Month: November 2024

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Film: Alien Romulus

Alien Romulus
directed by Fede Alvarez
from 20th Century Studios
2024

The Alien franchise (which I loved the first two films of) gets a classic/traditional addition very similar to the first movie.

A group of young people trapped in endless mining-colony/company-town debt devise a plan to salvage cryopods from a derelict structure in orbit to escape from their slavery and all associated corporate planets.

What they don’t know is that the structure is a Weyland-Yutani Corporation lab, and was the scene of a grizzly accident involving certain xenomorphs…

The introductions to the characters are efficient, yet also effective in explaining their desperation. Great sets (love those labs, the hallways, the blinking analog buttons, asymmetrical doors…), great monsters, great atmosphere, solid pacing, everything I want in sci-fi. The rings around the planet are LOVELY, especially close up!

Yes, in the Before Times (pre-2020), I would have argued that people are not so foolish about the risks of deadly contamination, but I know better now. The odds that humans would TOTALLY bring alien-contaminated friends back to their only spacecraft, or insist that they could quickly open a door without letting a fast and fatal xenomorph through, are through the hollow, alien-filled roof.

This is a great addition to the Alien family, and I’m impressed with the friend who recommended it to me. I recommend it!

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Film: The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy
directed by David Leitch
from Universal Pictures
2024

This cute action-comedy about an interrupted film crew romance, combined with a murder mystery and behind-the-scenes-making-of-a-(fictional)-space-opera, is a tribute to professional stunt performers doing real, traditional (non-CGI) stunts.

The stars are attractive, the comic timing is good (a song reaches a crescendo and there is… not a matching peak in the story!), the coming-back-from-career-ending-injury story is so American, the villains are appropriately villainous, and THERE IS A VIOLENT ACTION SCENE SET TO A PHIL COLLINS SONG (a song I can now tolerate playing in my head because the action was well performed). The credits show actual-making-of scenes to ensure you appreciate the stuntfolk.

[Sound of me patting myself on the back for NOT using the word paean in this entry, and also having belated revelations about why people understand my legal writing.]

I was entertained.

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Life: Sleep and its absence

The flash flood warnings have ended! That’s a treat. I’m dry and on land, and grateful for that. The weather has been highly variable all weekend, and has induced panic over opportunities to take advantage of the harsh, high contrast sunlight I enjoy (I have SO MUCH FILM waiting!), only to to be promptly foiled by low-ish temperatures and the arrival of diffuse clouds.

I’ve taken a brief break from posting while trying to get my sleep schedule back in order. That… hasn’t gone well.

I’ve been delirious after a days of averaging just five hours of sleep, and my punchiness (using the least common definition of that word) isn’t especially entertaining. I’ve increased my exercise and decreased my caffeine, so at least I am warmer and more fit during my delirium.

I’ve been reading, yet my preferred manhwa are either just getting started, not at a sensible reviewing point, or just returning from hiatus. The few ‘mid’ ones aren’t worth your time to read (or my time to write about). I’ve got a couple books going, and am determined to finish them completely before I write about them. I have two new reading friends (!) who love sci-fi (!!), and so may drop everything to start some of their recommendations. I’m selling them hard on Martha Well’s Murderbot Diaries (marthawells.com) and the gargantuan Anathem by Neal Stephenson (nealstephenson.com). They didn’t flee despite the gleam in my eyes, so I am encouraged. (Watching me struggle to maintain my composure while gushing about William Gibson’s most recent work is surely challenging...)

I’ve also found a new way to remain informed of serious journalism, politics, truly bad jokes, good owl photos, and types of fungus I didn’t know existed. Somehow, these are all available in one place. Yes, I joined Bluesky Social. I… will regret this, but not right away: all of my favorite people left the bird site and are using bsky’s tools to reconnect me to the same networks of thinkers, plus a new pool of silliness. (My sudoku scores are about to plummet…)

AEG in SF (or at least somewhere near SF most of the time) (@aeginsf.bsky.social)
Possibly too dedicated to drinking coffee to remember to post. Writer, photographer, reader, printmaker, blogger, foodie, insomniac, professional teeth-gnasher.

Don’t be alarmed by my relative inactivity here. I’m hoping to make up for this over the holidays, when I have a near-infinite list of projects saved up to do…

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Film: Suzume (Suzume no Tojimari)

Suzume
written and directed by Makoto Shinkai
produced by CoMix Wave Films
2022

Suzume is an ordinary, orphaned, teenage schoolgirl being raised by her aunt in a town in Kyushu. She is plagued by nightmares of being a toddler and looking for her mom in the wreckage of her northern hometown in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami. Her dreams are frightening and unpopulated (with one exception), and occur under a gorgeous and slightly surreal night sky.

One day on the way to school, a stranger appears, asking if there are any abandoned ruins with doors nearby. Suzume directs him to an abandoned onsen, and later tries find him: while there, she discovers and opens door to another world with a sky similar to that of her nightmares. She also handles a sculpture that comes to life and runs off.

So begins Suzume’s coming of age story, which sees her run away from her slightly resentful & overprotective aunt to save the world by performing ritual closings of abandoned places in order to prevent disasters. She is accompanied by the stranger, Souta, a man-turned-into-her-childhood-chair whose family has traditionally prevented disasters through rituals with a special key. Souta also wants to reclaim his human body and force a sculpture-turned-cat to resume its obligations in disaster prevention.

The story reflects the sorrow of the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the mystery of how and why such disasters happen, the author’s sense that it is strange to celebrate founding places but not leaving them, and the strain of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The story is beautifully animated, with special attention to water, reflections, and backgrounds; the shades of blue are especially stunning. There is well-integrated CGI for 3-D effects. The locks / keyholes are animated in a pretty way. The kindness of people to each other and Suzume is pleasing; the heroine has an easy time finding assistance from others, especially women. The romance element feels abrupt, but is in its early stages, so is plausible that it is just the idea of a romance created through shared extreme experiences.

I’ve read that this film is similar to the author’s earlier and more famous works, Your Name and Weathering With You, with some commentary that the one or the other of these works is better. I’ve heard positive things about both, and will eventually watch to compare them.

Overall: this is an especially pretty film about a teenager running off to save the world – with a good theme song! I enjoyed the quality of the animation.

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Life: I slept more than 7 hours!

During night time hours… in my own time zone! Seven hours that were more or less consecutive!

I was confused when I looked in the mirror this morning. I looked like an entirely different person…

No, that’s not right. I looked like the dewy, relaxed, possibly healthy version of myself in some selfies I made in Kobe last month. Selfies that I used to reply to a friend in Germany in WhatsApp, which inspired her to send laughing emoji, because I looked “great” and “relaxed,” which are not ways she is accustomed to seeing me in photos.

Gosh.

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Book: Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda

Cover of audiobook version of Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda

Where the Wild Ladies Are
by Aoko Matsuda
translated by Polly Barton, performed by Sara Skaer
audiobook published by Dreamscape Media (at Libro.fm)
2021

This is a collection of contemporary stories, inspired by traditional Japanese ghost stories. In each story, someone who is dead (or someone connected to the dead) gets a new identity, or a new job, or a new chance to tell their favorite relative not to make the same mistakes they did while also criticizing their apartments.

Why haunt a well when you can be a small business owner? Why not report a fire if it will bring your true love out of the monastery… oh, wait, that one has consequences – don’t do that. Why not pretend to be a human wife, even though the expectations of human wives make absolutely no sense (in general, and also to you as a fox spirit)?

These are fun stories, and one of them (about a ghost helping out single moms) even got me all misty-eyed. The audiobook is well performed and enjoyable to listen to (forgive the annoying ghost aunt – not all ghosts complain as much as she does!), and notes at the end describe the traditional tales that inspired them.

I enjoyed these stories and the clever character-based connections between them, very much.

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Coffee: Ube Latte

Top view of an ube latte at Signal Coffee Roasters.
Top view of an ube latte at Signal Coffee Roasters.

Before right wing billionaires were obviously meddling with content on social media, I might have easily chosen a commercial site to post this. I would also know where to get news from my favorite civil rights organizations, and where to complain that I ate an entire jumbo roll of Sweetarts and now feel queasy. But now, there is no obvious place to do such things.

Anyway… This is an Ube Latte from Signal Coffee Roasters in Alameda. It is tasty. And that color! Ube is a sort of purple yam, and it is popular with friends from the Phillipines. It is featured in an ice cream at Mitchell’s. Ube flavor goes well with espresso and almond milk, because OF COURSE IT DOES.

One of my team members says it also blends well with matcha, but I’m a matcha purist, so I haven’t tried that. (The color of purple plus green isn’t as pretty, I’ll note.)

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Book: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Cover for the audiobook of The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Audiobook cover

The Kaiju Preservation Society
by John Scalzi
audiobook published by Audible (8 hours, 2 minutes) and narrated by Will Wheaton (!)
2022

John Scalzi had fun writing this book (you can tell), and Will Wheaton may have had EVEN MORE FUN performing it!

Jamie is desperate as the COVID-19 pandemic strikes, after having been laid off by his annoying dude-bro boss at a food delivery startup. As he scrapes by delivering food with yet another corporate restructuring hanging over his head, an acquaintance offers him a lifeline: a job at an “animal rights organization.”

A job that pays very well.

That will take him off into “the field” for long periods of time.

One that will wire money back to his roommates. One that requires shots for conditions that might not even be real. Wait, what?

Jamie is reluctant to believe that “the field” is located on an alternate version of earth, in a universe where earth developed differently, and came to be dominated by highly radioactive kaiju. Who can come over to OUR earth when certain nuclear events occur, which led to real events that inspired our Godzilla films. And where Jamie can support an international team of scientists while they try not to be killed by the local flora and fauna.

Radiation! Kaiju battles! Airships! Kaiju babies! Communication outages! Monster-filled GOO!

I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t specify the arc of Jamie’s adventures, but it is a good time. There is something deeply satisfying about hearing Will Wheaton shout sarcastic dialog and joyous profanity. Scalzi includes many old geek references in this book, so many that I worried that I should stop saying that certain phrases would make good band names. (Editor’s note: The younger people I work with are unaware of this geek tradition, so I’ll keep doing it until they groan.)

This book is fun. Lighthearted, profanity-punctuated fun. I recommend it highly.

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Coffee: Winter Latte with Peppercorns

Image of an almond milk latte with ground pink peppercorns on top.

A commute friend asked if I often go to [local coffee chain], as I stood there, cradling a cup with their logo on it.

I wanted to say that I don’t, as I hadn’t been there for a few weeks, but instead admitted to a few things:

  • Despite the busy location, I am often greeted by my first name there.
  • I can tell which barista prepared my drink by the foam design on top. (By my experience, there are two heart baristas, one fern barista (my favorite), and two dove baristas).
  • One of the workers there has been out of town, and I noticed and and welcomed them back.

So, yes. I go there often. Less often than this sounds like (this is cumulative experience over a few years), but when public transit gets me where I need to be early, I absolutely will enjoy an espresso drink.

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Writing: Deep Green Ink with Silver Glitter

Handwritten journal entry dated November 11, 2024 about the first real rain of autumn, and various cozy indoor activities.

I spent time this morning listening to the rain, and then opened up a souvenir of my trip to Japan to write with it. It is Takeda Jimuki Kyo No Oto ink in Ryokuyuoiro, which is a deep, grayish green with silver sparkle. The sparkle component clogged the first pen I tried, but I went with one with a wider feed, and enjoyed its beauty as I wrote.

Collage of the silver particles settled into the back of the ink bottle; the ink bottle label in Japanese and some English; gently glittering words.

My phone camera likes to increase the contrast when I photograph text (it wants it to stand out from its bright paper background), but hopefully you can see the silver glitter in the text, and the depth of the green.

Two images with sample, handwritten text in green, lightly shimmery ink. with ink-stained paper nearby to bring out the color.

It was pleasant to take the time to write with such lovely ink, and spill my thoughts after some time listening to rain. I needed it.

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