Category Media commentary
One evening a short while back I felt like relaxing with something that doesn’t require too much thinking. I figured some mindless action movie should do the trick so I logged in to Netflix and searched for Transformers 5 but couldn’t find it. “No problem,” I thought, and switched over to Amazon Prime but couldn’t find it there either. So, I went for the third option, HBO Go, but to no avail, they didn’t have it. I’m not subscribed to any other streaming services so I witched to another movie, Fast and the Furious 9 if I remember correctly, but … Read the rest
A couple of days ago I found myself on a twelve hour flight, unable to sleep. With time to kill but no motivation for anything "serious" I decided to watch some braindead action flick. Swiping through the menu I found Fate of the Furious (or Fast and the Furious 8 if you prefer) which seemed to be the perfect pick. It turned out to be a far more interesting movie than I had ever expected.
The Fast and the Furious franchise has always been known for over the top car action so I knew what I was getting in to, but this topped all of the previous ones... read the rest
I’m reading Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and I found a fantastic description of the library in his countryside cottage that I think is worth sharing. I leave it here without further comment:
“Surely every body is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a winter fire-side: candles at four o’clock, warm hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without
Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve, and not more than seven and a half feet high. […] it … Read the rest
A while back I made a post about some Taiwanese movies worth seeing. The movies on that list were either good movies made by Taiwanese directors, or movies that give interesting insight into Taiwanese history and culture. Recently I saw another movie that would fit very well onto that list, Detention (返校 in Chinese).
The movie is based on the 2017 video game with the same name. Considering that most video game movies are mediocre at best, you might think that’s a bad sign…but you’d be wrong. The game itself is more of an interactive story than a normal … Read the rest
…Especially if you are interested in Taiwan or Taiwanese culture.
Like I suspect most westerners do, I mostly watch Hollywood movies. Since moving here however, my wife has introduced me to several Taiwanese films that area really worth seeing, some simply because they are good movies and some because they give you some insight into Taiwanese culture that would be difficult for the average visitor to gain otherwise. For simplicity’s sake I will do this as a series of mini reviews where I tell you why I think a film is worth seeing. Now remember, I’m not a film critic, … Read the rest
A thought struck me the other day and I felt like it’s interesting enough, or perhaps funny enough, to be worth writing down. It is entirely possible that someone else has already thought of this but I’ve never heard of it, so here we go:
The characters of Sue from the Johnny Cash song A Boy Named Sue, and Inigo Montoya from the film The Princess Bride are incredibly similar. First, they have both been wronged in some way and in both cases the wrongdoing is strongly linked to their respective fathers. The boy named Sue gets teased for … Read the rest
I haven’t seen The Thing until now. I know it’s a classic but somehow I’ve managed to miss it. Last weekend I decided to rectify that, but while looking it up on IMDB, I realized there is also a remake that came out back in 2011, and since I like to make comparisons between similar movies I just had to see that one too.
For a movie that is over 30 years old, I think there’s little point in a spoiler warning but in writing this very sentence I have inadvertently made one, so consider yourself warned.
In case you … Read the rest
A while back, when I was travelling around in south east Asia, I ran out of books to read, so I went to a nearby second hand bookstore aimed at tourists to see what I could find. Of the few classics that they had on hand I had already read everything I was interested in so I turned to their large section of crime drama; apparently, most people read crime drama when travelling, because they had loads of it. I’ve never been a fan of the genre but I figured I might as well give it a try, however, I … Read the rest
This is a text I wrote back when Miley Cyrus’ song We Can’t Stop was popular. It is an attempt at describing the images that pop up in my mind when I hear that dark beat and see that music video.
The party had been going on for almost a week now, not just during the nights, but constantly; people were still partying, still drinking and still dancing, but with less energy than before, the spark in their eyes was all but gone. The ceaseless onslaught on the revelers minds and bodies was taking its toll: several people had passed out … Read the rest
Black Mirror is Annoying and Here’s Why
For those, who like me have been living under a pop-culture rock for the past several years, Black Mirror is an anthology series centered around modern technology. Except for a few minor references, the episodes are all completely stand-alone and each one focuses on how a certain current or (supposedly) near future technology could go wrong or be misused. I work as an engineer and I think my experience has made me somewhat skeptical of new technologies so this show should be perfect for me. That’s true for a few episodes but on the whole it’s just not…
While watching … Read the rest