MOVIE: Licorice Pizza (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Licorice Pizza Year: 2021 Rating: R Length: 133 minutes / 2.22 hours Paul Thomas Anderson is an acquired taste. Unfortunately, I don't think I've completely acquired it yet. I absolutely loved There Will Be Blood (2007), which was my first exposure to this director. I saw The Master (2012) after that and was so confused that I stayed away from Inherent Vice (2014). Maybe the magic came with Daniel Day-Lewis, which is why I gave Phantom Thread (2017) a shot. Still weird. With Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, Licorice Pizza (2021), the odd name prepared me for more weird, which it delivered. By "weird" I don't mean something filled with bizarre drug-induced visuals. It's more like the setting and plot ground it to reality, but the characters act strangely throughout. They're almost illogical. Luckily, most of these "weird" characters (like the ones portrayed by Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper) are minor distractions from the primary plot of the film. Still, having a child star who is...
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VIDEO GAME: Virtual Virtual Reality (2019)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Virtual Virtual RealityYear: 2019Rating: TTime Played: ~3 hours The one qualm I have with many VR games is how many of them fail to include any kind of story into their gameplay. It's mostly, "Here's this thing you can do in an immersive environment," and that's it. The ones that have a story (like Shadow Point or Moss) sometimes don't lean into the VR nearly as much—mostly being games that could be played in first- or third-person without VR. Virtual Virtual Reality, though, is the best of both worlds, combining VR interactions with a great story. Placed somewhere between the meta Accounting+ and interactivity of Job Simulator, Virtual Virtual Reality takes the Portal approach to gradual storytelling. There are a lot of parallels that are hard to miss here. At its core, this game's story revolves around a cheery yet malevolent AI who tries to get the player to perform odd jobs for a variety of requestors. However, when you peel back...
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MOVIE: CODA (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
CODAYear: 2021Rating: PG-13Length: 111 minutes / 1.85 hours Every once in a while, a movie comes along that's surprisingly unique. Like, you would have thought such a plot would have existed a dozen times already, but Hollywood has only remade it once from a version that was initially in French. CODA (2021) is such a film. Sure, it has elements that are common to other dramatic films—like fishers, singers, and family dynamics. The combination of these things makes CODA stand out as unique to me. Not only does its double-meaning title elevate it above other movies, but its heartfelt content is something we need more of in this depressing world. CODA's take on the "my family doesn't understand my talent and is holding me back" cliche hits differently in this scenario. It's not that Ruby (Emilia Jones) has a family that ignores her obvious talent for singing, it's that they literally cannot understand how much better she is at singing than the...
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BOOK: Waking Gods (2017)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Waking Gods Year: 2017 Author: Sylvain Neuvel Length: 336 pages When I read Sleeping Giants, the narrative technique used to tell this story blew me away. I was hooked, and it pleased me to learn there were two more books in this Themis Files trilogy. Sure, I still had some qualms with the first book, but it was mostly from an "omniscient exposition dump." It took me a while to get back to this series, but I was looking forward to reading the second book, Waking Gods. In that time, something changed, and I did not enjoy this book. Despite loving this indirect narrative approach in the first book, the technique showed its cracks as it reached past its limitations in Waking Gods. Interviews and recording transcripts can only show so much, and it's difficult to get into the characters when they're at arm's length. And perhaps this was the other thing I didn't like about this book: the characters. None of them are particularly...
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MOVIE: West Side Story (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
West Side Story Year: 2021 Rating: PG-13 Length: 156 minutes / 2.60 hours I absolutely adore West Side Story (1961). When I heard it was being remade 60 years after it dominated the Academy Awards, I was skeptical. Why mess with perfection? Even with Steven Spielberg directing, I had my doubts. Then I watched the first trailer and had chills of nostalgia. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as I thought. After finally watching West Side Story (2021), I had to admit that this remake mostly recaptured most of the magic of the original. It even had some improvements, which I appreciated. The qualms I had with this version of the hit Broadway musical were relatively minor. First, Spielberg has a visual style that sometimes went a little overboard on the lens flare. We aren't talking J. J. Abrams-levels of lens flare, but it was enough to be distracting. Second, the choice to have more of the Puerto Rican characters speak Spanish really helped sell...
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VIDEO GAME: Accounting+ (2017)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Accounting+ Year: 2017 Rating: M Time Played: ~2 hours A lot of VR games lean into the gimmick by providing an immersive and interactive experience. Sometimes, this experience is through stereoscopic 3D, which is easily achieved in a VR headset. Other times, these games use the medium to place the user in settings that are not possible in real life. For the most part, though, each VR game sticks to a single concept or setting. Accounting+ is hard to describe because it goes in so many directions, each of which relies on the "meta" nature of virtual reality to work. There isn't a lot of cohesion between the different "levels" of Accounting+, other than interacting with the characters and environment to find the next VR headset to warp into the next world. As a comedic game, it has its funny moments if you can get past some of its more crass humor. Other portions are a bit gruesome as well, depending on how cartoony the...
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MOVIE: Last Night in Soho (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Last Night in Soho Year: 2021 Rating: R Length: 116 minutes / 1.93 hours In the last five years, it's been interesting to see director Edgar Wright move further from the comedies that helped put his name on the cinematic map. Most know him for his British comedies like Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), but stylistically I don't think you can go wrong with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). This kind of cinematography drew me to his more serious film, Baby Driver (2017), and the even more serious Last Night in Soho (2021). It is a little odd to see Wright step out from his comfort zone just because he's so good at comedic writing (having also written Ant-Man (2015)). While I liked the music-themed mayhem in Baby Driver, there wasn't much in Last Night in Soho that was artistically interesting. Sure, the whole mirror-image special effects were neat and occasionally a little mind-blowing, but the biggest problem with Last...
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BOOK: Earth Awakens (2014)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Earth Awakens Year: 2014 Author: Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston Length: 896 minutes / 14.93 hours Having read most of Orson Scott Card's Shadow series that follows the events of the rest of the cadets after the events of Ender's Game, it's clear to me he has a skill in describing geopolitics. This skill is also on display in the third book of the First Formic War series, Earth Awakens. Acting as bookends to the Ender Saga, these two series give a plausible look into the world before and after the alien invasion of Earth. There's a challenge with prequels, though. How much does the author leave unsaid between the end of the prequel and the start of the original lore? I can appreciate how Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston wrapped up many of the threads in this trilogy, but there were also too many things left unresolved that the reader must assume wrap up between the end of this book and the...
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MOVIE: The Power of the Dog (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
The Power of the Dog Year: 2021 Rating: R Length: 126 minutes / 2.10 hours Every once in a while, a movie comes along and gets a lot of award buzz. Often, these movies exhibit some traits of highly lauded films that came before them. Critics often think these latter films can "make up" for snubs of previous movies that they think should have won awards but did not. The Power of the Dog (2021) seems to fit this bill as the spiritual successor to Brokeback Mountain (2005) with its heavy tones of homosexuality in the lonely and harsh setting of the west. The problem I have with The Power of the Dog is how the main character, Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a prime example of toxic masculinity—to the point where it's almost parody. Sure, the audience wants to see him get what's coming to him, but we also have to sit through two hours of him being an incredibly manipulative and abusive person...
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