Category: MOVIES

The Social Dilemma

mike d. 6 Comments Blogpost, MOVIES
The Social Dilemma

This weekend we finished watching the Netflix original: Social Dilemma. Oof. It was powerful. I find its argument compelling and extremely cautionary, however I wonder if all people would derive value from it. I’m curious if those deepest within their own echo chamber, after watching it, would throw their fists in the air and shout unironically at those that oppose their views “see! wake up sheeple! Everyone ELSE needs to pay attention to this” Are any of us even remotely aware of the bubbles we live in?

I’d like to think I am. But I bet everyone thinks that.

In response to watching it, I deleted my Facebook account and downloaded a chrome extension that removes YouTube recommendations. I’m happy with these adjustments. But my biggest weakness is Reddit and Google news. These are my primary news sources. How do I clean this up?

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to get bland, boring, unbiased, news? Honestly, a newspaper would probably be smarter – but the convenience of digital media is that it’s free, quick, and easy. Three things that old fashion media is not. I frequent fivethirtyeight.com which I feel confident in, but that’s mostly politics and sports. Where do I find out basic life stuff and socially relevant content? Vaccine updates, social concerns, pop news? I think this is still relevant, but how can someone remove the manipulation from news sources?

I’m mostly stumped on this. Recommendations welcome.

Viewing Recommendations

mike d. 2 Comments Blogpost, MOVIES

Netflix: 

Magnus. WATCH THIS. It’s a documentary about Magnus Carlsen the world chess champion. It’s exceptional. This is my top recommendation for you today.

Supertunnel. This is a short Nova show on the new London subway tunnel. Fairly interesting and exciting from an engineering perspective.

AmazonPrime:

There Will Be Blood. For a movie that we weren’t huge fans of, Jen and I sure did talk a lot about There Will be Blood. It won a bunch of awards when it came out in 2007. Still, I wouldn’t recommend it for a casual Sunday afternoon. It feels like something you’d watch in a college sophomore year film class.

HBO GO:

Dallas Buyers Club: Really good! Between this and True Detective, I have a newfound respect for Mathew McConaughey.

American Psycho. I’m surprised I hadn’t already seen this. It was decent. Between the two, I think There Will be Blood has more academic depth, but American Psycho certainly provides plenty of brain fodder.

Library DVD:

Sully. Really great! They got a lot of movie out of that event. Two thumbs up.

Bridge of spies. Interesting because I knew nothing about it… but mostly just decent.

The Walk. Entertaining and light. This is a decent Sunday afternoon movie.

Anyone have recommendations of what they’ve watched and enjoyed as of late?

THE WORST MOVIE EVER

mike d. 0 Comment Blogpost, MOVIES

Recently when I was sick I sat down and watched Rubber. It’s a terrible movie about a sentient homicidal car tire that goes around blowing up people’s heads. That’s really what it’s about.

I watched the whole movie and I really don’t know why. It was dreadful. The movie celebrates the idea of things happening for No reason. And while the introduction of the concept is fantastic, the movie loses it quickly and becomes boring fast. Watch the first 5 minutes of the movie then turn it off.

Still, rotten tomatoes rated this movie 67%?

What?

Movie Fest! (courtesy of Korean Airlines)

mike d. 1 Comment Blogpost, MOVIES

I realized yesterday that most of my travel in recent months has been domestic. This out-of-the-blue Korea trip dumped me back into the deep end of frustratingly long airtime. Thankfully, Korean Airlines provides an excellent entertainment console for their guests. This flight had a wealth of personal movie choices and since I couldn’t sleep for crap… what better time to catch up!

I watched four movies.

Prometheus:
While I may have been a child of the Alien era, I grew up without a passion for the thriller sci-fi genre. So I actually don’t think I’ve even seen one of the Alien movies. And perhaps for a true appreciation of Prometheus one needs to be acquainted with the Alien story line. There were most certainly subtle allusions that were most certainly way above my head. Still, I enjoyed Prometheus and I thought the cinematography and special effects were pretty impressive.

The Amazing Spider Man:
This is the spiderman movie with that other guy… the not Tobey guy. He was kinda blah. And when it comes to evil villans, Lizard man is not particularly enthralling. Doc Oc? Green Goblin? awesome. Lizards? eh. While the movie entertained, I wouldn’t recommend watching it on any flight shorter than 10 hours.

Safety not Guaranteed:
Oh man, this was everything I could have hoped it would be. Quirky, funny, heartwarming and weird. It comes from the director of Little Miss Sunshine. And while I think most movie buffs disagree, my humble opinion has this movie succeeding everywhere Little Miss Sunshine did not. I would love to hear others thoughts on this one. But… don’t watch the trailer. It’s really not a great trailer and I think it gives too much of the movie away.

Battleship:
Oh Hasbro. You slay me. When this movie first came out we joked about other hilariously ridiculous movie titles:

(read in deep movie voice)

This summer they are coming. They are Hippos. And they are Hungry Hungry.

One man just wants to watch the world burn. His dedication to entropy is relentless. His name? Bucket. Mr. Bucket.

etc…

I went into this movie with extremely low expectations. Still, it kept me interested! I had a good time even with much of its ridiculousness. I hope Hasbro keeps going at it. There’s so much potential. My favorite part was, without a doubt, that the enemy’s bombs were actually shaped like the tiny pegs that you stick in the boats in the battleship game. Brilliant!