Category: Medias

This is a beautifully shot, brutal, revenge flick that has garnered a slew of awards. One of its fight scenes even got an A+ in accuracy from Scenic Fights (which is how I found out about this film).

I can’t add much more to this pile of acclaim. I enjoyed watching its raw depiction of the seedy underbelly of Korean society, a nice contrast to the glitzy world of K-pop soap operas. However, this is a Korean film, so there are some gratuitously gruesome moments so I’m interested in rewatching it.

As I usually do with enjoyable films, I followed up by watching some few YouTube reviews about this movie. Two facts caught my attention.

• There’s a campy Indian remake called Rocky Handsome. The lead actor in that movie is really swoll and those action scenes are super stiff.
• Won Bin, the main actor of this movie, has not acted in a film since this one.

In other words, he has spent the past decade not practicing his craft, outside of the occasional commercial.

What a shame.

I’d respect this choice if he was forsaking the work to avoid from the limelight. Even if it was as crass as saying he’s earned enough to retire early. However his publicists continue to claim that he’s an artist waiting for the right project.

So he is hiding his art from the world. I sound like an over-entitled audience member, but I’m judging him on his terms. If he still wants to be part of the action, then he needs to do something. If he isn’t being handed projects of the proper quality, then he needs to go out and make one.

There is a line between being selective and being cowardly. That line must have been crossed at some point over the past ten years. There is no shame in quitting one’s profession when it isn’t serving one’s needs.

Admittedly, sometimes we need to lay low and let things play out. We shouldn’t always just jump at the first opportunity. Patience is a virtue, but not for ten years.

Then we’ve just wasted a decade.

I’m a sucker for mediocre action flicks. I’m not a big fan of gore and horror and get squirmy at romance and comedy, but give me some violence and I’m there.

For the the past few weeks I’ve been slowly getting sucked into a youtube vortex of action scenes from these two films. Once the algorithm caught my attention, the positive feedback loop took over. And then, youtube found me an Egyptian subtitled version of these two movies.

The next two nights disappeared.

I’m not proud of it.

In fact, I’m quite ashamed of getting spoon fed down this rabbit hole, and this post is an attempt to salvage my dignity.

The story concept is appealing. An everyman (Denzel Washington as a working stiff with a slight paunch) anonymously wreaks justice on the rest of the world. It’s a power fantasy that appeals to a middle aged dude like me navigating a rigged world.

Unfortunately, universal themes are wrapped in a debased magic that dissipates quickly. The first movie had some charm, the second was just pure banality.

I honestly couldn’t recommend either of them, even though they deliver exactly what they promise, like The Prince (2014) or Outside the Line (2021).

The shame is in wanting what they offer. It’s not worth even 90 minutes in this short life of ours.

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Editing this post a few months later, I’m amazed that I actually watched both full films. My mind must have actively erased this fact from half a year ago. In any case, I still have a tenuous relationship with YouTube. Late night is a dangerous time. If I get myself onto Grizzlypear or the ebook reader after the kids go to sleep, I can do some productive stuff before going to sleep. But if I get sucked onto my phone, I can easily lose an hour in the blink of an eye.

Having quit Facebook and Twitter already, getting better control over YouTube is my next horizon. I still enjoy the short documentary and commentaries YouTube videos (see my obsession with HEMA), but I’m coming to realize that this trivial edutainment may not be worth the time spent or the danger of slipping down truly frivolous rabbit holes. Like Facebook a couple years ago, I have entered the phase of “deleted the app, both still logging in via the web browser”. We’ll see if I wean of YouTube over the next couple years.

The need to be more selective about my entertainment options has been highlighted by my recent reading of the Journey to the West. In many ways, this book has all the ribald action sequences and entertainment of such films. However, this book is one of the four Chinese Classic Novels for good reason. It gives you the base satisfaction of a fantasy novel but also brings much more to the table. I wouldn’t claim that reading classic novels are as elevated as pondering a dense philosophical tome, but if for late night entertainment, it’s worlds better than this fluff.

I recently typed up some notes on Over the Moon, which was a second rate Pixar knockoff. While Klaus is also a Disney knockoff, this one was well done, worthy of its Oscar Nomination for Best Animated Film.

Klaus hit the right beats at the right time at the right intensity, catching all the critical Santa tropes without being in your face about it. The characters, even the villains, are funny without being grating. The plot is heartwarming, without being saccharine.

In all, this is a finely crafted film, well worth a watch and something I suspect we will rewatch regularly around the holidays…at least until the kids are old enough to watch Tokyo Godfathers.

Both Carole & Tuesday and Kipo started promising as small stories but lost their steam in their second acts when they “went big”. The folk singer duo disrupts the presidential election on Mars. A lost girl dethrones a would-be emperor.

Conceptually, such stakes inflation might make common sense as a way to drive the story. How does our hero’s problem get worse? Make the problem really big! However, all the extra stuff that comes with saving the world bogs down the character development. The price is not worth the stakes.

The charm in the first acts of both of these shows came from exploring the world. Learning about the characters who were simultaneously learning about themselves. Once established, it makes sense to take characters out for a spin to go “do stuff”, but when things get too grandiose the natural arc of the story suffocates under the weight of the action.

Carole & Tuesday really suffered under this inflation. The two title characters get sidelined into becoming Mary Sue’s with the ancillary characters frozen in midway through the show, and a bunch of new personalities thrown into the second half.

A couple examples from the world of movies to confirm the my dislike of this tendency.

I absolutely loved Bladerunner but Bladerunner 2049 fell completely flat. The colors were pretty, but the global conspiratorial sweep of the second movie ran against the claustrophobic moodiness of the first movie. Let the bounty hunter chase his prey and don’t distract him with a worldwide economic conspiracy-catastrophe.

My favorite movies from Studio Ghibli all keep a laser focus on the scale and don’t get grandiose. The genius behind Ghibli is that their majestic animations allow themselves to be bounded within the limits of their universe. That’s why Princess Mononoke and Castle in the Sky fall flat, even though both of them are brilliantly crafted – they veer too close to saving the world.

Unfortunately Carole & Tuesday did not have a third act to rescue the show, but Kipo was able to regain the narrow focus in its third and final season, becoming a personal vendetta between the good and bad protagonists. Re-tightening the focus also let the show explore fresh moments of absurdity which made the first season so charming.

When the plot gets going, stay small!

I’ve been a big fan of Cal Newport ever since my initial introduction to him via CGP Grey and CJ Chilvers.

The first book I read was So Good They Can’t Ignore You. I was completely smitten by his “career capital” model. He argues that constantly refining and honing the your skills is a better route than “following your passion” for getting the things you want out of a good job (autonomy, flexibility, pay, etc).

I quickly followed up with his more recent books Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. I quite agree with his concerns about constant distractions in our modern hyper connected age. It’s one thing for children to flit about from one thing to another all day, but damn, we be grown ups.

This podcast cements a trend that I noticed a couple weeks ago. I’m now listening to younger folks. I’m pretty sure Jordan Harbinger and Hank Green are both a year younger than me and Cal Newport mentioned he’s only 37, so he’s three or four years younger than I am.

Being in your early forties is an interesting place. I’m still the young guy in my office and most principals at the firms who work for me are also a bit older. However I also have developed a cadre with younger professionals that I’ve come to know over the past few years.

Just the other day, I called one of my former interns for some advice about walking jobsites. The dude is sharp and works hard, so I respect his opinion, especially since he’s completed construction administration on a couple large projects, something I’ve never done.

This an interesting place. The torch hasn’t yet been handed to me, and I’m already handing it off to the next generation.

I believe they call this middle age.

But hey, enough about me. This podcast is a nice weekly question and answer show that discusses technology, work, and the deep life (without going woo woo).

It’s only a few episodes in, so Cal is still finding his grounding, but it’s a very promising podcast and I hope he sticks around for a while, even though I’m a little bit jealous of his hard earned success.

This show has been in my overast feed for so long I can’t remember how I first came across the podcast.

I bet I heard an interview on some other podcast, enjoyed the interviewee, searched for that person in Overcast, and came across this show. I suspect this happened a few times, because the name, show cover, and his 6-minute networking course was already familiar to me when I came across Jordan as an interviewee on another podcast. 

To be perfectly honest, I listened to that episode as an “audition” for both podcasts. In this world of podcast overload, this was a perfect chance to delete two shows from my feed.

Before listening to the interview, I had a hazy notion that Jordan was yet another of those brash-hustle-network-productivity podcast bros, so I was not primed to dig his personality.  However, I pleasantly surprised by his demeanor and his mental approach.

So I followed that interview with one of his Feedback Friday episodes, and I was totally hooked. These episodes have unique questions and Jordan’s responses are excellent. Hopefully my enjoyment isn’t just an exercise in confirmation bias, but I find myself wishing that was as sharp as he is.

When a podcast does occasional q&a sessions, the questions tend to be generic inquiries of the host’s philosophy, which can get a bit dull since it rehashes the content of the “normal” episodes. However, a weekly q&a show creates a dynamic where you start to get personal, specific questions. By showing up every week, Jordan challenges the listeners with a wide variety conundrums to ponder.

It’s really good mental exercise to think about how you would handle such strange situations. During my career, whenever I’ve had a problem that needed help from my supervisors, I often extended the conversation to discuss “what if” scenarios about more extreme versions of the situation. This has turned out to be good preparation, both for the possibility for the the current issue going sideways, as well as training my instincts for dealing with a seperate future incident. Such mental “gameplanning” has served me well, and listening to Jordan and his co-hosts address all kinds of unique personal issues has been a similar exercise.

Don’t get me wrong, his long form interviews are also quite good, but I don’t know of any other podcasts that pair their great interviews with a regular q&a show. Like many things in life, a big part of being special comes from showing up consistently.

For what it’s worth, I’ve also signed up for Jordan’s 6-minute networking program which is totally free, and so far it hasn’t led to a string of shills for paid classes.  I’m totally cool with regular paid advertising in my podcasts, I just get wary of shows that are constantly selling a menagerie of costly programs owned by the host. As far as I can tell, Jordan is clean. Don’t worry about it, just do it.

Yeah count me in as a fan.

I stumbled across this podcast via this excellent animation of his review of the Lascaux Caves.

The concept of the podcast is very neat. Every month he writes two short essays about life in the human world and rates them on a five star rating. He slips in a well written commercial between the essay (not the usual canned stuff, these are actually worth listening) and ends with one random fact that didn’t fit in one of the main essays, along with a small audio bonus.

It is a joyful little podcast. The two subjects allow for delightful juxtapositions, with a smattering of trivial knowledge keeps the podcast light even when it veers into some heavy territory.

Like all NPR offerings, it comes very close to being unbearably precious, but he’s managed to avoid crossing that line in the episodes I’ve heard so far.

I would say this is one of my favorite podcast finds of the year. I give it four and a half stars.

Over the long weekend, we watched Mirai, winner of the Japanese Academy Prize for Animation in 2018.

Of his films that I’ve seen, this was his tightest story and I really enjoyed it. I am fond of slice of life family stories, but I felt that he did not do a good job wrapping up the end to Wolf Children so acclaim is not guaranteed. However I can happily say he stuck the landing on this one.

It also helped that the family included an architect, so the house in the film is pretty cool (albeit questionable IRL). As easter eggs, it was also fun to see the Ikea products in the house, presumably to signify a modern sense of style on a middle class budget.

And of course, it helped to have two kids spread apart almost exactly the same difference as the protagonists on screen. It was fun to watch the kids, but also of exchanges between the mom and dad.

This is a family film and the kids will dig it, but it is parents who will really grok what just happened.

I’ve read about psychological studies which show that people actually get more enjoyment out of a movie or book that has been spoiled.

I’m not really sure I buy into that theory. I certainly avoid spoilers for any movies I intend to watch.

But I just watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and I suspect I will definitely enjoy the movie more the next time I watch it.

It was certainly an enjoyable watch the first time. But let’s be frank, the plot is pretty much as you expect from a superhero flick.

So getting rid of the minimal uncertainty about the plot details will just let me concentrate on the insane graphics.

Then again, would I have prefered to have this first viewing pre-spoiled?

Nah.

My wife and I went on a run checking out the movies of Mamoru Hosada. We haven’t had a chance to see his most recent film Mirai, but we did get to see The Girl who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and Wolf Children.

Each of these three films are fun enjoyable watches;

Each of them are very well done, but they aren’t completely crafted.

Almost there, but not totally.

I haven’t seen a great library of japanese animation outside of Studio Ghibli, but using their catalog as a yardstick, I would place them just a touch below middlin’.

So definitely worth a watch, but don’t expect a classic, even if there are some excellent moments.

Which reminds me, I need to rewatch Princess Mononoke, it’s been a long time since I saw that film.