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Kimi: My thoughts
I watched Kimi the other week on a flight coming back from California. It’s a thriller starring Zoë Kravitz. Overall, I would say it’s an okay movie. There are a couple of things in the plot, especially toward the end that kind of irritated me.
What’s really interesting about it is that it solidly takes place in mid-stage pandemic. The entire film was produced in 2021. You have characters who aren’t leaving their homes, and others who are back to working in offices. Zoë Kravitz’s character is working from home reviewing voice assistant (the titular Kimi) recordings to help it be more accurate. It’s a reflection of today’s world.
Spoilers ahead:
What really irritated me about it, is that at the end of the movie Zoë Kravitz’s character turns and coldly kills the people invading her home. She seemed very detached from what she was doing. Then, after a bit of a flash-forward, you see that much of her struggle with going outside is gone. That struggle stemmed more from previous sexual assault than the pandemic, and it’s implied that what she really needed to solve her mental health issues was to kill some bad guys.
Kimi is available to stream on HBO-Max.
Movies and Television • March 6, 2022
My Thoughts on The Book of Boba Fett
I have been a fan of Star Wars for as long as I can remember, and I will probably always be a fan of Star Wars. That said, I don’t instantly like everything released that is Star Wars. There’s been quite a bit said about The Book of Boba Fett, and I agree with most of what’s been said. For the most part, I was entertained yet disappointed by it. I guess I was less disappointed by what it was and more disappointed by what it wasn’t.
I’m going to go into spoiler territory here, so if you haven’t seen it yet, and you care, then maybe stop ready.
I’m not going to retread a lot of the faults of the show that have been talked about by everyone on the Internet. But something that really bugs me is that they keep talking about going to “war” and getting enough muscle to deal with the pikes. Then when it comes down to it, they have something like a dozen people. The entire final episode just felt a bit lackluster to me. The rancor bit was pretty awesome, but the rest was a bit meh. Instead of getting a dozen people from Freetown to come help, why not go out and recruit some of the other tribes of Tuskens? Boba Fett uniting a couple of hundred Tuskens to rid the planet of the Pikes would have been so much better.
Also, if you’re putting a sniper on a roof along with someone to act as a distraction, maybe put them on different roofs.
Okay, anyway. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re probably not in the target audience, and you can probably skip it.
Movies and Television • February 11, 2022
Mythic Quest
I’m a bit late to the party, but I’ve been watching Mythic Quest, a comedy on Apple TV+ that’s about a video game company. So far, I’ve finished the first season which was released in early 2020. If you have access to Apple TV+, you should watch Ted Lasso. If you’ve seen Ted Lasso and you like gaming, then you should watch Mythic Quest. I honestly didn’t watch it until now because I didn’t think that it would be good. I’m glad that I was wrong.
There are two episodes that I want to talk a bit about here. The first is an episode in the middle of the first season that tells a compelling love story between a couple of game developers that spans the 90’s and 00’s. It’s a completely stand-alone episode that doesn’t tie into the narrative of the rest of the season at all. There are things in later episodes that reference back to it in more of an easter egg manner, but nothing critical. You could watch season one without ever watching episode 5 and you really wouldn’t notice. You also could just sit down and watch episode 5 without the rest of the season, and you wouldn’t notice. I think it was a bit of a bold move to put an episode in like that and something that probably wouldn’t have worked before streaming TV.
The other episode I want to bring up is their Quarantine special that was between the seasons. Pretty much the entire episode was done via zoom calls. It came out in May of 2020, and honestly, it feels like something that came out at that time. Now that we’re 2 years into the pandemic, it was really uncomfortable to watch. I’m sure that had I seen it in May of 2020, it would have been a welcome distraction, but now it kind of brings back what were darker times. Hopefully revisiting specials like this years down the road will serve to remind us a bit of what life was like back then, but at this point, it’s too soon, and I don’t want to be reminded.
Movies and Television • January 27, 2022
Retrospective: The Amazing Spider-Man
I watched The Amazing Spider-Man with my son tonight. The one from 2012 with Andrew Garfield in it. This movie is a lot better than I remember. I didn’t remember much about the movie, I think I only saw it one time when it was in Theaters. If I remember right, I was pretty salty at the time that Sony was making their own Spider-Man movies that weren’t involved in the MCU, and I really wanted them to just sell Spider-Man back to Marvel.
I guess since the second ASM movie flopped and Sony started working with Marvel, and I got what I want, I was able to go back and watch this without the salt. I found this to be a solid film. It had a solid cast all around. I always enjoy finding Dennis Leary in movies where I don’t expect him.
If you’re like me and you wrote this movie off when it was new, maybe give it another chance. You might enjoy it more than you think.
Movies and Television • January 16, 2022
Thoughts on The Expanse
The final episode of the Expanse was released yesterday. I’ve been reading the books since I saw someone talking about the first one on Twitter back when the first book was the only one out. The 9th and final book was released in November. With the books and the show both wrapping up within a couple of months of each other, I feel like I’m saying goodbye to this series twice.
It’s been interesting to watch the internet fandom grow over the years. The show was originally on Sci-Fi channel and was canceled after the third season. Fans petitioned hard to get the show saved. I even pitched in $10 to fly an airplane over Amazon HQ with a banner that said: “Save the Expanse”. It was pretty well known that Jeff Bezos was a fan. I’m not sure if the plane helped, but Amazon did pick the show up for 3 more seasons.
Anyway, I’m a bit sad that there isn’t more to look forward to. (at least nothing announced). However, I’m quite glad that I got the shows and books that I did get.
Movies and Television • January 15, 2022
The Green Knight
I finally got around to watching “The Green Knight” the other evening. It’s been on my list of things to watch since it came out last July.
I told my wife that it was a really good movie, but she wouldn’t like it. It had a very surreal feeling to it, which I figured that it would after watching the trailers. The Story of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight is a 14th Century story and is one of the more well-known Arthurian tales. Much of the Arthurian legend comes from centuries of oral traditions that predate the first written account of Arthur which was in the 12th Century. Because oral traditions tend to evolve as they’re retold, there is no single canonical version of the Arthurian Legends which is true for much folklore and mythology.
The Story of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight exists as a text from its original author, who is unknown. It pulls influence from various existing folk-lore, but it does have a single canonical source. The movie definitely took some liberties, but it stayed fairly true to the original story.
The Cinematography was fantastic. I had to pause the movie several times to assist my children with bedtime routines, and each time I came back, I was impressed with whatever still image was on the TV.
The movie definitely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoyed it.
SPOILERS AHEAD:
I’m going to talk about the ending here a bit. The original story ends with the Green Knight giving sir Gawain just a nick on his neck, then he reveals himself to be the lord of the castle. Gawain then goes back to Camelot with the shame that he didn’t give the lord the green sash. The movie of course leaves that open to possibility. I think I prefer the movie ending where it left things open to interpretation. I wouldn’t mind seeing a deleted scene or something with the story’s ending in place, but I like the movie standing as is.
Movies and Television • January 14, 2022