Sci-fi/Horror, 110 Minutes, 2015
In the future nearly everybody on Earth lives below the poverty level, forcing people to take dangerous work. Mankind has implemented faster-than-light travel via a technology called “slipstreaming”. Matter is broadcast, somehow, to a specific point in the universe, where it’s reconstituted. It can then be called back at any time. This process is rife with danger and is extraordinarily error-prone, often leading to “data corruption”.
I’m a huge fan of Marian Call’s distinct brand of quirky/awesome/nerdy/perfect music but missed this somehow. I’m making up for lost time by playing it on a loop while I pretend to work.
Fantasy/Comedy, 116 Minutes, 2016
Dealing with the gorilla in the room first, this is a reboot of the 1984 original Ghostbusters [IMDB]. This seems to have annoyed a very specific type of very vocal person. It stars women, which seems to annoy a different very specific type of very vocal person.
Horror/Fantasy, 98 Minutes, 2015
Some people get down around the holidays. The influx of annoying relatives is an inconvenience; an intrusion into their ordered lives. Some are simply jaded and can’t see why others get so excited; presents are nice and all, but do we need all the hoopla? This movie dares to declare: “Hey! If you don’t like Christmas, you and your family should be brutally murdered!”
With this being the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, many people are doing retrospectives of the franchises history. Part of this, invariably, are comparisons of the many television shows. Surprisingly, some people are coming up with the correct answer to this contentious question:
These people clearly know what some fail to grasp: Deep Space Nine is the best Star Trek series. Hands down. No qualifications. No arguments.
While all of the Trek series had a strong central cast, they did tend towards the shallow end of the spectrum. Each character had a handful of traits and background facts that defined them, but, with few exceptions, little beyond that. Furthermore those characters experienced very little change over time. Every series had episodes that focused on its characters, but for most they were the exception, not the rule.
This is Tora Ziyal. She appeared on the show nine times and we know more about her life than most of the cast on the other shows.
Deep Space Nine did two things differently. Firstly, they placed the cast in a single location that fostered depth rather than novelty. This allowed the writers to delve not only into the main cast, but into a multitude of characters. By the end of the run there were literally dozens of secondary characters with richer backgrounds than most of the main cast of the other series.
Secondly, the story was set within a complex political, religious and cultural web. DS9 was nominally a Federation station, but its crew was forced like none other before or since to walk the edge of what that meant. They took incredible care in building its characters and, naturally, that extended to the many worlds in which they lived.
Star Trek, like any good science fiction, often tackled difficult real-world topics through metaphor, but the environment Deep Space Nine created lent itself to this better than all the others. The characters were not only exposed to challenging ideas and cultural differences, but adapted and changed because of them.
The show did all of this via intricate, long form storytelling that rewarded dedicated, appointment viewing. It was smart, daring and incredibly influential on what came after. It was, and remains, the best Star Trek series and, in general, one of the best science-fiction series ever produced.
After 9/11 there were a lot of empty-headed, “America, Fuck Yeah!” songs released. They gave people something to scream about on their ninth beer, but didn’t seem to capture anything real. This did. The confusion, the impotence and the raw emotion of it.
You can buy the album (which is amazingly good) from Amazon: Mark Aaron James, Just a Satellite.
Sci-fi/Action/Adventure, 122 Minutes, 2016
We’re wrapping up Peggapalooza with Simon Pegg’s [IMDB] latest. Of course, he reprised his role as Scotty from 2009’s Star Trek [IMDB] and 2013’s Star Trek: Into Darkness [My Review], but he also co-wrote this installment. The reboot of the first film left fans cautiously optimistic. The second left them worried. How will this fare?
Like many, I’ve been enjoying the last Fallout 4 DLC, Nuka-World. Like all of Fallout it’s… a bit… glitchy as all hell. One of the more annoying, but common, glitches is the disappearance of one of the 15 Nuka-Mix recipe books, “Nuka Xtreme“.
The book is supposed be on the table, near the flagpole in Dry Rock Gulch, accessible from the theater grandstands. The book, apparently often, falls through the scenery and ends up in the normally inaccessible space between the walls. Working from a solution on the GameFAQS.com forums from user “Dooter”, this is one possible method for recovering it on PlayStation 4 (likely on other platforms as well).
Using a power armor glitch you can enter this space and, sometimes, grab the recipe! Some people have reported that they can’t grab it, as I did, but must use explosions (explosive rounds or grenades) to blast the book out into the “real world”. Others have reported that the book never appears in this way, but is found later having been flung into another part of the area.
To perform the armor glitch: stand perpendicular to the wall you’d like to invade. Press and hold “X” to exit the armor, but a split second later (the timing is touchy) turn your view (right analog stick) away from the wall. If done well, you’ll exit your armor inside the wall where you can search for the treasure. To leave, fast travel to any other location.
I hope this helps to reduce some of the frustration that I felt with this! You may also like my extended Diary of Fallout 4.
“Hector and the Search for Happiness” on IMDB
Adventure/Comedy/Drama, 114 Minutes, 2015
Peggapalooza! continues with a question that everybody has asked at one time or another: what is happiness? Hector (Simon Pegg [IMDB]) is a stable, dependable psychiatrist. He’s in a stable, dependable relationship with Clara (Rosamund Pike [IMDB]), a stable, dependable marketing consultant. His life is stable and dependable. Warm. Comfortable. Pleasant.
Happy?
