We watched Arrival tonight. I highly enjoyed it. If you haven’t seen it, the basic premise is that aliens arrive, do nothing, and the humans freak out trying to figure out who the aliens are, what they want, and how to communicate with them.
I started out not liking it, because the scenes jump around in time and that’s jarring, but part way through you figure out why, and then the jumps make sense. And for such a deep, dark movie, it does have some comedic moments. I particular enjoyed Jeremy Renner (who plays a theoretical physicist) muttering “yeah… that just happened” as he watches something physically impossible happen right in front of him.
Just watched latest ep of Homeland. Overall still enjoying it. So intriguing, and loving the Russian interference storyline. Getting a bit tired of how they use Carrie’s ‘condition’ as a kind of circuit-breaker, though.
Yes, I thought the bipolar stuff was pretty much on point about the crap we have to put up with from people who have no understanding of it, but the time when Carrie is about to pull her kid out of school and the shit hit the fan and she had to leave her behind is when I thought accurate depiction went careening off the rails.
No, I’ve mentioned wanting to see it before, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I have referenced the episode with Levar Burton, though, as I’ve seen clips of it.
I can’t get over how the pirates treat Jim Holden as their leader. Alex was a pilot in the Martian navy, he has the most experience controlling and maintaining Martian warships, that would naturally put him on top. Naomi is assertive and brought her own loyal thug to the party, that would naturally put her on top. Holden is … the attractive white male.* Fucking Hollywood.
∗ i get the impression amos was written as big dumb and ugly even though wesley chatham is not
Okay, I have a massive course deadline today, but I wound up watching all ten episodes in between banging my head on the keyboard, and it helped. It was especially timely because I just got strongly criticised for being too much of a team player the other day by someone I know from outside of work (meanwhile at work, I keep being told I need to be more of a team player).
What I learned was: work sucks and brings out the worst in us, no matter our age group, gender identity, or nationality. Seem legit.
don’t blame hollywood – that’s how the characters are in the book, as far as i know. Holden is from Earth, so he’s the one who would end up being the leader. i just think it’s because that’s how you get the reader involved – Earther like me, whooo!
Thank you so much for this recommendation. I’d never have checked it out otherwise but it’s definitely one of the best things I have seen on TV in a long time. Mrs Cynical and I are enjoying it muchly.
ETA: I’m totally buying this shirt and wearing it to work:
