John_of_Lenah_Valley Reviews

Dead Hand: Last Day of War (2016) Season 1, Episode 2

Sadly, one could easily imagine this happening....

[10/10 · 25 April 2024]

"Last Day of War" and its prequel "Fortress" are masterpieces of CGI animation and tell the story of the final days of mankind, this demise brought about by a colossal war. 10 years since it started, the war has evolved to a stage where only the automatic systems are left to fight on. In "Fortress" we see a bomber (the last?) automatically loaded up and sent out on yet another mission to bomb an enemy city. The pilot has long since died, his skeletal remains still seated at the controls. All the automatic systems still work on without human intervention.

"Last Day of War" is 10 years further on. The same bomber staggers into the air, most of its systems dead or compromised. The airbase control system even has to sacrifice the base's strategic control system so that there is enough power so the plane can get out of its damaged hangar. The bomber flies out to the enemy city again, but this time its systems fail and it falls out of the sky. The war is over. Humanity is dead, but nature is already reclaiming her realm.

While bleak, and with an almost intolerably sad musical backing, this pair of films are amazing and warn the viewer of what could happen if warfare is ever handed over to autonomous systems. The quality of the imagery throughout is outstanding!

The King Is Dead! (2012)

Too close to reality for many, I suspect.

[9/10 · 22 March 2024]

We began watching this film with some trepidation, having had to negotiate a somewhat similar situation ourselves. I am surprised it is not rated better. It is a revealing scenario of just how little power the law has to help people who suddenly find their lives ruined by the actions of awful neighbours. The plight of the couple who find themselves in this terrible situation is demonstrated effectively in several incidents which befall them. When they seek legal advice "buy earplugs" seems to be the only "valuable" advice the police and a solicitor can give. A Sicilian neighbour has a "better" albeit highly illegal, solution! However, the resolution of the situation is not quite as black as we expected it was going to be, so it remained firmly in the realm of "comedy", albeit still rather black. In fact the endling is rather tidy and fitting for such a story. Despite the unpleasant memories it may bring back for some, it is a satisfying watch and you wind up admiring the tenacity of the protagonists. Some nice performances by the lead characters.

The Cars That Made the World (2020)

Good entertainment, but certainly not exhaustive!

[7/10 · 27 February 2023]

This is quite watchable entertainment, and not at all "dry" in its presentation. There is not a lot of repetition provided for those who forgot what happened before the last commercial break, and it does not get too technical. Unfortunately, this is also a negative, as this coverage of the first 100 years of the automobile has quite a few missing people, companies and events. Benz and Daimler's accomplishments are covered well, although it is rather off-putting to hear Daimler pronounced "Dymler", which is the German pronunciation - especially when "Motorwagen" and "Volkswagen" are pronounced "Motor Waggon" and "Volks Waggon" respectively. My wife also noted that over the many years of Benz's history depicted, his wife is always wearing the same dress! The early French motoring scene is barely mentioned - yet has many inventions stemming from it that are important even today. Likewise the Italian industry. The roles of Rolls, Royce and Bentley are well documented, and their importance in the aero-engine business is given its rightful place, but their continued existence and fortunes are ignored after the 1920's. However, Daimler-Benz similarly produced a huge number and variety of the aero engines used by Germany, yet did not rate a mention on this side of their business. The great racing battles of the 1930's, between Mercedes-Benz, Auto Union and BMW were not mentioned, despite the important advances in technologies of engine, chassis and design they spawned. Honda and Toyoda are well chosen as engineers representative of the birth of the Japanese car industry, but no mention is made of the hugely important involvement in motorcycle GP racing by Honda in the 1960's which was the basis for the sophisticated engine designs they later used in cars as well. The history of Porsche and Volkswagen is somewhat simplified. Ferdinand Porsche's meeting with Hitler (an urban legend?) is handled awkwardly. It would have been good to acknowledge Major Ivan Hirst of the British Army officer who basically rescued the Wolfsburg VW operation after the war and set the company on its road to success. I also must comment on the bombers shown allegedly bombing Germany. They are B29's, never seen in the European Theatre of the War.

Overall, it's not a bad series, though. The characters and how they were inspired to create certain inventions have a lot of dramatic license in their depiction, but that helps to tell the story in an engaging way. Overall, I think most people would enjoy this series.

Utopia: Then We Can Build It (2014) Season 1, Episode 6

Amazingly prophetic!

[10/10 · 2 November 2022]

I watched this episode 8 years after it was written, on the advice of a friend. I was astounded to see that it could so easily have been written 8 weeks ago! It concerns granting Tasmania a new, enormous sports stadium, just because the agency feels they haven't done enough for the state. Tasmania is in the grips of a political campaign to build such a sports stadium here at this present time, despite a woeful health system, faltering education system and bad roads. The stadium won't solve any of these, just cost 3/4 of $1 Billion. There won't be any use for it except to stage occasional football matches from interstate, and it will never will its proposed seating capacity. Remarkably, this 8 year old episode nails all of these points, and also has a couple of hilarious subplots involving PD seminars and problems with network printers! As with all of Utopia, it's very clever and worth a watch!

Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father: Episode #1.1 (2017) Season 1, Episode 1

Staged, silly, often annoying

[4/10 · 25 March 2020]

Watched the first series recently, and found the first couple of episodes quite funny, but unfortunately it rather rapidly got "old" from there on. The style of humour, often involving pointless situations (staged) supposedly to rile Michael, was initially OK, but became tiresome after a while and by the time we watched series 2 episode 1 we had had enough. I had hoped this would be somewhat informative as well as being funny, but the further into the series the more obvious it became that it was all just being staged for laughs. The level of male appendage "humour" or grossness increased as Jack's ideas flagged. Would probably be found very funny by those of a certain persuasion - pity that's so often the case with British productions these days.

Upper Middle Bogan (2013–2016)

Top Australian Comedy!

[9/10 · 24 October 2014]

We enjoyed the first series and the second series is proving just as good. I won't go into the premise of the show, as that's well documented here by others, but I will say that the concept is excellent and makes for some wonderfully funny situations, especially involving the wonderful Robyn Nevin. The second episode of this new series, about sex education and related topics was totally hilarious. Great performances by everyone, and as usual, well scripted. If you haven't seen it, don't assume it is written at the expense of either upper-middle class or bogans (A peculiarly Australian term for people who are "uncultured" and enjoy life without regard for the social mores. Close, but not quite the same as the US term "red-neck"). The well-crafted characters are all endearing, even the foul-mouthed single mother played by Michala Bana, whose heart-of-gold often shines through the bluff exterior. This is a good quality, intelligently-written comedy, in my humble opinion a credit to the scriptwriter.

Prometheus (I) (2012)

Hugely disappointing!

[4/10 · 5 July 2012]

This started out with so much promise. All the publicity suggested it was going to be a much deeper, philosophic cinematic experience. Indeed the first few minutes of the film, with the Icelandic scenery masquerading beautifully as the primordial Earth, and the "engineer's" spaceship arriving, were great.

But almost immediately after, the problems started. The role the engineers had in creating or modifying humanity was depicted in a way that was altogether too stylized. It did not explain in any way how the later societies, who left the star map artifacts, could have known anything about their creator(s) or learned their language. Shouldn't there have been scenes of the engineers actually interacting with these societies?

Moving forward to the 21st century, should there have been a lead up to the expedition to LV-223? It all seemed to happen far too quickly. The star map itself was a problem. If the maps were as old as they claimed, observations in the 21st century would not have identified the pattern, due to the stars moving in relation to each other over long periods of time (galactic rotation). A pattern depicted over 2000 years ago would have changed markedly in that time. Why, if the engineers want us to find them eventually, do they give the ancients a map to a planet they use as a biological weapons development and testing area? (I suppose it could be argued that the role of this place could have changed in 2000 years. Even so, it does seem peculiar.)

Another quibble - which also applies to just about every modern Sci-Fi film is that weightlessness, the impossibility of faster-than-light travel and other relevant physics are all totally ignored. The distance they travel (over 10 light years), and how long it takes them do not match, even if "Prometheus" can travel at close to the speed of light. If Kubrick could get it so right in "2001 - A Space Odyssey" over 40 years ago, how come most sci-fi films since then have got it so wrong?

Other reviewers have expressed their puzzlement at the composition of the crew, and I won't detail again the many examples of the team's peculiar behavior. Surely Weyland would have done extensive selection processes for such an expensive, critical mission, yet this is a bunch of dysfunctional incompetents who make the most stupid mistakes, deliberately take insane risks and don't communicate vital information to each other. The science performed by the crew is more akin to that of the original "Frankenstein". I mean, trying to reanimate a 2000 year old head by putting electricity through it....please. And on the subject of "science" - correct me if I'm wrong, but surely a 100% DNA match between a human and an engineer would mean they would be totally identical organisms? What about the planet's atmosphere? The crew member reading the analysis says that it contains 3% Carbon Dioxide (I'm sure they said DI-oxide not MON-oxide!) and would thus be poisonous, so suits would be required. In fact, people can tolerate 3% Carbon Dioxide for up to a month and even 4% for a week or so, with the only effect being drowsiness. Suits would not be required.

The climax of the film, where the humans and android meet the engineer, is very disappointing if you hoped for anything inspiring. Considering communication was possible (because the android had skills in the engineer's language) and the engineers had obviously wanted their creation to meet them one day, what happens is all too "human" and disappointing.

The end of the film obviously implies a sequel. Hopefully set on the home planet of the engineers, maybe we will learn more about the engineers and their motivation for creating humanity. I'm not holding my breath, though.

I give this 4 for some excellent set design and special effects, plus good performances from Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender. Other than that, hugely disappointing and IMHO could have been better had it not referenced the "Alien" series at all. Trying to maintain congruence with "Alien" canon probably took the plot in a direction which was too difficult to reconcile with the more philosophical who-made-us-and-why theme of the film.