Dune I and II

To be fair, I watched the first part of Dune quite a while ago and was not keen to rewatch it. There was so much hype about the second part that I was afraid I would have to watch the first part again to make sense of the second part. The film is essentially about 6 things. 

A vast desert territory, a spice trade, an oppressive ruling class, a resistance and a set of mysterious underground creatures. 

If you want to appreciate the architecture in the movie I suggest that you follow (damileearch) on Instagram for her masterful reviews of the structures that have made their way into our films. 

You could describe it as a coming of age tale about a young prince who must make his way into the desert as he learns about himself and those around him with the hope of finally making his way back home. Did we mention the lack of water which makes this landscape so inhabitable? 

The spices we mentioned earlier seem to relate back to an age in the past where the spice trade dominated a certain stage in world history while the lack of water seems somewhat prophetic as many have predicted a time when nations will go to war for this precious resource. 

I suppose I was a little less interested in the two parts until I realized that Zendaya of Spider-Man fame was part of the cast. Her role in the Euphoria Series though, is what captured my attention as have some portrayals of her with lead character and their unmatched chemistry. 

The second part is therefore in my view a little more attention getting at least if you are interested in the complexities of romance interwoven with interesting takes on religion with mention of The Mahdi. In this regard the film seems to point to certain parts of Islam and the struggle to find redemption in one person on one hand and that to find unity or belief in the whole. It is here that the protagonist splits with his love interest and this is what makes the second part so captivating. Ah I fear I have revealed a little too much. There are several moments in the two parts of this film that tackle the topic of acceptance and the struggle to fit in. I think on the whole there was a lot to learn. 

The Gentlemen

Guy Ritchie is a master at his game. If there is anyone who has revived British Cinema, I think he single-handedly has. His choice of characters (at least the casting director’s choice of the same), location, use of language (scriptwriter), score, and the additional touch of notes in yellow comic like font to serve as an explainer for the cockney accent is inspiring. There are a few parts in the limited series that felt like a reference to Peaky Blinders. The use of different class systems to varying kinds of crime families especially the cultural ones. Russians, American, Filipinos, South Americans, Romani and the very captivating God fearing group that see themselves as a sort of representation of the God head! 

This show is an exploration of the inheritance and family dynamics’s history that come into play. It is a look into generational wealth and its management and the complex ethical questions that many face with regards to legacy. It is also about leadership and strategy and respect. It is about honor and transition and the value of a lived life. It demonstrates the challenges that people face when they make decisions out of anger and half truths. 

Here is a selection of Guy Ritchie’s work. 

Billion Dollar Code

Here is a Netflix series loosely based on facts that is a useful guide in the technicalities that are in place when dealing with the subject of Intellectual Property. In the first section where we tackled Intellectual Property and Technology, we shared in the last part of the conversation a section where we recommend a film. Billion Dollar Code is a useful guide when dealing with this subject. It is told in about four parts. It presents a useful picture into the history of East Germany right after the wall came down and the optimism and idealism that was in the air as well as the creativity that emerged during this age. It is a story of the conversion of Art into Technology and an exploration of how relationships form and can fragment when massive amounts of money are made. It also illustrates the major benefits that were derived from Hacker Communities. The deeper and more technical question though is about the importance of Patents and the need to be aware of the limitations of Patent Law in your country or region. The series also helps you to make sense of the challenges of patenting Software especially code. Even if we are in a time when many are encouraged to make use of code snippets with the existence of sites built with the exclusive purpose of sharing code, a lot of care needs to be taken by developers as they create and seek to patent code. The other interesting discussion is about the cost of Patent Attorneys and the ability of bigger companies to exploit smaller ones with great innovations. The other useful idea that we see in this show is the importance of having technical lawyers in the field of Patent Law to fight on behalf of Software Developers. 

The ability of the film to go back and forth in history and present the two main characters and the challenges they faced is presented well. There is also a subtle mention about mental health and reconciliation. Perhaps another great idea that I found in the show was the fact that sometimes ideas can be born before their time. 

Mayor of Kingstown

Season 1 

These guys are incredible. If I were to make a comparison, I would place this series on the same level as the Ozarks. Both make great use of the landscape in which they are shot. As has been done often the landscape becomes a character within itself.  There is an explanation about the landscape and the lives under which the complex characters in this series find themselves and that is found in the last episode of the second season. It is narrated by Micheal McClusky himself. He talks about the resource rich Island that cannot afford to make full use of its resources and has to depend on the Prison Industrial Complex (not his words but derived from an idea that has found its way into modern thinking). All the lives that are involved in this compelling tale revolve around this conundrum. And at the heart of this is one family that has inherited the ungainly task of keeping peace in a world run from the bottom up made up of Mexicans, The Aryan Brotherhood, Crips, Bloods, Feds, Prison Guards, Wardens, States and Gangs. 

Season one is really just an intro into the family and its dynamics. The matriarch is the pillar of the family and struggles to keep them sane in the horror of a lifestyle that they have chosen. If she is judgmental in Season One, she will learn to be a little more understanding in Season 2. 

He dialogues though are a thing of beauty. She features in quite a number of scenes playing the role of lecturer in an all women’s hospital. In one scene she describes the relationship between Original Nation’s People and their Dogs (you have to watch it to appreciate it). In another she dissects the challenges that many of us are faced with-making room for others in times of conflict. 

The season is full of sorrow, camaraderie and brotherhood. It is a play on the lives of men and women and the decisions they have to make to survive. It is a study in the things we will often do to one another as we attempt to survive in a cruel world. It is about addiction and numbing pain. It is about how hard it is to be free from your past and how often many of us will walk right back into the arms of our oppresors. It is a study in leadership dynamics and the lengths that men will go through to maintain the bonds that bind them together and thin line that splits us between what we know to be the law and the realities that present themselves. It is refreshing to see some characters from Prison Break reprise roles with a little more maturity and growth. And yes the music is also really great. 

Mayor of Kingstown Season S1E7

Speech or Lecture by Teacher 

I think today, maybe we'll talk about human evolution. Or the lack of it. To think about the evolution of man, it's always a good idea to remember that we're all animals. And the rules which govern the lives of lions, of wolves, of our closest relatives, the primates, are no different than the rules which govern our lives. We are in constant competition with each other, competition to breed, to eat, to seek water and shelter. Only man cannot survive without a tribe. Empathy exists to ensure the survival of our offspring. Morality, whatever that may mean, exists to govern the behavior of the members within the tribe in hopes that the tribe does not destroy itself. But now, all these tribes live close together, and we must find a way to see all humankind as one species, not as a collection of tribes. Our survival depends upon this. The age of competition is ended. The age of cooperation is here. If we do not find a way to cooperate, to extend that empathy to all humankind, then we will be the axe that chops our own roots. We will be the arbiters of our own extinction. 

Read more at: https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org/viewtopic.php?f=1116&t=49491

Season 2 

The second season is as captivating as the first. Very few presentations that I have seen keep me on the edge as this one. I keep trying to reason with Bunny as he plays the Role of King and Mike as he does the mediator thing. Bunny takes on so much as does Mike and the other leaders of the gangs. The racial undertones and the decision each one has to make to keep the peace. The delicate balance that each group strives to make. The ability of the prisoners to function and run their operations. The hierarchical nature of the leadership and navigation of geographies (no go areas for different groups). The choice of cast especially the detectives is also amazing. It is really scary to think how well these men play the role of cops. I would not want to run into them in real life. In an age of pranks, these guys could do a lot of damage! It is hard to decide who the villains are in this series. The show (writers and director) does a great job leaving the viewer to question the morals of each character. There are valid questions about the rehabilitative nature of the prison system. Questions about wages and exploitation. There is a look into the capital punishment. This appears in the first season. The site of three phones on the wall and the nervousness with which the audience has to wait for a call from the governor for a stay in execution! The choice of lights and tones in the prison. Everything about this scene is amazing. 

Tyler Perry’s Ruthless

This series by the wealthy actor responsible for the old wise cracking grandma called Madia appeared to me while I was looking through my social media (Twitter). I have someone I follow who simply recommends films or series that they have watched. Sometimes people ask questions after seeing clips. The same approach is used on Facebook. I have since suggested that maybe this is another form of the influencer movement except this one is designed to promote movie studios and productions companies. 

The clips that were presented were quite racy and the general suggestion is that only a mature audience should watch this series. 

Authors and poets have for a long time used erotica at strategic moments of their narrative to place important pieces of information for their audiences. There is no shortage of risqué scenes. At the start, dialogue and script feels quite exhausting (but that’s just me). Dive in a little more and you will see the struggles of a group of men and some of different ages and backgrounds stuck in a strict religious movement with nowhere to go. The creators of this story also help weave into the series an examination of the life of the man at the helm of this cult. You find yourself feeling a sense of pity for a visibly cruel man. The choice of dress for the members of this cult movement feels a little too close to a religion that I will not mention :) Perhaps the writers penned something to help us approach belief with a little caution. Perhaps they sought to help us understand our tendencies to reroute our divine passions into sexual ones. Maybe they wanted us to understand the dynamics of leadership and race and culture. Also present in this work is the examination of life for different age groups and sexes. The elder mothers and the younger women, the men closest to the highest and the other men. The fear or apparent loathing for women that the cult leader tends to display. 

Underneath all this drama there are great discussion to be had about the lives of those in uniform and especially those who chose to go undercover (an idea which has been explored quite a lot in the movies). 

Perhaps the most interesting character is the dominant female who learns to make use of her past life (on the street) something she feels is long gone as she attempts to deal with her male captors. 

I guess everything is a weapon including your sexuality if you ever find yourself stuck in a similar situation. Is that her message? I will let you decide. 

Fallout

I am yet to come across a show that makes me yearn for an era of music for which I have absolutely no familiarity with. The story starts of with a party. Some guy is playing cowboy accompanied by his daughter but with two friends in the background mocking him. Really sad scene with a high school like vibe to it. Really just a dad trying to hustle while his buddies ridicule him. 

Sometime in the sixties or thereabouts, you have in the house a group of wives watching an old TV set with a disturbing news story playing before their eyes. 

Then the audience is taken outside to witness a conversations between father and daughter. Daughter asks father about the tell tale signs of a nuclear explosion making reference to the cloud and the thumbs up sign. Apparently, the use of the thumb is a sign that helps you determine if the cloud you are seeing will be of a life threatening nature. From this scene the whole show is now set. You go back and forth watching people living in the aftermath of the big event in a subterranean refuge built and marketed and seemingly planned ages before. You are then taken through the lives of those who survived after almost two hundred years as they waited for the effects of the Nuclear Bomb to subside. Hence the title Fallout. 

There are different communities. Those who live underground and those who live on the top. There is a resistance and there are those who are fighting against them. There is truth and there is an alternative. There is a young lady who must navigate both these worlds. Watch as she adapts and how what she deals with shapes her life. The use of dark humor with a mix of well planned tracks makes for interesting viewing. The music is used in a sense as one would use chapters for different parts of a book. Quentin Tarantino tends to like using titles for parts of his movies, Fallout does the same except with the use of music. At first it seemed like there was a little too much to deal with with all the characters that were seemingly unrelated, but after a while it starts to make sense. Perhaps the most interesting suggestions in the series is a suggestion by one of the people in the early parts of the resistance that when the government subcontracts defense in the hands of private contractors who have profit at the heart of their operations, then war and destruction become inevitable and can even be encouraged. 

Hunters

How appropriate to find a discussion about World War II and America. This captivating takes on ideas that have been floating on the internet for years and turns them into a viable thoughts for exploration. Some of it though makes sense. If you bring in the scientists without trying to alter their belief system with the hope of harnessing their brilliant technical minds, how much damage have you really done by eliminating a few architects in a trial in Nuremberg. 

The story then is a look at this subject and the battle between a few older people who were on one side of history as they seek to find justice against those who were on another side of history. We are deliberate about not being to clear about history because we have learnt that the victor tends to skew history in favor of himself. 

The motion graphics utilized in the credits make reference to a sort of chess board…and this it is. Several characters are brought together to help deal with men and women who survived and thrive and would like to see the completion if a task they started in 1939 and possibly even earlier. 

From what we gather. The God the people worship seems to be at war with the world. To deal with this God, the world is at war with a people who call themselves by His name. And so the battle lines are drawn. It is this haunting destiny with eternity that many seek to depart from and have been known to cross over to the dark side just to avoid the curse of being called His people. 

Anyway, a rag tag force is formed consisting of a troubled Japanese Vietnam Veteran, an attractive African American single mother growing up during the great black awakening, a Jewish couple skilled with all things electronic (signal intelligence) but with trauma from the concentration camps, a not so successful actor, a German girl smuggled out of Germany and raised in a convent and a wealthy Jewish man with a controversial past. 

On the other side there are politicians, Federal Agents, Journalists and a group of young friends fresh from high school who somehow find themselves stuck in this story. With a mix of humor (so difficult to do when you are dealing with such a touchy subject) the writers and director manage to weave a compelling story interwoven with music, art, history and yes unbridled violence. 

The Peripheral

This is a look into the future written by a Canadian-American Author William Gibson. 

I recently had a conversation with a friend about the definition of the word prophet. My response was initially based on the standard definitions that I have from a Christian upbringing. We are taught that a prophet has a role that is split into two major aspects. First, he is tasked with the job of foretelling (like forecasting) second, he is really a. Voice of the divine or what we call forth telling. In the history of cinema, there are quite a number of authors and story tellers who have proven to fit quite well into the category of foreteller. In a sense, if we collectively believe what they say, we give it power. Those who subscribe to religious teaching will tell you that we have power through what we say and write to create the future we desire. 

One could safely say that if you have spent a decent amount of time studying science fiction, you are likely to come across a few ideas that will emerge in the future. 

This is what the peripheral is. It feels like a memo to developers of 3D modelers, Augmented Reality Developers as well as Metaverse Enthusiasts about what is possible in the future. 

The protagonist (Chloe Grace Moritz) and her brother (Jack Reynor) are make a great team and are fond of playing online games with headsets until they are asked to test out a very realistic game that turns out to be a little too real. We are then taken back and forth into the future in a world a little similar to what we saw portrayed in the film Surrogates featuring Bruce Willis where humans can subscribe or have access to a humanoid that they can control while laying in a semi living state. The surrogate does all the work and is remotely controlled by the human master. 

On the other side…or in the future you have a whole race that lives in a post apocalyptic but quite advanced world where quite a number of features that they see are simulations. On one side you have a leadership team of villains led by (T’Nia Miller) who made an appearance in the Diplomat where she plays the role of a politician’s troubled sister. You also have a law enforcement official (Alexandra Billings). You also have a Russian AntiHero (JJ Field) who seems to get a kick out of being brutal. Then you have the resistance led by a brother sister team. 

You also have a supercomputer that has major transformative properties. Interesting applications in the military, defense also exist such as a means of connecting soldiers and enhancing their abilities to communicate with each other as well as ‘inhabit’ one another. There are also some applications about health and medication with an ability to get remedies form the future and make use of them in the past. 

For those who are trying to find portals or looking at the potential that exists with technology and different realities, this should prove to be a great viewing. 

Slow Horses

Image from http://www.impawards.com/tv/slow_horses_xxlg.html

Here is an interesting collaboration between British Actors and The Apple Company. While not sure if Microsoft plans to get into the movie making business, this directional shift seemed in some way really natural. With the input of Steve Jobs in the creative and design process and the skill with which the company delivered their famous Apple Computer ad in the early eighties, you could almost have predicted an entrance into Tinseltown. In the present day, there is quite a lot of emphasis on Ecosystems and this is leading companies to become one stop shops. Devices, Software, Microchips, Data, Entertainment and more. I suppose the great CEO’s brief expulsion from his own company and his subsequent entrance into a digital animation company also probably informed the company’s decision to get into film. 

Garry Oldman, Jack Lowden, Christine Scott Thomas, Rosalind Eleazar, Saskia Reeves and Christopher Chung.

As such there is a good list of very well done films including Slow Horses. 

The film’s first triumph is the use of a well chosen list of conflicting characters. Throw in a little office romance, failures in leadership (and repulsion by previous bosses higher up in the food chain), a smart but visibly troubled boss, an older caring secretary and a geeky slightly perverted techie, and you have the recipe for quite a show. 

The story revolves around this team that is cut off from the HQ of British Intelligence for previous wrongs and that has to handle less desirable cases as a means of being redeemed. This rag tag force though, has a super intelligent leader who is not afraid to bend the rules and whose deceptively old age often leads his adversaries to underestimate him. 

There are some stories in the series that are unique episodes but there is a sense of continuity. I have had some discussions about the use of location and sets to invoke certain feelings and this idea seems to be fully utilized with the sharp contrast between small office occupied by this small intelligence force and the large security-filled complex that hosts the HQ of the intelligence office.