Phaserblast

I am enjoying this documentary. But Netflix and the writers are misrepresenting history in order to shoehorn racial diversity into the documentary. The section I take issue with is with Jerry Lawson, a black man who is stated to be the "inventor" of the game cartridge. The documentary states that before Lawson became involved, it had "never been done before." This is just flat out wrong. The swappable ROM cartridge concept was invented by Wallace Kirschner and Lawrence Haskel. Lawson worked on the Channel F game console, the first of its type, but swappable game cartridges had already been invented before he came along. So while it's certain he played a role in the development of an actual marketable, sellable product that used cartridges, it was not his invention, and unfair to the actual inventors to deprive them of their credit. While I have no problem with Netflix very obviously choosing diverse individuals (transgender, black etc) to fit their well-known diversity mandates, it is NOT cool to twist the facts just to make the narrative work.

First, let me compliment the show by saying it's actually pretty good. I like the tone, which is very much horror-esque. But the actors all have Brit accents, which is really, really stupid. This isn't Downton Abbey in Ukraine. All the other reenactments done about Chernobyl (some done by the BBC) all use Russian actors with subtitles. I'm not saying the actors need to speak Russian, but for FS they should at least speak with Russian accents! Who OK'd this terrible idea?

So if you're 14 or whatever and want to know what the 80s was like, watch this movie. Everything--and I mean EVERYTHING, is spot on. The costumes are amazing. The production design in amazing. The colors of those opening titles--woah! And the best thing? The music! The person that picked the songs really earned their paycheck, because the selections are really authentic to that 80s club culture. These aren't the same, worn out and cliché 80s songs you always hear when the 80s is involved but proper, underground stuff typically only played in clubs and in radio stations in Miami, New York and LA.

And you know what? The story is actually really fun! It takes place over the course of one night, which I really like (think After Hours by Scorsese). The character arcs are fun to witness, and the acting is enjoyable to watch (although don't expect ultra-realism).

Oh, and I am in lust with 80s Daphne Zuniga. Man. When my time machine is complete, she had better watch out.

Upstream Color is, by far, one of the absolute worst films I have ever seen. The movie is, and this is being nice, completely incomprehensible as a narrative work of film. It is nothing more than a bunch of random shots edited together with music and some occasional meaningless dialogue. It reminds me of the "video tests" people post to Vimeo when they're testing out their new still camera's video recording feature. The characters are never set up and the dialogue scenes are full of negative energy. As a result, I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, I don't like them nor do I care what happens to them. I don't know what Shane Carruth was going for other than satisfying his own selfish need to vomit out this horrible tasting gallon of cryptic bile, but it certainly wasn't to try and entertain any human being with a normally functioning brain. I suspect the only reason this movie gets any press at all is due to its technical competency. That is, it looks like a properly shot movie and has a decent sound mix. If this movie had been shot "Dogme 95" style, I guarantee you would have walked out of the theater after 5 minutes instead of 10. The bottom line is that Shane Carruth does not respect a mainstream audience, and in fact takes every opportunity to insult them to their faces and mock them at the same time with this self-indulgent waste of projector lamp life.