Aniara (2018) - Space is full of our fears

"Aniara" (2018) is ostensibly a scifi film about a passenger ship en route to Mars that goes off course. Think "Avenue 5" (2020) but with less Hugh Laurie wit, Josh Gad mania and no comedic electricity from Jessica St Clair or Zach Woods.

"Aniara" is based on an epic poem - and it explores how humanity, set adrift in the cosmos, struggles to find a path to purpose. The narrative is centered on a woman who operates an AI Virtual Reality machine which provides an immersion therapy for people who are trapped on the ship - it fills them with a sense of paradise that they ultimately have to be unplugged from to face the existential dread reality of the sarcophagus they are on. The woman, Mimarobe, is earnest trying to make the best of what she is given. She is flawed - she is treated unfairly - she finds love - she faces grievous loss. All the while, she perseveres.

I see her as a Job like character. Not exactly: she never gets angry at God and she doesn't receive a double portion in the end. No sackcloth or boils. But she faithfully acts out her role in time and space caring for her fellow travelers. She is no saint - she felt very real and representative of the life many people expect. She understood her plight from the circumstances she was in, but she kept lifting up and carrying on the best she could with what she had. She had plenty of opportunity (encouragement even) to give up and die, but Mimarobe chooses to honor the life she was given. Her refusal to yield to despair felt almost sacred.

Space isn’t filled with aliens or black holes — it’s filled with ourselves. Our trauma, our longings, our need for meaning. Some define their meaning in a fiction. Others give it over to a compulsion they endure. Some never find it and give up. But some rise - called to be present: whole, messy and joyous with others.

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Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) - it is a good deal better than the remakes

I got around to watching the original 1958 comedy caper film - the one that "Welcome to Collinwood" was pantomiming. "Big Deal on Madonna Street" is hilarious. It is 25 minutes longer than the remake and never once did I feel the need to check my watch. I even paused to go refill my water glass. There will be no problem telling who is who or how the story goes - it is well shot and characters are unique. The story is a simple and fun. Comparing the "BDoMS" and "WtC" - they are identical in terms of characters and scenes. "Big Deal on Madonna Street" street is terrific, and "WtC" is a slog. The biggest difference is seen in the dialog. In "Big Deal" the people just talk, like you might expect people to talk. They are funny, but not odd. The colloquialisms happen, but they aren't hard to see through. In "WtC", they are using a vernacular to make sure you are immersed deep in an Eastern European ethnic nei...

Alien: Covenant (2017) - Jason X in a toga

A film that raises big questions—about gods, monsters, and the cost of creation—and then answers them with pseudo-intellectual hooha and a bunch of splatters. It’s poetry for meatballs. A creation myth written by someone who forgot the difference between being mysterious and confounding. There’s a premise here. But it never shows up on screen. The director described the film as having [layers of metaphor]. By minute 20, my response to him would be: “Uh nah bruh … you ain’t that deep.” The characters are emotionally unbalanced idiots. This crew is supposedly trained for deep interstellar colonization. No backup plan. No safety protocols. No sense of hierarchy or mission discipline. They panic, scream, and grieve like they’ve just lost soulmates—they are too young to have known each other or been through anything more severe than a power point presentation. They lack agency. They don’t make decisions—they react, flail, and sometimes avoid shooting themselves or blowing themselves up...

"Cocaine Shark" (2023) - Not since "Suburban Sasquatch" ...

Mark Polonia has made almost 80 films since 1985. That is 2+ per year. There was a 3 year pause in his proliferation after his twin brother & production partner John died in 2008. If you consider that he (they) didn’t really start cranking out this entertainment until 2000 - it is more like 3 per year. If he keeps at it as long as they did, he will pass Richard Thorpe and William Beaudine (credited as directing ~180 each). Wowzers. His particular craft is low-low budget. Lower than Roger Corman or Lloyd Kaufman even. Polonia’s production values are limited. You get 2 or 3 sets with plenty of establishing shots to fill the transition. You get special effects and creatures which look like they were assembled by a junior high art class. You will see the same actor playing multiple parts, married couples acting together, and a lot of the same names showing up in multiple different releases. You will see the same people + sets in 2 or 4 of these movies in a room; I assume many of them a...

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