Month: April 2018

Season #2 of Westworld has been airing for a few days now, but I’m pretty firm about not watching it. At all. Not this horse. Some other time.

Once again, the Brenkilco assessment: “The problem with episodic TV narratives designed to blow minds is that the form and intention are at odds. A show designed to run until the audience gets tired of it cannot by definition have a satisfying structure. It can only keep throwing elements into the mix until, like Lost or Twin Peaks, it collapses under the weight of its own intriguing but random complications.”

In short, my loathing for season #1 — that feeling of being fiddled and diddled without end, of several storylines unfolding and expanding for no purpose than to keep unfolding and expanding — is such that I’m determined to hate season #2 without watching it. I don’t care how that sounds or what it implies. Come hell or high water, I will not go there.

One question for those who saw the season #2 opener: Now that the host revolt is in full swing, it seems logical that the Westworld staffers, naturally concerned about their own survival as well as lawsuits and whatnot, would call in outside law enforcement. Perhaps even state militia. What’s preventing this? What am I missing?

From a 4.20 review by CNN’s Brian Lowry: “The first half of [season #2] repeats the show’s more impenetrable drawbacks — playing three-dimensional chess, while spending too much time sadistically blowing away pawns. The result is a show that’s easier to admire than consistently like.

“The push and pull of Westworld is that it grapples with deep intellectual conundrums while reveling in a kind of numbing pageant of death and destruction. Where the latter is organic to the world of HBO’s other huge genre hit, Game of Thrones, it doesn’t always feel integral to the story here, but rather a means of killing (and killing and killing) time.”

“For all its strengths, the series [is] a bit of a slog, at times, as the wheels turn along the dusty, blood-specked road to wherever this maze leads.”

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Stephen Colbert‘s riff on yesterday morning’s Donald Trump tirade (29 minutes and 25 seconds) on Fox and Friends is worth it for the 45-second satirical passage beginning at 6:20 and ending at 7:05 — the inner thoughts of co-hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade as they listen to the enraged Trump go on and on and on.

Watch the actual “Fox and Friends” video and study Kilmeade’s facial expressions starting around the 20-minute mark. The man is clearly concerned about Trump’s unhinged schpiel while struggling with himself about how to wind things down without sacrificing the required tone of respect and deference. Doocy is fairly glassy-eyed while Earhardt…is that a look of maternal concern or is she just concentrating for all she’s worth?

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On 4.24 a guy named Krishna Ramesh Kumar posted a video essay that compares the forthcoming, Christoper Nolan-approved, unrestored 50th anniversary re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey with corresponding images from the Warner Home Video 2007 Bluray. Please watch the essay but pay particular attention to three sets of comparison captures that I’ve posted below. The 2007 Bluray images are on top; the unrestored 70mm Nolan versions are below. The Nolan is obviously warmer, yellower and even teal-ish with weak contrasts and less detail. Plus it has no deep blacks or true whites. It looks weathered.

And this, the Nolan, is apparently what’s being re-released into theatres in May. The images rendered for the upcoming 4K Ultra HD version of 2001, which pops on May 8th, will be restricted to those with 4K Bluray players. It seems obvious to me that the colors in the Nolan aren’t as satisfying and the images are less precise than even Warner Home Video’s 11-year-old Bluray, much less whatever the new 4K version will deliver. This seems absolutely NUTS.

Examine the 2007 version of Dave Bowman‘s face through his red space helmet visor vs. the far less distinct Nolan version — anyone who says that the Nolan version is preferable needs to be hunted down by men in white coats RIGHT NOW and sent off to an insane asylum. Examine the “Dawn of Man” bone-bashing images — the sky in the 2007 version is true blue but a kind of greenish teal in the Nolan version. Examine the two close-up images of HAL — you can obviously see more red-glow detail in the 2007 version while the Nolan is darker and murkier. Who in their right mind would say “the Nolan versions are better”? This is FULL-ON INSANITY.

2007 Bluray capture above; unrestored Nolan verson below.

ditto

ditto

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Legendary NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw hasn’t exactly been outed as the new Charlie Rose, but for a brief period in 1993 and ’94, when he was in his mid 50s, Brokaw allegedly made NBC news reporter Linda Vester feel sexually pressured and uncomfortable (i.e., “groped and assaulted”). Brokaw’s horndog moves were irksome and humiliating, she says, and now, 24 years later, she’s telling the tale.

On the other hand Brokaw apparently didn’t act like some lust-crazed, nostril-breathing animal, but like a guy who wanted some heavy breathing with a pretty younger woman, and was fairly persistent about trying to win Vester over, using his power and position. After two tries it didn’t work and he backed off.

How bad is this? Not very, it seems. But from Vester’s perspective it was a major drag. Brokaw is denying, for the most part. Should he suffer some sort of after-the-fact managerial admonishment? Should he offer some sort of apology? Offer to donate money to the #TimesUp legal fund?

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As I said a couple of days ago, death has never been respected in the Marvel nor the D.C. universe. The MCU “mostly regards death and serious physical injury as a tease, a plot toy, something to fiddle or fuck with until the apparently dead character comes back to life,” I reflected at one point.

I believe in some of the deaths that happen in Avengers: Infinity War (i.e., the passings of minor characters) but certainly not the digital disintegration ones that happen with a snap of Thanos’ fingers. It’s almost all bullshit, almost all of it likely to be reversed or reneged upon in the Infinity War sequel that will open a year from now.

Nonetheless, author and Film Threat founder & publisher Chris Gore recently said on Facebook that he believes Avengers: Infinity War will prove a very traumatic event for younger moviegoers. He said he noticed a young kid “balling” (sic) after Tuesday’s all-media at the El Capitan. To which I replied, “Gee…tough, kid. Sorry to break it to ya, but death happens to everyone and everything. I wish it were otherwise. On top of which the guys who make Marvel movies are liars and con artists. You really shouldn’t fall for their bullshit because, really, it’s all a crock.”

It sounds, in short, like the bawling child has been raised in a fantasy vacuum by parents who know not what they do. An eight-year-old bawling over Bambi’s mother getting shot by a hunter — that I understand. (When I was seven or eight I dreamt that my mom died, and it took me a couple of days to get over it.) But bawling over a team of wisecracking superheroes played by a gang of ironically removed, abundantly well-compensated actors who are in it solely for the paychecks…please!

Bill Cosby, 80, is almost certainly going to do some time. Having been found guilty today of three counts of aggravated indecent assault (i.e., mickey-finn rape), the legendary comedian and TV star could receive a sentence of ten years, which means he’ll probably serve what? 22 months or more? Throw the book at him.

Each of the counts — penetration with lack of consent, penetration while unconscious, and penetration after administering an intoxicant — are punishable by up to 10 years in state prison, although in Pennsylvania sentences are sometimes served concurrently.

The 45 Cosby victims (i.e., “the Cosbies”) need to gather together this evening, or at least hit bars or restaurants near their homes, and raise a glass.

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Starting at 1:15: “Both in the United States and Europe, we are living through a time of anger and fear. But these feelings do not build anything. You can play with fear and anger for a time, but anger only freezes and weakens us. As Franklin Roosevelt said in his first inaugural [address], ‘The only thing we have to fear is hear itself.'”

From a just-posted Michael Arceneaux piece in Rolling Stone — “Why Kanye West’s Pro-Trump Tweets Are a Real Threat“: “The conservative movement has never had an advocate as cool as Kanye West and many should be alarmed. West doesn’t need conservatives to elevate him, but they will benefit from his boosting of their beloved mouthpieces under the guise of promotion of ‘free thinking.’

“Then there is the image of Kanye West donning a Make America Great Again hat while declaring that Trump is his ‘brother.’

“When you wear that hat, you are aligning yourself with the man who wants to deport immigrants who have done nothing but pursue a better life; to bar trans people from serving in our military; to subject gay, bi and queer people to legally protected prejudices of all variances; to subject black people to harsher realities in every facet of our lives; to deny women autonomy over their own bodies. Worse, you are joining the likes of the tiki-torch–clutching white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville in the promotion of what that hat and the man behind it symbolizes.

“The inconvenient truth is that there are a number of black people more interested in enjoying the perks of white privilege than in leveling the playing field. Where Kanye West falls on that line has been clear for a while, but it is now undeniable. Conservatives have long wanted to reel in as many black faces as they could to uphold the status quo. With Kanye West going full on alt-right on us, they’ve just found their best recruiter ever.”