Change Your Image
Sotalo
Reviews
The Future Of (2022)
Interesting... Until you find the elephants stampeding in every room.
This docu-series covers many individual's ideas of the future, and futurists, but not science to determine what is possible. For instance, bioluminescence requires too much energy from a plant to ever be bright enough to be as functional as what's described. More egregiously, the docu-series completely brushed off VR and focused on novel AR as the future of gaming for the entire episode. Anyone who plays VRChat knows this is not the case. The best parts promised about the future of gaming are here right now in VR, and new advancements are being made every day to make that experience better.
This egregious and insulting omission tinted the episode, biasing it towards something very novel that doesn't match our actual desires, nor our most likely future. Rather than talk with developers who are working to make VR better, who know what people like/dislike about the current technology and what they want to make, the show presents a biased and completely separate track. This issue carries over into many episodes, including an entire episode on the future of houseplants of all things, which includes the aforementioned bioluminescence issue.
I very much love researching the future, even skeptical futures unlikely to happen. But a befitting or better future, this is not. The future of dating is not going to be a magical algorithm better than our current apps... with AR. The future of houseplants is not Avatar, or a plant that "protects you from the rain." We have those in Florida: they don't work! And the future of Gaming, where most people really want to sit down and chill with their international friends, or have fun playing a game together, is not going to be AR!
Let's talk about the dog episode. Any conversation we could ever have is predicated on the intelligence and complexity of a dog's brain, which scientists are surmising are about as intelligent as a two-year-old toddler. They have feelings and thoughts for sure, but not complicated ones. And smarter dogs get bored quickly and fare so much worse in domestic environments. These two facts make the concept of conversing with our pets impossible. While the episode does take care to avoid the notion of dogs sounding like Einstein, the omission of these facts in an entire episode about communicating with dogs is a "plot hole" that looms over the entire episode and swallows it whole. They discuss "problems," for sure, but they never mention the elephant in the room stampeding over the entire room. And with each episode, you find more and more of these elephants which are ignored to allow the series to speculate, speculate, and speculate some more without ever once considering whether or not all that speculation is accurate, or even the kind of future most people want.
The benefits, of course... it's a docu-series about the future. It presents a lot of interviews with people and futurists who all have a very optimistic view of what could be possible and are working hard to make that happen. They ponder the potential problems of such concepts, as though they could be genuine, and I can certainly appreciate the effort to gather such an eclectic group of people to ponder such a ludicrous future. I can certainly watch this series with optimism and suspension of disbelief... but on the inside, it's a tragedy. Or, perhaps, just not the kind of future I'm interested in. If you like pondering the concept of dog communication, Avatar houseplants, and citywide AR, then this is the series for you. But if you are actually responsible for the future and want to know more about the genuine developments that are exciting, this series is not what you're looking for.
The Three Dogateers (2014)
A great example of underestimating the intelligence of your audience
My mother picked out this movie because she liked dogs. I like dogs too, in great films like Up, but not in this. I watched it because she complained I don't watch the shows she likes to watch, and she continually refuses to watch anything with animation: Avatar: The Last Airbender being the most recent example. So I watched it. And this is my honest review.
There were a few moments when this film was actually bearable, but they never amounted to anything. This piece of trash keeps coming up with new ways to insult your intelligence: from repeating the same phrases over and over again, to overacting and having no trust in its audience to understand anything without verbalizing every single action. The annoying voice acting makes the film a drag to listen to, from the dog catcher shrieking every chance he gets to the main trio of a redneck, a valley girl, and a deluded dreamer with an indistinguishable accent, surely watching and/or listening to this film must classify as some form of torture. Throughout this film you'll find everything from terrible budget effects to hordes of plot clichés, farting jokes, and breaking character. Nobody in this film really knows their lines, and all their lines are terrible. Characters are 2-dimensional, from the stereotypes used in the dog characters to the human actors, nobody seems to do anything with any real tangible meaning. So the irony is, not only are the characters devoid of depth, but they also break character and sense very frequently.
After the credits rolled, you'd exhale knowing the film is finally over, only for the actors to come back and continue the torment for another few minutes as they stumble through lines, repeat phrases over and over again, overact, and repeat plot clichés again.
So the good news is, after this fiasco, I now have the upper hand the next time we pick out a movie. And for film buffs everywhere, if you know someone who is theatrically illiterate, hope that they choose to sit through a movie as bad as this one. Even my mother knew this movie was garbage after the first two minutes, and she only watched out of obligation of purchasing it. So, no, this movie is not acceptable for family entertainment, and it's far more annoying and insulting to its viewer than it is entertaining. This is by far the worst movie I have ever seen in my life.
Also, it is sad that legitimately good movies featuring dogs are so few in number. I hope those who make movies featuring dogs are actually making them for dog owners and not just to cash in solely on the appeal of the pets. Same for Christmas movies. This film is a double-whammy of cashing in on dogs and Christmas, with very little reason to do so. Avoid the bottom of the barrel unless you are proving a point to someone else. Maybe if we stop buying movies of such poor quality and cash-in, we'd get movies with dogs during Christmas that aren't so terrible.
The Simpsons: One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish (1991)
An endearing, poignant, but truly entertaining episode
No, it's not the greatest episode of the series, but there aren't many that show us the dear, vulnerable side of Homer and run with it as far as this one does.
After unwittingly eating a poisonous dish at a Japanese restaurant, Homer is told that he only has 24 hours to live. He makes a list of things he wants to do, but things don't go exactly as planned. What could very easily break the series' comedy and irreverent humor instead turns out some great moments like Homer's home video for Maggie. The video, made to show her the kind of man her father was, ends with Homer losing his temper and scratching his butt after being interrupted by a phone call.
In this episode, we get to see Homer at his most genuine and best, truly caring for his family and friends, all with the classic Simpsons irreverence and comedy running through the background. It all ends so poignantly as Homer prefers to go alone, in his robe, sitting on a reclining chair, facing the night sky outside his window, listening to the bible on cassette by Larry King. It's a scene of such emotional gravity that The Simpsons may never achieve it again. That's not even mentioning the great antithetical credits gag that perfectly sums up the character and entire episode.
However, it's such an odd episode that it's difficult to call it the penultimate series' best. Homer is forced to act more honest under the circumstances, and many other characters go out of their way to allow him the necessary consolation. You won't really see the dull, happy-go- lucky doughnut lover here, nor the dysfunctional family dynamics, but that's the magic of an episode like this: characters can act out of character so long as it's both dramatic and amusing. Sure, why not? It's an excellent episode that shines through as one of the series' best, no matter how off-kilter it may be.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
As Exaggerated as it is True!
I can see how the appeal of this movie might wane for some, with much of the comedy about clashing cultures and large-scale sociology than any personal conflicts. The writing being this film's strong point, anyone missing out on the culture clash will miss out on a lot the film has to offer. Everything on screen (as any foreign-family-American can attest) is absolutely true!
A Greek woman meets a great guy, but that's not the point. It's about the family. Stereotyped or not, what we get are a lot of loud cousins who eat meat that try to invite the toast family with food. A lot of food. A LOT of lamb, and a LOT of food. Food. The family owns a restaurant, so there's always food. And it's about family reunions and a wedding, so, more food. Oh, and it's about Greeks, so FOOD FOOD FOOD!
Take any scene, any quote from this movie, reference it to any Greek person alive, and they will laugh and respond with the rest of the script. That is the point of this film. It's not an epic fantasy about a princess and a dragon and an army of knights, nor is it an action thriller. It's about food, and Greeks and food. For many of us, it's a film called "life." It might not be your life, but it is for us! And you know what? Our life is funny!
WALL·E (2008)
Pixar's deepest, realistic, and most original masterpiece
Wall E is set far in the future... 800 years into the future. By that time, Earth would have been so full of mess that life could not be sustained on it. So, all the Earth's citizens left Earth on a spaceship cruise and left behind thousands of robots known as Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class. The robots are supposed to clean up the Earth, and once evidence of life is found everyone can return. But the program was forgotten, and there's only one sole remaining Wall-E.
I've seen all of Pixar's work, and I can say very confidently that the first half hour of Wall-E is full of the darkest and deepest scenes Pixar has ever created. The story opens in a ghost city, revealing the life of Wall-E. His ultimate job is to... compress garbage. However, while rummaging through the garbage, Wall-E adds certain items he finds while rummaging through the garbage to his personal collection. Wall-E breaths life and personality and remains a lovable character while still being a robot. Throughout the story, Wall-E encounters Eve, a robot sent to search for life on Earth, and he falls in love (any further about the plot, and I'd be spoiling the film). But Wall-E has the personality, while Eve is... a robot. She's cold, cruel, and insensitive.
What makes Wall-E untraditional to most cinematic masterpieces is its lack of dialog. The robots feelings are shown through a compilation of sound effects, body language, and expressions. Wall-E's emotions can always be detected by his binocular-eyes alone. The story is still told without much dialog between the main characters, and told rather effectively. Hey, I understood it much easier than Ocean's Thirteen, so the lack of dialog can't be that bad.
Wall-E is among one of the few Disney-related Science Fiction movies, and the only one with an (mostly) ecologic theme. The ecologic theme is secondary to the love one, so it's not overwhelming (especially for children). The depiction of life in the far future is however depicted to be incredibly twisted, so some kids could get hung up on "drinking" lunch instead of enjoying the film. In a world controlled by computers, the human effort stands above all, and if kids end up watching this movie, they would realize it as well.
All in all, Wall-E isn't an adventure anyone should miss. The movie isn't restricted to kids or to adults, which is a key label associated with Pixar. The movie is without error, and Pixar once again stole the big screen. I want this movie on DVD as soon as possible.