Holy shit! I just realized that the Kurgan in Highlander is played by the same actor as the asshole sergeant in Starship Troopers! Clancy Brown.
The Critical Drinker does a good job in his videos of explaining why the latter film is great satire and why Highlander does not need a remake.
I recently watched Terminator 2 from 1991. Twice. Don't ask. I had almost forgotten how good this one is; one of the rare exceptions of 80-90s action films that hold up really really well. If you haven't seen it in a while, I highly recommend you do.
Just a few of the reasons why it is great:
I am repeating myself, but go watch T2! The first part is worthwhile too, if you feel like it, but I don't like it as much myself. The sequels T3 - ∞ are not worth anyone's time, unfortunately.
This post is back-dated a few hours. Yes, I broke the blogging streak, but I have a good excuse: I watched Druk (Another Round) last night, a recent film with Mads Mikkelsen.
The plot is quickly summarized. Four teachers decide to test a psychologist's (apparently real) claim, that humans are born with blood alcohol level 0.5‰ too low and that one would perform better professionally and socially after correcting this deficiency. The experiment predictably goes well, until it doesn't.
Overall predictability is not a negative here though, it builds to a dreadful anticipation. The four protagonists go off the rails in different ways, as they increasingly see the reasons to do the experiment in the first place: a combination of boredom, existential angst and feeling lost in marriage.
The film's performances are great, the characters relatable and the ending is ecstatic and highly ambiguous. Recommended!
Addendum: I only now read that, by sheer coincidence, Druk won the Oscar for best international film the same night that I watched it. Nice.
Star Trek. Hearing that name makes people's eyes either sparkle, or roll. Unlike Star Wars it never became fully mainstream and Trekkies are still considered to be quite dorky. I was born too late to have a sentimental relation to the original series, but Next Generation with Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard had 11-year-old me glued to the TV every afternoon. I loved it!
Ten years or so later, I re-watched it in English, instead of the German dubbing. This made it much better with respect to the voices, of course, but the magic that I remembered was gone. Some of the episodes were quite bad and it hurt a bit to realize that. Yes, I also watched DS9 and Voyager, but only half-heartedly, and never became a fan.
Another doubling of lifetime later (🙄) I recently found myself, for unclear reasons, intrigued by the idea to watch the Star Trek films once more. I think I had seen them all at least once, but never together and I barely remembered most of them. So I did, and regret nothing!
I: The Motion Picture. This is a very slow film and I almost pressed the button to speed it up. But I was surprised by how good the special effects still look today. I had this mental image of the old Enterprise being just crappy and ugly - not any more. 4/5
II: The Wrath of Khan. This one has its moments, but I didn't like it as much as some do. In fact, I have already forgotten most of it again. Still, 3/5.
III: The Search for Spock. This was fun, mostly because of Christopher Lloyd as a Klingon. The solemn parts on Vulcan and Kirk having a son had me looking at my watch, however. 3/5
IV: The Voyage Home. Even more fun than the last! Yes, time-travel is a cheap trick and can go horribly wrong story-wise, but it did not bother me here. Scotty putting complex formulae onto an 80s computer screen by pressing three buttons made me laugh out loud. 4/5
V: The Final Frontier. Yeah, this is everything as bad as its reputation. All the films are much more enjoyable, if you manage to have as much fun at the film as with it. This is especially true for this one. 1/5
VI: The Undiscovered Country. More serious in tone and with lots of pink CGI-blood. The ending is a bit of a mess, but overall very watchable. Interesting to see the Klingons change, here they are much closer to TNG than to TOS. 3/5
VII: Generations. Wow. I had vague good memories from this one, but it is as bad as the popular verdict suggests. It just doesn't make any sense! I noticed several occasions when CGI-shots were re-used in the earlier films and here we are shown the exact same explosion of the Klingon ship as in the last film. 2/5
VIII: First Contact. The borg are a favourite story-line from TNG and they make good enemies here, too. We get to see them take over a brand-new ship, the Enterprise-E. Getting rid of the large neck and making it smaller than the previous one are good choices - she looks good! The scenes on time-travel Earth are very light-hearted and if you accept the quirky humour, they work nicely to contrast the dire situation on the ship. Overall my favourite of the bunch, 5/5. In case it is not clear yet, ratings are relative within this list, I am not saying that First Contact is among the best films I have ever seen.
IX: Insurrection. This one I vaguely remembered as quite boring, but I did not dislike it this time around. The intrigue is fine, the villains are cliché baddies that look the part. Even the romance, often the worst part of any Star Trek, did not bother me. Don't get me wrong, a masterpiece it is not. 3/5
X: Nemesis. Well, I cannot quite put my finger on why, but this was not very good. The central question of identity and personality, and how much of it is "nature versus nurture" is a long-standing and important one, but how it was handled here felt shallow and stale. The final battle was not too bad, but Data's death was rushed. An unworthy finale, 2/5.
But maybe it is wrong to call it that. After all, they made Picard last year, the series that brought "the band" back together. I have seen it, but it did not leave a lasting impression. They say there will be a second season which I do not anticipate much, I just learned about it from the Wikipedia article myself. I will probably watch it anyway, in another vain attempt to get the nostalgia flowing.
I finally read The Call of Cthulhu the other week. Considering it's impact on culture, this was certainly overdue. I had read a collection of Lovecraft's short stories some year ago, but this one was not among them for some reason. Needless to say it was a fun read and the quickly building atmosphere still works today.
And while at the topic of century-old monster stories, I also read H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds not long ago, with mixed feelings. It certainly has its moments and is propbably rightfully regarded as one of the most important works in science-fiction. But I found it tedious at times and too long for its own good, which is mostly due to its age, I guess.
Oh, one more monster: The Thing, the 1982 movie by John Carpenter, was quite entertaining! The gory practical effects hold up well enough and the atmosphere is intense. I think I never had seen this to the end before; if I don't misremember I started watching it in my late teens, but when it got to the scene in the dog cage I said "Nope! Not for me!" and turned it off before the monster reveal.
A random set of internet gems that I enjoyed recently, starting with the Coronavirus COVID19. Three Twitterers that seem to knowledgable, up-to-date and not hyping-up matters are Kai Kupferschmidt, Helen Branswell and Ian M Mackay. Plus, there are good articles coming from down under.
Don't bury the lede, not even in grant applications.
The International Space Station in LEGO. I like that this is an official set, not a custom design or one-off sale. Speaking of which: My Science Tower is still waiting to be built.
Quit the news! (PDF) It's bad for you!
Robin Hanson comapares Parasite and Joker. This made me think less of Parasite and want to watch Joker. I have downloaded it, but not gotten around to it yet.
A few things I just read, watched or listened to, and found well worth the time.
Arsenic and Old Lace, a 1944 dark comedy with Cary Grant.
A Blogging Style Guide, entertaining.
I still recommend you go read Simler & Hanson's Elephant in the Brain. Another review.
Scott Alexander reviews a book about the mind and points toward Global Workspace Theory, which makes quite a bit of intuitive sense to me.
The latest Sam Harris podcast with Deeyah Khan is definitely one of his best conversations to date. On how neo-nazis and jihadists are similar, and how we need to do better in treating them, among other things.
Does money make you mean? Yes, it does.
Gollum Brexit. Brilliant!
Die Tagesschau hat eine schöne Kurzdoku (4 min) über Olof Palme und warum man hierzulande gerade wieder mehr von ihm hört.
Gerade läuft in Uppsala das jährliche Kurzfilmfestival und ich komme diesmal leider nicht dazu, mir wenigstens eine Session anzusehen. Wie ich der heutigen Zeitung entnehme, gibt es jedoch eine Zusammenarbeit mit Sweden.se, so dass man sich eine Auswahl von Kurzfilmen dort ansehen kann, die letztes Jahr in Uppsala gezeigt wurden.