Tuesday 12 March 2024

Dune II review

"Hey you guys, I found my knife!"

This is one of those rare films that simply must be seen in IMAX.

It's a breathtaking, epic spectacle. 

The art direction alone is worth the price of admission, IMHO.

Visually on par with Lawrence of Arabia and other classics, this is a hyper-serious take on the ttale of a messiah created by a bunch of space nuns, trapped in a neo-feudal nightmare galaxy of murder, intrigue, betrayal and fanaticism. 

If anyone was going to make gigantic mile long sand worms believable, it's Denis Villeneuve. 

Run away!

Dune II is faster paced and more of a roller coaster than the first installment (which proceeded at a rather stately pace) and it kept me hooked from beginning to end, despite being familiar with the books. 

It's a stunning triumph, a visual feast, and the most impressive film I think I've seen in a very long time. In terms of visual impact, it's up there with the original Star Wars, 2001: A Space OdysseyThe Matrix, or The Lord of the Rings. It's a little less emotionally affecting than the modern classic LOTR, but still highly enjoyable, immersive, and easily the visual equal. 

Herbert was concerned with how people can be manipulated to believe collective myths (such as ideologies). Ideologies are enormously powerful, capable of uniting millions of separate individuals into a gestalt organism that can accomplish great, or terrible, things. Nation states, empires, religions, political ideologies are essentially collective organisms, and human history is littered with their deeds. 

Dune I and II effectively convey the wastefulness and paranoia of a feudal universe, where every royal is constantly on guard, wary of assassins, while the masses are little more than cannon fodder. Chaff for the gestalt grinders. 

Tinfoil is back in, boys!

The Bene Gesserit genetic experiment to create the ultimate human leader is a crucible through which the Atreides, Harkonen and Corrino must pass. These machinations drive the entire plot, and most of the foreground players are merely pawns of it, causing untold bloodshed and suffering while they play their parts. Why exactly are they trying to create this ultimate ruler? I don’t remember the book providing an answer, but it might be to escape the feudal trap. 

Paul is initially sympathetic, but as he grows in power he finds his actions constrained by the role he must play. The film also states flat out that horrible crimes lie in his future, and the death of billions. 

The script is smart and faithfully brings to screen Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic. There are a few on the nose lines, which might have been mandated (it's a complicated scenario Denis Villeneuve has to set up, executives might have insisted on more clarification); the only other quibble I have is that there were some changes to the story, additions and omissions, that I didn't really understand the reason for, and after awhile the sheer weight and scale of the film can feel a little crushing. Everything here is BIG; even door openings are epic. 

"I hate sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets in everything!"

The acting is top notch. It's not a character film, it's an epic, and it doesn't delve as much into Paul's inner world (for example) as it might, but you'd need 9 hours to bring all the inner life from the books to film. As it is, you get all the information and character context you need to understand what's going on. 

The music is immersive, powerful and compelling; as usual from Hans Zimmer, it also made me wonder if I came out with hearing damage. 

Dave Bautista gets to yell a lot in Dune. And I mean A LOT.

Denis Villeneuve has crafted an epic sci-fi art film in a class of its own. He has an undeniable eye for scale, like Gareth Edwards, and he merges that with top tier material; the production design here–the ships, the costumes, the sets—are as close to perfect as fallible humanity is likely to get. I can't find anything to criticize. They're unique, unlike anything else in sci-fi. 

I can't recommend this film highly enough. Don't wait for it on streaming, see this in the theatre, in IMAX if possible. Take ear plugs as a precaution, it will be LOUD.

Read my face
I can't wait for Dune: Messiah. 

Oh yes: the movie is too long. But all movies these days feel too long to me. 

Monday 11 March 2024

(Sort of) Russian literature review: Day of the Oprichnik & War with Russia: An Urgent Warning

day of the oprichnik cover

Day of the Oprichnik 

by Vladimir Sorokin

This was sold to me as a kvass soaked satire of Putin's Russia. I can see some parallels, in the mixture of religion and fascism with an Imperial Czarist face. But it's really more of a parody of General Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov (ataman of the Don Cossack Host) 1927 utopian novel Behind the Thistle, in which he posits the return of the Czar.

Everything positive that Krasnov posits is revealed as dysfunctional by Sorokin. The infallible, imperious leader is a petty Machiavellian tyrant. The Oporichniks (based on Ivan the Terrible's secret police) are brutal thugs who rape and murder in the name of both Czar and God. They observe religious rituals and trifles while committing horrific crimes with a clean if twisted conscience. They engage in extensive drug use and sodomy that the church would imprison others for. The book is a litany of hypocrisy, of entitled elites exploiting and oppressing the people in the most amoral fashion while marinating in their own self-aggrandizing piety. 

Technology in this nightmare state is skewed and warped to serve the system, with some extreme high tech and the rest... not so much. Only what is of use to the regime, what keeps it in power, is leveraged. 

It's a good dystopian book, but it's an ugly read, despite the poetic leanings of Sorokin. The florid prose is like dressing on roadkill. 


War with Russia cover

by General Sir Richard Shirreff 

I picked this book up in the wake of all the articles and hand-wringing about a possible Russian attack on the Baltic States after Russia defeats Ukraine. The author, Sir Richard, is a former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO and showed up on a news video I saw which touched on his book, and its prediction of a Russian invasion of Ukraine (followed by an attack on the Baltics). 

Given the current state of the world, that peaked my interest. The Baltics are NATO members, so Article Five would presumably be invoked should the Russians attack, setting off WWIII. 

Surely an insane scenario, yet one being seriously considered now by people in the know. I wanted to understand why.

War with Russia is filled with more military jargon and acronyms than you can shake a stick at. Yes, the author knows his stuff. No, I did not need to know the calibre and specifications of every weapon. 

This sort of thing is to be expected of a book in the Tom Clancy vein (military gear porn!), with loosely sketched characters, mostly out of central military casting. It does include a variety of political figures, and pointed behind-the-scenes machinations, some of which are no doubt culled from the author's personal experiences. Impractical defense spends, budget cuts, fickle leaders in pursuit of approval ratings, and military decisions driven by photo op opportunity all get a spill of ink. 

The plot unfolds briskly, the action scenes have verisimilitude, and the story is disturbingly believable.

And that's the real point: the narrative trappings are just the sugar coating on the policy paper pill. 

An attack on the Baltic states actually is possible. It is unlikely and would be a huge gamble, but then, Putin looks like more of a poker player, than a chess player, by the day.

Shirreff's posits a lightning strike by Russian combined arms into the Baltics, with paratroopers being dropped in from Narva and supported by armoured columns. The Russian plan is to  present the West with a fait accompli: occupy the Baltics, formally annex them, and declare any attack on Russian territory will result in a nuclear response.

The Baltics are small and their armed forces are tiny; they don't have the ability to stop a determined Russian attack. They can make the occupation unpleasant, but by then it will be too late. 

As the Ukrainians have discovered, it's extremely difficult to root out entrenched Russian troops. The US would not have total air superiority here, unlike in Desert Storm. Invading the Baltics would be enormously costly, and Western European governments might not want to spend lives on a (seemingly) lost cause against a foe that thinks nothing of its own combat casualties.

NATO also requires members unanimously agree to activate Article Five; with Hungary practically a Russian vassal, that's not likely. The larger NATO has gotten, the more unwieldy, slow and bureaucratic it has become. Worse, anything they discuss winds up on Putin's desk within a few hours. 

Putin also ascribes to something called 'Nuclear De-escalation'. The term is not what it seems: if NATO were to launch a major ground attack on the Baltics, or Kaliningrad, Putin would drop a nuke on Warsaw or Berlin. This would so shock Western governments that they would completely back off, and the conflict would turn to negotiated settlement on Russian terms. That's the idea, at any rate. 

Peachy.

Only an inveterate gambler would dare to pull a stunt like this. 

Is Putin that guy?

I'm not sure, and neither it seems are the pundits. Some assert this attack is inevitable, others insist it's delusional nonsense. 

Either way, the doomsday clock is closer to striking than ever before: we're now 90 seconds away, 'at a moment of historic danger'. 

Rather sobering.

Saturday 3 February 2024

World War Three inbound?

estonia warns of war
Aw, c'mon!!! I was just starting to relax...

The last few weeks have seen an unsettling tsunami of warnings about a coming land war with Russia, from think tanks, defence ministers, retired generals, pundits, and badly dressed people on street corners wielding bullhorns. 

Fear mongering? I certainly hope so! 

The last thing I thought we'd have to worry about post-Covid lockdown was World War III. It's so outlandish, so outrageous, it can't possibly be true. Like Russia's newest favourite pastime (threatening to nuke the UK), it's probably hot air. Or a bit of undigested mutton? 

And yet...

The United States and Europe have been unable to provide enough ammunition to Ukraine. Everyone has been surprised by the incredible consumption rate of munitions. That has raised the fear that Western stockpiles are horribly inadequate were Russia to stumble into the Baltic States and accidentally annex a few countries.

The West has no ongoing ammunition production; it's all finite, discrete orders. The US had to provide Ukraine with controversial cluster munitions because they had nothing else. 

In October, the US started dividing its dwindling munitions stocks between Ukraine and Israel. Israeli generals have said that if the US were to cut off the supply of weapons, the incursion into Gaza would grind to a halt. 

Now the US and the UK are lobbing missiles at Houthi positions in Yemen. The Houthis have plenty of missiles and drones provided by the IRGC to attack international shipping, causing insurance to skyrocket and most ships to detour around Africa, driving up costs for, well, all of us. 

Prior to the Hamas attack, senior Iranian leadership visited Russia. Hamas and the Houthis are Iranian proxies. Iran is supplying Russia with drones and other weapons. 

The Russians bombed Syria to contribute to the refugee crisis; they are now trying to flood Finland with migrants, causing Finland to close several border crossings.

Russia has funded extremist organizations and splinter parties across the EU and in the US, in an effort to foment chaos and social strife; Russian social media troll-bot farms and willing (or compromised) media idiots intensify this. 

Undersea cables to islands off Scotland and Denmark have recently been cut by powers unknown. The Nord Stream pipelines were cut a few years ago, also by powers unknown.  

Estonia just started building 600 bunkers along its border with Russia. Poland is doubling the number of personnel in its armed forces and is raising its defence spending to 3% of GDP.

Japan is preparing for war.

Navalny died in a prison in the far north; his spouse has alleged he was poisoned by the Russian government (wouldn't be the first time). 

Meanwhile, Russia is dedicating 42% of its GDP to the military, along with large scale ammunition production. 

It's possible it is all connected. 

This Unherd video tries to make sense of it for us neophytes:

The news is so much better when it's boring.

UPDATE: John Mearsheimer doesn't think there's anything to this. He has a sober article on his Substack here. Naturally, the Estonian intelligence chief disagrees

Monday 8 January 2024

Midnight Mass mini-review


Midnight Mass is dark, brooding, contemplative and fabulous. It's a slow burn show that dives deep into how people see what they want to see; how we are all in peril of grafting our desperate wants and desires onto pre-existing moral structures to justify them. 

More specifically, it's about how faith and God can be twisted into thought-pretzels and then used to justify heinous crimes. As the perpetrators descend into darkness, they don't even realize their moral compass has been inverted. They cling to a warped version of faith like a drowning person to a straw until the illusion can no longer be maintained.

Want and need are incredibly powerful perception filters, ones that can lead even the well meaning astray.

Midnight Mass builds well, laying out clues as it goes; you can see the twists coming, but they are so expertly built up, the reveals still have impact, like when we see the roller coaster drop coming: it builds anticipation, rather than being anti-climactic. 

It's not easily bucketed as a horror genre flick: those elements exist primarily to explore larger, weightier themes. More of a horror-drama-mood piece.

Unlike The Boy and the Heron, this limited series spoke to me, and the performances are absolutely top notch across the board. The journey of the priest was particularly fascinating, and Hamish Linklater puts in a superlative performance as Father Paul Hill. It's wonderful, full of nuance and pathos. 

When the show concluded, I still had questions about what the priest believed at various points during the series, or if he knew from the very beginning. 

I suspect the good reverend knew from the start.

He just wanted what he wanted so, so much, he couldn't be honest, not even to himself. 

Highly recommended. 

Watch knowing as little as possible. 

Sunday 7 January 2024

The Boy and the Heron

boy and heron poster

A new Miyazaki film! 

I was looking forward to this. 

Like Godzilla Minus One, The Boy and the Heron is set during the waning days of WWII, and follows the story of a young boy in the aftermath of his mother's death during an Allied air raid. He then slips away into an alternate universe dominated by giant militaristic budgies, passes through various Narnia-style gateways, runs into a younger version of one of his 'nannies' (one of the house keeping staff? A relative? I wasn't sure), and is guided about by an obnoxious Heron with a big warty-nosed dwarf inside it. 

Ultimately, he must take on the role as Supreme Storyteller from Loki to save the universe from destruction.

Or something. 

Honestly, this one didn't engage me.

I usually find a metaphor or theme that resonates, that I can connect to, in a Miyazaki film, but not this time. A boy dealing with the death of his mother is understandable, yet that storyline didn't play out in any intelligible way for me, nor was I inspired to analyze it over a piece of pie afterward, as Quentin Tarantino might.

I'll just leave this one for brighter souls than I. 

Like The Creator, though, it does look fabulous!




Friday 5 January 2024

Genocide in Gaza(?)

I don't always agree with John Mearsheimer, but he's well informed, smart, and always thought provoking.

On January 4th, he put up an article on his substack about the South African application with the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza: 

“The application is a superb description of what Israel is doing in Gaza. It is comprehensive, well-written, well-argued, and thoroughly documented...

“...the application provides a substantial body of evidence showing that Israeli leaders have genocidal intent toward the Palestinians. (59-69) Indeed, the comments of Israeli leaders – all scrupulously documented – are shocking. One is reminded of how the Nazis talked about dealing with Jews when reading how Israelis in “positions of the highest responsibility” talk about dealing with the Palestinians. (59) In essence, the document argues that Israel’s actions in Gaza, combined with its leaders’ statements of intent, make it clear that Israeli policy is “calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.”

“...there is little doubt that the Biden administration is complicitous in Israel’s genocide, which is also a punishable act according to the Genocide Convention... I never imagined I would see the day when Israel, a country filled with Holocaust survivors and their descendants, would face a serious charge of genocide.”

Deeply disturbing stuff.

Thursday 28 December 2023

Back to D&D

Classic

I haven't played Dungeons & Dragons in decades, but after reading my new book, a friend recommended I give Dungeon Mastering a go. Why? Dragon Garage follows a group of RPG players who open up a portal into their fantasy game world. Fun, drinking, and adventure ensue. 

Seemed like a good fit.

The main focus for Dragon Garage, for me, was the contrast between the modern and the medieval. Thanks at least in part to fairy tales, the Middle Ages is viewed through an idealized lens. We tend to think of princesses and knights, rather than dysentery, famine and bed bugs. 

I wanted to mix up the focus and smash them all together: ideal and real, medieval and modern, the fantastical and grounded. 

A generic fantasy role playing game was a device through which I could explore that. 

I remember (fondly) playing Dungeons & Dragons in public school, but wasn't particularly good at it (to be fair, I don't think many of us were.. there was a lot of open the door, kill the monster, and take their stuff). The rules were dense and extensive, so taking it up again could be a time consuming challenge which I might not be up to.

So I deferred and, at first, declined.

the expanse novels
So good!!!

Ultimately, it was The Expanse that changed my mind: Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck created the book series based on role playing game sessions. It's a brilliant idea: run your plot through interactive sessions, and test the logic. A great way to spot holes in a fantasy or sci-fi series: test it! \\

Soon as I mentioned this to a few other friends, they put me on to Critical Roll, which features a phenomenally talented gang of voice actors running through Dungeons and Dragons adventures. There's an entire media empire around it now, including a TV show and comic books. 

So I'm late to the party, but undeterred. Running a D&D (or other RPG) game could help work out scenarios for future books, as well as generate 'happy accident' material that was truly authentic. 

With that in mind, I set about building out the world of Dragon Garage for player characters. At first I thought I'd build everything, the whole world; very quickly I discovered this is a crap ton of work, far more than the amount of world building you'd need for a novel.

dragon garage cover

I was also determined to make a Megadungeon, because when I was a kid, it was all about the Megadungeon. Every DM had their own. Gary Gygax had the platonic ideal in Castle Greyhawk (not that I ever saw it), and so I resolved to have my own: Castle Druidun!

Seemed a good idea at the time. 

Of course, a megadungeon is a stupid amount of work. No one sane is going to try and do this right off the bat. Fortunately, I laugh at sanity barriers: I've tackled full on prose novels, even screenplays! In fact, making a megadungeon is rather similar to writing a novel, just more compartmentalized and interactive, like an enhanced version of Choose Your Own Adventure

Over the years, I've tried my hand at comic books, graphic novels, prose novels, short stories, comedy skits, joke strips, and improv, so why not this?

king atop hill with clouds
Epic adventure!

Intially, I filled the dungeon with my own creations, but before long I turned to decades worth of fantasy trope D&D material to flesh it out. It's just too big a job for one person, especially when you have hundreds of dungeon rooms to fill. I can edit out stuff later, should this path prove fruitful and I have the opportunity to do a sequel to Dragon Garage

Fingers crossed; there's so much more to explore and play with in that world. 

I thought I'd put up the material from the world of Dragon Garage here, for fun, as the experiment progresses. We'll see what happens, and how far I get with it.

One big change from the book: I had the players roll up characters native to the fantasy world, rather than playing their real selves. It'd be too complicated for me to pull off initially, not until I'm more seasoned at this. 

A megadungeon is a nice, 'simple' realm for adventuring, with built in guard rails. There are rooms and tunnels and all the choices reside within that framework. It's much harder to mess up than, say, an open world space opera mixed with horror (which is what I originally wanted to do). 

There's a reason why many shooter video games occur within finite structures.

What is an imaginary world? Where is it? Same place as Santa Claus, the United States, and Narnia: in our minds. Think about it. Nations only exist through agreement in, and enforcement of, the collective imagination.

Welcome to the World of Arthea...

Check out the Dragon Garage blog here


Thursday 14 December 2023

Godzilla Minus One review: rock the kaiju!

godzilla minus one
Urban redevelopment, Kaiju style

First, Godzilla Minus One is awesome.

Second, they made it for under $15 million USD.

SERIOUSLY?!?

Godzilla Minus One looks as good or better than many $200 million dollar blockbusters. 

Even better, it has a solid emotional core (in a Godzillla film!) and has something to say about Japanese history, society, and the value of human life. It's not an empty, zombie franchise lumbering about devouring money, bereft of soul. 

The human side of the film is centred around a Kamikaze pilot who claims a mechanical problem with his plane in order to skip out on blowing himself up. He comes into contact with other survivors of the war, all of them badly scarred and traumatized by the experience. 

Inevitably, their paths cross with our favourite gargantuan bipedal lizard, Godzilla. 

One of the most striking sequences in the film is a chase at sea: it's absolutely riveting, and reminiscent ofJaws, but better, because it's a gigantic radioactive monster with atomic heat ray breath. Did Jaws have that? I think not!

godzilla chasing ship
Throw him a stick, you fools!

This Godzilla is not cute or cuddly, doesn't mug for the camera, doesn't dance, and takes his urban redevelopment VERY seriously. He's one scary 20,000 ton dude. Personally, I think he's lying about his weight and doesn't weigh a pound less than 40,000 tons. 

The ending has fun schemes from a delightful egghead, and a thematically relevant twist. Thankfully it does not involve giant breath mints. 

The whole movie comes together in a very satisfying way, unlike the vast majority of recent Marvel escapades. 

Frankly, franchise fatigue abounds. Old IP are being resurrected, rebooted, retooled and trotted out for fresh generations constantly. Or maybe time just flies by faster now that I'm old. I've witnessed reboots of reboots. Godzilla Minus One qualifies as (I think) the fourth retelling of the original Godzilla story, but somehow, incredibly, remains fresh and fun, making this entry all the more insanely remarkable. 

The last time a reboot really impressed me was with Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica

And while this film can't compare to my childhood memories of Monster Zero, for my money, it's nevertheless the best Godzilla film ever made, and the most surprising and delightful cinematic experience of the year.*

I never, ever thought I'd say that about a Godzilla flick. 

Will wonders never cease?

Highly recommended. See it in IMAX, even. It's worth it! 

*To be fair, I haven't actually been to the theatre much this year...

Friday 8 December 2023

Max Zing interior cover

interior cover of max zing

His adventures aren't really that sedentary. 

Check them out over on Amazon!