3 Films and Some Musing

I have returned afresh to writing blogs for my astronomy page.  It seems to be a popular blog, into the 90,000s for hits.  I have written 153 entries so far and have plans for about a hundred more.  When I'm out a lot with the telescope I don't have much time to blog about it.  But so far this year I've only had six outings, a very disappointing count.  Usually by now I have had twenty or more.  The weather has been cloudier than usual during my monthly window of opportunity, when the moon is not that bright.  So I'm done now until August with the telescope.

 

Speaking of weather, the heat has vanished for now, but we still have crappy air and tons of humidity.  Our 60 hours of heavy smoke was a challenge to get through.  Even though the smoke has been blown away from here, the distant fires continue to grow.  In Ontario alone there are over 150 fires currently burning, a few of them super fires.  These are large fires that have joined up to make a much larger one.  Most people, including most Canadians, have no idea how much wilderness forest Canada, and especially Ontario, has.  Imagine a continuous boreal forest the size of Europe, with virtually no roads and hardly any population.  How do you manage something that size?  Answer: you don't.  It's impossible.  Fire has always been a useful tool to Nature, and so it is today.  It's just that things get so dry so quickly.  Along comes a lightning storm, and while some rain may fall, other places just get the lightning.  Then come the rapidly growing fires.

 

Spain is currently fighting its largest wildfire ever.  So far nearly 400,000 hectares have burned this year.  So far in Ontario that is doubled, and the season is still young and the fires still burning.  Many of the fires cannot even be fought as they are so remote.  Americans get a few days of smoke and instantly hold Canada responsible.  I guess if we were the 51st state there wouldn't be any more fires.  Problem solved.  Or not.

 

My cousin Rick is in the hospital.  He got out of bed one morning and instantly fell.  He could not stand up.  He was on the floor for three hours before he managed to crawl to where his phone was.  Richard is my eldest cousin on my mother's side.  I have more cousins than I have hairs on my head, but Rick and I were close for a long time when we were young.  I'm hoping they soon discover what is wrong.  So far all medical tests have been less than informative.  Thinking of you, Rick!

 

In movie news, there are three to report.  Two are well worth reporting, while one not so much.  Most recently we watched Dying To Know: Ram Dass and Timothy Leary.  It's a well produced, directed and edited documentary from 2014 (Leary died in 1996, Ram Dass in 2019) about their search for truth and happiness, largely through the use of LSD.  Dass studied with a guru in India and it also changed him profoundly.  There are some really good reasons to watch this film, especially if you are concerned about death and dying.  I know that Leary's life cannot be suitably covered in one documentary, but there is enough here to lead the curious on to further reading and explorations.   Their unique friendship had some rocky periods, but they did get back together for this film and seemed happy about doing so.  Recommended for those curious about the drug-fuelled sixties and how they got their start.

 

Streaming on Kino. 

 

Before that came a real corker of a film.  O Brother, Where Art Thou is a 2000 comedy from the Coen brothers.  The depression area south (Mississippi) has never been shown better.  Very loosely connected to Homer's Odyssey, the film owes at least as much hommage to Preston Sturges, The Three Stooges and Looney Tunes.  Starring George Clooney, John Turturo and Tim Blake Nelson as a kind of Three Amigos, the film opens as they attempt to escape from a chain gang breaking rocks.  I am not a fan of most film scores, but the music in this film is outstanding for purpose.  The directors used an actual song sung by a real chain gang from the 1930s at the start, and things just improve from there.  While the tie ins to Homer are often slight, there are some unforgettable scenes in this film.  Several of them.  Also, it contains some of the funniest moments ever put to film.

 

In Preston Sturges' classic comedy Sullivan's Travels, the lead actor is researching a film he wants to make by dressing like a hobo and going out to experience a different kind of life.  The film he wants to make is to be called O Brother, Where Art Thou.  He wants to make a serious drama, but after learning what comedy can do to people who are in a depression, he changes his mind.  So the Coens made the film for him.  The three lead actors are priceless in their roles, no moreso than when they become a singing trio, the Soggy Bottom Boys, and an instant radio and record sensation, unbeknownst to them.  No less so when they become enraptured and seduced by the three southern sirens, one of the most powerfully sexual mythological scenes ever filmed.  Again, that music.  There are so many funny scenes, but there are some very scary ones, too.  The cyclops encounter is painful to watch, and I don't much like the film's Penelope, but the movie has far more hits than misses.  It is unlikely that viewers will ever forget the Ku Klux Klan gathering, with military style marching and a haunting southern folk song for accompaniment.  Altogether a priceless film, worth many viewings, and one of the best things we've seen in while.  Highly recommended.  The more one watches the performance of Tim Blake Nelson, the more one realizes his great comedic talent.

 

Now streaming on Criterion. 

 

Finally comes the big disappointment.  We both loved The Martian, from the novel by Andy Weir, and we were greatly looking forward to the filming of his novel Project Hail Mary (2026).  I couldn't have been more disappointed.  Another Spielberg look-a-like film.  Big budget and big tropes.  Nearly every SF film cliche is here, and our heartstrings are manipulated to the max.  There is a weird but somehow cute alien, one with snappy dialogue and one who manages to be on exactly the same wavelength as humans, despite a momentary language barrier.   Then there is the behind the scenes very hastily put-together star ship, ready to launch in no time.  Where did that come from?  How did it get built?  Who paid for it?  We can't launch a big rocket today without it blowing up several times before it finally works.  How does it go so fast, near the speed of light?  I may never read the novel now, so I won't know if Weir accounts for this.

 

But the biggest trope is one I dread more and more in films, especially SF ones.  First, there is a disaster that is going to destroy the Earth.  From outside.  Not inside.  We are not dealing with solving any Earth problems in this film.  No sir.  Those are too easy.  Climate change.  Wars.  Starvation.  Dictators.  Piddly stuff.  Instead of using a big budget to maybe present some real problems threatening our planet and trying to deal with them in super creative ways, we have a phage that is eating stars, including old Sol.  Dear me.  Now that is a real problem.  And it could actually happen at any time.  So let's get busy here and solve this problem.  With international scientists, no less.  However, when it's time to cut to the chase, only a white American male can really be up for the challenge, even though he doesn't think so.  Yup.  White.  Male.  American.  He is not a pilot, has no training, but he figures out quite easily how to drive that spaceship, even making U-turns when necessary.  Roll eyes.  I won't get started on the soundtrack, either.  I think I've beaten this film up enough for now.

 

I did like the very ending, the last shot as our hero (really just a school science teacher, though extra brilliant) is faced with a class of hyperactive alien children in his new classroom.  Good luck with that.  Not recommended, and I could not see a reason for watching this film twice.

 

Now streaming on Prime. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

PC Gaming Update, and The Heat

Heat and humidity returned Tuesday with a vengeance.  At 4:30 pm we peaked at 98 F, but the humidity level made it feel like 111 F.  I followed it all from morning till night.  Here are some screen shots from today, though I missed out on the 4:30 one as I was practicing piano.  To add insult to injury, our skies are smoky again this summer from large fires in Northern Ontario and elsewhere.  More of the same is on tap for Wednesday and on.  Yay.

At 10:35 it was already warm and very humid.  The air is sluggish with little to no breeze.

 

 

 

By noon it was getting ridiculous.

 

 

 

3:30 pm was my final reading, as I went to practice at this point.  But it hit 98 F/111F.  Yowsa. 

 

 

I was out this morning for a haircut and it was getting uncomfortable.  We went out at 7:30 pm for groceries and it was downright hard to breathe.  I was going to show Albuquerque to illustrate how humidity affects how temperatures feel, but London UK this afternoon worked just.  It was warm in London at 4:40 pm London time, but the humidity wasn't bad at all.

 

London UK has had some bad heat so far this year, as has Europe.  But as long as the humidity gets burned off during the day it makes it a little better.  Nice breeze there, too.

 

This is perfect weather for indoor gaming, with the AC handling things as best as it can, assisted by fans.  We have spent many thousands of dollars insulating our home, since one can't simply just stick AC in a house and turn it on.  We did it mainly for winter temps, but it helps a lot in summer, too.  All new windows, doors and all kinds of insulation.  Well over $50,000 Can. spent altogether. 

 

So, the gaming update.  The big news is that I now have not only a powerful gaming PC, but a brand new gaming monitor!  It is curved, large and gives incredible colour and image quality.  I will be posting screenshots of recent games that look so fantastic on my monitor, so I hope they look halfway decent on yours.  I continue to hammer away at a game called TR 49.  This one does not need a big computer or a good monitor.  It is a type of research game with essentially one screen, a very old computer with letters and numbers to input.  There are also paper lists to read of names and authors.  The goal is to find 50 books and 50 authors.  The machine is somewhat messed up and keeps spewing garbled messages.  Once the correct book and author are matched then the words become unscrambled.  I really don't have a clue as to what I am doing, but I enjoy searching through dozens of program inputs trying to find the correct ones.  I don't know what the end game is, or what might happen.  I just do my research and carry on.

We've been playing Agon together now for awhile, and it will get a full review here upon completion.  We are currently in the 4th of 4 chapters.  There were supposed to be 13 chapters altogether, and while the first 3v chapters were pretty good, chapter 4 is dragging us down with way too much dialogue and story.  Had they kept this one a bit more streamlined it likely would have been a success.  But the professor is getting sidelined by other problems, and it's taking its toll on the game.  Chapter 4 takes place in sunny Toledo, Spain, with the professor in search of a famous old sword.  It was recently stolen and a young blacksmith is being blamed.  the professor promises the boy's sweetheart and his mother that he will help.  And so the story bogs down.  Decent graphics, like in the first three chapters, but intricate puzzles far too complicated to solve.

 

Inside a parish church in Toledo, Spain.  The local priest is aiding the professor in his investigations.  From Agon Chapter 4. 

   

Of course I continue to drive trains using Train Sim World 6, and the new monitor seems to have solved some stuttering and rendering problems that the old one had.  One of the best things about this game (there are many great things) is how many angles you can observe your train from while still driving it.  Besides the obvious one of sitting in the cab, views from above, the sides, and even the rear of the train are possible.  Players can also watch their train pass by, as if standing on sidelines.  It's a rush to see your train pass at 100 mph as you watch from a crossing, a station, or anywhere along the route.  New routes come out every month (I have about 50 different routes now, each route with its own catalogue of engines, each of those with its own timetable.  Endless fun!

 

I recently drove my first train across the Alps from Switzerland to Italy.  Real time, real route.  Stunning! 

 

I have also resumed my affair with Tomb Raider.  In the original series I made it about halfway through TR 4 before finally giving up.  Now, however, TR 1-6 have recently been totally overhauled.  Same game, better graphics.  I completed my first major chapter, divided into 4 parts, deep within the Inca mountains.  Next I think I will be off to high adventure in Greece.  My skills are slowly coming back to me.

 

2 screenshots from TR 1, with much improved graphics over the original.

 

I've only had the monitor for less than a week now, so I had to decide.  Which Myst game should I load?  I chose realMyst!  I am currently busy trying to open up all of the worlds.  I am not even stopping to pick up red and blue sheets yet.  I'm just looking around and waiting for the day/night cycle, watching what happens.  However, if I wish to eventually get to the arctic world, I will have to run around and get all of the sheets.  The monitor gives Myst a rich and detailed view I have never quite experienced before.  I will have to replay more of the games, especially the latest versions of Myst (with a much better Arctic world) and Riven.  For now, I am in awe.

 

Two night views from realMyst.  These scenes looks so amazing on my new gaming monitor. 

 

Next time I will give a piano repertoire update.  I've been gifted with two (very warm) nights of astronomical observing lately, and am still trying to catch up on my sleep.

 

Mapman Mike

 

Here is a bonus screen capture from realMyst, a most iconic view for players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four Documentary Movies and Not Much Else

First the 'not much else'.  July has been warm and humid.  I was not surprised to read where some local immigrants were interviewed about Essex County summers.  They were from tropical Africa and said that the heat and humidity here is as bad or worse than where they came from.  We can have temps as low as 83 F but the humidity makes it feel like 99 F.  What that means is that it is difficult to breathe, and being in the shade isn't much cooler.  Take 90 F in Albuquerque, a desert city, and it can feel like 86 F.  Low humidity makes things more comfortable, and being in the shade feels much better.  Just think of saunas.  140 F is quite nice until a cup of water is thrown on the hot rocks.  It turns to steam (humidity) and when that hits your skin it burns.  The temperature has not risen, just the humidity.  We are expecting high 90s this coming week yet again, and with the humidity it will feel like a sauna.  Sadly, air conditioning is not universal in this area.  We keep our house at 77 F in the summer with central air, but our electric bill doubles as a result.  Many people do not have it, and suffer a lot from the heat.  This is not a nice place to be in July and August, except for a few rare days when the humidity and temps both drop to a comfort level.  The heat and humidity also produce wicked storms.  Our last power outage was a major one (almost 9 hours), though many people went five days without it.  And it blew out a lot of computers and modems, too.  We were racing around the house unplugging everything last week, as the storm hit very suddenly.  The power went on and off about a dozen times before it finally went dark.  That's the part that kills electronics.

We watched Godard Cinema, a 2023 documentary about the great French film director.  He was a somewhat complex man, often not really knowing what he was doing.  He tried to do everything opposite of other directors, and when his first film made him famous he did his best to destroy that version of himself by making films that would not appeal to many.  He became very politically involved, making films that virtually disappeared after a screening, many extolling the virtues of Communism.  This film does its best to unravel myths and legends about the director, but he eventually became a hermit, seeing no one.  This must have been a difficult film to make, despite the many clips and photos of Godard from younger years.  Interviews with actors and others associated with him help, but no one person seems to have grasped who he was or what he really was striving for.  Well worth watching for fans of European films.

 

Kino Films is streaming this film. 

 

From 2004 comes The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made.  The title gives a pretty good description of this film.  We were surprised at how many we haven't seen. Lucky us.  The usual choice for #1 is actually different this time.  Since 2004 the list could easily now be doubled.  Each film has some clips and stills shown, along with trailer features.  A voice over describes reasons for the choices.  A mind-numbing event, but much better than having to watch even one of these movies.

 

Also streaming on Kino.  Great for fans of B films. 

 

Painters Painting is from 1972, detailing the work of several New York artists from 1940 to the present (1970).  Unlike Paris, where artists would gather in cafes and talk with each other, the New York school of painters had little to no connection with other artists.  They were each in their own isolated studio trying to work out what the hell came next for a painter.  We have had a very good education in this (not a) school of painters, thanks to museums like the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Chicago Art Institute, among others.  Several artists from this non-group we have discarded, as they seem to have arrived at dead ends.  But others, such as Barnett Newman and Jules Olitsky, and even Frank Stella, have interested us for many years.  Helen Frankenthaler is one of the few women included in the documentary.  Though a bit on the dry side, the interviews (including a very taciturn Andy Warhol) are usually interesting, as are the clips showing the artists working.  Not for everyone, but it was worth watching for us.

 

Now streaming on Criterion. 

 

Lastly comes Onlookers, a 2023 film that documents tourists, tourist sites and daily life in Laos.  Laos is a land-locked country in southeast Asia, and not an easy place to get to.  Most of the images we see here are along the Mekong River.  This little film is like a picture book that once opened to an image shows people interacting with the scene.  Random places are shown for a minute or longer, sometimes an active scene is played out and sometimes a type of still life.  Anglo tourists and Asian tourists pass by and do touristy things, like zip lining, floating down the river on giant tubes, or taking photos of monks and temples.  The good, the bad and the ugly of tourism is shown.  Beautiful landscapes include river scenes, waterfalls and mountains.  This is really a special kind of film.  There is no narration or scripted dialogue.  We both enjoyed watching, especially as this is a place we will never likely visit.  It's also a reminder that there is really nowhere to go to escape tourists, except for several places we know about in New Mexico.

 

Now streaming on Criterion. 

 

Next time will be a piano repertoire update, as well as an update on my PC gaming life.  See you soon.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Heat and The Big Wind

July is off to a hot and stormy beginning, though June was no slouch, either.  We finished the old month with 4 days above 90 F, topping out at 96 F on the 30th.  There were also 3 days at 88 F and 1 day at 89 F.  We also had a storm that month that knocked out our power for around 4 hours.  Then comes July.  The first 3 days had highs of 99 F, 98 F, and 96 F.  After our 5-day heat wave ended came the big wind.  Friday's storm hit us around 6:30 pm with 113 km wind gusts.  The wind lasted around 40 minutes, creating havoc in our county and beyond.  Our power returned at 3:15 am, 8 3/4 hours after it went off.  There are people (thousands of them) who won't have their power back on until Monday night (3 days after the storm).  Many in Ontario are also still waiting, some of them living very close to us.  We made out fine, though it was an uncomfortable evening and night.  We lost many small branches, and we will head outside to clean up soon.  Rain finally hit us around 3:30 am, and it really came down, nearly an inch.  More bad storms are predicted for today and tomorrow.

 

Continuing with local news, last Monday was the full moon and I finally began the Mahler Project, listening to all of the symphonies and extracting what truths are available to my somewhat less than all-encompassing mind.  The Mahler 1st is possibly the best symphony ever written that illustrates exactly what it means to be human.  It is set in the Alps, and the opening describes a sunrise in the mountains, followed by an eventful day of wandering and wondering.  The fourth movement not only has a great description of oncoming evening, but the loud and boisterous events that precede it are eventually calmed down, and we actually hear breathing that becomes slower and slower until sleep finally comes.  Of course the work concludes in a big way, a big bang of sorts, seeming to glorify the mountains and our ability to fully appreciate landscape and nature.  So if you want a truly human experience and can't get to the mountains easily (we live in the flattest county in Ontario), try the Mahler 1st.  Repeated listening enhances each and every experience described.  We listened to the Detroit Symphony version directed by Jader Bignamini, from the DSO Listen Again website.  I doubt if a better version exists.

 

Afterwards, my mind ablaze and glowing, I came up with a weird way of describing infinity.  Imagine that there is a person (we will call him Mapman Mike) and someone does a thorough biography of his life.  And I mean thorough.  It deals, among other things, with all the people that Mapman has met and interacted with.  So now imagine that a person reads this biography and comes across a person, Claude we shall say, that Mapman once knew and interacted with.  She finds Claude fascinating, and does a biography about him and the people he has met.  Of course there is a small overlap, since Mapman and Claude both knew a few of the same people.  But now the cast of characters has expanded a lot.  Now someone reads Claude's biography and comes across an interesting person by the name of Clarissa (not known by Mapman).  And so on.  My question is, if this research were to continue, would it eventually include everyone, alive or dead, who ever existed?  Would it take us back as far as the dawn of humans (assuming that research could be carried out well into prehistoric times).  Would Mapman have some kind of connection with one of the Lascaux painters, say?  Are all Homo Sapiens connected somehow?  Of course we are.  And it makes my brain hurt to think about it.

 

In viewing news (on our 55" TV) we watched Series 4 of Dark Winds, a series based very loosely on the books by Tony Hillerman about Navajo police detective Joe Leaphorn.  This was the worst season so far, and some of them have been pretty bad.  Based on Hillerman's The Ghostway, the book deals not only with crime but with Navajo traditions and beliefs as well.  American TV detective shows are almost all the same--the criminal can do anything at will until the final few moments of the finale.  Then the good guy gets the upper hand (at last).  Stretching out a novel for 8 episodes might work if the novel was a long and involved one.  But Hillerman's books could easily be handled in 2 hours instead of over 6.  To extend the story the writers have to make the police into complete idiots and the bad guy (girl in this case) into some kind of genius.  Watching a trained police lieutenant take out the bad girl, then run away when she is down instead of taking her weapon and securing her first just makes no sense.  Any cop watching this show would be laughing out loud at the ineptness shown by the good guys.  There are several other similar examples from this truly terrible rendering of Hillerman's story, but they become too painful to relate.

 

Season 4 is showing on AMC+.  In this series thanks to some bad writing 

they are more like Keystone cops. 

 

There are three movies to lightly review, and we began watching Season Two of Professor T.  Working from most recent film watched, The Haunted Castle is from 1921 and directed by F W Murnau, one year before he undertook Nosferatu.  This one is a murder/mystery, with the accused taking things into his own hands to prove his innocence and bring the guilty party to light.  While far from being a great film, or even a somewhat good one, it is fully restored and its wonderful to see a film more than 100 years old looking like it was developed last week.  Full marks to the film restoration groups that continue to save forgotten and nearly destroyed old movies.

 

F. W. Murnau's The Haunted Castle is showing on Kino Film Collection, a new movie channel for us. 

 

Speaking of restoring 1920s films, we watched Return to Reason, four short films by Man Ray.  Featuring some amazing visual art through a camera lens, here is the Criterion blurb for the film, which was released in 2023.

 

"The swirling surrealist dreams of Man Ray are high-water marks of 1920s avant-garde cinema, a nexus of cryptic themes, dark eroticism, and playful abstraction. Seemingly plucked from an unconscious realm, these four shorts—LE RETOUR À LA RAISON, EMAK BAKIA, L’ÉTOILE DE MER, and LES MYSTÈRES DU CHÂTEAU DU DÉ—find the visionary artist experimenting with the limitless possibilities of montage, superimposition, distortion, and even the application of objects directly onto celluloid. Set here to an ethereal score by the Jim Jarmusch–Carter Logan collaboration SQÜRL, these cine-poems are optical carnival rides that surprise, delight, and unsettle with each tantalizing frame." 

 

At times the films are hard to watch, flashing between dark screen images and brilliant white ones.  I had to squint hard a lot of the time.  The accompanying music, mentioned above, really added to the viewing.  Again kudos to the restoring team, and to Jarmusch and Logan.

 

One of the best films we have seen in a long time is The Conformist, a Bertolucci film from 1971.  This was our 2nd viewing, but it had been a very long time.  The story is about a worm of a man who is sent to France by the Italian fascists to kill a professor there fighting against their cause.  Too cowardly to kill in the end, he sits in the car and watches it all happen instead, including to a beautiful woman (the professor's young wife) with whom he is in love.  At the end of the film, when Fascism has been routed from Italy, he runs around accusing friends of being Fascist, saying that they should be arrested.  This is a totally brilliant film, one of the most damning ever made of a certain type of human being.  There are many memorable scenes, including the Parisian cafe dance of the two women, and then of course the prolonged double murder scene in the chilly mountains.  Unforgettable masterpiece of a film,and very highly recommended.

 

A true masterpiece by Bertolucci.  Showing on Kino. 

 

Mapman Mike