Not My Future

Terrible Assumptions

The world, it seems, is really hanging out for self driving cars, to the extent that Tesla's new "autopilot" feature has been enthusiastically embraced by many as the future, now.  But it's not the future, not yet at least.  The autopilot feature has been defined by Tesla as just an assist, and that the driver must keep both hands on the wheel and monitor at all time.

Now the problem there is that monitoring somthing for any length of time is really difficult.  Attention wanders when you're not directly involved.  And almost inevitably we've now had the first fatality of a Tesla driver, where the driver, nor the car, have basically seen a truck in front of it.

According to reports from AOL News, the accident occurred on May 7 when a tractor-trailer made a left turn in front of the Tesla at an intersection on a noncontrolled access highway in Florida. After the collision, the truck driver exited his vehicle and went to check on Joshua Brown, and he claimed that a Harry Potter movie was still playing after the wreck. According to Tesla, it is impossible to watch movies on the Model S touchscreen and the truck driver later clarified that he only heard Harry Potter and did not see it, but the Florida Highway Patrol found an aftermarket DVD player in the wreckage of the Model S 

- cinemablend.com/news

 This is a vital reminder that the self driving cars need to be tested in laboratories, not on roads by ordinary people.  Because it seems ordinary people will just trust these systems too much.



Film Review: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

In response to the success Marvel have been having with their shared universe movie empire, DC have decided to give it the old college try, and so have belted out this: Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman all colliding in a loud and brutal world.  Ok straight up I have to say how much I actually enjoyed this thing.  It's bold, it's strong, it's distinctly different to the touchy feely Marvel movies, it's very operatic and brutal.  Batman and Superman clash on almost every level.  And it's actually kind of terrific seeing how that works.

Ben Affleck is totally convincing as the grizzled, angry and embittered Bruce Wayne, deeply suspicious of Superman and determined to do everything he can to bring this god down a peg or two.  Haunted by what happened in the last film to his friends and employees during the big fight between Zod and Superman, and haunted further by odd dreams and premonitions, he is driven to inhuman levels in order to protect his city.  Henry Cavill has nicely made the role of Superman his own in this harsh world.  He too is suspicious, but of humanity in general and exactly how deserving they are of being saved from themselves.  He finds out about what Batman is doing to criminals in Gotham and confronts him, telling him to stop.  Batman doesn't take that too well.  Mixed into this is Lex Luthor, sadly played by Jesse Eisenberg.  His Lex is a twitchy dot com entrepreneur who wants to undermine Superman and sets up the two on a collision course.  It's a jarring performance, but does enough to pad the needed buffer between to two forces at work.

Finally the two heroes get down to it, Batman aided by a metal suit, kryptonite and good planning, Superman fairly pissed off.  Superman wants to talk first, but that doesn't last long and the fight is pretty glorious, as you'd expect from the director of 300.  Of course it can't last, but by hell is it suitably operatic and hard core.  The film inevitably ends with them teaming up with Wonder Woman to kill a giant monster, and Superman makes a brave sacrifice to see us out to the credits.  You know, a while ago I wasn't interested in seeing this thing.  I figured that Superman's weirdness would pollute the pure goodness of how Batman works.  I think that's still true, but I guess there wasn't really anywhere else to go, and since amalgamated superhero films are the future this actually worked pretty well.  Four grim outlooks out of five.



Film Review: Captain America - Civil War

The two biggest players in the Marvel universe have always had a fundamental difference between them.  It's one of the things that made the Avengers work, a little grit in the oyster to give it some spark.  Civil War seems to be the ultimate result of that difference, one that has come to a head thanks to the mistakes made by the Avengers in past films.  It's this steady building up of the Marvel universe over a series of movies that's brought us rather seamlessly to this impasse.  The world has become nervous and distrustful of the power and independance the Avengers have.  The latest movie featured the team having to fight evil robots that they'd actually created themselves.  Yes, they managed to defeat Ultron, but there's something to be said about them not actually building him in the first place.  The U.N want the Avengers to operate under their control.  Captain America does not agree with this at all.  However, haunted by the collateral damage he has in part caused, Iron Man does.

Part of the collateral damage in that whole mess was the family of the bad guy in this film, Baron Zemo.  Killed in the aftermath of the falling city, he has sworn to do some avenging himself.  The best way to take down powerful superheros is to find a way to turn them against each other.  And that's where the Winter Soldier comes in.  On the run from everybody, Cap and Falcon work to find him while still dealing with the political implications of breaking with the other Avengers.  So while the Avengers split down the middle, Zemo digs into the history of the winter soldier and finds a way to get Cap and Iron Man to square off.

All this leads to a fascinating and exciting double finale.  In the first, the Avengers square off against each other.  That was pretty good, in a pulled punches kind of way, but the second is where the film shines through, where Tony, Cap and Bucky square off for real this time as Zemo makes his big move.  I really thought I was too tired of superhero films to get into this, but I got caught up in the sheer fun and thrill of this thing like every one else.  It's a strong sequel, building steadily, introducing new characters while continuing to develop the old.  The one problem that sticks out is that in the end, with Cap on the run and Iron Man his sworn enemy, they find a way to soften the whole thing and heal the rift just before the credits.  I think that's a real shame, as for once we had some genuine tension going on here.  Four quips out of five.