The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Feb. 3rd, 2014 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreWelcome to the latest edition of It's The Arts (journal edition.)
Been a busy weekend for watching things. Friday night,kshandra and I attended Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna. This was her company's annual "we survived the holidays" event. I really enjoyed it, although I can now say with certainty that dance does not work for me as a narrative medium. Amaluna is loosely based on The Tempest, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Even with that head start I can no clue what was going on. So I just enjoyed the amazing acrobatic performances.
Saturday I watched Metallica's concert film Through The Never. We had really wanted to see this in the theater, but the realities of my post-stroke rehabilitation meant that never happened. Really regret that now. The concert footage is amazing. The story of the roadie Trip being sent out to recovery a bag from a truck is wonderfully surreal. I really need to costume The Rider for cons.Just need to find out what model gas mask that is.
Trip is mortally injured in the car crash, as is the other driver. Everything after that is his progression to the after life. Notice that when he's between the lines at the riot, no one notices him. The Rider only sees him when he throws the brick.. and no one else seems to notice the rider or his actions. The Rider is Death, collecting the souls of those killed in the riot. The mob that chases him down is made up of those killed recently in the fighting. When Trip fights The Rider, it is his acceptance of his fate. At the end, we see Trip in an otherwise empty arean watching Metallica play Orion. This is his heaven.
After that, we watched the epically bad 2012. Oh, dear Ghods. Never mind the terrible script and acting, the film has it's best disaster sequence in the first half hour. The destruction of Los Angeles was pretty epic. But it came early. After that it was just more narrow escapes and increasingly improbable escapes. With added scientific howlers, like how they handled the detonation of the Yellowstone Caldera. ProTip: you will no survive is you are in line of sight of the explosion. You will not outrace it in a Winnebago. And your Cessna will not survive when the shock wave hits. The entire last act with the stuck loading ramp was pointless.
But for me, the biggest howler was political. The big drive of the plot was the existence of a project to build arks in the Chinese Himalayas. The idea was to preserve as much life and culture as possible to reestablish things after the Earth settles down. Problem is, the President decides not to go, the Vice-President has been killed, and no one can find the Speaker of the House. So the Chief of Staff declares himself acting President.
This is where my suspension of disbelief snapped. First of all, the Secret Service would drag the President kicking and screaming onto that plane. Secondly, the chain of succession exists for a reason. It's not like you couldn't find a reason to send the Secretary of State to China, where s/he could be pre-positioned on the ark.I'd have one of the people in the chain up on one of the USAF's command planes for a reason, and make sure that everyone in the chain was someplace where they could be found at a minutes notice. If that means camping at Andrews AFB, so be it!
Really, really bad movie.
Finally, the Super Bowl. That was ugly. Turned it off early.
Been a busy weekend for watching things. Friday night,
kshandra and I attended Cirque du Soleil's Amaluna. This was her company's annual "we survived the holidays" event. I really enjoyed it, although I can now say with certainty that dance does not work for me as a narrative medium. Amaluna is loosely based on The Tempest, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Even with that head start I can no clue what was going on. So I just enjoyed the amazing acrobatic performances.Saturday I watched Metallica's concert film Through The Never. We had really wanted to see this in the theater, but the realities of my post-stroke rehabilitation meant that never happened. Really regret that now. The concert footage is amazing. The story of the roadie Trip being sent out to recovery a bag from a truck is wonderfully surreal. I really need to costume The Rider for cons.Just need to find out what model gas mask that is.
Trip is mortally injured in the car crash, as is the other driver. Everything after that is his progression to the after life. Notice that when he's between the lines at the riot, no one notices him. The Rider only sees him when he throws the brick.. and no one else seems to notice the rider or his actions. The Rider is Death, collecting the souls of those killed in the riot. The mob that chases him down is made up of those killed recently in the fighting. When Trip fights The Rider, it is his acceptance of his fate. At the end, we see Trip in an otherwise empty arean watching Metallica play Orion. This is his heaven.
After that, we watched the epically bad 2012. Oh, dear Ghods. Never mind the terrible script and acting, the film has it's best disaster sequence in the first half hour. The destruction of Los Angeles was pretty epic. But it came early. After that it was just more narrow escapes and increasingly improbable escapes. With added scientific howlers, like how they handled the detonation of the Yellowstone Caldera. ProTip: you will no survive is you are in line of sight of the explosion. You will not outrace it in a Winnebago. And your Cessna will not survive when the shock wave hits. The entire last act with the stuck loading ramp was pointless.
But for me, the biggest howler was political. The big drive of the plot was the existence of a project to build arks in the Chinese Himalayas. The idea was to preserve as much life and culture as possible to reestablish things after the Earth settles down. Problem is, the President decides not to go, the Vice-President has been killed, and no one can find the Speaker of the House. So the Chief of Staff declares himself acting President.
This is where my suspension of disbelief snapped. First of all, the Secret Service would drag the President kicking and screaming onto that plane. Secondly, the chain of succession exists for a reason. It's not like you couldn't find a reason to send the Secretary of State to China, where s/he could be pre-positioned on the ark.I'd have one of the people in the chain up on one of the USAF's command planes for a reason, and make sure that everyone in the chain was someplace where they could be found at a minutes notice. If that means camping at Andrews AFB, so be it!
Really, really bad movie.
Finally, the Super Bowl. That was ugly. Turned it off early.
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Date: 4 Feb 2014 13:15 (UTC)