Why Only Writers should watch Limitless [Review Time]

Your deductive powers are a gift from God or chance or a straight shot of sperm or whatever or whoever wrote your life-script. A gift, not earned. You do not know what I know because you have not earned those powers.

You're a writer. Well, you're a person with an idea for a novel and it's all tumbling around in your brain even if you can't really call yourself a writer because you haven't written a word yet. But you're going to be a novelist, it's just not coming out. Enter NZT, a dream drug that will unlock the 80% or so of your brain that goes unused every day. This pill doesn't make you smarter; it's YOUR potential that's being unlocked. That book you've had bouncing around in your head comes pouring out onto the pages and it's brilliant. Your editor can't put it down.

That's where Limitless begins. It ends somewhere a little far-fetched but we'll get to that. Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is an aspiring writer, but in the words of Stephen King, "writers write." Eddie's more accurately described as an alcoholic and a soon-to-be bum because he's suffering from severe writer's block. Every writer ever should check out at least the beginning of this movie so you have something to laugh about when you find yourself in this position. Laugh yourself right out of it. The beginning of Limitless was rather brilliant. Brilliantly shot, directed, acted. It really starts off on a good foot, raising the expectations you had for it entering the theatre. It's got a neat sci-fi premise and a great foundation. Oh where did it go wrong?

In Time, Should you waste your Time? [Review Time]

For a few to be immortal, many must die.

I really didn't want to say the same thing as everyone else about this, but it seems the consensus is entirely correct. In Time has an incredible concept which was beautifully timely (heh) considering the film came out right in the middle of the Occupy movement, and it was even well-executed from the start. There's no bad exposition here and it's not even a heavy-handed metaphor. You'll be surprised how naturally money becomes time and time becomes money. I loved the first half hour so much I watched it twice. I recommend that you watch this movie for that first half hour or so, but then you can turn it off. The timer will make you feel like you shouldn't be wasting your life away, so don't.

TiMER [Review Time]

Of course when I sign up for Netflix and start rating a few of my favourite movies, they invent for me a category called "Sci-fi Romantic Comedy". I don't even like romantic comedies so I think they just got that part from the gender on my profile. Do not be sceptical. While it seems like combining two formula genres together could only create disaster, that's only if it's not well done; TiMER proved to be well-written, well-acted, funny, thought-provoking and enjoyable. So there.

Battlestar Galactica [Review Time]

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."

A very solemn quotation to begin with, but since my theme is the irrefutable quality of Battlestar Galactica, it seems a fitting one. Still, for me much of the love for this series comes from the humour embedded within a dark situation, so make no mistake - the above quotation doesn't say everything there is to say about the series. That's my job :)

A Theme of Themesea. By Ursula Theme Le Guin. [Review Time]

Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.

Well isn't this just your graying literature prof's wet dream. A Wizard of Earthsea really gets in there with the themes and then hits you over the head with them, repeatedly. Let's see, we have lots of good stuff on identity, the power of language, arrogance, forces in opposition, balance, and the mentor/pupil relationship. Well done, Ursula Le Guin, you've really gotten a lot of shit packed in there, and you really milked it for all it was worth.

Donnie Darko and More Time Travel [Review Time]

If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories.

You know how I love cult movies. Donnie Darko was a low budget film at 4.5 million, and didn't even manage to make that much back at the box office. It only started to have mass appeal as it spread as a cult phenomenon. Take a look at the 2001 trailer, and I think you'll see why this film didn't attract a widespread audience. It's difficult to really tell what this movie is about, what to expect, and that doesn't exactly change upon watching it. This is definitely a very complex movie with many undercurrents that are difficult to grapple with. A lot goes unsaid.

Source Code and Alternate Histories [review by starlight]

"It's the same train, but it's different..." "Deep! I hope it's different."

Ok, I know we can't stand Jake Gyllenhaal's face anymore, and no matter how excellent a performance he pulled off in Donnie Darko and Brokeback Mountain we will never forgive him for even considering doing Prince of Persia, but Source Code ain't bad. We even get to see a little bit of his earlier talent seep through. Colter Stevens is a pretty cool character. Kind of like if Jack Bower was given 8 minutes to stop a terrorist instead of 24 hours. But it's fitting because it's in the future, where everything moves faster.

Heretics of Dune [review time]

The fifth in Herbert's Dune series, Heretics sums up the shortcomings and accomplishments of the series. Long-winded and large scope, it misses the mark in creating tension for the reader, but we'll give it a break out of love. Heretics delivers on the promises made by Book 1, but do we really care anymore? Our hero Paul Atreides is long dead and his descendants are involved in a power struggle between the Bene Gesserit and the Tleilaxu. The problem is, either we don't have all of the pieces of the puzzle, or this puzzle is not complex enough to be worthy of settling the matter of universal domination.

So Many Firefly Quotes, So Little Time.

I was really surprised to find upon rewatching an episode in the series that many of my favourite quotations came from the pilot episode, Serenity, alone. Here are a few of them:

Mal: We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. And you know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die. Huh? Look at that chiseled jaw, huh? Come on!

James Cameron, Terminator 2 [Musings and Review]

"There's no fate but what we make for ourselves."

Just a few thoughts on Terminator 2 as I watched it last night.

Great story about mankind being wiped out by machines. I noticed the point keeps being driven home that it's man that is a force of destruction. Sarah Connor and her son John are repeatedly placing the blame and responsibility for what's happening on human nature.

"The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too."

Romance in Battlestar Gallactica? [review time]

Love is a strange and wonderful thing, Chief — you be happy you experienced it all — even if it was with a machine. -Gaius Baltar

Ok, I'm going to go ahead and be the girl here and talk about romance in Battlestar Gallactica, but it's not what you think. I'm not going to go all Team Tyrol on you or moon over how sexy Apollo is and how perfect he is for Starbuck and how I'd throw Dualla out of an airlock. Actually, I find most of the love subplots on BSG to be very trivial and unrelatable, but since I find the show to be incredibly masterful, I'm going to argue that these love affairs really contribute to the overall themes of the story. Because there is a pattern here. Some might say the drama between romantically involved characters was a filler addition to BSG aimed toward mass appeal, but I'm going to say that this drama was necessary to the show. I'm two seasons in right now and I find that it's the human relationships on the show that are fickle, shallow and unrelatable, while somehow the Cylons are capable of meaningful relationships, involving commitment, and inspiring of unconditional love.

Weezer Covers Radiohead's Paranoid Android [breaking news musing]

Please could you stop the noise, I'm trying to get some rest
From all the unborn chicken voices in my head

Weezer released an excellent cover of the popular Radiohead song today, and it's an instant youtube sensation, with over 100k views already. Check it out.

They stayed fairly true to the original, which is always nice. Then again, sometimes it's interesting to see a newer band's unique take on a "classic". I like it, in any case. What do you think?

Blogging about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, starring Neil Patrick Harris, by Joss Whedon [review by starlight]

"And by the way it's not about making money, it's about taking money. Destroying the status quo because the status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it."

Dr. Horrible is just another of those nerdy cult things that requires a few watches to really fall in love with, which in my opinion makes a great piece of "film". Of course, Dr. Horrible is difficult to classify as either movie or tv series because it is too long to be a short flim, too short to be a movie, and there's only one episode. So maybe it's a single-episode TV show? Anyways, if you like either Joss Whedon or Neil Patrick Harris, there's really no downside to taking about 40 minutes out of your life to enjoy this weirdly unclassifiable piece of... whatever it is.

Open-ended Sci-Fi: Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys [review by starlight]

"Ah! Ah! There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion. You... you... you believe in germs, right?"

The immortal and yet completely loony words of Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys really hint at the point of this film. No one interpretation is right or wrong, but throughout human history we've tended to assume that the majority is correct, even if the minority is one Galileo Galilie. Or, to use Jeffrey's example, the first scientists to come up with the idea of bacteria. Science fiction is a genre that works beautifully with an open-ended approach, where the credits roll and there is no one answer as to what just happened (much as I observed in Mulholland Dr). We really are given nothing conclusive at the end of 12 Monkeys, but of course, watchers everywhere have come up with many theories. And who's to say that the least advocated one is any less likely to be the correct? The majority used to think that the sun was one of seven planets visible to the naked eye that revolved around the earth. Shows what the majority knows.

The Allegory of the Matrix [musing time]

"I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did."

The above quotation occurs early in the film, and is probably the first indication that this movie has a much deeper meaning than meets the eye. I think when most people watch The Matrix, they see a hard sci-fi action flick with an interesting premise and a guy who can dodge bullets. New breakthroughs in cinematography, a dystopia with the twist that our world is really just a computer simulation, cool black shades and lots of guns. But what these lines spoken by Trinity do for the film is pull the audience into the world of The Matrix and include them in Neo's struggle. Not the struggle against machines that have enslaved humanity, but his struggle against enslavement of the mind - something the Watchowskis are claiming affects us all.

A hint of what's to come - Leonard D. Hilley's Predators of Darkness [breaking news musing]

In the weeks to come, I've got a lot on my plate. A few blogging commitments, many post ideas and lots of life keeping me busy. I've promised to review each of the stories in Atheist Tales once my copy arrives, and that is very important to me. But what's also important to me is reading and reviewing Predators of Darkness, an indie book available in ebook format, written by Leonard D. Hilley II.

Dean Koontz, Watchers [review by starlight]

"We have a responsibility to stand watch over one another, we are watchers, all of us, watchers, guarding against the darkness." 

Watchers is an early suspense novel from Koontz, which cemented his career as a best-selling author and competitor in the horror/sci-fi genre Stephen King had already begun to dominate. The premise is clearly imaginative - Travis Cornell has come to believe that he is cursed to a life of love and loss, and he comes across an incredibly intelligent dog in the wilderness of the Santa Barbara mountain range in California. At the same time he feels he and the dog are being tracked by an unnatural, inhuman stalker, which at first he takes to be a mountain lion or something of the sort, but he is soon filled with such a primordial fear that he feels something else is prowling after them. The dog, named Einstein for his human-like intellect, finds ways to communicate his fears to Travis, who has to uncover two mysteries - how did this freakishly smart dog come to be a stray wandering a forest, and what is Einstein so afraid of?

Why we love Christopher Nolan's Inception [review by starlight]

Inception: It's the action packed heist movie with the best of special effects, taking place inside the psyche. It's Leonardo DiCaprio all intense and grown up. It's Ellen Page - who doesn't love that short little Canadian? It's the incredible and memorable Hans Zimmer score that blends perfectly with the world of the dream. It's the hard-hitting lines between the gunshots, the conceptual madness, and the art direction that taps into something most films can't ever touch - the human imagination. We love to see the rules of reality bent and snapped into pieces, and to know that it's all possible inside the mind.

Re-watching The Butterfly Effect (2004) [review by starlight]

"You can't change who people are without destroying who they were. "

Always a fun watch, if a little holey. Evan (Ashton Kutcher) has had something of a tragic life that has taken him away from his childhood friends and left them all miserable and alone, particularly his first love, Kayleigh (Amy Smart). As he nears completion of a psych undergrad, he begins to uncover the past, including memories that he'd "blacked out" before and couldn't remember even moments after they happened. He soon finds that he can do more than revisit these blackout moments - he relives them with the ability to change them, and completely change the course of his life.

George Lucas' Star Wars - Growing up with it [review by starlight]

A bit of an obvious one, but A New Hope was a really big part of my childhood. It's funny to think that tons of people still remember lining up to see the first Star Wars flick in theatres, while it came out waaaay before I was born. And thus, it was a childhood staple, cycled in with my Disney movies to be watched. Daily.