MOVIE: A Grand Day Out (1989)

by benmweilertNo Comments
A Grand Day OutYear: 1989Rating: Not RatedLength: 23 minutes / 0.38 hours I grew up watching the Wallace & Gromit shorts on VHS. There's a certain nostalgia I have for these stop motion films that I wanted to share with my daughter. So I pulled out the DVDs I had of these shorts and watched them again. Not only do they hold up, but just thinking of the technical achievement to create a thing like this is mind-boggling. The first of these, A Grand Day Out, isn't the best of the original three, but it's a grand movie, nonetheless. Like watching a silent comedy of the early era of Hollywood, A Grand Day out has a simple (if not completely absurd) premise of going to the moon because Wallace (Peter Sallis) is out of cheese and he figures it's the best place to get some. The beauty of A Grand Day Out isn't entirely in its ability to appeal to children and...
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BOOK: Rogue Protocol (2018)

by benmweilert1 Comment
Rogue Protocol Year: 2018 Author: Martha Wells Length: 226 minutes / 3.77 hours By this point in the Murderbot Diaries series, I'm used to the short length of these stories. I appreciate that there's still an overarching plot that the books are driving toward, but the bite-size adventures of the sentient AI robot are also entertaining by themselves. Now that the series is in a good groove by book three, I was glad to see the introduction of a foil to compare and contrast the main character's interactions with the humans. The rogue SecUnit continues to find himself deeper into the shady dealings of humans, but with each interaction, he's finding it harder to hide who he is and what he's doing. That these "missions" he gives himself are a significant amount of effort for someone who would much rather be lazy and just watch vids all day seems contradictory until you realize that it's great character development—even if it's subtle. Raising the stakes with...
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MOVIE: Finch (2021)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Finch Year: 2021 Rating: PG-13 Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours As time goes on, one starts to wonder if all the best post-apocalyptic stories have already been told. With the current state of the world looking more depressing with each passing year, many visions of dystopia from years past are coming true, while stories of our near future are looking a lot more post-apocalyptic. Finch (2021) fits into this latter category but only has a few newer twists to this common problem: how do humans survive on a planet that is no longer hospitable toward life? Visually, I was most impressed by "Jeff" (Caleb Landry Jones), the humanoid robot Finch (Tom Hanks) builds to ensure his dog Goodyear has a caretaker. Of course, movies like Chappie (2015) have shown that CG artists figured out how to do this well over five years ago. Regardless, it's still a visual feat and treat to see realistic-looking CG robots in movies like this. I can also appreciate...
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