaining as UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT
Any English speaking teams will be hard to watch but with air of unmissable eventual tragedy, like BETTER CALL SAUL. England will typically take this to a whole new level and add awkward tragi-comedy that wouldn't be out of place in THE OFFICE.
Like STRANGER THINGS? Need an unlikley story of no-hopers winning out in a far off fantasy world - Iceland! Qualified! Iceland!
and finally.. to get to the he hosts of the World Cup 2018.. Have you seen ICARUS? The Russians have very little concept of fair play on current form and I would expect some of the antics with referees, officials, social media and mysterious information release to look quite a look like HOUSE OF CARDS (though MR ROBOT prob more appropriate).
If you really cannot watch as a neutral
N Ireland
Rep. Of Ireland
Australia
New Zealand
are all in the playoffs and might still qualify
But for sheer entertainment I would follow Belgium
Someone in the pub last week suggested I reboot the blog with a comparison* of The Orville vs Star Trek : Discovery. Well...That's not how this works. Too predictable.
It has irked me that this blog has been a one note promo site for HBO up until now. The only reason I've not covered Westworld tv is that it pretty much blew my mind beyond rational analysis. (In the meantime, try this)
so instead this is
HBOs Emmy nominated THE NIGHT OF
vs
HBOs one season failure VINYL
The one season of HBOs VINYL is flawed but fun and still worth a spin
VINYL was a much anticipated music related HBO drama about New York in it's amazingly creative 70s. I nearly said heyday LOL. This is the hell experienced an shown in THE NIGHT OF from the other perspective.
American Century records is a music company about to get a ringside seat to the birth of Punk, Disco and Hip-Hip, if the slightly cartoonish but entertaining staff and clients can keep their hands off the powder and each other. Co-written by Mick Jagger and directed in parts by Martin Scorsese, who where both there at the time so should know.
Is it great, classic HBO - No
Is it still entertaining - Yes
This is best seen as a long movie, as it was cancelled after one season and isn't coming back, I think it was ultimately too much like MAD MEN. It was released unfortunately at the same time as HBOs other hope for the future, WESTWORLD, and was just steam rollered for attention by that far superior show.
Writing is ultimately the problem with VINYL, which tries to easily recapture the dynamics of MAD MEN only to find that apparently straightforward story was a lot more complex than it looked. That said compared to the plot aerobatics of WESTWORLD even MAD MEN might not have lasted long.
VINYLs main issue is it seems to be more about cocaine then music. I can see this being authentic for the time, but hardly makes the characters sympathetic in the austere world of today,
Bobby Carnivale a great actor and a real scene stealer in Boardwalk Empire but not sympathetic enough to lead the series. Seven seasons of Don Draper was just about enough thanks, and Draper did have enough wrinkles in his background and behavior to make him understandable and ultimately pitiful.
Had it been possible to rejig VINYL in the face of big egos like Jagger and Scorsese it should probably have been all about Ray Romano's character, Zak Yankovich, head of promotions who is the most likable face in the chaos.
American Century is nearly bought out by a German company, which is a problem as Led Zeppelin's manager Peter Grant is virulently anti-German
For a story heavy with 70s rock cliches this has some great female characters,
Olivia Wilde is great as the magnificent Devon Finestra, a survivor of Andy Warhol's social circle and Factory favourite. Juno Temple is an ambitious assistant who just burns up the screen. Annie Parisse as Andrea "Andie" Zito, a previous manager at the company with an lot of unexplored but interesting history tries to restore order but only creates her own chaos.
That said, for all the casting masterstrokes, one major casting disaster is having Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall's son as a early John Lydon type punk at the heart of the action. Just telling the events as they happened would have been far preferable to a fantasy of events told from the perspective of those being rebelled against. A blatant piece of Hollywood nepotistic casting like this is a great pointer to what drove the punk movement in the first place.
Also isn't the timeline off? English punk bands before the New York Dolls? if those punks been more like Ian Dury and Dr Feelgood this would have made sense. In fact - why wasn't the punk section of VINYL just all about the New York Dolls? Were they too boring? (this is a joke).
So, its got a lot of issues, but if you try and see it like AMERICAN GODS with a good soundtrack and less like a documentary it's at least fun.
There are scenes from this one season failure of a show which have stayed with me all year.
There is a surprisingly affecting scene when American Century tries to rescue Elvis from the tomb that is his Las Vegas career
Or when the junior record exec try out a new sound as a dance record
Perhaps the most interesting part of VINYL is it's failure - it shows HBO experimenting and trying to get things right. This show was redeveloped endlessly, as was WESTWORLD, and sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't.
Example - The cameos and inserts of real legendary musicians into the narrative is clunky and awkward and perhaps would have been better done with real footage back protected onto the scene.
I've a high tolerance for this kind of thing from HBO and recently tried very hard to like JOHN FROM CINCINATTI before it's pretentiousness overwhelmed me. Even then that had plenty to like.
Can you regard VINYL, and surfer soaps trying to be Shakespeare, and even minor successes as TREME and HUNG as HBO classics? Obviously not, but are they better than some of the mainstream garbage we are served every day as decent TV?
Fox's EMPIRE is a successful tv show about the music business, about to go for it's 4th season. It's entertaining enough in a trashy way like the best mass market tv. I enjoyed Season 1 last year with a bottle of wine while writing out Xmas cards.
Something keeps EMPIRE just about watchable, performances and music mainly.
But it's garbage compared to VINYL.
The real issue is wether experiments like VINYL are worth the effort when there is so much other quality HBO and cable shows that don't get the attention (SHOW ME A HERO). But, If you are that much of a fan of how these shows are put together even the interesting failures are worth a look.
In contrast with Vinyl I was really looking forward to this. I now realise to write this honestly I'll have to watch to last two episodes of The Night Of, and this is annoying because I hate it.
It's another show set in New York, but this is a hell hole rather than any kind of living place.
It's unbelievable. I don't believe any kid with any background would be stupid enough to get into that situation. Naive? Where did this kid grow up? Narnia? He's supposed to have spent 20 years growing up in Queens NY!
Did he ever leave the house or did they home school him in a oxygen tank.? They are supposed to be Pakistani-Americans, not the Amish.
If you are bored, like me, of seeing Muslims as naive, ignorant magnets for violence, you should instead watch MASTER OF NONE , which is very refreshing and funny.
THE NIGHT OF seems, for HBO original shows, a very unsophisticated take on race which puzzled me until I read on the wiki "based on Criminal Justice, a 2008–09 British television series"
Hmm. That's depressing.
Just to clarify, I'm not Muslim or Pakistani and I'm not offended by this portrayal.
I'm just bored with it.
Also
The gritty detail is laughable
John Turturros feet... honestly. This is a potentially interesting character reduced to the level of a joke, and that ailment isn't that funny.
Economics of New York taxi firms? If it was this much of a drag they wouldn't operate on a day to day basis. Does Uber exist in this universe? Honestly I'd rather watch Misfit Garage.
Lawyer politics ZZZzzz
(and yet I loved S1 of Damages and love Billions)
Gritty detective on his last case about to retire Zzzzzz
Want a vision of New York as hell? avoid this and watch Jacob's Ladder. The Night Of is like The Wire written from a suburb. If you need that level of grit and authenticity watch SHOW ME A HERO instead.
The Positives -
As usual with HBO casting and acting is top notch all round
While being fully aware of the critical reaction to both shows I have a bit of an itch already to rewatch VINYL despite all its many flaws, while you really would have to pay me to to watch THE NIGHT OF again.
(I'm aware most viewers and reviewers do not share my opinion on this show)
Finally
You can tell a lot about the quality of the shows in this golden age of tv by the titles. It seems obvious but is worth reiterating.
VINYL's titles are exciting but overcooked
THE NIGHT OF's titles look (to me) like a dull knock off of TRUE DETECTIVE
* OK - Star Trek : Discovery vs Orville
I can see why people hate Star Trek : Discovery, but its flaws are 90% promotional - this is NOT set in universe we were familiar with and does not link up easily to other series. But, if you can get over the details up to Ep 3 it's a well written, smart, beautiful show with already some of my fave characters on tv.
The narrative before this was that The Orville was real the Trek show, if so it's everything about TOS that I used to hate - predictable, flat, dull to watch despite being set in outer space, and aliens which are not anything like alien enough. The worst crime is it's not funny while trying hard to be. I've given up already. And I would count myself a Seth McFarlane fan.
FYI the entire first season of Star Trek : Next Generation absolutely stank out 1987 before turning into the phenomena we know and love in later years.
After latest UK general election Trump's leading international ally, Theresa May, is finished politically.
Nigel Farrage's UKIP party is completely wiped out.
I'm thinking Trump's schmoozing with Farrage and Theresa May might not have been great for UKIP and the Tories.
Picking a fight with London in the middle of a terror attack.. days before a general election.... He's a real strategic genius isn't he?
The best way to get over depressing experiences is to accept them and learn from them.
Prompted by next weeks release of Alien : Covenant, my A L I E N 1-4 binge revealed a lot and improved them all.
I was not alone in disliking Alien3 and Alien : Resurrection at the time of release. They were, and remain, grim experiences but for different reasons.
There is perhaps no movie sequel with a worse reputation for following the narrative of the previous movie. After investing ourselves in the survival of beloved characters through the nerve shredding final hour of Aliens, moviegoers all over the world were astonished to find Hicks, Newt and Bishop butchered off screen at the start of Alien3. It was perhaps the most infamous piece of movie franchise suicide in history.
From the outset Alien3 has everything against it
The worst premise of any movie sequel in history
Lousy effects
3rd hand script (who are those characters at the end?)
Stupid pacing and development
Only character worth identifying with, Charles Dance's Clemens, dies in first half
Needlessly Sadistic tone - Autopsy on Newt?
Abuse of a great director to be in David Fincher
And yet, despite all that, the Assembly cut of this butchered movie is not bad at all. The stunning opening shots of Fury 161 hint at the level of bleakness you should be expecting.
This is a funereal movie, because it hints heavily that THIS IS THE LAST ALIEN FILM. There is obviously a real determination to finish the franchise on a particular tone. (Completely undermined by the cynicism of A4 but we'll get to that)
Fincher really created an atmosphere comparable to Scott's film, and like Alien it is immeasurably better on a big HD screen. Suddenly we can appreciate breathtaking set design, a great setting and some riveting performances.
We still can't escape the flawed concept and the production hell which resulted but separated from the two previous movies this would be a cult classic. A Shakespearean version of Outland?
This comparison falls apart quickly. Shakespeare's plays stand out because they are the vision of one man from conception to execution. Part of the magic of Elizabethan theatre, is that the artist produced work directly for mass audience with no filter.
Whereas
The average Hollywood script which reaches the screen is more like a monstrous hybrid of committee ideas that have absorbed and corrupted the world of many talented contributors. They produce a series of experiments until something accidentally stumbles onto the screen.
Let us bow our heads briefly to Vincent Ward's Alien3 William Gibson Alien3
The best 'Assembly Cut' of Alien3 was only put together by someone else, Charles de Lauzirika, as David Fincher absolutely refused to return to the project - so actually my Shakespeare comparison could not be farther off, Elizabethan theatre is the complete opposite of Alien3, and it's similarly compromised sequel.
Assembly Cut? In my opinion this vast improvement over the original release of Alien3. It makes the most of a great setting and provides a reasonably coherent storyline - somehow - from one of cinema's great production car crashes.
Unlike Fincher's doomed movie it seems to have a lot going for it from the credits
Soon to be great screenwriter Joss Whedon (I am another priest of the church of Whedon)
Great experienced director Jeunet (go and see Delicatessen and City of Lost Children immediately if you have not already)
Great cast
Not terrible concept - the human alien hybrid is even worse than the aliens.
But, and here is the main issue, Jeunet's great gallic sense of humour might have transferred to Pinewood but it sure doesn't fit in LA. Right from the off the 'bug opening' gives it a definite comedic tone, which was a slur ironically applied the first Alien vs Predator film, which is a step up on virtually every level from this.
The LA shoot obviously killed this movie right off the drawing board. Looked at now the movie functions like a two hour ad for Pinewood Studious and British effects crews. Whole production screams cheapo exploitative LA knockoff. ROGER CORMAN PRESENTS EDGAR ALLEN POE'S THE ALIEN RESSURECTION - but without anything like AIPs panache, featuring fake looking firearms and occasional model shots that would look unconvincing in Blakes 7.
Not that the script is without blame. I've not read the original script and I'm a massive fan of Whedon so I'll go easy, but this is even less satisfying than the butchered schizo tale in Alien3. I've heard Whedon defenders claim its best seen as a dark episode of Firefly but Alien4 wouldn't be a good episode of Firefly. We get the least convincing 200 year time jump ever, with only slight changes in costumes and hair style over centuries. Bare hints that Earth is a hellhole are never explored.
Perhaps most irritating, if you are directly comparing with previous instalments, the Alien's acidic blood, a major plot point from the first movie, is selectively forgotten about.
At worst this produces a jokey self referential fan film tht shouldn't be seen outside a scifi convention. Most obvious in jokey self referential dialogue which I just don't have the enthusiasm even to repeat.
but
like Alien3, we just have to accept it, on some level, to get over it. and we can. Alien Resurrection is a far better a horror film about great concepts and characters exploited by a cynical movie corporations than it is about fictitious characters exploited by fictional aliens and corporations.
Like '8' herself Alien Resurrection is a abortive experiment which should probably never happened but did. The self referential quote we should be referencing a quote from Aliens "You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage"
When the Newborn butchers the Alien Queen we are forced to conclude human cynicism is even more powerful than the Aliens themselves, but by then the existence of the movie itself has made that obvious. It appears the only way to go after undermining the honest desolation of Alien3 is jokey cynicism on very level, and the jokes aren't even funny.
The other movie industry story exposed here is all about Hollywood Star Power.
Surviving actress from classic movie is granted greater and greater creative control over subsequent instalments allowing some bizarre selfish creative decisions (Alien3) and some selfish production mistakes (Alien : Resurrection badly shot in a murky LA shed because transatlantic travel deemed an inconvenience).
Haggling over money before committing to Alien3 killed at least two promising scripts (William Gibson's Alien3, featuring Newt and Hicks without Ripley was a casualty) and her subsequent commitment to Alien4, for a bigger paycheck, undermines most of the final funereal intent of Alien3.
Prompted by next weeks release of Alien : Covenant, my A L I E N 1-4 binge revealed a lot and improved my opinion of them all. Rather than go back to the familiar versions I tracked down the alternative cuts of each film which have appeared over the years and tried to compare with the originals.
Ridley Scott's Alien 1979 is still a Rolls Royce of a horror film and is a stone cold cinema classic on any level, comfortably head on shoulders above the other movies in this series. Acting. dialog, set design, soundtrack, direction - you name it.
It wasn't quite so appreciated in the year of it's release. The 51st Academy awards, the year it was released, only recognised Ridley Scott's Alien for Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects.
In a year when the Vietnam experience finally broke through into Hollywood cinema I can see how The Deer Hunter and Coming Home would clean up the actual awards, but here are the 1979 movies nominated for Oscars instead of Alien in various categories
In 1986 James Cameron's classic sequel, was considered the equal, if not an improvement, on Scott's first film. Now I have to say it's growing old fast, and relies on some great comedic performances. Even those of us who know the dialog well enough to see it coming still laugh at the samesscenes, surely a tribute to magnificent comic delivery and commitment of the actors and their director.
But even even the fantastic model work is looking creaky, and the stars on stripes the 'US Colonial Marines' looks very out of place. It looks like very conventional 80s action film.
Some of this must be down to the medium on which we now what these films. In the 80s and 90s, seen on VHS and DVD usually on small screens, Aliens is comfortably a better movie than the original. Today, on HD full size screens, Alien looks like the grand gothic space opera that it is, and Aliens looks like a fun tv show in comparison, even when it has perhaps the greatest pacing and character interaction of the decade.
It's a shame Cameron's classic looks so flat and conventional compared to Scott's film, but ironically it may be enhanced long term by way it sets up once-reviled Alien3. Seen between Alien and Alien3, two restrained atmospheric suspense films, Aliens is a cathartic monument to thoughtless uncontrolled violence. This is the downfall of the characters, setting up the tragic events which begin the next instalment.
I am positive that James Cameron did not intend this ....but when watched and accepted as a long narrative Ripley Newt, Bishop and Hicks are effectively doomed in Aliens. Ripley has rescued Newt, and should hurry back to the Dropship knowing the imminent destruction of everything around her is about to happen in a nuclear explosion. This would obviously destroy the nest and dormant Queen she leaves behind.
Instead, when backing out of the egg chamber, Ripley, the most controlled of female characters, loses control of her emotions and stops to open fire on the egg chamber with flame and gunfire. The Queen survives this of course, and by provoking it and turning it into an enemy that pursues her into the Sulaco she almost certainly sets up the tragedy at the start of Alien3.
I explained my theory of Ripley's tragic loss of control to a friend of mine in the pub the other day - his response was "That's easy for you to say, you weren't there" Special Edition?
Before James Cameron's Aliens it was naturally assumed that any movie sequel would be inferior to the original, Four years later the Special Edition of this movie also proved that a later release with added scenes could also improve on the original (notably the Special Edition of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind had not been been an improvement).
This version includes several scenes which enhance the original release, we get to see the fate of the world Ripley left behind, 60 years in the past, and a mini introductory battle featuring drone sentry weapons which really puts the scale of the threat in perspective.
In an attempt to distance myself from this I watched the alternate versions of these films rather than the original releases which I knew well. They are all longer than the originals, and I think improvements, even when the directors (Jeunet and Scott) still prefer the original release.
An example, above. This is a brief shot of the Royal FaceHugger Alien (and actor Christopher Fairbank, recently seen in Guardians of The Galaxy) cut from the butchered cinema release of Alien3, but restored for the Assembly Cut. It effectively covers one of the many plotholes in the original version of the movie.
These movies are so familiar to me it is very difficult to sit outside the effect they had on my life at various times. My first exposure to Alien 1979 was through books and Jerry Goldsmiths incredible soundtrack, I was too young to see it at the cinema. I saw Aliens in Leicester Sq with a raucous group of college friends. Alien3 I watched in disbelief with everyone else but knew what was coming as I'd heard the rumours at work at Forbidden Planet. Resurrection was a sad end to a film series, and for me, a post college life about to change.
When the dust settles on the Trump administration a new McCarthyism could be next.
As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost there appears to be no limit to the opportunistic treason of the current Rep party, particularly in the wake of the sacking of the head of the FBI.
I feel sorry for the historians that will have to explain this Comey business,
HISTORY STUDENT FROM 2025 : "so.. just before an election Comey announced to the press that thousands of security risk emails had been forwarded to a private account.. .. but didn't announce to the press that the Russians were attacking the election.. ...then it turned out that the emails weren't a security risk and there weren't thousands of them... WWWHHHAATTT?!? What was everyone on in 2016?"
The very least you would expect this to do to would be to call into question the fairness of the last election. Even for Republicans. Even if there was no Russian interference (see below) the FBI has obviously disastrously undermined the voting system.
But no
the current Republican thinking seems to be
"lets move on"
And since the Democrats have allowed them to control all branches of US government it would appear they will be able to do that, at least until next years mid term elections.
HISTORY STUDENT FROM 2025 : ".. so yeah...Trump fired the man who made him president... the head of the FBI... to cover up the evidence of it ever happening WHHAATT?!"
Rather than ask current Republicans and supporters to be non partisan and consider the long term health of their own democracy which, on current form, is laughable
I would ask them to consider their own self interest, because there is no way this is going down well in the long term for you.
I imagine the Democrats in the next few decades will be pretty much what they are now, trying to be non-partisan, trying to do the right thing and failing miserably at both.
In the bitter aftermath of Trump I see most of the serious reaction to be from future Republicans, who I'm sure will have been convinced by then that Trump and his fellow travelers, like Bush II, were never a real Republicans anyway. That way of thinking would insulate the future GOP from contagion with the current generation.
History won't paint you as Republicans - you will be
'Trump supporters'
something else entirely.
Who should really be worried though, in the long term, are the Russians. A country economically the size of Italy who it would appear are earning the long lasting enmity of a scientific and economic super power.
I have a lot of personal goodwill towards Russia and Russians. I studied their history intensely at school. It's my favourite classical music. Some of my favourite movies are Russian.
My grandfather served on Arctic convoys in WW2.
Putin might have looked like a political chessmaster last year, now he's starting to look like a midget cheating at cards with a powerful drunken paranoiac who is too focused on his drinking - right now - to realise what is happening.
Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said this much more eloquently after December 7th 1941 "I fear we have awoken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve"
Even allowing for the fact that the United States has attempted to do similar (as has my own country)
I think we will all be long dead before the US gets over the history of 2016. The reaction in next couple of decades could make McCarthyism look mild. Intelligent Russians must be horrified as to where this could eventually go. They are going to be the conspiratorial boogeymen of the next 2 or 3 generations - even the Chinese might find dealing with them toxic.
One intelligence analyst on CNN suggested the Russians had only intended to empower Trump, not get him elected, making this one overly successful intelligence op that has run way out of control. Of the two Russian intelligence agencies that helped Trump into office "Fancy Bear" and "Cozy Bear" - which one was the Sorcerer and which one was the Sorcerers Apprentice?
"These major problems ... will be utterly irrelevant with 50 years" - James Burke
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is finally getting the attention it deserves as the best history podcast. His other series Common Sense is also good for provocative political comment. A recent episode featured legendary BBC mind blower James Burke, really I think just to get Burke's take on Brexit and Trump. Burke talks about using AI gestalts for everyday voting, dereliction of the press, and his new Connections app.
But his response to a question about oncoming doom has stuck with me and I've tried to use it to lighten up every gloomy pub conversation since.
"These major problems of .. things like climate change and pollution and over population and so on these will be utterly irrelevant with 50 years and yet we are busting a gut in some cases doing serious harm socially and economically to our societies in order to solve these problems when the problems will be gone in 50 years time when the Nano Fabricator arrives and blows them all away.... and everything else in the present day economy"
Dan Carlin responds somewhat skeptically that he'd heard his uncle predict the end of cancer, only to die of cancer, but Burke thinks is possible and is worth researching right now.
"If the United States decided to run a project with all the intensity and involvement that it ran the Apollo project on bringing the Nano Fabricator into existence sooner than 50s years.. putting money into nano technological resource then we would know fairly rapidly if it is going to happen, and if it is we could start planning socially for what we'll do when it turns up.. because it's going to cause, like all technological advance, massive social ripples....What do we do when the Nano Fabricator gives you everything you need using dirt air and water and a minor amount of other things that most people can get hold of for nothing?"
He talks about this here on New Mexico in Focus, with correspondent Gwyneth Doland
at 17.17
So
Princeton Field-Reversed Configuration experiment (PFRC-2) magnetic confinement fusion team
PRINCETON FUSION ENGINE
is bench testing a fusion engine which works. It's small, only a few metres in length and apparently cannot be scaled up but it sounds like you could fit it in typical American van.
TYPICAL AMERICAN VAN
It runs on Helium 3. I'm not sure if that counts as unleaded. I would imagine so.
Cleaner than the Tocamak reactors being developed at huge cost in France and I'm sure cleaner than diesel.
I certainly trust Princeton on mileage more than Volkswagen right now.
Here is the engaging Dr Steph from Princeton Satellite Systems talking in full about her fusion rocket. The fusion specifics start at about 6.48.
You might enjoy how they spend about 5 seconds on the real world implications of actual fusion power on Earth...
And then 15 minutes explaining how to on strap it to a space probe and send it to Pluto
Colour shade on electromagnetic spectrum indicates proximity to genuine Mad Science
One way out of the morass of Brexit talks and Article 50 is to call the bluff of the Europeans who promote the big vision of their transnational project. The UK, to EU eyes, is currently an inward looking organisation reducing the great problems of the world to local issues from an earlier age.
We could counter that one of the reasons UK has lost interest in the EU project is that the EU has been sidelining a few issues on it's borders recently. Ukraine to the east and Libya to the south are both gripped by civil wars, both of which the EU (including the UK) has some responsibility for igniting. On Europe's south east border economically booming Turkey is sliding into authoritarianism.
Ukraine and Turkey have both been offered the carrot of EU membership in the past in a frankly unrealistic and disingenuous manner which did nothing really but cause them further internal turmoil.
The UK Prime Minister talks, of the positives for Europe which could come from a good Brexit deal. The future of the world economy is obviously that of large distinct trading blocks and we have to ensure relations between these blocks are not harmed by the encroaching isolationist sentiment.
Perhaps we could offer a blanket solution to the EU's problem border states with other trading blocs which would also invigorate world trade and resolve Brexit? UK, Ukraine, Turkey and Libya could be defined as 'Interface States'.
'Interface States' would have
Hybrid of local/EU trade rules (as the UK and Turkey currently have anyway) featuring favourable trade tarrifs with EU, to be particularly applied to transit goods coming in from outside the EU from larger trading blocs.
The option of using the Euro. Currency policy such as interest rates would still be controlled by the ECB and it would be made clear to all that no bail out would ever be offered to states outside the EU. Large parts of Africa already have their own currencies pegged to the Euro and there are ten nations currently using the US dollar without any control or influence on US monetary policy.
By default no free movement of labour - which has been the major stumbling bloc for integration with UK and Turkey and would be with Libya and North Africa. This could codify rules to protect EU frontiers.
Ukraine would be the interface with Russian bloc, and could include a wider trade deal initially more favourable to Belarus and Georgia than Russia, with an inducement to Russia for further progress if the current semi-Cold War improves. (This would at least provide some positive way out of the current impasse with Putin).
Turkey would be the interface state with the Middle East - as it effectively is at the moment but without the formal status and guarantees it probably needs to work effectively long term.
Libya, or perhaps in the short term Tunisia, would be the interface state with Africa, A semi-Eurozone in North Africa could only be good for local stabilization and might encourage economic migrants to trade and proper instead of risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean.
UK would obviously be the Interface state with North America and the Anglozone and the Commonwealth. (It wouldn't have to adopt the Euro).
We could go farther.
Cuba could be offered Interface State status to become EU's favoured partner in Central/South America, which would be a huge diplomatic gain for the EU in that area.
US objections would disappear as this inevitably improved Cuba's internal politics.
A comprehensive oil/gas deal in the South Atlantic could be offered if the Falklands became the EU's Interface State with South America. If the Falklands retained British sovereignty and security guarantees but adopted the Euro and in every other economic respect became a controlled conduit for EU trade how could that be a bad thing economically and politically all round?
This could be applied further as well, out beyond the EU.
By sidelining national politics completely Taiwan could be the Interface State between North America, Japan and China, leading to a wider solution which would lesson tensions in the area.
Afghanistan or even Kashmir could be declared Interface States between South Asia and China, allowing an influx of trade and investment which would undermine the political problems.
To codify this Interface States could even be given their own trading organisation and forum at the UN.
I've heard this idea promoted before as 'Britain as the bridge to the Americas' but it seemed an ambitious idea wrapped in British self interest. We should avoid being portrayed as little Englanders, recover the internationalism of our forefathers and be prepared to roll this idea out on a global scale - with the help of the Europeans.
I'm sure cynical post Brexit Europeans will be suspicious of this, thinking perhaps in terms of Perfidious Albion
(I voted Remain by the way and consider myself a committed European)
but the message endlessly disappointed Europeans need to learn is on the front page of every self improvement book -
"Learn to accept the situation the way it is"
The bloody vote happened.
Most people really don't like the result.
Let's get on and make the best of it.
If the Interface States idea seems hopelessly impractical and optimistic consider the state of Ireland after Brexit. With no hard border to the Republic in the south, Northern Ireland is likely to become a test case 'Interface State' between the EU/UK whatever happens.
And in any case I think right now the world needs all the optimism it can get.
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, 13 September 1782. By John Singleton Copley (1738–1815)
You have to admire the Russian operation of 2016 - which perhaps in the long term has fatally damaged faith in both U.S. political parties,
and Wikileaks,
and the concept of truth itself.
But to achieve this it has had the help of what is perhaps a uniquely dedicated political institution, the Republican Party, an organisation which historically has risen above petty concerns like the good of its own country and citizens to embrace naked self interest in a way I don't think I've ever seen in any other historic example anywhere in the world.
I was shocked by the House Intelligence hearing into Russian hacking hearing a few days ago. I shouldn't have been.
Despite broad consensus of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Republican Trey Gowdy only wants to prosecute those 'leakers' trying to expose the extent of the conspiracy. Even the Russians must be embarrassed to watch this.
Treason is harsh dirty word not really used in UK politics since the Elizabethan era - but it seems inadequate now to describe the acts of politicians quite prepared to cover up and even encourage malign foreign influence if it helps them prosper politically. It is almost pantomime villain territory and would be difficult to believe had not the Republican party been quite capable of similar in two previous historical examples.
We could perhaps add the Southern Strategy to this. Though it does not include the collusion of a foreign power it does indicate the Republicans willingness to undermine social and racial cohesion within their own nation if it suits their political agenda.
And don't think that sacred constitution is safe either. More recently the Republicans, who routinely wave around the United States constitution as if it were personally handed to them from Mount Sinai, have also sought to directly undermine that supremely sacred document to their own political ends. The Founding Fathers enshrined within the constitution checks and balances to moderate the influence of the Presidency, such as the Congress (the lower chamber) and the Senate (upper chamber) and the creation of a independent Supreme Court. Membership of the Supreme Court is for life and it is with the power of a president to replace Supreme Court members if one should pass away.
Or it was.
Until 2016, when a President elected with a substantial majority in 2012 was blocked from appointing his own choice of Supreme Court judge by Republican Congress, an act which directly undermines the obvious written intent of the US constitution.
It would seem, for the purposes of the Supreme Court at least, the United States is already a one party state.
Republicans are enabled in this by the other party, the Democrats, who have seemingly fallen off their high horse so many times now they have serious concussion. "We go high, they go low" might be a noble policy when dealing with normal political opponent but when dealing with an opposition quite happy to even collude with a hostile foreign power and cover it up, ongoing Democratic ineptitude and weakness must hover around treason itself.
I'm not being naive about my own country. The Conservatives have rigged at least one UK election and members of the Labour Party and the Unions that backed them in the 1970s have long been suspected to be under Russian influence. Perhaps Nazi influence on British society in the 1930s or German influence on the monarchy before that could also be cited as examples of recent political treachery in the UK.
But these are individuals, not an entire organisation with an established record of doing similar. There is nothing, I think historically in any nation which compares with the naked greed for power AT ANY COST which can be seen in the Republican Party right now. I'm sure in future they will defend themselves by hiding behind the breathtaking incompetence of the current occupant of the White House, but this is a much bigger issue than one man. He is a bumbling opportunist who was presented with the opportunity to become the most powerful man on Earth - can we really blame him for taking that opportunity?
The ones who will ultimately carry the can for this are the ones who enabled his rise - and somehow future historians will have to explain how they chose to do this at the expense of the country they swore an oath to protect.
