Doomed and Loving It

Conditions: Still La

Let’s Review: People Are Stupid

So a company in Boston owned, ultimately, by Google has built a robot dog. Because reasons. In order to check the dog’s ability to stand upright and not fall over they conducted a test where a foot-based device was employed too... oh they kicked it to see if it would fall over. It may not be fully scientific but dammit, it’s an effective test. So video of the robot dog kicking has surfaced on the internet, and has been met with a storm of protest. About kicking a dog made of robot.

Other than the bunch of spinning sensors on its head to help it navigate around, Spot is remarkably dog-like. That’s probably why the video is so difficult to watch, especially if you’re a dog lover.

PETA hasn’t yet weighed in, but people on Reddit declared that the Google video was “rude.”

“I know it’s not sentient, but I’d have a twinge of guilt after kicking it,” said Reddit user euratowel.

- q13fox.com

And this is why we may be doomed as a species. Because when people build a machine and then test it and other people are all like “awww, don’t kick the doggy” you know humans are irrevocably flawed as a concept. Just when you think they can’t disappoint you anymore.



Film Review: Snowpiercer

Films are complicated things. Even normal films have to establish an entire world and a tone in which to then tell its story. When you’re dealing with something as out there as Snowpiercer the world-building and the tone is vital to make the story work. This film is set in a not too distant future, where in an attempt to deal with global warming a special chemical was put into the Earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately it didn’t work correctly and instead plunged the planet into a new ice age. This film is set many years later where, as far as we know, the only survivors live in a train that endlessly speeds around the planet. Yes, a train. Speeding around the planet. Yeah. We begin in the back of the train where the lowly third class people, filthy and starving, plot a revolt against the ruling class and the armed guards in the forward sections. They are led by a suitably grim Chris Evans, and gradually as the revolt unfolds we see how the humans have segregated into the train when they first came aboard, and how those differences have become entrenched over the decades. Eventually we reach the front of the train and Chris confronts the engineer who built the thing and still runs it.

It’s an incredibly odd film, really. Violent and increasingly weird. It’s punctuated by frequent fight sequences and bizarre sub-societies as the rebels make their way forward through the train. The rebels are helped by a stoner who has been living in Cryo for many years, and knows how to hack through the various locked doors, and his girlfriend who is a little bit psychic. Yeah.

Obviously there’s a lot of metaphorical shit going on here. It’s very thought provoking. The train is the world. The people will rebel. It’s very cold outside. I can’t figure out the ending at all. Suddenly the game changes, big secrets are revealed, and everything just stops. It’s a very colourful and imaginative film, I just can’t figure out if I actually liked it or not. Two protein bars out of five.



Film Review: Project Almanac

On paper this film should not work. A found footage film about a bunch of teenagers who discover the blueprints to a time machine in the basement of one of their houses, and manage to build it and then travel back in time. Along the way they’ll change all sorts of things in the past to improve their lives, along with attending a kick ass concert and falling in love. It should be a mess of clichés and teenage angst, rapidly getting more lame as it goes. But remarkably, despite the constant shaky-cam effect going on, this film gets more and more focused and intense as we and the characters realise there are consequences to going back in time and in the end they have to confront the ever-complicated ripple effect of what they’ve done.

I’m pretty sure there’s a couple of continuity issues and errors in this film, as you’d expect I suppose with travelling through time. But this thing crackles along so brilliantly, with the actors totally convincing in their characters, and the relentless flow of events it’s really all you can do to hang on. And their sheer enthusiasm for what they’re doing, and their energy together is completely infectious, and we’re swept along for the ride. And the effects are handled so seamlessly well that it kinda does feel like a found footage of a crazy time travel experiment.

This may sound weird, but I got such a big Spielberg vibe from this movie. Like if he was still up for this kind of madcap thing this is exactly the energy and style he would bring. New films these days get a lot of flak for being safe and boring, usually as sequels or reboots. Well here’s something that’s got that spark of newness on it, and delivers a great ride. Thrilling stuff, four cans of hydrogen out of five.



- Peace Out