Review: GUNS AKIMBO (2019)

In short, Samara Weaving looks great covered in the blood of her enemies. Will she be wearing Harry Potter’s skin by the end of the film? Especially when the only allies Radcliffe’s character can find are the manic pixie ex-girlfriend he still pines for and a crack-smoking houseless man, played by Rhys Darby (Flight of the Concords) in some scene-stealing cameos.

Unfortunately (for me, at least), that’s not the story Howden is telling here…

Review: DARK EMU

It brings with it an incredibly urgent message – to not just restore the complete history of Australia, but to also restore the land; by demonstrating exhaustively that a far better way to manage and live with it has been proven possible.

The Many Posthuman Aspects of Pacific Rim [Re-Released & Remastered from the Grinding.Be archives]

This is a re-release of my deep reading of the film Pacific Rim– originally published on the now defunct website, Grinding.be, October 22nd, 2013. It looks at the pro-Borg aspects of the Jaeger and how they relate to posthuman sexuality. It examines some metaphorical aspects of the Kaiju – as stand-ins for the State and other forces terribly terraforming the Earth.

This is the overall message George Miller brings us after a thirty year hiatus between Mad Max films: the apocalypse is not necessarily the end. No extinction event has ever been total. Humanity has neared the brink of annihilation before and rebounded. The cycle of history will always continue, but the key to avoiding another Fall involves dismantling the dominant paradigm; the Patriarchy. An incredibly liberal and feminine idea to find in what might otherwise be expected to be a purely testosterone-filled film. Again, to contrast this against the Fast & Furious films, which talk a lot about family, but are foremost about the bonds of brotherhood. Miller offers up an act of synthesis here, uniting the feminine and masculine aspects. Creating a piece of culture that serves as a landmark to chart a better way forward. The fact that it has evoked such a strong, visceral response from certain segments of the population tells us just how its much needed. For the rest of us it’s a visual feast with a message to be treasured, and a litmus test to identify fellow travellers.

I celebrate George Miller’s vision in weaving together such a compelling film that works so well on two levels, where others would have stopped at storyboarding and choreographing its amazing, complex, compelling action sequences. Mad Max: Fury Road is already being called a masterpiece with good reason.

Review: Mad Max – Fury Road | The Daily Grail

since wolvensnothere already helpfully posted the non spoiler intro, here’s the non spoiler conclusion to my review of Mad Max : Fury Road.

SO MANY SPOILERS IN BETWEEN THOUGH, SO READ THIS AFTER YOU’VE SEEN IT. THEN GO SEE IT AGAIN. THAT’S MY PLAN FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

Introduction of my review of FORTITUDE for DailyGrail

FORTITUDE is a British psychological thriller TV series that just concluded its first season. It presents as a straight-forward murder mystery, combining elements of classic British crime drama and the new, popular sub-genre of Nordic Noir; calling attention to that second element by featuring Sofie Gråbøl – from UR Nordic Noir, The Killing (Forbrydelsen)– as […]

reviewing THE PERIPHERAL by William Gibson at DAILY GRAIL

My review of The Peripheral by William Gibson is up at Daily Grail. Here’s a sample: Most notable to me, apart from the foreground of economical collapse and subsequent radical transformation, is the thread of extinction woven into the world view. One of the characters is in permanent mourning for the species being killed by […]

a short review of AUTÓMATA

Above are the opening titles that introduce Autómata and its setting of #neartermhumanextinction, #heavyspaceweather and #atemporality. This movie is an instant classic that belongs on the shelf right between Bladerunner and Hardware; and just in case you’re not sure it’s full of explicit spot-the-Bladerunner-bingo references, and features Dylan McDermott in a role that could make you […]

reviewing INTERSTELLAR at Daily Grail

I went to the Melbourne premiere of INTERSTELLAR on Thursday night and wrote it up for Daily Grail – my first post over there, more of which are sure to come. I have been looking forward to this film all year and have pretty much flat-out squeed over every new trailer or teaser as they […]

Pitching a Metafictional Planetary Rescue Squad

Like many people I recently binge watched House of Cards. For me that meant the show in its entirety, because I’d quickly dismissed the remake as being far inferior to the supremely Machiavellian original series. But I was convinced to revisit it in light of the second series being dropped, and much recommendation of the first.

What hooked me early on was the backdrop of Energy Politics. Underwood trying to free himself from grip of the Big Oil lobbyists. Scheming to get renewable energy seriously deployed.

Playing chess with the evil billionaire, being a personification of the corrupt nature of Nuclear Power. And the complications involved in securing the rare earth minerals on which solar power, not to mention laptops and smart phones, depend.

Here, I thought, is a show that’s not just about power and politics, but seriously examining a civilisation in phase shift. Moving towards becoming a Type 1 Civilisation. Showing how the fingers of the energy cartels grip the corridors of power, and how that grip might be slipped and a new future born. A bright green future.

Here, I thought, just might be a mundane, contemporary set counterpart to Dracula. While the immediate fantastic comparison was Game of Thrones, just maybe the Fincher led remake was attempting to do more than portray primate politics, but also examine the nature of change on a global scale. Its price; its bloody at all costs, whatever it takes, do not back down, we are hijacking this reality and taking it to its scheduled destination, because we are beyond good and evil actors so don’t mind the ledger.

Nope, that’s just Dracula.

Spoiler: Underwood becomes President at the end of season 2.

The image above is the end moment of the current continuity. Newly minted President Underwood, who’s completed his move from House Whip, through Vice President to now Leader of the Free World TM, without a single vote from Amerika’s citizens. Punching the desk. Keeping his knuckles hard. Ready to defend his place at the top of the primate tree against any attackers.

No closer to overcoming Type 0 Civilisation problems. In fact, he’s the chief cause.

And how did the most weighty of recommendations describe this show? “Because primates.”

(Welcome to 2014: Obama loved this show.)

Because this is #Multiverse TV we turn to considering an expanded metafictional universe. Made all the more possible because if his lawyers are any good, Fincher should have to the rights to make this real (having directed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and presumably optioned the rest, and healming the (completely unnecessary) Utopia remake).

This was my immediate reaction:

1. borrow heavily from the Stieg Larsson books for s3 HoC US. 2. set remake of Utopia within an Underwood Pres. 3. *Underwood is a Democrat*

— m1k3y (@m1k3y) February 23, 2014

Upon further reflection, in composing this entry, it seems even better to go completely nuts and pitch a 21^st Century Planetary Rescue Squad.

The ultimate team up of Nietzschean, ubermensch characters to face off against the biggest, baddest, schemiest primate… a man that shits on the future, and holds all the cards.

The President of the US is something to be overcome.

we start with Lisbeth Salander joining Gavin Orsay, his furry familiar, Cashew, gnawing on the bleeding face of that FBI agent that had him literally, and his guardian, underfoot.
Salander reaches out to newly styled, no longer woolly jumper wearing, Sarah Lund of Forbrydelsen (The Killing), last seen boarding a plane to bring a billionaire to justice.
she in turn reaches out to her compatriot Scandinavian detective of Bron|Broen (The Bridge) fame, Saga Norén.
Luther and his gas masking wearing companion, Dr. Alice Morgan, were already hanging out at the Salander Icelandic base, so they’re in.
and it just happens that Alice started up a correspondence with a certain reformed serial killer that’s wandering around Alaska, looking for a mission beyond not ruining his family’s life; one Dexter Morgan.
And just as their introduction meeting is concluding, through a flash of arc lightening, John Connor and liquid metal Shirley Manson drop back through time, to destroy the past and save the future… again.
and lastly, Tesla Boy Gangster himself, Alexander Grayson III (aka Dracula), steps out of the shadows.

[Pose like a Team graphic PENDING]

And the plot computes itself…

…but if you wanna pay me Fincher, call me baby!

Reflections on Zero History

Attention Conversation Notice: SPOILERS! Big giant ones. Also, not a review – though it may contain traces of one. The author reserves the right to wax lyrical, reminisce, draw inappropriate comparisons between his own life and that of Gibson’s protagonists and slowly wander back to the subject at hand. Highly dependant on the reader having […]

Journal of a Cosmic Anthropologist

reviews