Into Darkness

I’d heard mixed reviews of the latest Star Trek outing. Some thought it was too action packed and strayed from the intellectual heritage of classic Trek. Some thought it was too laden with references to classic Trek episodes. It felt to me like the split was more about tradition than the merits of the movie.
Personally, I thought Abrahms' first Trek outing was an exciting action movie. Sure it used the time paradox cop out to hit the reset buttong, but that is not the worst sin. I don’t put it in the same class as the classic Trek movies - for me this includes TNG movies. It was more of an action movie than a Trek movie.
It isn’t surprising that my feelings about Into Darkness follow similar lines. It was a great action movie. Much like the parallel movie in the classic series, it ups the action from the first movie. The action and pace are amped up to eleven. It is a thrill a minute ride with barely anytime to catch your breath between big set peices. Unlike its parallel, it skimps on what makes classic Trek more than simple action. There is very little focus on ideas and character development. The pace is just too fast for that. The plot allows for deep issues about the industrial security complex and the balance between security and peace. It just glosses pass them.
One thing that Abrahm’s Trek does away with is the over acting. Pine is every bit Captian Kirk, but without the ham. Cumberbatch plays Kahn in much the same manner. He is evil, but not over the top. I’m torn about this. I think the new Kirk is more realistic and human. However, Shatner’s Kirk made for great speeches. Montalbán’s Kahn matched Kirk ham for ham. It was pure b-movie fun.
On its own merits, Into Darkness is a bonkers action movie. As part of the Trek cannon, it depends on your allegiance to classic Trek.

2014

2014 felt like a long year. There were a lot of great things, but they were punctuated by long stretchs of drudgery.Life comes with a certian amount of drudgery. It is unreasonable to expect constant excitment from visiting to the grocery store, folding laundry, washing dishes, supervising a child in the shower, brushing your teeth, helping your child brush her teeth, watching the same episode of Dragon Tales for a week, watching Elsa build her ice castle everyday for three weeks, or being a taxi service to play dates, gymastics, swim lessons, birthday parties, and dance lessons.
The taxi service does, more than occasionally, lead to excitement or at least a moment of joy and/or wonder. I get to see Bug having fun, learn new skills, surprise herself, listen to her stories, and teach me new things. Taxi service is the drudgery that makes me appreciate the wonder of being a dad.
The additional drudgery this year comes from my job. It pays well, but there have been few oppertunities for me to really sink my teeth into anything. The pace of development is slow and most of the features in development are simple from a user perspective. It is hard for me to get excited about documenting a point-and-click UI or the same APIs in a different language. The amount of process and over management exascerbate the boredom. I pretty much have to clear everything I do through a manager and one other person. This is in addition to technical and editorial reviews…. I’m not sure if the solution is a different job or a different attitude; the devil you know or the devil you don’t….
There were also parenting challenges. Bug went through a bit of tantrum storm through the spring and summer. Two of her great strenghts are her independance and her determination (some may call it stuborness). They help her in all sorts of ways, until they mix together in a cauldron of frustration and explode. We had some rough rides, but, hopefully, we all learned how to modulate ourselves and use our natures positively. The darkest moments made me glad that I wasn’t in this alone. Being able to tag out for some relief and having a different perspective on hand made weathering the storms much easier. It makes me respect the work my Mom must have done as a single parent even more than I already did. One thing is certain: Parenting is the most challenging thing I have, and will likely ever, do.
Fortunately, life has a lot of wonder to offset the drudgery:

• There were a bunch a great paddles this year.
• Bug and I got to go on a bunch of great bike rides together.
  
• Bug learned to ride a two wheeler.
• We all went on our first real hiking adventure in the White Mountains.
• We did our first real kayaking trip on Boston harbor.
• We had a number of relaxing camping vacations.

When I look back on the year, it loses a lot of its drabness. The moments of joy and wonder bubble up and remind me what is important: smiles, laughter, hugs, learning new things, sharing nature.

The Interview

I am not a fan of Seth Rogan comedies; The sophmoric, stoner, potty humor isn’t my style. I am not a fan of James Franco either; I just don’t understand the hype.
It is unlikely I would have chosen to watch The Interview without the surounding hubbub or if it involved paying money. Since Netflix picked up The Interview and suggested it as a popular on Netflix thing, H and I decided we should probably see what all the fuss was about.
The Interview is not a terrible movie. I didn’t hate it. Largely it was what I expected: drug jokes, gay jokes, sex jokes, basic stupidity being passed off as humor. Towards the end some over the top violence is tossed into for shock value.
I’ve read that what sets The Interview apart is its meta-narrative. It pokes fun at American infotainment journalism and the CIA and propaganda in general. I think that critique gives the movie too much credit. Those elements can be dredged out of the film and its use of the lowest of low comedy to appeal to a mass audience can also be seen as a stroke of brilliance. I think that is a happy accident.
If you are going to see The Interview see it soon before the central joke gets stale. If you decide to skip it, you are not missing much. Better yet, go see *Team America: World Police* instead.

Annie

Bug has been a obsessed with Annie for a few months. We took her to see a live performance in the fall and H plays the songs in the car all the time. When the new Annie movie opened, we knew Bug would see it.Last Saturday we decided to give Bug the choice of activities for the afternoon. She had been doing our choice for days and days. She choose to see Annie.It was playing at a bunch of theaters and it was out for a few weeks. We decided not to preorder tickets. The chances of a show being sold out was crazy low....
We got to the theater 30 minutes early and discovered that there were only two seat, that were not together, left for the showing we wanted.....
The Internet saved the day. I opened the Movies app on my phone found a nearby theater that had three, just three, tickets left that happened to be together. Not sure when theaters started using assigned seating... Crying averted.
The seats were spectacular. The theater was equipped with powered recliners. Our assigned seats were in the front row and the reclining made watching the movie doable. Bug was particularly thrilled. The seat wrapped her in cushy comfort.
The movie itself was a fine update. The music updates the original while maintaining a clear heritage. The new Annie was well acted. The star walked the fine line between upbeat and saccharin. The adult cast was passable. Cameron Diaz almost pulls off Ms. Hanagin as a basically good person. Jamie Fox is wooden. The poor adult acting doesn't really detract from the movie. Annie manages to carry the weight on her own.
The writing is bad. Jamie Fox's character, aside from his acting, is hard to believe. The new Ms. Hanigan character is also pretty poorly drawn. I never really bought her sudden change of heart. The only character who is well drawn is the villain. He is appropriately over the top.
On a personal note I did appreciate that the new Annie is African-American. It is nice to have a young, strong, positive role model for Bug.
Bug sat through the whole movie without much fidgeting and only one potty break. There was occasional quiet singing. After the movie she danced it out to the end credit songs. Since she has repeated some of the lines in the movie and talked about the story. When asked thumbs up or thumbs down, she responded thumbs up.

Annie is a nice movie for the kiddie crowd and not a terrible one for the adult crowd.

The Machine

The Machine is rated at four out of five stars on Netflix. It explores the endlessly interesting idea of computer sentience. It is from an independent studio. It has no big name stars. It must be good.

The Machine is not bad. It hits all of the right tropes. Noble tough scientist with a secret working for the good of humanity by, begrudgingly, selling out to the military. Idealistic, brilliant, and beautiful apprentice. I startling breakthrough that is both the answer and far beyond what was expected. Sniveling, evil, self-interested officials messing with things beyond their knowledge or control. Noble, but misunderstood, minions that eventually rise up. An ambiguos ending that points to points to hope for humanity or its ultimate doom.

The through line story is standard and unsurprising. Sadly, the director decided to use a lot of jump cutting to tell the story. I found it jarring and without merrit. In the beginign of the movie, it feels like a device to cram in as much set-up as possible in as little time as possible.

It does keep the running time down to a reasonable 90 minutes, but at the expense of the story. You never see the key relationship in the movie develop. You never get a sense of how the central character matures. Instead, you get sudden, sometimes discordant, shifts. Maybe this techniue is supposed to build suspense or be post modern, but I found it annoying.

The acting in the movie is wooden. Toby Stephens, as the sensitive, dark scientist, could easily be mistaken for a robot. His sole expression is pained, like he is constipated. His character does have a lot to be sad about, but some range would be nice. Caity Lotz, as the titular Machine, whose character should be the most wooden, is actually the better of the two leads. She manages to give the robotic machine some humanity while never breaking the illusion that she is a machine.

I gave The Machine three out of five stars. It was not a bad movie for a rainy day on the couch. It does raise some interesting ideas. It is not anything more than average TV fare.

Asscension

Ascension shows SyFy getting back to its roots: intelligent, hard core science fiction.

It was a good effort. The premiss, or premises, are interesting. They consider big things in interesting ways. For the most part, the acting was solid.

It could have been a great effort. Instead the event felt like it crammed a twelve episode season into three nights. Many of the character threads were rushed. At least one of the plots lines ended unsatifactorally. When the big reveal does come, the show hasn’t earned it.

A longer run would have provided more time for the audience to get to know the players better. Things could have rolled out smoother and with more depth. The big thoughts could be plummed to deeper depths. Instead it felt like either something that was supposed to be a series being turned into an event for financial reasons or an event designed to set up a series.

There was enough in the event to hook me into a series. However, I feel a little cheeted out of the first season….

Lego Movie

Verizon is giving us a free three months of HBO and we took advantage of HBO on-demand to watch The Lego Movie.
I had high expectations for The Lego Movie. The good doctors of Wittertainment gave it stellar reviews. In fact the flappy handed one sang the song for weeks. The glowing reviews, and my undying love for legos, either made me predisposed to love the movie or set me up for crushing disappointment.
As the song says “everything is awesome”. I loved the movie. Visually it was incredible. The story was sweet and had its tounge far enough in its cheek to become schmaltzy. It is a rare gem that can be sweet and ironic at the same time. The Lego Movie pulled it off.
The ending was also perfectly balanced. It was sweet and poked fun at the franchise nature of big movies.
I am going to watch it again if a get a chance. I think I’m going to see if Bug will watch it with me. I think she’ll get a hoot out of it too.